An innovative new ISO container design that allows a unit to be used either as a 40 ft or 20 ft box has completed its maiden voyage.

The Tworty Box, two 20 ft containers that can be linked together to form a single 40 ft unit – “twenty + forty = tworty” – competed its maiden voyage from Hamburg to Montreal on the containership OOCL Montreal.

Two containers joined together as a single unit were stuffed with 20 tonnes of breakbulk cargo, mainly car parts and granulate, for Canadian consignees.

Developer Tworty Box said the container was designed to reduce the cost of repositioning empties, caused by imbalances between supply and demand for 20 ft and 40 ft containers. As the company humourously explains on its website, 1 x tworty = 20ft, 2 x tworty = 40ft.

It has doors at each end; the second door opens to the inside and can only be locked from the inside. This door can be fixed to the container ceiling and, with the use of its special bonding elements, another Tworty Box can be joined up, thereby creating a 40 ft unit of full value and standard doors at both ends.

Tworty Box prototypes have received full International Convention for Safe Containers certification for single and for coupled operation. Source: Tworty.com and Lloyds.