WHEN it comes to container ships and world trade, these days big is definitely beautiful and in a few years time Southampton will see some of the largest cargo vessels ever built.

A radical re-structuring of the port will result in the near doubling of Southampton's container trade bringing hundreds of new jobs, possibly as many as 600, to the city.

By 2010 giant sea-going leviathans, some almost a quarter of a mile long, are set to become familiar sights on the Southampton waterfront .

Containers and the ships that carry them are the lifebood of the global economy and Southampton is now on course to become one of the main arteries for the ever- increasing flow of trade.

New and sophisticated technology, growing high street demand from consumers together with Southampton's role as a major deep sea port have triggered a massive expansion plan in the docks that will see the city became a major European hub for international trade.

Often port trades are referred to as a Cinderella industry, rarely making national headlines but this development will focus attention on the docks and highlight its importance, not only to the local and regional economy but to the country as a whole.

Many, perhaps do not immediately see what relevance containers play in their day-to-day lives but these unglamorous steel boxes are important to every home up and down the land.

A huge percentage of what we buy, from electrical goods and food to trainers and toys, arrives on shop shelves and supermarkets from across the world by containers and Southampton is going to grab a bigger slice of that business.

This trade, especially powered by China's dragon economy, is now unstoppable and industry experts gazing into their crystal balls see a future where the UK will need more and more berths for these container ships and Southampton is rising to the challenge.

S outhampton is poised to see millions more containers crossing the port's quaysides every year and the city is also at the forefront of pushing the boundaries of present shipbuilding techniques developing revolutionary, advanced designs that would drastically re-invent the way countries trade with each other. The future generation of containe ships could be nothing like those in service at present.

Instead scientists in Southampton are experimenting with sleek catamaran designs, powering through the waves on hydrofoils, driven by innovative hydrogen-powered systems and which potentially could travel at speeds of around 65 knots and slashing the traditional sailing times between nations.

Codenamed, HydrogenOceanJet600, the catamaran would carry a relatively small 600 containers loaded with high-value cargo but would set this low capacity off against the high speeds the craft could maintain.

Ivo Eldhuis, the researcher who conceived the design, said that by using liquid hydrogen it creates new opportunities both in economics and ship design.

At present these far-reaching blueprints still only exist on the drawing board at Southampton University and are purely at concept stage but the plans for the port expansion are a reality.

Without doubt this dockside development scheme, which has taken a year to put together by from Associated British Ports (ABP) will dramatically increase Southampton's traffic from the present annual total of 1.7m container units up to 3.7m, is one of the most highly signifcant moves in the the long history of the docks.

This number of containers could easily become a logistical nightmare with thousands of extra distribution lorries cramming the roads around the docks but here the new plan also has a sustainable answer.

The present 203 berth is being designated for the smaller feeder ships which will be used to tranship containers to other British ports and mainland Europe.

T rains already take much of the strain when it comes to moving containers about the country, and although these movements are set to increase out of Southampton port bosses are keen to see a much greater use of feeder ships.

A programme of dredging in the Solent and Southampton Water together with strengthening berths 201/202 will mean that Southampton will have the capability to handle the biggest container ships in the world.

The latest state-of-the-art automatic stacking cranes will be incorporated at the berth together with six double-lift dockside cranes will mean faster loading and discharge of containers.

As rapacious consumer demands increase worldwide trade so the size of ships has to increase to where vessels can now carry anything up to 9,500 containers but this will be dwarfed by the next generation of vessels with capacity of 12,500.

There are even suggestions that eventually vessels carrying 18,000 "boxes'' could be built but there would only be a limited number of ports able to handle this size of ship.

These future giants of the sea could be up 1,300 feet long, 190-feet wide with the keels 65-feet below the waterline and able to carry enough containers to fill a line of trucks 68 miles long.