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Studying the Impact of Lost Shipping Containers
swellconvivialguy writes "Looking at a picture of the world's largest container ship, it's easy to visualize how 10,000 containers fall overboard from these vessels every year. Scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute are now undertaking the Lost Container Cruise, an attempt to gauge the effects of shipping containers lost at sea by studying a tire-filled container, which marine biologists discovered in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. (The research [PDF] is being funded by a multi-million dollar settlement with the operators of the Med Taipei, the ship that lost the cargo.) The work is not unlike studying a deep water shipwreck: Use robotic submarine to take pictures and collect sediment samples; repeat."
Strangely most of them float, as ocean yachtsmen will testify; they're a serious hazard.
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
I have no that that a large number of cargo containers really do fall off during bad weather or whatever, but I wonder what percentage of that 10,000 are lost at sea vs. "lost at sea" while the dock workers look the other way.
While some of the contents of my shipping container mysteriously vanished on the way across the Atlantic, I can't help but feel that someone is going to notice if a dock worker tries to drive out of the docks with a forty-foot container sticking out of the trunk of their car.
According to Wikipedia there are around 18 million shipping containers in the world that make over 200 million trips per year. Which means that 10,00 lost at sea each year is just a drop in the bucket. Spending any significant amount of money to reduce that number would not be a worthwhile expenditure.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Let's say it goes overboard and you don't realize it until you get to port. Now, you have to send a ship out to pick it up, and you have no clue where it is. Currents and storms could've pushed that container to who knows where, and that's assuming they floated instead of sunk. How long do you search for it? Searching at all would cost orders of magnitudes more than the container is likely worth.
Now, let's say it goes overboard and you DO realize it. Do you stop? Follow along as the container floats until another vessel can come pick it up? Those container ships don't have cranes to pick something out of the water with. The cranes are always at the docks. How much does that cost to wait next to a single container (at worst, from a value perspective) while a ship comes and picks it up. What about lost money due to perishables in other containers going bad?
>>>Picture perfect example of the tragedy of the commons colliding with unregulated capitalism.
Sadly for you, this is NOT a perfect example because the Ship (and train) containers do interlock like legos and they do tie them down with chains. Shippers really do NOT want to tell their customers, "We lost your cargo," and risk losing them to competitors. They'd prefer to have zero loss.
But of course zero loss is as impractical as zero downtime for your website or the software you are writing. It's an unrealistic demand.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Transferring isn't really viable. These ships don't have cranes on em. How in the world would you, at sea, pluck a container from the top of the stack and move it to another boat? Helicopter? That's a logistical and economical nightmare for a couple of containers....
Except for steel railings, the shippers do everything you have mentioned. The reason for no railing is that the containers themselves are the structure and they are stacked far above the hull of the ship.
Here is the tie down that goes between the containers http://www.tandemloc.com/0_securing/S_AD54000A.asp
Here is a picture of the lashing used http://www.flickr.com/photos/blueship/137784714/
Here's a pic of a container ship after going through rough seas: http://i.imgur.com/4ynah.jpg. I'm stunned that those containers are still on board. Looks like they're chained down, but even metal breaks eventually
Nice try. 10,000 is a tiny, infinitesimal fraction of the 18,000,000 containers that make 200,000,000 trips every year. I'm surprised it's not more.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
The data doesn't really support your claim. Between 1920 and 2000, the rate of fatal automobile accidents per vehicle-mile decreased by a factor of about 17. No idea if that's better technology, drunk driving laws, better educated drivers, better roads or whatever, but the idea that transportation safety can't be influenced just doesn't hold up.
Despite libertarians wishes, policy actually does matter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States
There are no cell towers in the ocean, as far as I know.
Apart from the ones that fell off the ship.
The article should really look a bit into why container ships are loaded the way they are. The article contends, with no fact to support this contention, that one of the issue is that heavy containers that are loaded high on the sip are a major cause of the issue. Their solution is to load heavy containers first. Lets look into what would be required to do this feat.
1a. Every time a container come it it would be sorted by size so that the large one would be easily accessed first.
Issues:
containers come in one at a time over quite a long period of time. what happens if many light ones come after all the heavy ones? The heavy ones get burried.
1b. Alternately, sort the containers before they are loaded.
This would require more space and handling each container at least one additional time.
Lets assume that all the heavy containers are in the bottom of the ship. The article neglects the fact that container ships usually make more than one offloading stop. They are currently loaded so that the containers can be unloaded at each stop while still maintaining the balance of the ship. If the heavy containers are at the bottom, it would require unloading containers above the heavy containers, unloading the heavy containers and re-loading the light containers. This takes time and space.
Every minute a container ship is tied up at a dock costs money. The sorting and excess loading/unloading take time. Most ports are also very crowded and do not have the space required to do the sorting of containers to make sure heavy containers are loaded lower. There is also a limited number of berths for container ships. The longer a ship is in port means fewer ships can be loaded and unloaded by that port.
One final point, everything breaks. Even light containers go overboard. A perfect example is the container full of tires. Compared to shipments such as metals, tires are relatively light but a container full of them still went overboard. Given rough enough water even an empty container can break loose.
Here are some of the parameters that container loading software uses to place containers on a ship.
the weight of each container being handled
which port each container will be unloaded at
if the container is refrigerated, and needs to be plugged in during the voyage
if the container’s contents are hazardous, as these could be potentially explosive if placed next to a refrigerated container
advising Customs of the ship’s arrival and reporting the cargo on board
the order in which the containers will be loaded and unloaded.
A lot of science goes into the efficient loading and unloading of containers; sorting by weight is taken into account but not the overriding consideration.
it's rather simple, the way a container get's lost is ...
a) declared not lifted by the crane operator and marks his list showing that he lifted only 1 less than what he really lifted.
b) that container is placed on a truck, and stacked near the empties.
c) wait for the late gate to be opened one day, and have a yard hauler move it over to someone warehouse. ( the late gate is not
that effective in counting containers leaving the port, that gate is good for last minute cargo that has to make it to the vessel or export.)
d) unload container
e) give the container to a buddy at the scrap yard he grinds it and it's gone.
I once lost a container at the port. I was warned that once I was at the port, I might not make it back ( containers do fall, even on windless days ),
so I went to the port with a few people, paid a union man to drive me around and stick to my side like butter on bread ( ever see a union port worker nervous )
and by pot luck found my container. What they did not know at that time is that I was renting P&O and Cast Line containers for redeliver back to china, so these containers were blue, rather easy to see, and I quickly found it. the export cargo was worth in excess of 400K and I did not want this customer to go to another shipper.
if you see me, smile and say hello.
I worked at a container terminal while putting myself through university, many years ago. This is why those containers in the photo are still stuck together...
A device called an intermodal box connector (AKA "IBC", a hefty steel pin with a twistlock mechanism) is used to connect containers to each other. They fit into holes (four on the top, two on the bottom) on the corners of the container.
This is the usual method for loading and locking them together: A container is dropped onto a ship and locked down (via IBCs welded to the deck). Then, four IBCs are placed in the top holes of the container and another container is lowered. The IBCs slide into the four holes on the bottom of the new container and their twistlocks are turned. No chains are required. For extra safety, some companies erect a steel scaffold/frame around the outside of a block of containers to keep them from swaying in rough seas. Otherwise, the IBCs are the only things holding the containers together.