Containers lost overboard

[Kukri]

It only works when rates are good, but there is a reason that there are some well off people in shipping. But the end of life value of an older ship is generally sofa change.

I’m too young to have seen it for myself - you would have to be 71+ now - but I’ve been told that in 1971 a VLCC could pay for herself in four voyages. And six years later she couldn’t do anything without running up a bigger loss. Helmut Sohmen always says that persuading his father in law to sell most of his fleet as they came off timecharter was the best thing he ever did.

 

[TLouth7]

It seems incredible that an asset which may cost over $100M has a useful life of only 20 years. I can't think of any other comparable assets with such short lives. To be clear, not doubting the veracity of this, I just find it surprising.

Don't ever get into the business of building satellites!

 

[halcyon]

The average service life of a dry container is seven years. But then it gets scrapped or sold as a sort of shed. I suppose in the end the thin steel will rust through and the insulation will degrade. This might be quite a slow process. A tank container is made of much thicker steel and may last much longer.

Does time fly, back in the late 60's did an investigation into building containers, needed 1 foot of finished container every minute to break-even.

No one saw the market back then, though they thought Sir Alfred was mad when he built Hamble Point marina, what future is there in car parks for boats ? was the comment back then.

Brian

 

[newtothis]

I’m too young to have seen it for myself - you would have to be 71+ now - but I’ve been told that in 1971 a VLCC could pay for herself in four voyages. And six years later she couldn’t do anything without running up a bigger loss. Helmut Sohmen always says that persuading his father in law to sell most of his fleet as they came off timecharter was the best thing he ever did.

Well-timed asset plays can be remunerative. I've heard of Greeks buying at the bottom of the cycle for e.g. $100m, selling at the top for $120m, waiting to buy the same ship back at $60m and selling it again for $80m.
Greek family owners have the advantage of thinking in terms of generational returns rather than the next quarterly report.

 

[capnsensible]

I'm finding this a fascinating thread, thanks all!

 

[capnsensible]

True, but passenger jets normally make it to about 30 years. The USAAF is planning to operate at least some B-52s until they are over 90 years old.

As I understand it, airframes are built to perform X number of taken off and landing cycles with various levels of checks at different timings. So a frame that has done a loada cycles, like a Ryanair jet, may become uneconomic to carry out a deep maintenance cycle early in its life. So binned.

Presumably there are no business reasons to prevent a low cycle bomber with wonga behind it from a government from being pushed on.

 

[JumbleDuck]

As I understand it, airframes are built to perform X number of taken off and landing cycles with various levels of checks at different timings. So a frame that has done a loada cycles, like a Ryanair jet, may become uneconomic to carry out a deep maintenance cycle early in its life. So binned.

Yes, I think you're right. However, it means that short haul airliners like 737s are built for a larger number of cycles than long haul ones like 7474s. Both last roughly as long in service, but one has done three or four times as many flights.

 

[Kukri]

Because mild steel is not subject to fatigue, or so I have been told, a ship’s life is indeterminate, but in design terms a thirty year old ship will be out of date, requiring spares that are hard to come by, and in most cases her cargo spaces will be worn out with stevedore damage (bulk carriers) and cargo related corrosion (most tankers). This is not the case with gas carriers or with walk on walk off cargo, as carried by most civil aircraft and by cruise ships and ferries.

As noted earlier the real killer is corrosion in the ballast tanks. Aircraft tend not to have these. A thirty year paint spec for ballast tanks might be:
1. Round all exposed edges to 2mm radius
2. Blast to S.A. 2.5
3. Three full coats and two stripe coats of eg Inteeshield EN or similar to a specific dry film thickness
4. Fit pit guard anodes (and maintain them!)
This is expensive.

There was a fashion for using HT steel on topsides. This didn’t last (nor did the ships!) as the cyclic stresses of wave impacts can mount up.

 

[newtothis]

There was a fashion for using HT steel on topsides. This didn’t last (nor did the ships!) as the cyclic stresses of wave impacts can mount up.

I think this was part of the reason for the loss of several bulkers that sank like the iron ore they were carrying off South Africa in the 90s. Steep Agulhas Current waves and rigid steel didn't mix too well. Trouble was that they went down so fast there were never any survivors to explain what was happening.

 

[capnsensible]

Yes, I think you're right. However, it means that short haul airliners like 737s are built for a larger number of cycles than long haul ones like 7474s. Both last roughly as long in service, but one has done three or four times as many flights.

Looks like flying hours and cycles both play a part. 85k flight hours and 60k cycles seem to be points to ponder. Some of these things discussed here: What is the highest cycle and hour A320 and 737? - Airliners.net

 

[Kukri]

I think this was part of the reason for the loss of several bulkers that sank like the iron ore they were carrying off South Africa in the 90s. Steep Agulhas Current waves and rigid steel didn't mix too well. Trouble was that they went down so fast there were never any survivors to explain what was happening.

I was a bit involved in that. One of those disappearances was that of the Capesize bulker “Mineral Diamond” was lost without trace after loading Australian ore - at the age of seven. That shocked everyone, including Mike Hendry at Cenargo who was about to buy her.

I persuaded my Board into “building a better Capesize” and we did, with a lot of help from John Ferguson at Lloyd’s Register, John Parker and John Bedford at Harland and Wolff and some recalcitrance from others at H&W who christened her “the Rolls-Royce”.

Inch thick mild steel tank tops, mild steel side plating, with intercostals, tanker type hold cleaning guns, free fall lifeboat, fabulous paint standards etc etc. In fact quite a lot of the ideas that we put into that ship were adopted by the IMO and made mandatory for all bulk carriers.

But she led a long, profitable and trouble free life, culminating in her British owner getting one over on a well known Greek owner in selling her for loadsadosh at the top of the boom in 2008. Tee hee! ???

PS. The paint cells that put all that paint on became the studios for “Game of Thrones”.

 

[Kukri]

Anyway, back to our muttons, the surface area of the oceans is 137.9 million square miles. On which, taking a ten year average, container ships deposit 1,300 containers a year. So that’s one container per 100,000 square miles of ocean surface, per year, assuming they all float, which they don’t. Most sink. Clearly, there are a lot more whales sleeping on the surface than there are floating containers.

This is a silly calculation of course as there are huge tracts of ocean little traversed by either yachts or container ships, but before we throw it away we might note that many of the incidents of large losses of containers overboard have been in the North Pacific, where containerships go and yachts tend not to, and in the north Indian Ocean during the SW Monsoon (ditto!)

 

[dancrane]

That sounds like good sense, and a proper sense of proportion.

I wonder how many large trees or large portions of trees are swept down the world's rivers, presenting far more plentiful significant hazards to small pleasure boats.

Likewise jettisoned/lost fishing gear and other nameless floating wreckage.

 

[newtothis]

Anyway, back to our muttons, the surface area of the oceans is 137.9 million square miles. On which, taking a ten year average, container ships deposit 1,300 containers a year. So that’s one container per 100,000 square miles of ocean surface, per year, assuming they all float, which they don’t. Most sink. Clearly, there are a lot more whales sleeping on the surface than there are floating containers.

This is a silly calculation of course as there are huge tracts of ocean little traversed by either yachts or container ships, but before we throw it away we might note that many of the incidents of large losses of containers overboard have been in the North Pacific, where containerships go and yachts tend not to, and in the north Indian Ocean during the SW Monsoon (ditto!)

I agree that they don't present a major problem to yer average yottie, and in North Pacific or Southern Ocean you've got bigger things to worry about than stray containers. But Maersk managed to lose around 500 in Biscay a few years back, and I think there was a Navios ship that lost some off the coast of Aus. It's the ones that rock up in recreational sailing areas that are the dangers.
On the other hand, there are enough logs washed out to see from the Amazon/Pacific Northwest to be a far bigger threat. A former colleague who had been a master said dodging logs in the South Atlantic was an issue even on 'tween deckers he used to drive.

 

[Kukri]

That sounds like good sense, and a proper sense of proportion.

I wonder how many large trees or large portions of trees are swept down the world's rivers, presenting far more plentiful significant hazards to small pleasure boats.

Likewise jettisoned/lost fishing gear and other nameless floating wreckage.

I have myself seen logs and whales (awake!) but I haven’t seen a container. Fishing gear is a huge issue, because the nets carry on catching... I saw a nice BBC programme about Cornwall which included a section on a group of keen divers who spend their diving time recovering fishing nets. If one small section of the Cornish coast can keep a team of amateur divers busy recovering nets and where possible freeing creatures from them, what is the rest of the sea floor like? And of course we all wonder about Alex Thompson’s rudder...

 

[capnsensible]

Have seen whales all over the Atlantic especially near the Azores. There are quite a lot of pods along the Portugese coast too. Hence, I suppose, the orca thread.

I hit a pilot whale once with a Prout Catamaran somewhere off Lisbon. I was only making around 2 knots but it stopped us dead. Well except for the top of the mast that continued for a foot or two. I knew that because I'd put the owner, as the shortest on board to the top to refit the forestay that had fallen down complete with sail when the securing clevis pin fell out. Was steering on auto with the others in the crew on the foredeck assisting.

Out in nowhere, have found a deckchair with metres of weed hanging off it and an inflated dinghy. One of my crew for the latter was ex army so I sent him up to the bow to check for bodies.

Bits of fishing gear everywhere and had a few tangled propellers. Fenders that have clearly been wandering for years.

On the subject of weed, there is masses of it now across the trade wind Atlantic route. Rafts of it, hundreds of metres across. Tends to accumulate gash (various) too.

Nearer to land, a friend of mine found a dead cow. They float legs up.

After storms across Andalucia, you sometimes see rafts of bamboo plants, big. Weirdest though we're millions of oranges floating about off of Sotogrande, sea absolutely covered for miles.

It concentrates the mind knowing you've got buckleys chance of seeing anything that's got your name on it especially at night. A number of strange bumps and bangs I've never explained, but does encourage giving the bilges a good, thorough torching!

Incidents of magnitude do seem thankfully very rare. Long may that continue!

 

[JumbleDuck]

Looks like flying hours and cycles both play a part. 85k flight hours and 60k cycles seem to be points to ponder. Some of these things discussed here: What is the highest cycle and hour A320 and 737? - Airliners.net

Thanks. Time to re-read "No Highway" ...

 

[Bajansailor]

On the other hand, there are enough logs washed out to see from the Amazon/Pacific Northwest to be a far bigger threat.

I have occasionally seen some pretty impressively big logs washed up on the east coast here (Barbados) - they most probably came up towards the Caribbean from the Amazon with the prevailing current.
If a yacht hit one of these at night, the yacht would definitely come off worse.

Edit - and if they do not wash up on the eastern shores of a Caribbean island, then the odds are good that they will get into the Gulf Stream, and make their way across the North Atlantic.

 

[dancrane]

That sounds very reasonable, Bajan.

Isn't it curious that we don't see gigantic tropical trees floating up the Channel? I'm sure I've never seen even one.

 

[Bajansailor]

Dan, I think that the Gulf Stream tends to go a bit more northerly - I am sure that there is a lot of flotsam and jetsam (and logs!) washed up on the west coast of Ireland.

My friend Stein rowed across the North Atlantic singlehanded, at the age of 70, in 2016. After 80 odd days out from New York he was about 500 miles (I think) from Lands End (he was just too far for a helicopter to reach him) when he got caught in a nasty storm - the boat was rolled repeatedly (with Stein inside the cabin - it must have been like being inside a washing machine) and his oars were broken by all this. He activated his EPIRB, and a huge bulk carrier picked him up - they managed to manoeuvre alongside his wee boat, in huge seas and a gale still blowing which was quite an amazing achievement.

The boat was left to drift - and a year later Stein received a phone call to say that she had been found washed ashore on a pebbly beach at the far north end of Norway.
You can scroll back a few years on his Facebook page for the details.
Stein Hoff - Atlantic Row 2016

And here is a photo of the boat, sitting quite happily on the beach -
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