Box Boat makes Bavaria quality look good...

Nothing a bit of duck tape couldn't fix!

Best redistribute my beer a little more evenly around the boat to save it happening to us!
 
At least the designers got something right. It is still afloat, even though it is now in two pieces.

Anyone got a set of welding equipment? :rolleyes:
 
Angele said:
At least the designers got something right. It is still afloat, even though it is now in two pieces.

Anyone got a set of welding equipment? :rolleyes:
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Quite hard to sink a full box boat as there is very little free space for the water to flood. Space between box stacks is only about a foot.

The boxes in the hold are held in guide rails and the ones on deck are held on with twist locks and lashing bars so unless the sea state gets nasty the there should not be to many boxes floating about except for those from the area of the break.

I can remember a time in Port Elizabeth where the port loaded one 20ft box onto the port side and we took a 5 degree list. All cargo was stopped by the Chief Mate instantly. The sums were done and re-done and it was concluded that the boxes were not the weight stated on the loading plan. every box loaded that day had to be offloaded and weighed on the weighbridge. 60% were wrong. When the real weights were put into the calculations it showed we had experienced a seriously negative GM. Much shouting and head scratching ensued between the Mate, agent and stevedores. We ended up spending an extra 24 hours in port to sort it all out (not bad for us engineers who spent a good portion of that up the road). I remember at the time the Mate ranting about how if we had sailed we would be lucky not to turn turtle or snap in two! I would guess that is what happened here.
 
I visited a little feeder container ship in Vieux Fort, St Lucia a couple of weeks ago, and had a long chat with the Master about how the owners of the goods being shipped invariably understate the actual weight of the cargo in the container.
Or rather, he delivered an excellent sermon / rant about this topic, as it is something that he feels very strongly about, and with good reason.
Especially as the feeder container ship Angeln had sunk 3 years ago just after leaving Vieux Fort - the general consensus now is that she was basically overloaded, with cargo too high up, resulting in a reduced GM, and consequent loss of stability as soon she left calm water and started to roll slightly - but the crew can only go on what the declared weights of the containers are.
OK, a draft survey after loading will allow a comparison of total tonnes loaded with what is declared - the Master I spoke to told me that they always have (by draft survey) much more cargo than is claimed.
But for stability calculations they have to go on the declared weights.
And perhaps measure roll period, to see what that is like (the longer the roll period, the 'worser' the stability, in general terms).

Here is some info about the Angeln :
http://themaritimeblog.com/cargo-ship-sinks-off-st-lucia/
 
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You would think that at ports equipped to take ships(boxes) that size the loading cranes would record the weight of each container automatically. Assume that is not the case?
 
MASH said:
You would think that at ports equipped to take ships(boxes) that size the loading cranes would record the weight of each container automatically. Assume that is not the case?
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The cranes do have weight limit alarms and some can tell the driver the weight but that's no good for the stability calcs and the stowage plan as that must be done before the ships get in. In ports like Singapore the cranes can make 12,000 moves turning around a big ship in 8 hours for that speed to be maintained the weighing has to be done before. usually on the truck weighbridge as it enters the port. The opposite end of the scale is in places like Malabo where the boxes are sometimes brought to the side of the ship on two or three open top wooden boats lashed together.
 
Well the Arse end went down Bow is under tow...

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http://gcaptain.com/comfort-images/
 
Or just possibly bad load securing in a container. The location of the fire indicates that it is not in a container officially designated as "dangerous cargo", but that is no big surprise because many shippers and forwarders ship hazardous cargo declaring it as non-hazardous in order to avoid the higher handling charges involved in handling dangerous goods.

The motion of the bow section alone will be more violent than that of the intact ship.
 
That very bows-down attitude of the vessel, despite some flooded stern/middle compartments indicates that the weight of the load was very badly balanced, and probably a major contributor to the breaking apart.
 
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