Containers lost overboard

[Kukri]

Interesting.
if steaming around the coast full isn’t normal, what is the cause? A booming economy or relocating empty boxes, or a bit of both?

Boom in the liner trades, certainly. The relocation of empty boxes is what we usually do at this time of year, having “cut and run” (sailed without loading the empties) during the Christmas rush, but this year we have not had the chance to do so yet. I think the Covid19 “we can’t go out so let’s buy something instead” effect has come on top of the Christmas rush.

Like aircraft operators, liner ship operators don’t like their equipment to be full. An airline has to “bounce” the passengers they have overbooked, which annoys the pax, and a container ship has to restow to get to the ones underneath, which costs a fortune and wastes time.

85% full, please. 90% if really necessary. After that we start losing money just when the punters think we are making excessive profits.

 

[Kukri]

Frank has reminded me of the time in 1986 when the Kowloon Bridge fell apart... when a grizzled old seadog at the Hong Kong Marine Department named Mickey Seale noticed that she and all the four remaining sisters of the Derbyshire were on the HK register...

Hjalmar Reksten was a bad one.

 

[newtothis]

Boom in the liner trades, certainly. The relocation of empty boxes is what we usually do at this time of year, having “cut and run” (sailed without loading the empties) during the Christmas rush, but this year we have not had the chance to do so yet. I think the Covid19 “we can’t go out so let’s buy something instead” effect has come on top of the Christmas rush.

Like aircraft operators, liner ship operators don’t like their equipment to be full. An airline has to “bounce” the passengers they have overbooked, which annoys the pax, and a container ship has to restow to get to the ones underneath, which costs a fortune and wastes time.

85% full, please. 90% if really necessary. After that we start losing money just when the punters think we are making excessive profits.

Yeah, Maersk's $2.9bn net profit must have been a real pain to deal with after restowing all those boxes

 

[Thistle]

Suspect the truth is that everyone was very busy and under strain from the sheer volume of containers. Might offer an insight. Steaming around the coast full isn’t normal.

If everyone was too busy for the job to be done properly first time does that perhaps indicate that either there were not enough people or not enough time allocated to the work?

PS Well done to the 3rd mate for noticing the problem and doing something about it.

 

[Kukri]

If everyone was too busy for the job to be done properly first time does that perhaps indicate that either there were not enough people or not enough time allocated to the work?

PS Well done to the 3rd mate for noticing the problem and doing something about it.

In the strong letter (actually an email) that followed, composed jointly by the Agent, the Master and the undersigned, we did suggest that bringing the sailing time forward, as the terminal had done, against our wishes, hadn’t proven to be the best idea.

 

[michael_w]

Interesting video about the MSC Zoe and the loss of containers in the Waddenzee.

 

[Stemar]

Is there a case for ships having black boxes logging speed, course, weather, plus pitch, roll and acceleration to learn just what does happen out there and better design ships and container anchors? Simulations are all very well, but we can only simulate what we think happens, which isn't necessarily what does happen.

 

[Kukri]

Is there a case for ships having black boxes logging speed, course, weather, plus pitch, roll and acceleration to learn just what does happen out there and better design ships and container anchors? Simulations are all very well, but we can only simulate what we think happens, which isn't necessarily what does happen.

They do carry “black boxes”, called Voyage Data Recorders, and these are routinely accessed when casualties occur. Roll is recorded, not pitch afaik. Acceleration will vary from one part of the ship to another, so there would have to be agreement on how and where to measure it.