Kukri
Well-known member
Homing instinct!
Containers lost overboard
- Thread starter Kukri
- Start date
Kukri
Well-known member
There is a similar discussion going on on the OCC Facebook page, and a lady member of the OCC has just posted that she has seen ... “ a three-seater settee, a deep freeze, a port-hand buoy still merrily flashing 3 and Andy swears he saw a VW beetle in a huge raft of debris. The only one that matters is the one you hit.”
pyrojames
Well-known member
I missed two steel 'floats' in the India Ocean by about 100 yards and luck. I only saw it as it went past. There were two floats each about a metre in diameter and 8 metres long , they appeared to have steel wires lashing them together. At Chagos we met a swedish couple in a steel boat who had come to a dead stop in the middle of the night and found two long steel cylinders either side of his bow. We could only assume that these were one and the same. If we had hit them in the timber yacht we had been in, I don't think I'd be writing this now.
dancrane
Well-known member
Good story Bajan - and your friend's journey was remarkable, even if it wasn't completed...
...but his rowing boat was designed to float high, and was doubtless unsinkable, as well as being highly recognisable as a boat, so it was sure to end up being found ashore somewhere...
...if whole huge trees emerge from the Amazon delta like matches down a drainpipe, they must be a major hazard locally, possibly for extended periods before 'waterlogging' and sinking...
...perhaps it's only our good fortune if: a) few rivers with estuaries in Northern Europe have thickly forested shores, and b) ocean currents don't bring big stuff from equatorial waters, this far north.
I know next to nothing of oceanography - just guessing.
...but his rowing boat was designed to float high, and was doubtless unsinkable, as well as being highly recognisable as a boat, so it was sure to end up being found ashore somewhere...
...if whole huge trees emerge from the Amazon delta like matches down a drainpipe, they must be a major hazard locally, possibly for extended periods before 'waterlogging' and sinking...
...perhaps it's only our good fortune if: a) few rivers with estuaries in Northern Europe have thickly forested shores, and b) ocean currents don't bring big stuff from equatorial waters, this far north.
I know next to nothing of oceanography - just guessing.
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AntarcticPilot
Well-known member
In 1972 I was on a University expedition to Svalbard. We camped at hunter's cabins, each of which was equipped with a crude but effective wood-burning stove. But, you ask, where does the wood come from? Svalbard has NO native forests; the biggest woody plant is dwarf willow, which comes up to ankle height! The answer was that there was ample wood for burning - it drifted across the Arctic Ocean from the shores of Siberia! Every cabin was equipped with an axe like something a Viking might have been proud to wield, and a daily duty was to chop up a log into stove-sized pieces. The logs were whole trees, and there were plenty of them.
Kukri
Well-known member
I think we (crew of ‘Baroque’) ran into your group’s successors two years later, in downtown Ny-Alesund. I remember chatting to a girl whose father was, like her, a glaciologist and who told me that a year earlier she had recovered a pair of her father’s socks that he had left on a glacier, back in the 1930s, she had predicted the rate of advance and picked them off the terminal moraine.
Anyway I can certainly confirm the logs. Some of which were on raised beaches! I have waited 46 years to run into someone who can explain that and I hope that today is my lucky day.
There were two Norwegians with an old fishing boat whom we ran into In Longyearbyen - literally - we had dragged our anchor (yes, a CQR, but we had dragged it off the edge of the moraine) - they had fitted a sawmill in the hold and were making a living from salvaging logs and selling them as lumber in Longyearbyen.
AntarcticPilot
Well-known member
Was the young lady the daughter of Brian Harland? It was under his auspices that our expedition was run, and one of his daughters (Elizabeth, I think, but it was a long time ago!) accompanied us for part of our time in Svalbard. Brian was a geologist rather than a glaciologist, and has a place in the annals of geological fame, but of course in the 1930s and onward there wasn't much distinction between the two, and in fact I can claim to be either or both; glaciology is usually included in geology courses, but of course I specialized in later years.
I've been to Svalbard on four expeditions; the one in 1972 (Cambridge Spitzbergen Expedition 1972), and then with Scott Polar Research Institute in 1983, 1986 and 1987.
Kukri
Well-known member
She surely must have been.
Now, about those logs on raised beaches?
Edited to add: checked my log (!) book. She was indeed.
Now, about those logs on raised beaches?
Edited to add: checked my log (!) book. She was indeed.
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AntarcticPilot
Well-known member
They've been there a long time! The raised beaches would have been the result of isostatic uplift as the ice receded after the last glaciation. But there's nothing to make them rot and few wood eating insects, so they could last a long time. But are they raised beaches or storm beaches?
Later addition - I suspect that what you saw were glacial features, not raised beaches. I didn't see raised beaches in either BilleFjorden, AdventFjord or GronFjord (the places I'm most familiar with on the ground). But in Van MijenFjord, going up to Paulabreen, there were moraine features parallel to the shore. that could be taken for raised beaches. In that case, logs would be lifted onto them by storms or by surges of water from calving events at the glaciers.
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Dug1
Active member
What an interesting thread, this is where the forum really comes into its own with intelligent and informed posts by experts in their fields. Thanks to Kukri and all participants for an enjoyable read!
burgundyben
Well-known member
I was just thinking exactly the same.
newtothis
Well-known member
Definitely time to get to the root of this discussion. What type of anchor did ONE Apus have when the containers we're lost?
Bajansailor
Well-known member
I remember in the late 70's seeing some photos of a Volkswagen beetle in the Canaries, afloat - two young lads were planning on sailing it across to the Caribbean.
I think that they had filled the inside of the cabin with foam for buoyancy, added a keel and a wee 'flying bridge' on the roof, and I am sure that it had a mast P & S on each bumper.
She had apparently made her own way to the Canaries (not too sure where from though), yet the Authorities in the Canaries refused to allow them to leave, fearing that they would be blamed if the Beetle foundered.
Kukri
Well-known member
An update:
ONE Apus Update: Photos Show Cargo Carnage as Containership Arrives in Kobe – gCaptain
I’m going to stick my neck out and say “parametric rolling”. The bow stacks (where most of the dangerous cargo would be) are intact so she didn’t stick her nose into a sea. On the other hand that hull form, nicely optimised for fuel consumption no doubt, looks like an invitation to a vicious parametric roll with a harsh deceleration at the end of each roll as she sticks the hard chine in.
ONE Apus Update: Photos Show Cargo Carnage as Containership Arrives in Kobe – gCaptain
I’m going to stick my neck out and say “parametric rolling”. The bow stacks (where most of the dangerous cargo would be) are intact so she didn’t stick her nose into a sea. On the other hand that hull form, nicely optimised for fuel consumption no doubt, looks like an invitation to a vicious parametric roll with a harsh deceleration at the end of each roll as she sticks the hard chine in.
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Biggles Wader
Well-known member
The ship has arrived in Japan and more pics show the extent of the losses. I had thought it was just the midships section between the funnel and bridge that had gone but now we can see that stacks have collapsed along almost the entire ships length. Thats a lot of containers.
Kukri
Well-known member
I have been looking for a good account of parametric rolling.
This one is too simple, and not well explained :
What is Parametric Rolling in Container Ships?
whilst the MCA err in the other direction here - this is an old MIN from 13 years ago and ships have got bigger and predictive software has improved since then - the OOW can put the stopwatch away, we hope.
https://assets.publishing.service.g...ploads/attachment_data/file/282404/min357.pdf
A summary in the trade press today:
Is vessel size a factor in collapsed container stacks?
This one is too simple, and not well explained :
What is Parametric Rolling in Container Ships?
whilst the MCA err in the other direction here - this is an old MIN from 13 years ago and ships have got bigger and predictive software has improved since then - the OOW can put the stopwatch away, we hope.
https://assets.publishing.service.g...ploads/attachment_data/file/282404/min357.pdf
A summary in the trade press today:
Is vessel size a factor in collapsed container stacks?
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Kukri
Well-known member
Heigh ho; an identical sister ship on the same trade had a stow collapse a month earlier:
ONE Aquila diverted after container collapse in bad weather
Either stevedores and planners loading ONE ships are only careless with those ships, or ONE buy duff lashing gear, or this is related to the design of the ships.
ONE are NYK + MOSK + K Line. If you were looking for the longest established most respected shipowning companies in the world, with brand new ships flying a very respected flag, you just found them.
ONE Aquila diverted after container collapse in bad weather
Either stevedores and planners loading ONE ships are only careless with those ships, or ONE buy duff lashing gear, or this is related to the design of the ships.
ONE are NYK + MOSK + K Line. If you were looking for the longest established most respected shipowning companies in the world, with brand new ships flying a very respected flag, you just found them.
newtothis
Well-known member
Is there a reason for sticking the DGs at the front? You'd think that if a fire were to break out, you'd want it behind the accommodation block/engine block, i.e. downwind of the human factor.
But note that owners/managers say that of the 1,800-odd boxes lost, 54 were DGs.
c.buck
Member
I assumed it was because certain rows of containers are lashed to the superstructure? Either way, reform is needed. Perhaps if fines were introduced per container loss (see NOAA issuing a $1m fine per container loss in the Monterey Sanctuary), then this would spur on vessel owners and charter parties?
newtothis
Well-known member
I wonder if Covid-related staffing issues at places like Yantian are affecting stevedoring companies. The investigation into this one is going to be an interesting read.
ONE has had a few problems with safety, but on the whole has a strong safety culture. For a while the boss was visiting each ship that called in to Singapore to talk to the bridge crew about safety. It is odd that they've had a twofer like this. Then again, Grimaldi had the same issue with things catching fire.