Containers lost overboard

[newtothis]

I was thinking more of corrosion inside the box sections of the container rather than the heavier containers up the stack.

For some geeky container speculation... There is a massive shortage of container equipment in Asia right now, at a time when there is a huge demand for exports to markets in US/Europe. Carriers are shipping empties back to Asia at their own expense rather than wait for a loaded container as they can make so much money sending it back out from Asia. But I wonder if that is meaning that substandard containers are being used in desperation? If carriers are taking shipper-owned containers, what sort of quality control do they have?
(I'm sure there's a little green man in Roswell that could answer this, but I'll defer to Kukri and the seafarers for now.)

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Yes, a very good invention. Even into the motorway age trucks only had 1/2" diameter hemp ropes to keep everything on-board!

When I were a lad, I delighted in learning the lorryman's hitch from the driver who regularly delivered 13 tons of soap powder for my dad to distribute! I can still do it - there have been times when it has been very useful.

 

[PilotWolf]

There are so many ‘spare’ containers here they’re storing them at the old Boeing C17 factory as there is no more space at the ports.

W

 

[Concerto]

I think a 7 year life was quoted earlier in the thread. You would hope any container with excessive corrosion would be rejected regardless of age - no idea if that's how that works in practice!

I did read the 7 year life and thought steel inside the corner posts of the container are probably not protected by either galvanising or paint will rust having been in a marine environment for a lot of their life. Also where the locking system connects containers and this certainly remove any protection and will certainly rust fairly fast. The rectangular structure of the container is as strong as the steel box sections and the welds. There is no other soild bulkhead to keep it in shape.

 

[newtothis]

There are so many ‘spare’ containers here they’re storing them at the old Boeing C17 factory as there is no more space at the ports.

W

The problem is getting them in'n'out the ports at the moment. The whole system has broken down, largely as a result of various doombug factors. Suffice to say, tho, that there's a severe shortage of export containers where they're needed.

 

[Kukri]

There is a number of containers that a shipping Line should own or lease per slot on its ships.

When I started out it was 3.1, then it was 2.8, by 1997 it was 2.2 and I’ve not looked at it for years.

The number obviously relates to how fast you can get your boxes back from your customers, clean them, PTI them* and get them to the next customer.

Now, back in 1997 the east west trades, which are the big ones, were more “balanced” than they are now. They are now pretty much “one way”.

We therefore routinely reposition containers.

Over the years we have fiddled around with pricing strategies to help us get boxes to where they are wanted and this just as sophisticated as airline seat pricing. We need massive IT systems to handle our business anyway so we may as well use them for this as well. I remember P&O Nedlloyd offering to pay customers US$90 to ship cargo in a biz from Yantian to Kaohsiung. That was a bit extreme, but you get the idea. You want to take one of our boxes to Timbuktu, which is miles inland and there is a civil war going on, and you might as well buy the thing.

Normally, we just back load the empties. If things get badly out of shape we will charter a ship just to move empties, but we don’t really like to do that.

The effect of the Covid19 pandemic on the USA was to reduce domestic production and to shift household expenditure away from buying services to buying goods. This kick started the trans-Pacific trade, which had slumped at the start of Covid19, when China went into near-nationwide shut down, and then Europe followed suit.

This was overlaid on top of the annual “Christmas rush”, which for us starts in August, causing congestion in ports in the USA and in Europe, causing ships to “cut and run” (discharge laden boxes without back loading empties), which saves a lot of time as the empties stowage always has to be planned around the discharge of the other laden boxes on board in the other ports on the coast.

To which in the UK we can add 12,000 boxes of over ordered PPI and Felixstowe’s IT system issues...?

PTI: Pre Trip Inspection. Is there a hole in the roof, does it stink, do the doors close? You get the idea.

 

[Kukri]

Could the initial collapse be due to a bottom container getting crushed? In photo 2 some of the containers are showing the box shape has become more diamond than rectangular. This would cause a stack to collapse.

Yes.

 

[Stemar]

I'm going to guess that containers are like cars, they tend to rust from the inside out, so they can look fine from the outside, and there's no way to look inside unless you're customs or police, who are looking for white powder rather than brown. I'm also going to make another wild guess and suggest that some shippers will get their containers from the cheapest possible source, who may well use substandard and/or thinner steel, so it may not take a huge amount of corrosion to allow a collapse when things get iffy.

 

[Kukri]

Containers are built to an ISO standard (668) inspected during and after manufacture, and each and every one has a plate with its unique number, the maker, the inspecting body, its maximum safe load and the strength standards it is built to.

See pages 16 to 25 here:

https://www.standard-club.com/media/24168/amastersguidetocontainersecuring2ndedition-3.pdf

 

[Kukri]

Michael Grey, himself once a Master with the long-forgotten Port Line, the cargo division of Cunard, former Editor of “Fairplay” and of Lloyd’s List, is the doyen of shipping journalists:

Not a ‘Pacific’ ocean at all

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Containers are built to an ISO standard (668) inspected during and after manufacture, and each and every one has a plate with its unique number, the maker, the inspecting body, its maximum safe load and the strength standards it is built to.

See pages 16 to 25 here:

https://www.standard-club.com/media/24168/amastersguidetocontainersecuring2ndedition-3.pdf

Far be it from me to point this out - I was on an ISO standards committee and have even been responsible for one minor standard - but compliance with a standard only means it met the standard when it left the manufacturer. Do we know anything about how rapidly they degrade with exposure to salt, and does the standard say anything about metal fatigue or accidental damage?

 

[penberth3]

When I were a lad, I delighted in learning the lorryman's hitch from the driver who regularly delivered 13 tons of soap powder for my dad to distribute! I can still do it - there have been times when it has been very useful.

I'm sure I could still do one in the dark with my eyes shut, and possibly with one hand!

 

[penberth3]

Far be it from me to point this out - I was on an ISO standards committee and have even been responsible for one minor standard - but compliance with a standard only means it met the standard when it left the manufacturer. Do we know anything about how rapidly they degrade with exposure to salt, and does the standard say anything about metal fatigue or accidental damage?

I'm guessing, but there's probably the standard for manufacture, and then another industry standard/code of practice for use which includes inspection.

 

[dom]

Speaking of containers, Western US supply chains (import and export) are currently creaking as Los Angeles and San Pedro Bay (two largest container ports in the West) are absolutely chokka.

Problem seems to stem from post-Covid restocking and Christmas coinciding with each other.

There'll be a hell of a rush just to push these ships (green dots) back out to sea ASAP both from the US and their next few ports given that catching-up lost time will be difficult and probably require some of them to increase speeds on certain routes.

 

[dom]

Ahaa, The Telegraph, has just released a story on Los Angeles together with the image below.

I'm trying to imagine Kukri trying to synchronise the ship's roll to keep as many of those containers as possible on the deck
?

 

[Kukri]

Speaking of containers, Western US supply chains (import and export) are currently creaking as Los Angeles and San Pedro Bay (two largest container ports in the West) are absolutely chokka.

Problem seems to stem from post-Covid restocking and Christmas coinciding with each other.

There'll be a hell of a rush just to push these ships (green dots) back out to sea ASAP both from the US and their next few ports given that catching-up lost time will be difficult and probably require some of them to increase speeds on certain routes.


View attachment 104611

I love it. Shipowning vision of Heaven! Port congestion! It’s not the green dots alongside that cause the deep inner glow of pleasure; it’s the ones out in the bay, at anchor, waiting to berth!

The great thing is - a ship waiting to berth is taken out of the “supply” whilst still getting paid and without reducing demand.

When there is not enough of something, prices rise.

I didn’t see newspaper stories about the containerships laid up off hire as “sailings were blanked” in the Spring and Summer, and nobody has got any more helpful with crew changes. Just last week I had two lads who had flown in from Doha to LHR to catch a BA flight to Gibraltar to join a ship. BA cancelled the Gib flight on one hour’s notice. They didn’t have UK visas (seamen in transit don’t need them for 24 hours if they have an ILO seaman’s book) - some swift negotiations with Border Force got them 72 hours but we still couldn’t get them a flight and after that had expired we flew them home, leaving the lads they were meant to be relieving on board. This sort of thing, and worse, happens all the time.

Rant mode off.

 

[Kukri]

Ahaa, The Telegraph, has just released a story on Los Angeles together with the image below.

I'm trying to imagine Kukri trying to synchronise the ship's roll to keep as many of those containers as possible on the deck
?


View attachment 104613

That’s a tanker.

 

[Kukri]

Far be it from me to point this out - I was on an ISO standards committee and have even been responsible for one minor standard - but compliance with a standard only means it met the standard when it left the manufacturer. Do we know anything about how rapidly they degrade with exposure to salt, and does the standard say anything about metal fatigue or accidental damage?

Yes.

 

[Concerto]

Containers are built to an ISO standard (668) inspected during and after manufacture, and each and every one has a plate with its unique number, the maker, the inspecting body, its maximum safe load and the strength standards it is built to.

See pages 16 to 25 here:

https://www.standard-club.com/media/24168/amastersguidetocontainersecuring2ndedition-3.pdf

Reading about how the containers are constructed is very interesting.

At the start of section 7 is the comment "Most containers carried at sea are designed and approved to ISO Standard and regularly inspected........................................." Note the first word is Most.

"The usual value for allowable stacking is 192,000 kg, which is a 9-high stack of containers, calculated as 8 containers stacked above, each with a mass of 24,000kg (8x24,000=192,000)". But some are only rated to a 5 high stack and shown on the CSC Safety Plate.

The dry van boxes (standard container) "the closed end is 4.5 times more stiff in racking strength than the door end" and the "closed doors are a component of their strength."

In Section 8.
"The strength of a container is provided principally by the outer framework, side rails andcorner posts, together with the corner castings. The side, end panels and closed doorsprovide racking strength."
"It is important to note that a container that has suffered damage to a corner casting or corner post will not be serviceable because:
a damaged container may be unable to bear the weight of those stowed above
a damaged container may render lashings ineffective
lifting a damaged container is hazardous
If one container in a stack fails, it is likely that the entire stack will collapse."

Section 10 Principles of Stowage, explains how the containers are locked and lashed. It seems only the containers at deck level and possibly the next layer are fitted with cross lashing rods. Looking at the photos in post #115, I could count the stack as being 8 high. This is all complicated by the mix of different length, height and type of containers.

The section 11 on ship's behaviour is worth reading, starting on page 40.
Parametric rolling on page 42.
"The term parametric roll is used to describe the phenomenon of large, unstable rolling which can suddenly occur in head or stern quartering seas. Due to its violent nature and the very large accelerations associated with the onset of parametric rolling, there is widespread concern for the safety of container ships. Possible consequences include loss of containers, machinery failure, structural damage and even capsize.

Parametric roll is a threshold phenomenon. This means that a combination of environmental, operational and design parameters need to exist before it is encountered.
These are:
• ship sailing with a small heading angle to the predominant wave direction (head or stern quartering sea)
• wavelength of the predominant swell is comparable to the ship’s length
• wave height is fairly large
• ship’s roll-damping characteristic is low

If resonance occurs between the wave encounter period and the natural, or twice natural, roll period of the ship, then parametric roll motion can be experienced."

Later on it explains the consequences of parametric roll.
"It is an extreme condition for container securing since it combines the effect of large roll and pitch amplitudes. This scenario imposes significant loads on container securing systems.

In theory, the container securing system could be designed to withstand such extreme motions. The consequence would be a significant reduction in the number of containers that could be carried on deck. So, essentially, there is a balance between increased container security and the limitations imposed by securing requirements.

The extreme roll angles reached during a parametric roll usually exceed those adopted during machinery design. Indeed, it would be very difficult to bench test a large marine diesel engine at 40 degree angles. Possible consequences on machinery operation of the ship heeling to these very large angles include loss of cooling water suction, exposure of lubricating oil sumps and, for resiliently mounted engines, problems with the connection of services – and hence shutdown of the main engine.

The following points should be borne in mind:
• parametric roll is a relatively rare phenomenon occurring in head or following seas, which is characterised by rapidly developed, large, unstable ship rolling
• risk control options exist in both design and operation of container ships that can effectively reduce the likelihood of a parametric roll occurring. Reducing the likelihood of its occurrence is considered a more effective approach than mitigating the consequences
• compliance with Lloyd’s Register’s current requirements for container securing systems can reduce the risk of container losses
• masters should be aware that when conditions for parametric rolling exist, ie. head/stern seas with wave length similar to the ship’s length, the action of putting the ship’s head to the sea and reducing speed could make rolling worse. Other action to ease the ship’s motion will be necessary, depending upon the prevailing weather
• the North Pacific in winter is especially prone to these condition"

These are just a few of the points made in this document but does help to explain the enormous forces the ship and cargo have to endure and explaining the huge amounts of effort taken during the design process to ensure things do not go wrong very frequently.

All I can say is I am glad I was no onboard in those conditions.

 

[Biggles Wader]

That’s a tanker.

I think they are trying to illustrate free surface effect with liquid containers hence a tanker is entirely appropriate.