Containers lost overboard

[Concerto]

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

What an interesting article. I noted the comment about deck guides were fitted to only 3 containers high, leaving 5 just strapped. Also noted that Atlantic Container Line that only trades across the Pacific now fit deck guides to full height. Perhaps this will now become the standard for all container ships.

 

[newtothis]

That’s a tanker.

Don't be ridiculous. All tankers are required by law to be referred to in the general press as "supertankers". See also: cargo ships for containerships.

 

[newtothis]

What an interesting article. I noted the comment about deck guides were fitted to only 3 containers high, leaving 5 just strapped. Also noted that Atlantic Container Line that only trades across the Pacific now fit deck guides to full height. Perhaps this will now become the standard for all container ships.

Slightly unfortunate wording from Capt Grey. By wild western ocean he's actually referring to the Atlantic. The name is a bit of a giveaway. ACL doesn't have any ships on the Pacific.

 

[dom]

That’s a tanker.

Deliver the oil, then lob a few containers on? ?

....if needs must and all that! ?

 

[Kukri]

Funnily enough I once had to do with a couple of ships that could actually do that.

Probo Baoning and Probo Baro.

The last gasp of traditional Norwegian shipowning - in their case an Anglo-Norwegian joint venture.

Oil of any kind, caustic soda, bulk cargoes of all descriptions and indeed containers.

If you are thinking “too clever by half”, you would be right.

 

[newtothis]

Funnily enough I once had to do with a couple of ships that could actually do that.
View attachment 104623
Probo Baoning and Probo Baro.

The last gasp of traditional Norwegian shipowning - in their case an Anglo-Norwegian joint venture.

Oil of any kind, caustic soda, bulk cargoes of all descriptions and indeed containers.

If you are thinking “too clever by half”, you would be right.

Any relation to the notorious Probo Koala?

 

[Kukri]

The “Probo Baoning” became - two sales later - the “Probo Koala”. We sold our interest to Klaveness who sold the fleet to Prime ShipManagement who chartered her to Trafigura and you and PyroJames (as an expert witness) know the rest of the story.

This ship, as the “Probo Koala”, owned and managed by Prime Ship Management, SA, covered herself in shame in the Trafigura toxic waste dumping scandal:

2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump - Wikipedia

Interestingly, because the Probos were designed to carry, inter alia, caustic soda in bulk, they were amongst the rather few ships that could carry out the "caustic washing" operation on the coker naptha supplied to Trafigura by Pemex. As Minton Treharne and Davies observed, this was really an attempt to replicate a refinery procedure, at sea.

The picture in my post above is the “Probo Baro”. Here is the ship of shame in her later incarnation as the “Gulf Jash”:




I put almost all the blame for that on Trafigura - who have emerged smelling of roses and have just made record profits:

Trafigura

Trafigura investigated for alleged corruption, market manipulation

Prime have not done badly for themselves either:

Prime | About us

 

[newtothis]

The “Probo Baoning” became - two sales later - the “Probo Koala”. We sold our interest to Klaveness who sold the fleet to Prime ShipManagement who chartered her to Trafigura and you and PyroJames (as an expert witness) know the rest of the story.

This ship, as the “Probo Koala”, owned and managed by Prime Ship Management, SA, covered herself in shame in the Trafigura toxic waste dumping scandal:

2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump - Wikipedia

Interestingly, because the Probos were designed to carry, inter alia, caustic soda in bulk, they were amongst the rather few ships that could carry out the "caustic washing" operation on the coker naptha supplied to Trafigura by Pemex. As Minton Treharne and Davies observed, this was really an attempt to replicate a refinery procedure, at sea.

The picture in my post above is the “Probo Baro”. Here is the ship of shame in her later incarnation as the “Gulf Jash”:


View attachment 104634

I put almost all the blame for that on Trafigura - who have emerged smelling of roses and have just made record profits:

Trafigura

Trafigura investigated for alleged corruption, market manipulation

Prime have not done badly for themselves either:

Prime | About us

Careful what you say about Traf... believe me, I know from personal experience. Back around 2010 it wasn't a company you would describe as a trigger-happy, lawyered-up, super-injunction abusing bunch of traders. Not in the least.

 

[Kukri]

Just like Phillips Bros, Tradax, Marc Rich, Glencore, Noble, and the rest, they are most certainly not a bunch of trigger happy, lawyered up, super injunction abusing traders. Far from it. They are model citizens with our best interests at heart.

They are committed to a green future for us all.

Look:

Trafigura becomes a major investor in green hydrogen with H2 energy

 

[Kukri]

Returning to our muttons, here is an excellent video sent to me by a New Zealand friend who was Fleet Manager for a prominent company:

 

[newtothis]

Just like Phillips Bros, Tradax, Marc Rich, Glencore, Noble, and the rest, they are most certainly not a bunch of trigger happy, lawyered up, super injunction abusing bunch of traders. Far from it. They are model citizens with our best interests at heart.

They are committed to a green future for us all.

Look:

Trafigura becomes a major investor in green hydrogen with H2 energy

Yes, noted carbon merchant eco-warrior Glencore also said it was going green by reducing its coal production to only 112m tonnes in a couple of years.

 

[burgundyben]

This thread just keeps getting more interesting.

 

[newtothis]

Returning to our muttons, here is an excellent video sent to me by a New Zealand friend who was Fleet Manager for a prominent company:

That's true ship spod bliss
But if parametric rolling is so well understood, and the means of avoiding it well-documented, it begs the question of why this latest event, and the other recent one, still happen.
The APL master appears to have figured out how to stop it back in the 90s, so I imagine it's on the curriculum at shipping school.
To get back to ONE Apus, the large number of stacks affected means it must have been severe rolling; no amount dodgy boxes or ropey lashings would have caused that much damage. So how did a ship end up getting that severely rolled when the science of avoiding it is known?

 

[burgundyben]

I'd love to know how far she rolled.

 

[Kukri]

That's true ship spod bliss
But if parametric rolling is so well understood, and the means of avoiding it well-documented, it begs the question of why this latest event, and the other recent one, still happen.
The APL master appears to have figured out how to stop it back in the 90s, so I imagine it's on the curriculum at shipping school.
To get back to ONE Apus, the large number of stacks affected means it must have been severe rolling; no amount dodgy boxes or ropey lashings would have caused that much damage. So how did a ship end up getting that severely rolled when the science of avoiding it is known?

Because it is not well known and understood. 25 years ago it was new, and it keeps biting us. The ONE Apus is a year old; when I first saw her I said to myself “That hull shape is an invitation to parametric rolling!” But she was designed and built by one of the world’s best shipyards.

I would like to use aviation analogies. A Master of a containership can find himself “in the corner”, so to speak, at the point where stall speed and VNE become one and the same. The classically correct solution to the risk of damage in heavy weather is to put the ship in the “dodging” position - head into the wind and seas at reduced speed - but that is precisely what may bring on parametric rolling, and to break out of that position involves violent manoeuvres which are themselves unsafe.

And just like our friends in Seattle with their 737-Max, we want to think that IT, rather than a physical rebuild, can fix it for us.

 

[Kukri]

I'd love to know how far she rolled.

This will be known. The Voyage Data Recorder - the “Black Box” - which the APL China didn’t have as it hadn’t been invented - she had to rely on the clinometer - will have this and a lot more,

 

[Kukri]

A bit more on parametric rolling.

This is really quite a new thing. I don’t think I ever heard the term before the “APL China” incident, in October 1998. The ship lost 406 containers overboard, which was unheard of.

Why is this happening now?

We have built ships with a different shape. Modern large container ships and large cruise ships have hulls shaped like the “ONE Apus”. That is to say, wide beam, relatively shallow draft, wide decks at the ends and a very flared shape above the waterline at each end.

This is a new shape.

Compare with a first generation large (?) container ship; OCL’s “big bay class”:


As to passenger ships, these two are owned by the same corporate group but the first one is intended for cruises in fair weather and the second one also has to cross the Atlantic regularly :


You can see the difference!
Cruise ships are, like containerships, vulnerable to parametric rolling.

 

[Kukri]

It seems we have another incident:

Up to 200 containers lost by mega container ship in North Sea

 

[dom]

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.

I'll bet!! Aside from the issues you highlight some docks have seen mass Covid-19 quarantines owing to the proximity of work conditions. Net-net, skyrocketing Shanghai to US West Coast rates have underpinned this record spike in container rates, but the supply-side remains nervous about a possible recession next year and the poor visibility surrounding post-pandemic, post-Christmas, post-restocking market conditions.

 

[Chae_73]

200 containers floating around the North Sea - not good!