Floating containers - ever seen one?

[tudorsailor]

My question would be is how dangerous is a floating container? Unlike a power boat or a Vendee Globe racer, I wonder if a container would do much damage even it hit directly at 7-10kn
If one looks at the Crash Test video - https://youtu.be/bRhcXBtmPQs they found it quite hard to make a hole in the boat to start the test which I find quite reassuring

In reality, you are most likely to make a glancing collision. Would this really hole the boat?

TudorSailor

 

[Irish Rover]

My question would be is how dangerous is a floating container? Unlike a power boat or a Vendee Globe racer, I wonder if a container would do much damage even it hit directly at 7-10kn
If one looks at the Crash Test video - https://youtu.be/bRhcXBtmPQs they found it quite hard to make a hole in the boat to start the test which I find quite reassuring

In reality, you are most likely to make a glancing collision. Would this really hole the boat?

TudorSailor

The Irish sail training ship Asgard sank in 2008 and it was generally speculated she hit a container https://www.irishtimes.com/news/asgard-ii-sinking-report-released-1.865672

 

[CLB]

All those containers of BMWs that washed up on the beach must have floated there.

 

[prv]

The crew were rescued by HMS Argyll, they should have taken a moment to shell all those floating debris

Probably couldn't afford the ammunition

Pete

 

[jimbaerselman]

The facts of observation sjow a significant number of awash containers.

Yes, I've seen one nearby.

Another time my nephew hit one with his keel doing six knots or so in a 40 foot boat. Immediate external inspection showed 5 to 7 degrees skew aft; internal inspection showed floor lifted aft of keel, some movement, and some salt water leakage.

A 40 minutes return to base was possible within an hour. Luckily, most of this in smooth water.

 

[ianabc]

In BC deadheads
are more of a problem than floating containers.

Dead heads floating logs, vertically floating logs pack force as they move vertically with the swell.

My marina neighbour lost his 28 foot fibreglass sailboat to a dead head.

Rowed ashore with his dog, lucky that he was close to shore as the sinking was sudden.

 

[NormanS]

In BC deadheads
are more of a problem than floating containers.

Dead heads floating logs, vertically floating logs pack force as they move vertically with the swell.

My marina neighbour lost his 28 foot fibreglass sailboat to a dead head.

Rowed ashore with his dog, lucky that he was close to shore as the sinking was sudden.

Do they float vertically because of stones embedded in the root ball? The logs that I see generally float horizontally.

 

[oldmanofthehills]

A friends boyfriend almost certainly drown due to his boat hitting a shipping container in the Irish Sea. The investigation concluded that nothing else could have sunk his boat that fast and prevented any message from him and crew, or deployment of liferaft. Boat never found so must be informed estimate.

Maybe a chance in a million but pretty nasty and having seen debris washed up from containers I think they mostly dont sink straight to bottom without trace

 

[pagoda]

I saw one off selsey bill a few years ago while out paddle boarding, it appeared to be about a foot or so below the surface. Certainly a hazard to any boat.

Maybe not to a paddle board! Something large and made of steel 1 foot below the surface I do NOT want to meet while sailing in poor light.
Never seen one myself and really don't want to.

 

[lw395]

A friends boyfriend almost certainly drown due to his boat hitting a shipping container in the Irish Sea. The investigation concluded that nothing else could have sunk his boat that fast and prevented any message from him and crew, or deployment of liferaft. Boat never found so must be informed estimate.

Maybe a chance in a million but pretty nasty and having seen debris washed up from containers I think they mostly dont sink straight to bottom without trace

Sounds like a best guess to me.
It could have been any sort of flotsam, or something else entirely like structural failure, e.g. if the keel falls half off and opens a big hole in the bottom of the boat.
Speculation.
These things are so rare that no pattern emerges.

 

[oldmanofthehills]

Sounds like a best guess to me.
It could have been any sort of flotsam, or something else entirely like structural failure, e.g. if the keel falls half off and opens a big hole in the bottom of the boat. Speculation. These things are so rare that no pattern emerges.

I believe a long keel boat so no keel fall off, but I can only go on the accident assessment at the time of the loss (1976), and that declared probability of hitting shipping container as the only thing to rip a massive enough hole to sink in seconds. So some authority regarded lost containers as a known risk. I suppose it could have been one on her majesties submersible things but that was not the speculation then and there are even more containers lost nowadays

 

[Seajet]

My worry about hitting an awash container is maybe gashing a hole in the bilge side if hitting a corner, maybe more likely hitting it square on.

It's well known when looking at secondhand fixed keelers, fin or twin, to look at the aft upper end of the keel and the hull around it; if the boat has been run aground into a hard seabed at high speed ( personally I'd count that as anything above 4 knots with the mass/ velocity involved ) - there could be severe damage, and I think the same or worse applies to a boat offshore in waves hitting a very big heavy steel box, I'd be worried about the keel getting kicked up and piercing the hull.

Lift keelers with a vertical lift plate and ballast bulb like my Anderson 22 would probably suffer the same fate, there is a tufnol ' crash strip ' at the aft end of the keelcase ( unlike any other lift keeler I know ) but I wouldn't fancy trying running into a container full pelt.

Lift keel boats with swinging plates or multihulls may fancy their chances of skipping over a container but I don't think the odds are in their favour.

 

[Elessar]

Just updating my opinion on this: not a threat as they all sink, and mostly fast. Some might float for a bit if they contain timber or flatscreen TVs with a lot of polystyrene packaging; but they all go down in the end.

Anyone ever seen one or heard of one?

Thanks in advance.

Nope. I did see a huge wooden cable drum c 20ft diameter floating off Malta and that was likely to stay floating. But never a container.

May be folklore but apparently you can fit a valve to make them sink more quickly for a trivial sum but no one does it. Anyone know if that is true?

 

[JumbleDuck]

I believe a long keel boat so no keel fall off, but I can only go on the accident assessment at the time of the loss (1976), and that declared probability of hitting shipping container as the only thing to rip a massive enough hole to sink in seconds.

Her Majesty's submarines sank a couple of fishing boats in the Irish Sea in the 70s ... perhaps this was another of their victims?

 

[Seajet]

I only remember a Contessa 32 getting knobbled - a periscope or other mast through the hull, nuclear propelled, is probably a recipe for a Bad Day - and maybe one fishing boat dragged backwards and sunk by a sub - nationality never dertermined but Sean Connerys' lot were busy in those days ?

The fishermen from Portpatrick were scathing about RN subs after one surfaced oblivious in the middle of a fishing fleet.

A book very worth reading is ' Hunter Killers' by Iain Ballantyne, quite illuminating , and amusing at times.

 

[LadyInBed]

Yes, many years back off Kimmeridge. Reported it to CG.

 

[NormanS]

Nope. I did see a huge wooden cable drum c 20ft diameter floating off Malta and that was likely to stay floating. But never a container.

May be folklore but apparently you can fit a valve to make them sink more quickly for a trivial sum but no one does it. Anyone know if that is true?

What bit of "buoyant contents" do you not understand?

 

[Elessar]

What bit of "buoyant contents" do you not understand?

What, apart from air that would be removed by a valve, can go in a shipping container that is more buoyant than the weight of the container ? Polystyrene in packaging is much reduced now. I doubt any container is buoyant when full of water, if I’m wrong it’s certainly not many.

 

[dom]

What, apart from air that would be removed by a valve, can go in a shipping container that is more buoyant than the weight of the container ? Polystyrene in packaging is much reduced now. I doubt any container is buoyant when full of water, if I’m wrong it’s certainly not many.

Celutex insulation boards?

 

[rogerthebodger]

https://www.google.co.za/search?tbm...VF4OAKHTnBAXYQ3VYIJigA&biw=1350&bih=608&dpr=1