Lost Containers

[Little Dorrit]

Having seen a lost container floating (with about 0.75 meters visible above the water) in the Irish Sea some years ago, lost containers have always worried me. I wanted therefore to ask if containers now have tracking devices and lights if they are lost overboard?

 

[Norman_E]

I don't think anything has been done, and more seem to get lost every year. Fortunately a good proportion of them sink.

 

[EdWingfield]

Next time you see a danger to navigation report its exact posn to CG. They will issue regular warnings.

 

[ShinyShoe]

Having seen a lost container floating (with about 0.75 meters visible above the water) in the Irish Sea some years ago, lost containers have always worried me. I wanted therefore to ask if containers now have tracking devices and lights if they are lost overboard?

SOME have trackers. Not for anything related to their navigation risk though. If the shipper wants to track his highly expensive goods for instance... You'd fit quite a lot a iPhones for instance in a 40ft container. So if one mysteriously disappears (falls off a ship, gets off loaded in the wrong port, or genuinely stolen) you might want to be sure it didn't fall onto eBay...

I doubt once its semi floating in the Irish Sea the tracker will work unless it happened to be at the bit that is above the surface.

No lights.

Unless a shipping company is held liable for a significant collision into its container I doubt tracking it once lost will be high priority... For that to happen you need to loose a container, it floats long enough that another vessel can hit it, another vessel hits it, sustains serious damage and perhaps a loss of life, and then the investigation identifies not only what was hit but who it originally belonged to. That doesn't feel like a yacht hits a container type investigation, more a ferry hits container... ...something that makes the news for more than 2 days. Where governments spend millions on investigations.

Even if that happened, it would be up to a court to decide the liability of the original shipping company. Were they negligent in their loading? Did they report the loss? And even with all that a fine would need to be huge to actually drive significant change. The costs of lost goods / insuring for loosing the goods should be a bigger driver - but thats not about finding them when lost - its about preventing them getting lost...

 

[Stemar]

Unless a shipping company is held liable for a significant collision into its container I doubt tracking it once lost will be high priority

Make that Until...

I'd like to see the shipping company responsible for all containers lost, with a daily fine for each until they're either recovered or confirmed to have sunk.

 

[rogerthebodger]

Having seen a lost container floating (with about 0.75 meters visible above the water) in the Irish Sea some years ago, lost containers have always worried me. I wanted therefore to ask if containers now have tracking devices and lights if they are lost overboard?

Loosing wood logs overboard is also very dangrous yachts and if you hit one like a container will take your keel off.