Cargo Shipment of Fail

how would like to unload that one

That vessel was delivered last April and this happened in June.. She apparently got into 7-10 m seas in the Arabian Sea.

I have a friend who works at Port Everglades that unloads containers. Once I asked him what happens if a ship comes in with containers leaning over. He said it happens often and then it is considered a salvage opperation and they do nothing until the salvage company completes there work.
I also asked him if containers in the water would sink or float. He said he did not know for sure but he told me that the containers are not water tight and he did not think they would float, or at least float for long if lost out at sea.
Does any one know what the answer is to that?

the containers is made out of steel 16,000 pounds of steel so it will only float it what is in them can hold 16,000 pounds up

Floating Containers

Given the number of anecdotes from small yacht owners (say between 30 and 100 feet, sail and power) who have come across containers near shore or in the middle of the ocean, the answer is that many of them do float. Often for long periods of time. Usually they will hover just at or below the level of the water making them difficult to spot but easy to strike with the boat. It's not the steel container, but rather its contents that will determine whether it sinks or floats. Just like a boat, the overall displacement of the contents and container will determine its final buoyancy.

In TN most marinas use the old containers for break walls. they put foam in them to make them float about a foot out of the water

Many of the containers do float. Unfortunately some seem to float about a foot below the surface so they can't be seen from water level, just collided with. A few years ago I flew out, low level, to the North Pacific Gyre. Saw at least 30 containers floating around. Good clear sunny day so could see most of the ones just beneath the surface.

steel dose not float. they are not water tight, and 16,000 pounds but with what they put in then they might for a long time.

Hi,

I think there would be many people including the builders of the ship shown in post 1 that would disagree with that as a blanket statement.

Boxes that go overboard are often bent and beaten about so the integrity of the box is not much good which is a good thing in itself. Just think of this. A good box goes over the side the door seals leak a bit so it sinks down at that end, once the top of the doors is submerged and the remaining air is trapped inside you are going to have a floater if it is filled with anything that has a large positive buoyancy

A standard 20 or 40 footer needs only to be filled with sufficient material that has a total buoyancy to support combined weight of the contents and container to float along quite well albeit mostly submerged.

Where did you get the 16,000lb figure from?The heaviest tare weight for containers is for the reefer ones (the self contained ones are also the most likely ones to be floaters) with a normal steelie being around around half that.

6 inches of air will float one but they will not hold air


I am sorry they weight 8,000 not 8 ton my bad

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization#Standard_containers

Here's the story replete with lawyerly humor:

http://www.cargolaw.com/2007nightmare_ital.florida.html

Thanks for that. At the bottom of the page:
"...We once estimated container underway losses at about 1,500 per year. Lloyd's put that figure at about 10,000 earlier this year...."

So if even a fifth of them are floaters for a period, that's quite a number of potential "bangs" out there.

I would like to comment that although it is a fact that some containers do float, whether few hundreds or few thousands, this is very limited if you compare the total number of containers carried on the water. I do not want to argue that any treat at sea to human life is something to be taken lightly, but the reason I am pointing out this fact is that it is somehow misleading the public opinion in terms of the dangers represented by containers. I am a member of container transportation industry and I have to admit that shipping lines carrying containers are taking a beating that is not in line with the dangers created by containers falling overboard. If you think of the logs that fall overboard, which all float, containers that float are indeed is not even a needle in a hay stack. The issue should be tackled as dangers created by floating objects and not just containers.

Nilo
Good point! If you look at the risk in terms of the area of ocean where you won't hit anything the risk of hitting a container are miniscule. I've seen a lot more logs floating off the west coast of Canada than I've seen containers.

I did some research and you are right some do float. Some of the containers have foam in the side walls and will float right at the top of the water. Not because there sealed air tight but because of the foam in the side walls.

These are the refrigerated containers and they can have a better sealing for water tightness as well. When their air ducts are completely closed they will not take in water that easily. On the other hand, one can easily imagine that a container falling overboard in a storm can easily brake into pieces. The distance it will be falling will be in most cases more than 10 meters from the water level. Considering that the reefer units are only a very small portion of whole container fleet we are talking about a very few number of containers that can stay afloat for long periods and create any danger.