Container Ship in Miami with containers falling off

Wow, what a mess! I wonder if they weren't secured properly (don't think so). Or what kind of sea they got into to dislodged all of those. Imagine the change in balance when they all started breaking loose.

From the coast guard news posted 1/26/10

http://coastguardnews.com/coast-guard-responds-after-30-containers-fall-off-container-ship/2010/01/26/

"MIAMI – Coast Guard crews are responding to a report Tuesday of about 30 containers that fell off the deck from Seaboard’s 544-foot container ship Intrepid, approximately 30 miles south of Key West, Fla., Monday."

"The Coast Guard advises all mariners transiting through the area to proceed with caution and report any container sightings to the Coast Guard."

there were securité calls by sector Miami this week end about loose containers between here and FLL... they must be further north now if still afloat...

Sea is a wild animal, I’ve been on vsls in verse conditions and it is really amazing to sea container torn apart like coke cans. I recall that APL has once lost 1500 units in the Pacific in one incident.

Just a quick newbie / rookie question .... Is that a normal design for the port stern bottom to be out of the water, in a mostly loaded condition? Or is that a shadow?

Correct me if im wrong but don't some containers float just below the surface? Be careful transiting I wonder how far north they have travlalled.

No, that's the way it's designed to work so there is no bluff underwater transom which is high drag. When the boat is running at sea speed, the stern wave will be right there.

Another newbie question: do companies pay more to have their goods/containers loaded below deck? Or is the location of your container out of your control?

Hi,

Stowage location depends a lot on what is in the declared contents of your container and where the pickup and drop off points are in the big picture of things.

Dangerous goods, Explosives, Fireworks etc should not be stored below decks or you might lose more than a couple of boxes over the side should there be a problem.

This was the result of false declaration or incorrect stowage a few years ago to a substantial ship.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?i...i+Fortune+photos&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&sa=X&um=1

Take a note of the 40 foot box on top of the funnel - I wonder if that increased the main engine back pressure

There are the issues that K1W1 brings up, HAZMAT and such, but yes, shipping below decks generally brings a premium in price when you request it.

Very true, but they also my put the very heavy containers below deck for stability reasons, and or depending on whether the ship has multiple stops and the last stops cargo may go down below for loading and unloading reasons.....

Yeah, if the ships officers decide to load it on the bottom, then you get it without the premium. Intermodal containers however typically are not more than 20-25 tons since they are for the most part restricted by the Gross Vehicle Weight of the truck that got it to the train or ship.

Both. A shipper may request below deck carriage, but for the most part stowage location is based on regulations related to the contents of the box and the shipping company's convenience.

The mate or other crewmember does not determine container location. The mate will check to ensure that the stowage plan provided by the shipping company is in compliance with regulations and the ship's particulars including stability on all legs of the voyage. The shipping company (ship operator) reserves the right to stow the container where it wants because it is impractical and expensive to move a container multiple times. All stowage plans are based on lifting and placing a container as few times as possible as port stays must be kept to a minimum and when a box going to the third port is in a hold above boxes going to the first and second ports the time to offload and reload is unacceptable.

This highly choreographed movement of boxes is a pain in the butt for those of us who sail on boxboats because the days of long port stays are long gone.

It doesn't take a giant wave to lose containers. Containerships are prone to a motion called parametric roll in following or quartering seas and thi can impose enormous forces on the "lashing gear" which holds the boxes to the hatch cover.

I was on an APL ship off Vancouver Island heading toward Seattle from Japan on a fairly normal day for those parts, not too rough, a typical large swell but nothing particularly worth mention. I was in the house and heard what sounded exactly like the noise a train makes when the engine takes up the slack in a string of boxcars, kind of a 3 per second boom boom noise.

I looked out my window and half the row of boxes (4 or 5 high) on the port side of the hatch next to the house was missing. The lashings had broken at the attach points on the hatch cover but, like in the picture posted here, the IBC's or interbox connectors (or twistlocks as they are also called) kept most of the boxes together and they went over the side in a large block.

The amazing thing about all this was that there was virtualy no damage to the rail where they went over the side. This means the boxes had to levitate a few feet vertically(figuratively speaking of course since they stayed where they were and the ship moved out from under them) and move to port about 35 feet to land in the water alongside. In the seconds before and during the sound of them departing the ship there was no noticeable difference in the ship's motion.

A quick run outside provided a view of a block of boxes and a few more singles sinking in the wake behind us. If anything can be said to be amusing about this was the sight of a pilot launch full of lawyers and surveyors meeting us at the pilot station. It seems that the boxes involved were full of very very expensive new electronics for which the shipper had specified below deck stowage.

In case anyone missed this, video proof of the stress a container ship must withstand:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEkErF51Uxg

Sure you can... just wright the letters S.H. I.T. on it!
In the days when sailing ships were opening up world trade routes, when commodities such as spices were worth as much as gold, (18th Century??) some ships would carry fertilizer. These ships would periodically explode & be lost at sea, & no one knew why. Once they realised the cause was due to a build up of methane gas in the hold (& probably some sailor with a lantern) they would stamp on the words "Ship High In Transit", so the ferilizer would be lashed to the decks & exposed to the fresh air, avoiding any methane build-up. These words became common in use, and were eventually abrreviated to S.H.I.T., hence the word we use today.

Fun story, but not accurate as to the origins of the word.
http://tinyurl.com/2ujtd
(using a tinyurl to snopes due to the link being censored with the word s-h-*-t in it)