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Some years ago I read The Box by Marc Levinson, a history of containerized shipping. Highly recommend it. If you live in SF and have wondered about the numerous
by abtinf 8y ago
Some years ago I read The Box by Marc Levinson, a history of containerized shipping. Highly recommend it. If you live in SF and have wondered about the numerous barely used piers, this book explains their history as well - and why the major container terminal ended up in Oakland instead.
One of the painful early lessons for the industry was the discovery that minimizing operational costs (particularly fuel and maintenance) trumps every other value. A pioneering containerized shipping company went bankrupt pursuing a high-speed shipping strategy that cost marginally more than low-speed competition.
Edit: Oh, there is a second edition! Updated link.
Edit: replaced unhelpful snark.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691170819/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691170819/
- jherdman 8y agoYou might enjoy "Containers", an eight episode podcast about the shipping industry too. https://medium.com/containers https://medium.com/containers
- heywire 8y agoTwo non-technology related containers story on the front page of hacker news, and they're both actually really interesting! Happy Friday!
- dmoy 8y agoHey sails are technology. Just, really old technology. And these "sails" are much newer tech...
- 8note 8y agoand containers themselves are pretty new technology
- JshWright 8y agoHmm... I've seen a couple shipping related stories, but nothing container related. This one is about tankers, and the other was about bulk carriers.
- jessewmc 8y agoIgnorant question: if operational costs trump all, especially fuel (Maersk says in the article 60% of operational cost) why not pure sail power? Is there some other maintenance cost or infeasability there? Or is there another hidden variable that is not satisfied?
- empath75 8y agounpredictability of wind, i'd imagine.
- ams6110 8y agoThat and storms. You need engines to ride out or (better) avoid storms at sea.
- rainbowmverse 8y agoIs a ship that big bothered by anything less than a hurricane?
- Someone 8y agoI would think so, certainly of you add masts and sails that can propel that big a ship. Example without sails: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSC_Napoli https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSC_Napoli: ”during European windstorm Kyrill, severe gale-force winds and huge waves caused serious damage to Napoli's hull, including a crack in one side and a flooded engine room […] the earlier grounding in 2001 did not contribute to the loss” That ship was 62,000 tons. That’s not huge by today’s standards, but not small either.
- nickbauman 8y agoWhen the Cutty Sark was the state of the art in merchant shipping, the steam ship was becoming a thing. The steam ship was much slower than the Cutty Sark and needed its own fuel to operate. It's a good example how the numbers alone don't necessarily add up for new technology.
- 8y ago
- liber8 8y agoI'll second this, The Box is fantastic. It sounds like a dry subject, but Levinson did a fantastic job of telling the story of how containerized shipping changed the world.
- thesumofall 8y agoWorking in the industry this is only partially true. All liners have aggressively cut operational costs over the last years (esp. by scaling their operations, ordering bigger ships, reducing sailing speeds). Still, the industry is by and large value destroying. So, while the prevalent strategies might have prevented worse, they certainly didn’t turn around the industry. Edit: It is even likely that the chase of lower operational cost played a major role in the current oversupply of capacity (thanks to a glut of mega sized ships)
- ThomPete 8y agoSecond the recommendation. Great book!
- jessaustin 8y ago...why the major container terminal ended up in Oakland instead. Whatever the reason, I'm sure everyone who uses a bridge in SF is happy about this.
- kemiller 8y agoThe reason is that it was much easier to terminate the transcontinental railroad on the eastern shore of the bay. Not unrelated to your point.
- runeks 8y ago> One of the painful early lessons for the industry was the discovery that minimizing operational costs (particularly fuel and maintenance) trumps every other value. A pioneering containerized shipping company went bankrupt pursuing a high-speed shipping strategy that cost marginally more than low-speed competition. I’m not convinced that this is static — as far as I can see it should depend on the prevailing rate of interest. The more a company pays in interest on a loan, the faster it should want to realize its investment (which doesn’t happen by goods sitting in a container). I’m not sure what the equilibrium interest rate is, exactly, but at some level of interest it should become cheaper to ship the goods faster, since you will save more in interest payments than the extra you pay for shipping (due to your investment becoming operational sooner, allowing you to pay back the loan).