4 ms·

Anyone know why these types of ships don’t use the standard 20/40ft containers like regular cargo ships?

Johnny555 7y ago
I don't know if this is the reason but it'd take a lot longer to fill and stack then unstack and empty 200 containers than it does to fill one cavernous space. Then you still have to clean those containers just like they are cleaning the ship.
- sghiassy 7y ago
  I was thinking filling it would be faster, but unloading the sand they way they did, scoop by scoop, seemed like it’d be slower. Also, I was thinking that if they used containers they wouldn’t need to clean the ship (or at least not to food grade) since each cargo would be in its own compartment.
  - tawm 7y ago
    The shipping industry offers a transportation service to its customers. In the bulk area, not leaving your customers to clean hundreds of containers is part of the service.
sneak 7y ago
Containers can’t hold liquids/powders/flowing things. They are only strong on the frame, not the side panels. This is also why you can’t bury them. You could load pallet-sized tubs and fill a container that way, but the overhead would be killer. I imagine for bulk it’s much faster/easier to treat it as an effective liquid/particulate than trying to containerize it. Plus, you’d increase the cleaning surface area exponentially if you had to clean each pallet-tub, plus transport all the tubs and sidewalls for no revenue.
mcguire 7y ago
For one thing, containers, the space between them, and the extra space inside them would take up a not-insignificant amount of space. They're great when you are dealing with a lot of smallish shipments, but if you're loading full of bauxite, gravel, or garbanzo beans, they're inefficient. The crane scoop thingy at about 1m11s looks to be about the size of a 20ft cargo container. Some ships and many ports have conveyor-belt doo-dads to unload bulk cargo. [Edit] These are "regular cargo ships". Container ships are the new kid on the block, dating from after the 1950s, IIRC.

I don't know if this is the reason but it'd take a lot longer to fill and stack then unstack and empty 200 containers than it does to fill one cavernous space. Then you still have to clean those containers just like they are cleaning the ship.

sghiassy 7y ago
I was thinking filling it would be faster, but unloading the sand they way they did, scoop by scoop, seemed like it’d be slower. Also, I was thinking that if they used containers they wouldn’t need to clean the ship (or at least not to food grade) since each cargo would be in its own compartment.
- tawm 7y ago
  The shipping industry offers a transportation service to its customers. In the bulk area, not leaving your customers to clean hundreds of containers is part of the service.

sneak 7y ago

Containers can’t hold liquids/powders/flowing things. They are only strong on the frame, not the side panels. This is also why you can’t bury them. You could load pallet-sized tubs and fill a container that way, but the overhead would be killer. I imagine for bulk it’s much faster/easier to treat it as an effective liquid/particulate than trying to containerize it. Plus, you’d increase the cleaning surface area exponentially if you had to clean each pallet-tub, plus transport all the tubs and sidewalls for no revenue.

mcguire 7y ago

For one thing, containers, the space between them, and the extra space inside them would take up a not-insignificant amount of space. They're great when you are dealing with a lot of smallish shipments, but if you're loading full of bauxite, gravel, or garbanzo beans, they're inefficient. The crane scoop thingy at about 1m11s looks to be about the size of a 20ft cargo container. Some ships and many ports have conveyor-belt doo-dads to unload bulk cargo. [Edit] These are "regular cargo ships". Container ships are the new kid on the block, dating from after the 1950s, IIRC.