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Random thoughts: - I'm somewhat astonished that a ship of this size can hit a storm this size and limp back to port despite losing 1,800 containers. - 1,800 c

Random thoughts: - I'm somewhat astonished that a ship of this size can hit a storm this size and limp back to port despite losing 1,800 containers. - 1,800 containers floating around in the ocean is going to be a major shipping hazard until they sink, which may take a while if the goods packed within are buoyant (eg. anything packed in styrofoam). - A friend used to work in the transshipping biz, and she said this kind of thing is why you buy insurance: odds are 99.99%+ your container will come through entirely unscathed, but if you hit the negative jackpot, everything will be completely gone. In 2013, the sinking of the MOL Comfort also meant the loss of 4,300 containers. https://gcaptain.com/mol-comfort-incident-photos/ https://gcaptain.com/mol-comfort-incident-photos/

hazbot 6y ago
I just shipped about £25,000 of personal effects - they wanted to charge me 5% for insurance! I’m really glad seeing the estimates for container loss in this thread that I decided to just wear the risk myself.
- stevekemp 6y ago
  I remember something similar - I moved from Scotland to Finland and we used a shipping container to move some of our stuff. Of course we sold/donated most things, and didn't try to transport furniture. We shipped 80cbft / 2.26 cubic meters of stuff. The price for removal was £570.00, and the price of insurance was £307.40. So in our case insurance was damn near 50% of the shipping price. (Quick edit: Found the actual emails so those numbers are correct.)
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    What would you estimate the value of the contents to be?
    - stevekemp 6y ago
      My memory would be £10,000-£15,000. Mostly it was sentimental stuff, I know we shipped cutlery, paintings, a very small number of books, clothing etc. But roughly speaking we'd got rid of anything and everything we could easily replace. (And it has to be said that the pair of us carried a few suitcases for our flights, we'd filled those with plants and other fragile items.)
      - Sunspark 6y ago
        Plants? Over an international border? :)
        tnli 6y ago
        EU, so it's easier.
        stevekemp 6y ago
        I was in a long-distance relationship with a Finnish woman for a few years. After a while she'd start packing/bringing a couple of small plants with her each time she visited. Nothing too exotic, just things like spider-plants and some indoor vines. She'd lightly-wrap them with newspaper and then stick them in the middle of her suitcase surrounded by clothes. So pretty much all the plants we took from Scotland to Finland were ones she'd already moved in the opposite direction a year or two earlier! I know some countries have restrictions on plants/animals and similar things, but it never seemed to be a concern for her travels.
        hvidgaard 6y ago
        This is heavily restricted to avoid importing invasive plants. It's often some innocent behaving plants that end up completely taking over in the wild.
        justinclift 6y ago
        Heh Heh Heh Don't do that if you visit Australia. They'll (for real) throw you in jail if you bring in plants or animals without a permit. ;) https://www.agriculture.gov.au/import/goods/plant-products/how-to-import-plants https://www.agriculture.gov.au/import/goods/plant-products/h...
  - octoberfranklin 6y ago
    > So in our case insurance was damn near 50% of the shipping price. How does that make any sense? The probability of loss is nowhere near 50%.
    - ornornor 6y ago
      50% of shipping fees isn’t 50% of insured value.
      - octoberfranklin 6y ago
        d'oh. I only pretend to know how to read.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - celticninja 6y ago
      Shipping price is not the price of the goods needing to be replaced. So if the goods were worth £25k then £300 is just over 1% which would seem more reasonable.
- bufferoverflow 6y ago
  5% is nuts. They don't lose 5% of goods.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    The house always wins. What did you expect? Insurance is for when a loss would be unacceptably big. And I guess there are more things that can go wrong than dumping cargo. Breaking in transit.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    When my parents moved from the UK to Nee Zealand all the valuable stuff went missing. This was some time ago but it seemed theft was endemic.
  - grecy 6y ago
    A buddy worked for a company that shipped many thousands of containers around the world each month. He said right around 10% of the containers are never seen again. Lost, stolen, overboard, whatever. That being said I've shipped my vehicles are few times and always just taken the risk. Most recently (in early 2019) I shipped from Egypt to Canada was quoted 1.5% of the value for insurance.
    - howlgarnish 6y ago
      10%!? That seems excessive. Were these containers packed with diamonds or something? PS. Love http://theroadchoseme.com http://theroadchoseme.com :)
      - grecy 6y ago
        He and I were shipping our vehicles together, and when we declined the insurance he told that story. awww, thanks ! :D
    - bufferoverflow 6y ago
- ponker 6y ago
  But given the “General Average” concept you could have received a bill for many times the value of what you shipped.
  - usrusr 6y ago
    Yes, if that mythical container full of iPhones full of bitcoins got tossed first everybody else would be screwed. If that was common the next step might be clients with particularly cheap wares bribing the captain to sacrifice their containers first.
    - lovecg 6y ago
      Which is great in theory, as everyone’s incentives align.
      - usrusr 6y ago
        Absolutely! It's a highly theoretical scenario, but it would be that one time when refusing bribery would almost be borderline unethical (but if course deliberately sacrificing the value crate before others unless paid would be definitely unethical, and deeply so).
  - wolfgang42 6y ago
    No, General Average is based on percentage of value, so the most you could have to pay is however much the stuff you were shipping was worth, if basically all the other cargo on board was lost except yours.
- usrusr 6y ago
  But is the insurance only for nautical loss or is it more an insurance policy about portside mistakes and "mistakes" that also happens to occasionally handle loss at sea?
- howlgarnish 6y ago
  Insurance is usually quite negotiable. In particular, instead of going for the "insure all the things" option the movers will heavily push on you, you can opt to nominate only select items and give them realistic valuations yourself.
- Trias11 6y ago
  I wonder if insurance companies bribe captains on occasions to throw overboard couple of uninsured containers to "make an example" out of people who think they don't need insurance and to "spread the word".
  - chipsa 6y ago
    Unlikely, if only because it's actually not easy to do that. You'd have to get the container placed at the edge of the ship when in dock, then get the locks on the container undone while underway, then either hope that the container gets washed overboard in a storm, and doesn't hit the ship on its way out, or get a couple guys to lever it off. Which is totally doable, except that a container can weigh 30 tons, and you've got the space between rows of containers to use for working in. Admittedly, if it's at the top of the column, its probably a lighter container. But it's still going to be heavy, with the crew working up in the air, in a relatively narrow area.
- Someone 6y ago
  I don’t know what the actual odds are and certainly can’t judge for you whether insurance is good for you, but your risk isn’t only container loss at sea. The container may be stolen, they may drop your container from a height of a meter, the ship may lists repeatedly for 40 degrees, your container may get flooded with seawater for a few hours, it may get misrouted and lost for half a year, etc.
  - jtbayly 6y ago
    Sure. There are lots of risks. But does the insurance policy actually cover those risks? Scaring people into buying insurance is a fun time, but it feels like half the time the things they scare you with aren't even covered.
    - that_guy_iain 6y ago
      If they're scaring you with something they'll cover it. I sold insurance for a tiny amount of time, they teach you all the loopholes and it's the loopholes is where they get you. An example and this is just an theoritcal example, if the container was routed around the world for 6 months then declared lost then it could be possible that the insurance would only cover being lost for 3 months after which the insurance expires.
porknubbins 6y ago
After seeing the film All is Lost with Robert Redford solo sailing around the world I have a deep visceral fear of partially submerged shipping containers. You could be sailing thousands of miles from shore and suddenly sinking.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Make sure your EPIRB batteries are fresh (and the device is tested) and your life raft is ready to be deployed, and you’ll be fine.
  - Tepix 6y ago
    Tell that to the dead crew member of TS5 Hallucine catamaran that went overboard during the collision with a UFO at night.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Preparedness doesn't translate into zero risk. You could die driving to pickup a coffee from your local coffee shop. You’re still going to go get that coffee. https://i.imgur.com/4uBqPmz.jpg https://i.imgur.com/4uBqPmz.jpg
  - HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
    There was a story a few days ago about someone who was somehow spotted clinging to his overturned boat by a containership crew about 90nm offshore. His EPIRB did not deploy for some reason. He tried swimming down to detach it, but couldn't get that deep. Yeah, I agree with you, but Chaos finds a way :-(
megablast 6y ago
Most containers sink.
- jeffrallen 6y ago
  Citation needed.
  - DenverCode 6y ago
    Not to whom you are responding to, but I spent years at sea and can confirm that they do in fact sink - some wash up on shore. Take it for what you will. Edit: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/med-taipei-shipping-container-study_n_5593719 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/med-taipei-shipping-container...
octoberfranklin 6y ago
> https://gcaptain.com/mol-comfort-incident-photos/ https://gcaptain.com/mol-comfort-incident-photos/ "The bow section was towed most of the way towards the Arabian Gulf, but eventually burst into flames and sank" So much awesome.
- mindcrime 6y ago
  So... the front fell off? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-QNAwUdHUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-QNAwUdHUQ

hazbot 6y ago

I just shipped about £25,000 of personal effects - they wanted to charge me 5% for insurance! I’m really glad seeing the estimates for container loss in this thread that I decided to just wear the risk myself.

stevekemp 6y ago
I remember something similar - I moved from Scotland to Finland and we used a shipping container to move some of our stuff. Of course we sold/donated most things, and didn't try to transport furniture. We shipped 80cbft / 2.26 cubic meters of stuff. The price for removal was £570.00, and the price of insurance was £307.40. So in our case insurance was damn near 50% of the shipping price. (Quick edit: Found the actual emails so those numbers are correct.)
- lostlogin 6y ago
  What would you estimate the value of the contents to be?
  - stevekemp 6y ago
    My memory would be £10,000-£15,000. Mostly it was sentimental stuff, I know we shipped cutlery, paintings, a very small number of books, clothing etc. But roughly speaking we'd got rid of anything and everything we could easily replace. (And it has to be said that the pair of us carried a few suitcases for our flights, we'd filled those with plants and other fragile items.)
    - Sunspark 6y ago
      Plants? Over an international border? :)
      - tnli 6y ago
        EU, so it's easier.
      - stevekemp 6y ago
        I was in a long-distance relationship with a Finnish woman for a few years. After a while she'd start packing/bringing a couple of small plants with her each time she visited. Nothing too exotic, just things like spider-plants and some indoor vines. She'd lightly-wrap them with newspaper and then stick them in the middle of her suitcase surrounded by clothes. So pretty much all the plants we took from Scotland to Finland were ones she'd already moved in the opposite direction a year or two earlier! I know some countries have restrictions on plants/animals and similar things, but it never seemed to be a concern for her travels.
        hvidgaard 6y ago
        This is heavily restricted to avoid importing invasive plants. It's often some innocent behaving plants that end up completely taking over in the wild.
        justinclift 6y ago
        Heh Heh Heh Don't do that if you visit Australia. They'll (for real) throw you in jail if you bring in plants or animals without a permit. ;) https://www.agriculture.gov.au/import/goods/plant-products/how-to-import-plants https://www.agriculture.gov.au/import/goods/plant-products/h...
- octoberfranklin 6y ago
  > So in our case insurance was damn near 50% of the shipping price. How does that make any sense? The probability of loss is nowhere near 50%.
  - ornornor 6y ago
    50% of shipping fees isn’t 50% of insured value.
    - octoberfranklin 6y ago
      d'oh. I only pretend to know how to read.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - celticninja 6y ago
    Shipping price is not the price of the goods needing to be replaced. So if the goods were worth £25k then £300 is just over 1% which would seem more reasonable.
bufferoverflow 6y ago
5% is nuts. They don't lose 5% of goods.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- im3w1l 6y ago
  The house always wins. What did you expect? Insurance is for when a loss would be unacceptably big. And I guess there are more things that can go wrong than dumping cargo. Breaking in transit.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  When my parents moved from the UK to Nee Zealand all the valuable stuff went missing. This was some time ago but it seemed theft was endemic.
- grecy 6y ago
  A buddy worked for a company that shipped many thousands of containers around the world each month. He said right around 10% of the containers are never seen again. Lost, stolen, overboard, whatever. That being said I've shipped my vehicles are few times and always just taken the risk. Most recently (in early 2019) I shipped from Egypt to Canada was quoted 1.5% of the value for insurance.
  - howlgarnish 6y ago
    10%!? That seems excessive. Were these containers packed with diamonds or something? PS. Love http://theroadchoseme.com http://theroadchoseme.com :)
    - grecy 6y ago
      He and I were shipping our vehicles together, and when we declined the insurance he told that story. awww, thanks ! :D
  - bufferoverflow 6y ago
ponker 6y ago
But given the “General Average” concept you could have received a bill for many times the value of what you shipped.
- usrusr 6y ago
  Yes, if that mythical container full of iPhones full of bitcoins got tossed first everybody else would be screwed. If that was common the next step might be clients with particularly cheap wares bribing the captain to sacrifice their containers first.
  - lovecg 6y ago
    Which is great in theory, as everyone’s incentives align.
    - usrusr 6y ago
      Absolutely! It's a highly theoretical scenario, but it would be that one time when refusing bribery would almost be borderline unethical (but if course deliberately sacrificing the value crate before others unless paid would be definitely unethical, and deeply so).
- wolfgang42 6y ago
  No, General Average is based on percentage of value, so the most you could have to pay is however much the stuff you were shipping was worth, if basically all the other cargo on board was lost except yours.
usrusr 6y ago
But is the insurance only for nautical loss or is it more an insurance policy about portside mistakes and "mistakes" that also happens to occasionally handle loss at sea?
howlgarnish 6y ago
Insurance is usually quite negotiable. In particular, instead of going for the "insure all the things" option the movers will heavily push on you, you can opt to nominate only select items and give them realistic valuations yourself.
Trias11 6y ago
I wonder if insurance companies bribe captains on occasions to throw overboard couple of uninsured containers to "make an example" out of people who think they don't need insurance and to "spread the word".
- chipsa 6y ago
  Unlikely, if only because it's actually not easy to do that. You'd have to get the container placed at the edge of the ship when in dock, then get the locks on the container undone while underway, then either hope that the container gets washed overboard in a storm, and doesn't hit the ship on its way out, or get a couple guys to lever it off. Which is totally doable, except that a container can weigh 30 tons, and you've got the space between rows of containers to use for working in. Admittedly, if it's at the top of the column, its probably a lighter container. But it's still going to be heavy, with the crew working up in the air, in a relatively narrow area.
Someone 6y ago
I don’t know what the actual odds are and certainly can’t judge for you whether insurance is good for you, but your risk isn’t only container loss at sea. The container may be stolen, they may drop your container from a height of a meter, the ship may lists repeatedly for 40 degrees, your container may get flooded with seawater for a few hours, it may get misrouted and lost for half a year, etc.
- jtbayly 6y ago
  Sure. There are lots of risks. But does the insurance policy actually cover those risks? Scaring people into buying insurance is a fun time, but it feels like half the time the things they scare you with aren't even covered.
  - that_guy_iain 6y ago
    If they're scaring you with something they'll cover it. I sold insurance for a tiny amount of time, they teach you all the loopholes and it's the loopholes is where they get you. An example and this is just an theoritcal example, if the container was routed around the world for 6 months then declared lost then it could be possible that the insurance would only cover being lost for 3 months after which the insurance expires.

porknubbins 6y ago

After seeing the film All is Lost with Robert Redford solo sailing around the world I have a deep visceral fear of partially submerged shipping containers. You could be sailing thousands of miles from shore and suddenly sinking.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Make sure your EPIRB batteries are fresh (and the device is tested) and your life raft is ready to be deployed, and you’ll be fine.
- Tepix 6y ago
  Tell that to the dead crew member of TS5 Hallucine catamaran that went overboard during the collision with a UFO at night.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Preparedness doesn't translate into zero risk. You could die driving to pickup a coffee from your local coffee shop. You’re still going to go get that coffee. https://i.imgur.com/4uBqPmz.jpg https://i.imgur.com/4uBqPmz.jpg
- HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
  There was a story a few days ago about someone who was somehow spotted clinging to his overturned boat by a containership crew about 90nm offshore. His EPIRB did not deploy for some reason. He tried swimming down to detach it, but couldn't get that deep. Yeah, I agree with you, but Chaos finds a way :-(

megablast 6y ago

Most containers sink.

jeffrallen 6y ago
Citation needed.
- DenverCode 6y ago
  Not to whom you are responding to, but I spent years at sea and can confirm that they do in fact sink - some wash up on shore. Take it for what you will. Edit: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/med-taipei-shipping-container-study_n_5593719 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/med-taipei-shipping-container...

octoberfranklin 6y ago

> https://gcaptain.com/mol-comfort-incident-photos/ https://gcaptain.com/mol-comfort-incident-photos/ "The bow section was towed most of the way towards the Arabian Gulf, but eventually burst into flames and sank" So much awesome.

mindcrime 6y ago
So... the front fell off? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-QNAwUdHUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-QNAwUdHUQ