9 ms·

Shipping Containers Plunge Overboard as Supply Race Raises Risks

50 points by ystad 5y ago

nickthemagicman 5y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26987097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26987097
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
karlkloss 5y ago
"millions of dollars of cargo sinking to the bottom of the ocean" If only that were true. Many containers are too light to sink to the bottom, instead they float slightly above or below the surface, posing a tremendious danger to smaller boats. And some of them float for years.
- Tade0 5y ago
  IIRC they do that at their maximum gross weight as well, so an immediately sinking container would be very suspicious. Then again I don't know how watertight these things are, because I've only ever seen decommissioned ones from the inside.
  - macmac 5y ago
    They often stay floating for months.
- stevecat 5y ago
  All Is Lost[1] follows Robert Redford after a floating shipping container crashes into his yacht. It's very good but a rather harrowing film! [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2017038/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2017038/
  - bbarnett 5y ago
    An interesting part is, he essentially does not speak in the film. Perhaps 3 sentences after it starts, all in a brief 1 minute period. Yet it plays well, and I think really shows off his talent. I'm not sure many other actors could handle such a role.
  - mauvehaus 5y ago
    If you want a true account of survival at sea, I highly recommend Adrift [0] (the book, not the movie). The author's boat was holed by a collision with an unknown object, which he suspected to be a whale, but was unable to confirm. He then proceeded to spend 76 days surviving in an inflatable life raft. I suspect it influenced the premise and plot of the movie somewhat. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrift:_Seventy-six_Days_Lost_at_Sea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrift:_Seventy-six_Days_Los...
- rhn_mk1 5y ago
  Is anyone trying to fish them out?
mothsonasloth 5y ago
In Scotland we have a saying, "fallen off the back of a lorry (truck)", for when you go to a market and you see an expensive new product going cheap. Which has most likely been stolen. Maybe we will start seeing "fallen off a ship" goods soon.
- Netcob 5y ago
  "Can I interest you in this RTX 3080 for an unbeatable $1000?" "That sounds too good to be true! Is that... saltwater corrosion?" "Dissolved salt is an electrolyte, which means it's good for electronics"
- macmac 5y ago
  Unfortunately not many goods survive the experience.
  - Netcob 5y ago
    If it wasn't for this, where would beach-goers get their classic Garfield phones from?
- DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
  > In Scotland we have a saying, "fallen off the back of a lorry (truck)" Aye, I'll take it no questions asked if it's Ion bru https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i5W5s7LiMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i5W5s7LiMk
  - mnw21cam 5y ago
    Irn Bru. The drink that lists caffeine under "flavourings".
    - FridayoLeary 5y ago
      also, it looks more like the liquid they use in glow sticks then a soft drink. I'm not sure how they sneaked the food colouring past the regulators, maybe they gave them some whisky first...
wiz21c 5y ago
I am quite surprised that these containers are considered "lost". Aren't they any obligation for the shipping companies to recover those containers ?
- FridayoLeary 5y ago
  How do you propose they do that? They can't exactly send a boat round to salvage several hundre feu's at 5 miles depth. I imagine it would need coordination from a large number of highly specialized submersibles, mother boats and logistic support to even attempt salvaging one container. (edit: i just saw another comment which said containers float. but still, imagine a huge ship with a gigantic claw crane, powering along, chasing dozens of container bobbing along, adrift in the ocean. Not happening.)
  - jon-wood 5y ago
    And then imagine that on seas with 10ft waves, because you don't have containers falling off a ship in good weather.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
    put a wirelessly charged GPS tracker in the shell of each container.
    - FridayoLeary 5y ago
      That sounds like a logistical nightmare. Anyway, knowing exactly where the container is wont help much if its resting on the seabed miles down, or even if it's floating in the middle of the pacific ocean.
      - Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
        We have an ongoing, worldwide, unemployment crisis. Let's put people to work cleaning up the messes big corporations make, on their dime.
macmac 5y ago
Looking at the graphs and knowing how much they are affected by any one major casualty I don't find the hypothesis that many more boxes are being lost due to vessels operating at capacity very well documented.
- ppf 5y ago
  The idea that "weather is increasingly unpredictable" is also presented as a fact.
  - estaseuropano 5y ago
    That is an established fact with lots of scientific backing that at this stage really shouldn't need any citations each time it is mentioned. Whether there is any proof that that really impacts container loss would be another question though.
    - ppf 5y ago
      Humour me. It's certainly a recent scientific fact, if so.
      - Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
        Is Yale a credible enough source for your curiosities? https://e360.yale.edu/digest/extreme-weather-events-have-increased-significantly-in-the-last-20-years https://e360.yale.edu/digest/extreme-weather-events-have-inc... If that's too recent for you the increase of extreme weather events as a consequence of fossil fuel induced climate change is explicitly stated by the world meteorological organisation back in 2009. https://public.wmo.int/en/bulletin/weather-and-climate-change-implications-surface-transportation-usa https://public.wmo.int/en/bulletin/weather-and-climate-chang... Shell oil admitted they knew this back in 1991 and made a video about it. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/28/shell-knew-oil-giants-1991-film-warned-climate-change-danger https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/28/shell-kn... I can keep going, shell knew back in 1980. https://mashable.com/2018/04/05/shell-knew-truth-on-global-warming-1980s/ https://mashable.com/2018/04/05/shell-knew-truth-on-global-w... The fact that Climate change causes an increase in extreme weather events is common knowledge, or should be. Many people on this site have grown up learning about this in school. Though I can't speak for the quality of education that everyone in some unscientific states have recieved. However, the science is irrefutable.
thathndude 5y ago
The thought of all of those containers (containing who knows what) falling into the ocean feels so gross from a pollution standpoint. Batteries, harsh chemicals - just dissolving into the sea water. Bleh
- w0utert 5y ago
  It's even worse when they fall off close to shore. Last year a small number of containers (around 5 I think) fell off a ship not far north of the Netherlands, close to a very vulnerable and quite rare ecosystem of small islands and tidal plates that are partially submerged during high tide. It's a home for all kinds sea life, birds, a resting area for migrating birds, etc. Some of these containers apparently had stuff like small plastic beads in them, hundreds of thousands of them, which somehow escaped from the container and washed down on the shore. You can imagine how impossible it is to ever clean this up, and what the risk is to wildlife...
  - thathndude 5y ago
    I feel like caring about things like this and prioritizing care for the environment should be one of those few things we all can agree needs to be addressed immediately. Sadly, it isn’t.
- wffurr 5y ago
  That is some of the least bad stuff lost in the ocean. Centuries of sewage. Sunken ships, including nuclear submarines. Unexploded bombs. Chemical weapons. Nuclear waste.
jopsen 5y ago
Seems like something shopping companies will want to solve.. if a row of containers on the ship has tilted I'm guessing it'll take a lot of extra work to safely unload the ship too.
eCa 5y ago
So of the circa 3000 containers going overboard last year, 1800 was due to one incident. Containers going overboard is of course a serious issue, but reporting this as ”most in seven years” and as some sort of trend is simply not serious reporting.
- FridayoLeary 5y ago
  likewise, reporting tiny sample sizes (i.e <25) as percentages.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
matkoniecz 5y ago
Note that majority seems to be caused by large accidents - 1800 from "One Apus" vs around 3000 for entire 2020. Spike in 2013 with almost 6000? 4 293 are from sinking of "MOL Comfort". I wonder whether tiny losses are not reported. Is it possible to lose 1 or 2 containers without triggering runaway losses?
- tallanvor 5y ago
  Any loses will be reported, it's just that when a ship gets into bad enough weather to lose one or two containers, it's very unlikely that's all they'll lose, and the higher they stack the crates, the less swaying that has to happen to have containers start falling off.
jrs235 5y ago
Possible [Topic] Dupe? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26987097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26987097
flarg 5y ago
Shipping containers should be boyant, water tight and include a robotic system to propel them to the nearest landing point, like box shaped fish.
- cube00 5y ago
  Not sure I'd like to be on board the ship that finds itself sailing through the area where 1800 box shaped fish are heading towards land.
cube00 5y ago
> That can happen when there’s incorrect weightings on the bills of lading for containers, which many in the industry say happens too often. 32 years since the San Bernardino train disaster[1] and we still can't get an accurate weight or at least assume the containers are carrying their maximum allowable weight. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bernardino_train_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bernardino_train_disaster
- omosubi 5y ago
  Why aren't they weighed at ports? Too expensive I'm guessing?
- nherment 5y ago
  I don't think that's accurate. VGM[1] has been put in place in 2016 to improve safety. Liners reported high compliance shortly after adoption [2] and [3]. This reporting of self-compliance should of course be taken with a grain of salt. In addition, as the article mentions, the loss of 3000 containers in 2020 should be compared to the 220+ million shipped each year (2019) [4]. That is less than 0.0014%. I'm not saying it's not a problem but am merely pointing out that progress is being made with regards to weighing containers. [1] https://www.aitworldwide.com/what-is-vgm-or-verified-gross-mass https://www.aitworldwide.com/what-is-vgm-or-verified-gross-m... [2] https://www.bifa.org/news/articles/2016/sep/container-lines-report-95-vgm-compliance-rate https://www.bifa.org/news/articles/2016/sep/container-lines-... [3] https://www.msc.com/fra/agency-news/2016-july/100-vgm-compliance-says-msc?lang=it-it https://www.msc.com/fra/agency-news/2016-july/100-vgm-compli... [4] https://www.bifa.org/news/articles/2020/jul/containers-lost-at-sea-2020-update https://www.bifa.org/news/articles/2020/jul/containers-lost-...

50 points by ystad 5y ago

nickthemagicman 5y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26987097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26987097

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

karlkloss 5y ago

"millions of dollars of cargo sinking to the bottom of the ocean" If only that were true. Many containers are too light to sink to the bottom, instead they float slightly above or below the surface, posing a tremendious danger to smaller boats. And some of them float for years.

Tade0 5y ago
IIRC they do that at their maximum gross weight as well, so an immediately sinking container would be very suspicious. Then again I don't know how watertight these things are, because I've only ever seen decommissioned ones from the inside.
- macmac 5y ago
  They often stay floating for months.
stevecat 5y ago
All Is Lost[1] follows Robert Redford after a floating shipping container crashes into his yacht. It's very good but a rather harrowing film! [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2017038/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2017038/
- bbarnett 5y ago
  An interesting part is, he essentially does not speak in the film. Perhaps 3 sentences after it starts, all in a brief 1 minute period. Yet it plays well, and I think really shows off his talent. I'm not sure many other actors could handle such a role.
- mauvehaus 5y ago
  If you want a true account of survival at sea, I highly recommend Adrift [0] (the book, not the movie). The author's boat was holed by a collision with an unknown object, which he suspected to be a whale, but was unable to confirm. He then proceeded to spend 76 days surviving in an inflatable life raft. I suspect it influenced the premise and plot of the movie somewhat. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrift:_Seventy-six_Days_Lost_at_Sea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrift:_Seventy-six_Days_Los...
rhn_mk1 5y ago
Is anyone trying to fish them out?

mothsonasloth 5y ago

In Scotland we have a saying, "fallen off the back of a lorry (truck)", for when you go to a market and you see an expensive new product going cheap. Which has most likely been stolen. Maybe we will start seeing "fallen off a ship" goods soon.

Netcob 5y ago
"Can I interest you in this RTX 3080 for an unbeatable $1000?" "That sounds too good to be true! Is that... saltwater corrosion?" "Dissolved salt is an electrolyte, which means it's good for electronics"
macmac 5y ago
Unfortunately not many goods survive the experience.
- Netcob 5y ago
  If it wasn't for this, where would beach-goers get their classic Garfield phones from?
DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
> In Scotland we have a saying, "fallen off the back of a lorry (truck)" Aye, I'll take it no questions asked if it's Ion bru https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i5W5s7LiMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i5W5s7LiMk
- mnw21cam 5y ago
  Irn Bru. The drink that lists caffeine under "flavourings".
  - FridayoLeary 5y ago
    also, it looks more like the liquid they use in glow sticks then a soft drink. I'm not sure how they sneaked the food colouring past the regulators, maybe they gave them some whisky first...

wiz21c 5y ago

I am quite surprised that these containers are considered "lost". Aren't they any obligation for the shipping companies to recover those containers ?

FridayoLeary 5y ago
How do you propose they do that? They can't exactly send a boat round to salvage several hundre feu's at 5 miles depth. I imagine it would need coordination from a large number of highly specialized submersibles, mother boats and logistic support to even attempt salvaging one container. (edit: i just saw another comment which said containers float. but still, imagine a huge ship with a gigantic claw crane, powering along, chasing dozens of container bobbing along, adrift in the ocean. Not happening.)
- jon-wood 5y ago
  And then imagine that on seas with 10ft waves, because you don't have containers falling off a ship in good weather.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
  put a wirelessly charged GPS tracker in the shell of each container.
  - FridayoLeary 5y ago
    That sounds like a logistical nightmare. Anyway, knowing exactly where the container is wont help much if its resting on the seabed miles down, or even if it's floating in the middle of the pacific ocean.
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
      We have an ongoing, worldwide, unemployment crisis. Let's put people to work cleaning up the messes big corporations make, on their dime.

macmac 5y ago

Looking at the graphs and knowing how much they are affected by any one major casualty I don't find the hypothesis that many more boxes are being lost due to vessels operating at capacity very well documented.

ppf 5y ago
The idea that "weather is increasingly unpredictable" is also presented as a fact.
- estaseuropano 5y ago
  That is an established fact with lots of scientific backing that at this stage really shouldn't need any citations each time it is mentioned. Whether there is any proof that that really impacts container loss would be another question though.
  - ppf 5y ago
    Humour me. It's certainly a recent scientific fact, if so.
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
      Is Yale a credible enough source for your curiosities? https://e360.yale.edu/digest/extreme-weather-events-have-increased-significantly-in-the-last-20-years https://e360.yale.edu/digest/extreme-weather-events-have-inc... If that's too recent for you the increase of extreme weather events as a consequence of fossil fuel induced climate change is explicitly stated by the world meteorological organisation back in 2009. https://public.wmo.int/en/bulletin/weather-and-climate-change-implications-surface-transportation-usa https://public.wmo.int/en/bulletin/weather-and-climate-chang... Shell oil admitted they knew this back in 1991 and made a video about it. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/28/shell-knew-oil-giants-1991-film-warned-climate-change-danger https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/28/shell-kn... I can keep going, shell knew back in 1980. https://mashable.com/2018/04/05/shell-knew-truth-on-global-warming-1980s/ https://mashable.com/2018/04/05/shell-knew-truth-on-global-w... The fact that Climate change causes an increase in extreme weather events is common knowledge, or should be. Many people on this site have grown up learning about this in school. Though I can't speak for the quality of education that everyone in some unscientific states have recieved. However, the science is irrefutable.

thathndude 5y ago

The thought of all of those containers (containing who knows what) falling into the ocean feels so gross from a pollution standpoint. Batteries, harsh chemicals - just dissolving into the sea water. Bleh

w0utert 5y ago
It's even worse when they fall off close to shore. Last year a small number of containers (around 5 I think) fell off a ship not far north of the Netherlands, close to a very vulnerable and quite rare ecosystem of small islands and tidal plates that are partially submerged during high tide. It's a home for all kinds sea life, birds, a resting area for migrating birds, etc. Some of these containers apparently had stuff like small plastic beads in them, hundreds of thousands of them, which somehow escaped from the container and washed down on the shore. You can imagine how impossible it is to ever clean this up, and what the risk is to wildlife...
- thathndude 5y ago
  I feel like caring about things like this and prioritizing care for the environment should be one of those few things we all can agree needs to be addressed immediately. Sadly, it isn’t.
wffurr 5y ago
That is some of the least bad stuff lost in the ocean. Centuries of sewage. Sunken ships, including nuclear submarines. Unexploded bombs. Chemical weapons. Nuclear waste.

jopsen 5y ago

Seems like something shopping companies will want to solve.. if a row of containers on the ship has tilted I'm guessing it'll take a lot of extra work to safely unload the ship too.

eCa 5y ago

So of the circa 3000 containers going overboard last year, 1800 was due to one incident. Containers going overboard is of course a serious issue, but reporting this as ”most in seven years” and as some sort of trend is simply not serious reporting.

FridayoLeary 5y ago
likewise, reporting tiny sample sizes (i.e <25) as percentages.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

matkoniecz 5y ago

Note that majority seems to be caused by large accidents - 1800 from "One Apus" vs around 3000 for entire 2020. Spike in 2013 with almost 6000? 4 293 are from sinking of "MOL Comfort". I wonder whether tiny losses are not reported. Is it possible to lose 1 or 2 containers without triggering runaway losses?

tallanvor 5y ago
Any loses will be reported, it's just that when a ship gets into bad enough weather to lose one or two containers, it's very unlikely that's all they'll lose, and the higher they stack the crates, the less swaying that has to happen to have containers start falling off.

jrs235 5y ago

Possible [Topic] Dupe? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26987097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26987097

flarg 5y ago

Shipping containers should be boyant, water tight and include a robotic system to propel them to the nearest landing point, like box shaped fish.

cube00 5y ago
Not sure I'd like to be on board the ship that finds itself sailing through the area where 1800 box shaped fish are heading towards land.

cube00 5y ago

> That can happen when there’s incorrect weightings on the bills of lading for containers, which many in the industry say happens too often. 32 years since the San Bernardino train disaster[1] and we still can't get an accurate weight or at least assume the containers are carrying their maximum allowable weight. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bernardino_train_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bernardino_train_disaster

omosubi 5y ago
Why aren't they weighed at ports? Too expensive I'm guessing?
nherment 5y ago
I don't think that's accurate. VGM[1] has been put in place in 2016 to improve safety. Liners reported high compliance shortly after adoption [2] and [3]. This reporting of self-compliance should of course be taken with a grain of salt. In addition, as the article mentions, the loss of 3000 containers in 2020 should be compared to the 220+ million shipped each year (2019) [4]. That is less than 0.0014%. I'm not saying it's not a problem but am merely pointing out that progress is being made with regards to weighing containers. [1] https://www.aitworldwide.com/what-is-vgm-or-verified-gross-mass https://www.aitworldwide.com/what-is-vgm-or-verified-gross-m... [2] https://www.bifa.org/news/articles/2016/sep/container-lines-report-95-vgm-compliance-rate https://www.bifa.org/news/articles/2016/sep/container-lines-... [3] https://www.msc.com/fra/agency-news/2016-july/100-vgm-compliance-says-msc?lang=it-it https://www.msc.com/fra/agency-news/2016-july/100-vgm-compli... [4] https://www.bifa.org/news/articles/2020/jul/containers-lost-at-sea-2020-update https://www.bifa.org/news/articles/2020/jul/containers-lost-...