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Maersk Ship Loses 750 Containers Overboard in Pacific Ocean

wsj.com

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Re: Maersk Ship Loses 750 Containers Overboard in Pacific Ocean

#11

Post by burntoutfire »

pbalau wrote: post #9
dzhiurgis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So thats about 5% of the total. Largest ones reach nearly 24k. Loosing a few is negligible.

Hitting a container is not that negligible. Vendee Globe had a number of UFO causalities, with a number of boats having to retire, one even breaking in half and sinking (the skipper was saved by one of the other competitors). There is the Jules Verne Trophy going on right now, hitting a container at 40 knots is not going to be pretty and these guys have no support boats around to help (the JVT is a single boat trying…

How do these containers float? Are they sealed so well that no water gets inside?

Re: Maersk Ship Loses 750 Containers Overboard in Pacific Ocean

#12

Post by chewz »

burntoutfire wrote: post #11
pbalau wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitting a container is not that negligible. Vendee Globe had a number of UFO causalities, with a number of boats having to retire, one even breaking in half and sinking (the skipper was saved by one of the other competitors). There is the Jules Verne Trophy going on right now, hitting a container at 40 knots is not going to be pretty and these guys have no support boats around to help (the JVT is a single boat trying…

How do these containers float? Are they sealed so well that no water gets inside?

A container can float up to two weeks - it is almost invisible in the dark or on the radar so a ranger to small boats or yachts...

Re: Maersk Ship Loses 750 Containers Overboard in Pacific Ocean

#13

Post by dzhiurgis »

pbalau wrote: post #9
dzhiurgis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So thats about 5% of the total. Largest ones reach nearly 24k. Loosing a few is negligible.

Hitting a container is not that negligible. Vendee Globe had a number of UFO causalities, with a number of boats having to retire, one even breaking in half and sinking (the skipper was saved by one of the other competitors). There is the Jules Verne Trophy going on right now, hitting a container at 40 knots is not going to be pretty and these guys have no support boats around to help (the JVT is a single boat trying…

After Alex had to retire Le Cam is what I vouch for. Amazing race.

That said did any of the participants reported hitting container yet? AFAIK all of their autopilots are equiped deep learning AI infrared cameras for this very reason.

Re: Maersk Ship Loses 750 Containers Overboard in Pacific Ocean

#14

Post by bigwavedave »

cagataygurturk wrote: post #3

Probably they lost empty containers.

> "Probably they lost empty containers." Why "probably"? The article mentions millions of dollars in cargo and that they haven't even finished doing a full inventory manifest check yet. Are empty containers more likely to be lost overboard? Genuine question, I know nothing about cargo ships.

Re: Maersk Ship Loses 750 Containers Overboard in Pacific Ocean

#15

Post by pbalau »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #13
pbalau wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitting a container is not that negligible. Vendee Globe had a number of UFO causalities, with a number of boats having to retire, one even breaking in half and sinking (the skipper was saved by one of the other competitors). There is the Jules Verne Trophy going on right now, hitting a container at 40 knots is not going to be pretty and these guys have no support boats around to help (the JVT is a single boat trying…

After Alex had to retire Le Cam is what I vouch for. Amazing race. That said did any of the participants reported hitting container yet? AFAIK all of their autopilots are equiped deep learning AI infrared cameras for this very reason.

They said most hit ufos. Adding more containers to the sea is definitely not going to help with this problem. Since they still hit things, the infrared magic cameras don't seem to work that well.

Re: Maersk Ship Loses 750 Containers Overboard in Pacific Ocean

#16

Post by cagataygurturk »

bigwavedave wrote: post #14
cagataygurturk wrote: post #3

Probably they lost empty containers.

> "Probably they lost empty containers." Why "probably"? The article mentions millions of dollars in cargo and that they haven't even finished doing a full inventory manifest check yet. Are empty containers more likely to be lost overboard? Genuine question, I know nothing about cargo ships.

To pull the centre of weight to the bottom, typically overboard space is used only for empty containers in cargo ships. Otherwise it is very very challenging to keep the vessel stable. Actually mostly impossible.

You might ask why they even carry empty containers, it is because not every loaded container goes back to its source location with other type of goods and cargo ships should always carry empty containers to solve one of the most challenging problems of the industry, which is called „empty container repositioning“. Cargo traffic across different locations of the world is not perfectly balanced. So, for example Chinese should get some empty containers back to load them back and send to Western world :)

Source: I am a Naval Architect by education and worked at cargo ship design and construction for a while.

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