Shipping Containers Lost At Sea

[SemiSalt]

Sometimes sailors blame damage incurred at sea on a half-submerged shipping container. I've seen estimates of the number of shipping containers as high as 10,000 per year. Reasonable? Some people have tried counting.

http://gcaptain.com/how-many-shipping-c ... st-at-sea/

http://www.southernfriedscience.com/bus ... st-at-sea/

Between 2008 and 2013, and excluding these two maritime disasters, an average of 546 containers were lost at sea. When Comfort and Rena are added to the equation, that number climbs to 1,679 containers per year. The MOL Comfort, which broke in half on June 17, 2013 and subsequently sunk during a prolonged attempt to recover her stern, was the worst container ship disaster in history: 4,293 containers were lost in a single incident. The MV Rena grounded on a reef of the New Zealand coast in late 2011, spilling 900 containers over the side.

Even with these two maritime tragedies, the number of containers lost at sea each year come nowhere close to 10,000. When you consider that roughly 120 million containers were moved across the ocean in 2013, 1,679 lost containers per year seems positively minuscule.

[kimbottles]

?..............1,679 lost containers per year seems positively minuscule.[/i]

Until you hit one............

[BeauV]

?..............1,679 lost containers per year seems positively minuscule.[/i]

Until you hit one............

It's my understanding that of the containers lost, the majority go to the bottom. It's those filled with things that float which are a problem.

[SemiSalt]

I saw a report just this week about a container said to be full of cigarettes that washed ashore on a beach somewhere. I doubt that soggy cigs would float a steel box, so the must have been in waterproof packaging.

[floating dutchman]

I saw a report just this week about a container said to be full of cigarettes that washed ashore on a beach somewhere. I doubt that soggy cigs would float a steel box, so the must have been in waterproof packaging.

Smokes are sold in airtight wrapping, stops the tabaco from drying out, seems logical to me that a dry smokes would float a steel box.
In fact I could see that a lot of products would float a container, think dried goods like noodles and plastic toys that could hold air for some time.

[LarryHoward]

I saw a report just this week about a container said to be full of cigarettes that washed ashore on a beach somewhere. I doubt that soggy cigs would float a steel box, so the must have been in waterproof packaging.

Smokes are sold in airtight wrapping, stops the tabaco from drying out, seems logical to me that a dry smokes would float a steel box.
In fact I could see that a lot of products would float a container, think dried goods like noodles and plastic toys that could hold air for some time.

IIRC, I read somewhere (maybe GCaptain) that newer containers have scuttling vents of some sort so that they should sink in a fairly rapid manner. That should only leave buoyant cargo to keep containers afloat. I guess it doesn't matter if you hit a container full of steel or one full of ping pong balls. It's gonna hurt.

[Rasp]

I ran across a cargo of cheap plastic shoes that were mostly flip-flops and jelly sandals that just about covered one side of a small deserted cay in the Caribbean. Not sure if they had ever been in a container, probably just some tramp Island cargo sloop that went down. Some real hulks still plying the trade down there. Out of thousands of shoes on that beach you would think I could find a pair in my size. No way. I could find pairs of the same shoe in my size but always in two lefts or two rights! Just defied the odds...

[justinkelleher]

I missed one by about 20 feet one night in Bass Straight, 1989. 45 knots of breeze and serious wave conditions. Was absolute luck I saw it. No one would have heard us scream.