A cargo ship from
A. P. Möller-Maersk
A / S lost hundreds of containers in the Pacific Ocean while sailing through heavy seas from China to Los Angeles. This was the most recent event in which boxes of millions of dollars worth of goods went overboard.
The company said that Maersk Essen, with a capacity of more than 13,000 containers, was about halfway through on January 16 transpacific voyage from the Chinese port of Xiamen lost an estimated 750 containers.
« All crew members are safe and a detailed cargo assessment will be carried out while the ship continues its voyage, » Maersk said in a statement Thursday. “The US Coast Guard, the flag state and the appropriate authorities have been notified. We view this as a very serious situation which will be promptly and thoroughly investigated. “A.P. Möller-Maersk is based in Copenhagen and the ship carries a Danish flag.
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Several container ships have lost large numbers of boxes overboard in the past few months after the number of accidents has decreased, according to representatives of the maritime industry.
The One Apus container ship, owned by Singapore-based Ocean Network Express, lost around 2,000 boxes in November when it stormed off Hawaii to Long Beach, California en route from Yantian, China. The ship eventually sailed to Kobe, Japan, with hundreds of overturned containers sitting precariously on board, and remains there for repairs and an investigation into the cause of the incident.
Those involved in the investigation said that insurance claims of the One Apus could reach more than $ 220 million.
The loss of boxes in inclement weather is relatively rare, but incidents have increased this winter, particularly in the Pacific.
Earlier this month, 76 containers fell from a ship of the Israeli ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. on the way from South Korea to North America. On December 31, one of Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corp. Ltd. managed boxing ship around 40 containers off the coast of Japan on its way across the Pacific.
Engineers involved in the probes state that they are investigating typical causes such as failures in lashing systems that hold the containers together. However, as ships get larger and containers are stacked high as multi-story buildings, pitching and rolling can put more pressure on the stability of a ship.
« It is known as parametric rolling and can occur when waves are not head-on but at an angle The ship moves in sync with the waves, which, combined with the ship’s normal inclination when steaming, can displace the cargo, « said Fotis Pagoulatos, an Athens-based naval architect.
According to maritime officials, ship operators are checking Installation of sensors that could issue warnings about sea conditions to avoid parametric rolling.
« The higher you stack the boxes on deck, the greater the forces they are exposed to when the ship is in waves emotional. That could be a factor, especially since the recent boom in demand has caused all ships to be filled to the brim, « he said
Lars Jensen,
Managing Director of SeaIntelligence Consulting, based in Denmark.
Yiannis Sgouras, an experienced Greek captain, said the threat could come without warning, even if the waves weren’t very high. « If you don’t catch it early and change course, the ship can roll back and forth as it steams forward and things topple over, » he said.
Marine insurance executives have said in the past two months Around 3,000 containers were lost at sea.
The World Shipping Council, a Washington-based trade organization representing liner companies, said in a report last July that an average of 1,382 containers were lost at sea each year between 2008 and 2019 .
Ref: https://www.wsj.com
