That’s a lot of boxes over the side.
That is a large percent of the cargo lost… Most likely the small profit margin they allegedly make. Perhaps insurance can make up that, but not realized for years, if any.
Goods are usually sold FOB and ocean freight is transported at the shipper’s risk, not the carrier’s. Whether the shipper elects to insure the cargo often depends upon its value.
CIF (cost insurance and freight) sale terms are also common. The seller provides the goods, the insurance and the freight to the destination all built into the price of the goods. The seller assumes the risk of loss during transport or lays it off to insurance.
The carrier’s freight charges are traditionally earned as soon as the cargo is load, whether it ever gets there or not.
I doubt that this incident will cause the container line any significant financial loss.
3 Likes
Hope you are right sir.
In same ways it is simpler if the vessel sinks as far as the underwriters are concerned. Sorting out the General Average with all the other freight interests will offer employment for more than a few for a couple of years.
I don’t share the same interests as the underwriters.
Recently, I ordered a piece of living room furniture from a large, well-known US marketing company and this afternoon I received a box containing the merchandise. Now, an hour later, I feel it a shame that the piece of furniture, with its Chinese origin, that I ordered had not wound up as flotsam from an incident such as what ONE Apus experienced. Never would I wish for ill events to be experienced aboard a ship or to its crew, but in my case, if some crew member had opened up a container and tossed the box containing my purchase overboard, well…that action would have been A-OK with me. As the young crowd writes nowadays - just saying.
Yet another hurricane-force storm is forecast over the central North Pacific during the next 48-72 hours to produce winds of 50-70 knots and significant wave heights to 16 meters (about 52 ft). Maximum wind and wave conditions are expected along 40N Latitude.
1 Like
This is a typical case of crew negligence. Before loading the cargo plan must be checked and during loading all containers must be checked for weight, etc. And after loading it must be ascertained that all deck cargo and stacks of containers are secured and lashed as per instructions and rules, etc. All these tasks and responsibilities by junior officers must be double checked by the Master.
The solution is easy. Just arrest the Master and jail him until he confesses. And then condemn him to 10 years in prison. It will teach him a lesson.
A bit harsh solution, but agree lately situations have shown the lash down procedures have been lacking on followup. And, what they are lashing to is (Highlighted on this site) ,even in the newer ships is substandard or deteriorating. That kind of weather is no help at all either.
Insurance / Underwriters are bracing for major loss due to this incident:
I see rates going up for that route.
It’s under investigation and ten years imprisonment is a harsh, harsh sentence.
1 Like
With 20 stacks across with 8 boxes above the weather deck and with 12 bays aft of the bridge affected, we are talking about 1920 FEUs having shifted to starboard and some lost overboard. With average weight 20 tons and transverse shift 5 m, the heeling moment is 192 000 ton meters! The ship must be permanently heeling now. I assume the ship was slow speeding in the weather into the waves and then a rogue wave developed at 90° and the ship heeled, etc. Not the fault of the Master. Just heavy weather and bad luck. And nobody got killed.
They must have seen this one coming, with all the weather information available these days, already for some time. A vulnerable, pregnant with containers, ship should take evasive action at full speed to try to get out of the path of the center, treat it as a hurricane. But then may be they tried… You cannot hope to sail with a container ship through such a weather system with 15 meter waves without damage to the cargo.
1 Like
There will be a great deal of attention paid to the findings of this incident due to the costs involved. I can guarantee that the master was being advised by a weather routing company. What instructions have the companies given to the master concerning advice from the weather routing company that they engaged?
Comments regarding the duty mates supervision of cargo are laughable. The two junior mates are working watch and watch and trying to oversee 5 or more cranes working in different areas of the ship, and at night the only decent forms of illumination are under the cranes themselves. The rules that worked for me, working in uniform, in the sunshine, watching a sling of cargo coming onboard by union purchase, are long gone. They even stopped for lunch in my day.
Just before sailing from Shanghai the situation on a container ship is frenetic. Both the master and the mate buried under a tsunami of paperwork, one mate stumbling around the bridge testing the gear having been in the middle of 6 hours rest, the other trying to check the lashings.
Maybe the cost of this will result in a rethink on how we can improve the outcomes.
5 Likes
When the photo was taken, the list was serious - >15° and the weather was calm. Look at the horizon in the back. I wonder how the ship will get back.
The horizon in the photo has the same list the ship does.
2 Likes
Yes at the moment that picture was taken.
But is that a roll or permanent list?
Looks like some containers have fallen to port and some to Stbd.
Who knows where the missing containers were stowed? (P or S)
I don’t see much roll / list. Shot was taken at an angle. Look at the horizon.
3 Likes