Thanks a lot. The ship was undamaged and returning to Kobe after the lost deck cargo incident. No risk to sink, etc. No General Average. But plenty deck cargo had shifted or got lost. The question is how deck cargo FEU twist locks and lashing bars were damaged to allow this. Did the twist locks shear off due to longitudinal forces (running too fast into a wave?) or were they ripped apart by sideways forces (due to rolling)?
stabilizer on vessel One Apus…?
What happened on the ONE Apus ? Why did so many boxes go over the side? It may be too soon to say. The ship just arrived in Kobe, Japan, and will be the subject of a detailed investigation as soon as the remaining damaged boxes are unloaded. That being said, one possible explanation is that ONE Apus experienced parametric rolling, a phenomenon that can induce violent rolling, particularly in large containerships…
No, I just think that the cause of the incident was too high speed decided by Master/Shore office and that the poor 3/O on the bridge just followed orders. The ship then collided with some big waves in the dark night and stopped, plenty bottom twist locks keeping the deck cargo secured to the deck sheared off/failed and then, when the ship rolled, the deck cargo just fell off, etc.
Following this site, have learned the “Office” has input on course and speed. Never had to operate under those conditions, Never had to ask if I could do whatever regarding that evolution. Those captains that operate in that environment I feel for them.
Do you suppose a ship like the Apus could slam hard enough for the lashings to fail in shear, without suffering catastrophic damage? Thinking about this, I came to wonder: How much face could a facepalm palm, if a facepalm could palm face? And for that matter, how much palm could a facepalm face…
Where do you get that?
From here?
Yes, I suppose that twist locks are what they are and they may shear off when the ship is suddenly stopped due to a bow/front impact with a wave. The weakest part brakes. I await a study of what happened to the twist locks.
You’re just making stuff up. The shear strength of twist locks is basically a non-issue, due to dimensional requirements.
According to this report (p. 38-39), the failure point was not established because a testing rig that faithfully replicates a pair of corner fittings gets damaged long before the specimen. In other words, if a large enough shear force was applied, the twist locks would get torn out of the containers rather than shearing off.
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So I stopped paying attention to a certain poster after he suggested with no evidence whatsoever that maybe the crew were drunk, among other preposterous comments.
However, he also pushed back on the subject of General Average, and really this one shouldn’t be ignored as a discussion point for the One Apus.
It was the hired marine claims consultant that said all parties should be prepared for GA to be declared. The York-Antwerp Rules are pretty clear in that something must have been sacrificed to save the remainder of the cargo in order for GA to be called. I’ve seen where GA has been allowed in such instances of voluntarily destroying a main engine to get out of a situation and save the vessel and cargo. But in this case, what was scarified? Doubtful anyone was going out on deck to push a couple box stacks over to save the rest. Or could they say that some cargo was allowed to be lost to sea in order to save the peril of the crew should they have attempted to save all of it? Obviously it’s in ONE’s interest to shift this massive liability, but with what precedent?
The many references to that effect from this site. Certainly they had the tools onboard to observe the weather. There you go again.
Heiwa II ?
@Steamer I sincerely hope that’s not in reference to me. It seemed to me a valid and relevant question which hasn’t been addressed. I myself was hesitant to ask in light of the one who originally brought it up, but that doesn’t change its relavance.
No, not you.
I’ve never heard of anything like that. In my experience the company very rarely has anything to do with ocean passage routing. The ship sends an ETA daily, when the ship is close to the coast and the ETA is firm the company or charterer sends a coastwise schedule.
I can’t think of any scenario where the company would have any input on the ship’s courses or speeds with regards to weather.
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Then review former posts. Not just this thread.
Questions remain what, when and how the twistlocks/corner fittings failed and in shear or tension. I think the failure was due to an impact of short duration that may occur going too fast in severe weather, thus a complex, dynamic event.
Re speed - on my ships according to ISM instructions I wrote - the ship must send daily reports to the office about speed and consumption, etc. so that the office can calculate the optimal speed of the trip and, e.g. order slow steaming to save fuel (money). The office knows the cost of the fuel, daily expenses and freight earned.
For being so concerned about efficiently micromanaging “your ships,” you should practice that same efficiency and use copy/paste. Could have saved a lot of fuel (energy) instead of typing it out each time, since you haven’t really said anything new in your last dozen or so posts.
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My findings are worth repeating. Slow down in heavy weather to avoid impact damages.
Yes. This incident involves massive GA claims. The ship had to return to Japan to save the ship and remaining cargo. It’s going to take a projected month and extra costs to unload intact and mangled containers and to salvage or dispose of the consignees cargo in the mangled containers. These are GA claims.
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