The ONE Apus could be another watershed incident like the APL China

Possibly, but on the other hand number don’t lie, it should just be a matter of doing the calculations.

The ONE Apus has a beam of 50.6 meters (166 feet) , presumably the max assumed roll is less than the non-ULCS size ships.

This is from the MAIB report posted upthread,

At about 0127, the ship unexpectedly rolled 20° to starboard, paused for several seconds, then rolled 20° to port, initiating the collapse.

“The amplitude of the ship’s rolling exceeded the limits set by: CMA Ships for the class of vessel; displayed by the loading computer and calculated by Bureau Veritas after the accident,” the MAIB said in its conclusion.

Maybe the only way to massage the numbers is to increase the beam to lower stack height.

But then we are back in the old bigger ship, deeper draft, fewer ports spiral but now have to add crane issues. Maybe some day there will be one or two container ports on each coast with special berths that allow mega max beam ships to be worked from both sides at once.

Thing is, this stuff is all dialed in.

Today the weather forecasts are very good. The weather routing software I used showed areas where synchronous or parametric rolling would be expected, limits exceeded etc.

I set motion limits and the software and shore-side routers comes up with a route. More to it then that of course but it’s takes more work now then ever to hit heavy weather unexpectedly.

Yet incidents like ONE Apus keep happening and have for years. I remember seeing an exact copy at the dockside in Yokohama way back in the 90s so it isn’t exactly a new phenomenon.

Maybe that is why the “Well shit happens, better luck next time” approach still rules the boxboat industry.

1 Like

In the case of the APL China it wan’t just a matter of exceeding weather limits. The ship didn’t behave as expected. Far heaver rolls then expected for that sea state.

I’m wondering if something similar isn’t happening with these ULCS? The ONE Apus was being managed by NYK. They are a very conservative company.

I was wondering the same thing regarding weighing them as they are loaded. I know they have limit switches on the cranes that have to be manually reset if the container exceeds SWL, but they don’t weigh them as far as I know.

I think you are right, box boats have exceeded practical limits. Especially, concerning port facilities. Soon there may be too many 20,000 TEU container ships that require too many port calls to unload 2000 containers here and 2,000 there. Or dockyards and streets may become clogged for days everytime one of these ships drops a full load or calls to load empty containers.

I fear that we are going to have a lot of multi billion dollar deep channels and high bridges that see few, if any, post Panamax ships.

They found that a 750 ATB instead of having greater economies of scale had less performance at higher operating cost than a tanker of similar capacity.

The last I heard there were too many 80,000 barrel oil barges competing for longer haul and larger terminal cargos, but a shortage of 40,000 barrel barges to deliver smaller parcels to smaller terminals.

I think box boats will start getting smaller again.

Sweet spot for oil transport with atb 120k to 180k. Bigger than that the economics go down the tubes.

Seems likely the number of ULCS is going to be limited for economic reasons, each trade can only take so many. At one time big tankers kept growing bigger but I thought that they eventually hit a limit for practical, not just economical reasons.

1 Like

I’m sure that seems like a terrible idea to the powers that be, and it isn’t really necessary. A hefty surcharge on the misdeclared portion should suffice to bring the problem down to manageable proportions, and simply keeping a record should take care of the safety aspect.

Why isn’t lean logistics principles limiting the size of container ships already?

I apologize for the thread drift here but:

Welcome to Fort Lauderdale! A clever financing scam allowed a pseudo “high speed rail” company to take over the rail line that cuts the city in half. Increased box train traffic on that line stops all east-west traffic for long periods during rush hour traffic on almost a daily basis. The city outgrew its road capacity years ago but with Miami increasing its container traffic and Fort Lauderdale lacking any marshalling yard space, when they make up a miles long train to head north, one of the major east west arteries is blocked by an essentially stopped train for half an hour at a time during the morning rush hour. The resulting gridlock is obscene.

What is most frustrating is that barely a mile to the west is a virtually unused north south rail line that runs under overpasses on every major road.

2 Likes

IDK, on the PCTC the rate the cargo can be loaded / discharged is limited by the fact they only have two ramps. More LOA, same load/discharge rate

With a ULCS as LOA increases then more cranes can be added so that loading one ULCS is going to be about the same as two smaller ones.

Just guessing.

1 Like

Because the big bucks are made in cost per ton per mile.

1 Like

I think the ships are a good example of lean logistics. For the end user they are floating warehouses in transit. Back in the day SeaLand had the contract with Toyota for some of their car assembly plants. The plants did not carry much inventory so schedule integrity was important.

As long as they can fill up the ship the economies of scale is on their side.

1 Like

As a former Fort Lauderdale resident (mid 80s), I feel your pain. . . .

Had many crew changes there. Not pretty some times.

I returned to the offshore when it picked up but containers used to be certified for 9 high stacking and I don’t know when it was increased but generally one was limited by the stack weight of the ship.
After the loss of the Munchen all containers were weigh bridged in Hamburg and Bremerhaven and I think the practice spread throughout Europe.
All modern straddle carriers sense the weight of any container they lift.
The worst case of an overloaded container that I experienced was in Houston where they filled a 40’ container with Zinc ingots because there was room right! Our brand new ship’s crane wouldn’t lift it from the railway wagon.

3 posts were split to a new topic: Removal of the collapsed containers from the ONE Apus

Your “increase the beam” to lower the stack height is true, but the “special berth” option is not viable unless numerous ships settle on a class for ship “Ultra-Mega” sizes, and build slips that can be worked from both ends. Thus, all self geared ships are excluded, which is not a problem (they slew their cranes to the offhsore side during port ops.). Sort of like the concept initiated in aviation to handle the Airbus A380 with its dedicated ramps.

In the 11 months since I wrote that the number of trains carrying containers has increased in number and length. Port Everglades is now hosting some of the fallout from other congested ports with the result that several of the major crossings are now regularly blocked for extended periods. Shuffling gridlock from the port to its host city is not a solution, it is a bigger problem. Spending taxpayer money to service giga box boats is insanity cubed.

1 Like