Browsing: Container ships

Cruising Life
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Coast Guard Warns About Bulk Carriers Safety Risk

Here’s one more reason, as if you needed it, to stay out of the way of big cargo ships. The Coast Guard just issued a safety bulletin warning mariners about a growing number of huge bulk carriers arriving in the United States carrying wind turbine parts that are so large they limit visibility from the ship’s bridge. This brings to mind the already daunting vision of huge cargo ships navigating both Atlantic and Pacific ports filled with recreational boats, from Seattle and San Francisco to Fort Lauderdale and New York. Cruising up or down Delaware Bay has always been a…

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Anatomy of a Disaster in Pictures

Here’s a great recap by gCaptain of the wreck of the container ship Rena that hit a reef off New Zealand and eventually broke apart in that country’s worst maritime disaster: The MV Rena was traveling at a speed of 17 knots when it grounded on Astrolabe Reef off the coast of New Zealand on October 5, 2011, during a voyage from Napier to port of Tauranga. At the time, the ship was carrying over 1,300 containers and 1,733 tonnes of heavy fuel. What resulted became the country’s worst maritime disaster which took years to clean-up. Investigators eventually found that it was…

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Can You Steer Through the Suez Canal? Try Below

After six days and nights, the massive Ever Given container ship finally floated free in the Suez Canal (see picture above). But questions remain, basically, how could a ship with a beam of 194 feet get stuck sideways in a section of the canal that’s 869 feet wide? The shipping company said the Ever Given, piled high with 20,000 containers, was hit by winds from a sudden sandstorm. Other large container ships, however, transited the canal safely at the same time. And the Ever Given appeared to veer from side to side in the canal before it got stuck. The…

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New Report: Ship Suffered “Heavy Rolling” for 90 Seconds before Losing 81 Containers Off Coast of Australia

The 879-foot-long cargo ship Efficiency rolled 30 degrees to port and starboard for 90 seconds in gale-force winds off the coast of Australia before 81 containers washed overboard in the middle of the night, according to a new report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. The Liberian-flagged Efficiency was en route from Taiwan to Port Botany, just below Sydney. It was delayed from docking for eight hours, according to the new report, while the crew stopped and restarted the main engine for brief periods of time to control the drift. At this point, the ship was 16 nm off Newcastle, which is…

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83 Containers Tumble Off Cargo Ship Near Australia. Debris Washes Up on Beaches

Reports of problems with cargo washing overboard from container ships just keep coming. In the latest incident, 83 containers tumbled off the 880-foot cargo ship YM Efficiency in heavy seas off the east coast of Australia. And debris from some of the containers was washing up on beaches north of Sydney. The Efficiency, owned by a Taiwan company but registered in Liberia, hit 16-foot seas in the Tasman Sea about 18 miles off the coast and rolled heavily. The 83 containers slid off the ship while another 30 were damaged but remained on board. TV pictures taken by a news helicopter showed…

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984-Foot-Long Container Ship Hits Docked Ship in Pakistan. See the Video

So you think you have trouble docking? Or you worry about other boats hitting yours when you’re tied up at the dock? You have reason to be concerned. Take a look at this video of a huge, heavily loaded container ship clipping the side of another container ship that was docked inside the Port of Karachi in Pakistan, with several dozen containers tumbling into the water. The collision was caused by the MV Tolten, a Hapag-Lloyd ship that’s 984 feet long with a 150-foot beam. It sideswiped the MV Hamburg Bay (which is only 961-feet-long) as the Tolten was coming…

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One of 76 Containers that Fell Off Maersk Ship Off Carolina Coast Had 5,900 Pounds of Sulfuric Acid. Coast Guard, Others, Searching

This is a story that just keeps getting worse. Now it turns out that one of the 76 (yes, 76) containers that tumbled off the Maersk Shanghai while it was off the coast of North Carolina last week was carrying 5,900 pounds of sulfuric acid. The Coast Guard, NOAA and the EPA are trying to track the containers, which the Coast Guard has labeled “hazards to navigation.” The crew of the Shanghai called the Coast Guard after the containers fell off the ship in a heavy roll during nor’easter 17 miles off Oregon Inlet in the Outer Banks, saying they…

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Coast Guard Warns Mariners After 70 Containers Tumble Off Ship 17 Miles from Oregon Inlet

The Coast Guard issued a warning of “navigation hazards” after at least 70 containers tumbled from the Maersk Shanghai off the North Carolina coast during a nor’easter with gusts approaching hurricane-strength levels. The ship was about 17 miles off Oregon Inlet on the Outer Banks of North Carolina at the time, heading for Charleston, South Carolina. After the storm hit, the Maersk Shanghai called the Coast Guard saying that 70 to 73 containers had been lost. The 1,063-feet-long, 10,081-ton ship was built in 2016 and flagged in Liberia. The World Shipping Council, which measures these matters, says an average of…

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Will a Floating Container Sink Your Boat? Here are the Odds…

They’re everywhere on oceans around the world. Big and small container ships, going in every direction, some new and looking seaworthy, many less than new and looking less than seaworthy. Officials estimate that there are 5 to 6 million containers on ships at any given time; 10,000 of them wash overboard every year. If you’re cruising at night or in fog, you probably won’t even see one in your path; if the container is floating just under the surface, or covered by a wave, you probably won’t see it in any time of day. Here’s a great story, including some…