'Lo all,

In a former life, I had occasion to ship some stuff overseas in a bunch of
aluminum containers. During the discussions, loss of the containers at sea
came up. Being a sailor, I asked how long the containers would float.
Estimates ranged from forever to not long, all dependent upon how well the
containers were sealed. (Apparently, they have barely adequate seals in
general.) The shipping rep made a comment that there was an effort under way
to develop and install two plugs in the containers that would blow/disolve
(??) in the event that the containers were submerged in water for a time.
This would allow for ingress of water and egress of air, thus letting the
containers sink if the resultant specific gravity was greater than that of
sea water. The problem being, that they did not want the plugs to let go
prematurely from rain and/or sea spray while still safely secured on board
the ships. Lots of containers will float even if filled with water. It was
guessed that many of ours would just barely float, as the cargo was wood, and
the containers well packed, such that the buoyancy of the wood would offset
the weight of the containers. We did not lose any containers during the
shipment.

I do not know if the plugs are now installed or not. Does anyone on the list
know?

Wayne
M/V Celestial
Albin 43 Sundeck

An empty container does not weigh much at all.  We routinely pick them up
with a medium sized forklift, even the 40 foot steel ones.  Even so, the
seals are basically non-existent so that I'd expect an empty container to
fill and sink within half an hour or so.

If the contents were buoyant, and I'm guessing that with all the foam peanut
and bubble wrap packing that most contents are very buoyant, then the
containers would float forever.  This begs the question as to why we have
not seen more of them floating up on the beach.  Perhaps the problem is not
so big as we might think, though certainly it is big enough if you happen to
bump into one at night.

Also, many containers are refrigerated.  I was talking with an engineer on a
large container ship.  He told me that he had two dozen generators at two
meg each to supply power to all his containers.  I suspect that an insulated
container would float regardless of if it filled with water or not.  One
ship can carry thousands of containers, so if a single ship were to sink it
could account for many lost containers floating at sea.

The stuff that we have routinely shipped in containers would sink.  You
would be surprised how many automobiles and pieces of heavy equipment, along
with lots of building supplies are shipped in containers.  We even shipped a
load of sand to the Sahara desert.  Believe it or not, that was the only way
we could get a reliable supply of sand-blasting grit to the site in a timely
manner.  Much of the light weight stuff goes by air freight, but containers
are still the preferred way to ship heavy or bulky stuff.

I see that I hit the send button too quickly with my other post on this
topic, the one to Bob.  I meant to say in the last sentence that with all
the cruising he has done, that I suspect that he has passed many containers
without seeing them.

Paul Kruse
paulkruse@cfl.rr.com

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-trawler-world-list@samurai.com
[mailto:owner-trawler-world-list@samurai.com]On Behalf Of
Albin43Tr@aol.com
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 1:47 PM
To: trawler-world-list@samurai.com
Subject: Re: TWL: Re: Containers Lost at Sea

[snip]

(Apparently, they have barely adequate seals in
general.) [and therefore should sink]

The shipping rep made a comment that there was an effort under way
to develop and install two plugs in the containers that would blow/disolve
(??) in the event that the containers were submerged in water for a time.
This would allow for ingress of water and egress of air, thus letting the
containers sink if the resultant specific gravity was greater than that of
sea water.