10,000 Shipping Containers Lost At Sea Each Year… Here’s a Look At One | Hacker News Reader

10,000 Shipping Containers Lost At Sea Each Year… Here’s a Look At One

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30 pointsph0rque18 comments

Some of this aricle reads as if the author is a little naiive as to how container ports work, and just assumes that the cargo industry hasn't thought about these problems. There's plenty of room for innovation in cargo, but don't pretend that the people involved have never thought of the problem of losing containers at sea.

For example, I'm a little surprised by their recommendation that RFID chips be added to containers to prevent mis-loading, as if the current practice is to just randomly grab containers from stacks waiting by the shore.

There is already very sophisticated software (MACS3, or more specifically SEALASH that calculates the force added by an extra container on top of the stack) that does this stuff. There are also programs that read the numbers on containers as they go on and off the vessels, so that they are loaded onto the right trucks at the destination at the right time. If heavy containers end up on top, it's because they need to be removed first or were delivered last---that's a problem that can be solved, but it's a more complex problem than just adding an RFID tag to everything.

I'm an engineer on a ship and while I don't work on a container ship, I took a cargo class in college. There are other considerations too, the software frequently accounts for things such as not putting chemicals that react poorly with each other near each other or things that may be hard to put out if they catch on fire near the top of stacks on the outside so they can be jettisoned in an emergency. Also, while no one weighs each container, its part of the process for people doing the shipping to say what is in it and how much it weighs. They can probably fudge the weight a little but the software takes into account the reported weight to make sure the ship has safe stability. Containers stored inside are dryer and less likely to be lost overboard which normally is a premium price for shipping too. Plus as you mentioned the logistics problem of not putting all the new stuff on top of stuff that gets taken off at an earlier port.

I wonder if it's possible to choose a route, time of year and container position that would almost guarantee container loss? Some people would be prepared to ship something a few times to have it lost at the bottom of the ocean I'm sure.

Perhaps easier to just bribe the captain?

Well I suppose it depends on your intention? I mean scientists are dropping buoys and AUVs and what not in the water all the time, you might be able to convince one of them to toss it overboard for free. Also, there is a fairly big sub-industry of weather routing which have very sophisticated meteorological models and what not to help shipping companies route their ships around crappy weather to avoid losses to cargo and damage to ships. Some of the new ships though are so large that for the most part they're able to weather even the larger storms a bit better so they're just going through instead of around. Save some fuel, lose a container, probably an environmental tie.

I think you're misplacing/mistaking the emphasis of the article

"As those awesome but not quite perfect systems get adopted on the global scale, we may face a host of strange and potentially dangerous results arise that we never saw coming."

The RFID paragraph is 1 of 7. And while I know next to nothing about shipping, I feel comfortable saying RFIDs could still add something to the current system.

My immediate thought was to assemble a crew of displaced fishermen to hunt and retrieve these shipping containers to sell at a discount. I suppose water damage would be too great for any products of value (electronics) though.

The artificial-reef situation should be fairly well understood and expected, right? I mean, New York City was dumping old subway cars in the Atlantic for this express purpose for years and years.

Though the idea that an eventual 'trail' of such items might link habitats to dire consequence is an interesting thought.

At any given time there are between five and six million containers in transit. There are around 200 million container-journeys per year[1]. That we lose just 10,000 a year is a minor miracle.

[1]Levinson (2006), The Box.

So that comes out to a 50ppm loss, or a 99.995% containers not lost... most industries are very happy with a 4.5-nines yield!

Would you mind if I gave you 5-nines yield as I walked my plutonium through your vegetable garden?

That is a pretty strange analogy, but I suppose if the world economy depended on you trampling my imaginary vegetables, I suppose I would be pretty happy with 5-nines.

Strange because the ocean is not a source of food?

Or because containers are not potential sources of concentrated toxins?

Who ever said I was trampling your vegetables? I'm merely making transit through your garden.

The effects of my analogy are likely more extreme than what is actually occurring. But like all analogies, its purpose is to emphasize a particular characteristic.

A guy I worked with ~10 years ago had done an overseas move. Unfortunately for him, all of his family's stuff was in a shipping container that fell overboard. It had happened two years before I met him and he was still dealing with the aftermath...

So while it's a minor miracle overall, it still sucks for some unlucky individuals!

The article asserts that heavy containers placed on top are more likely to be flung into the sea. Is that really true? What if it was actually better to load heavy containers on top? Or heavy containers around the edges with lighter ones in the middle. More valuable cargo in the middle? What is the optimal shipping container arrangement?

Do shippers have software that tells them where to place the containers or is it more or less random?

Fascinating.

I wonder what kind of toxic chemicals are filling the ocean floor fresh from China, etc.

The intern had also discovered a vague little article from the late Sixties saying that Basco had put some "junk machinery" on the floor of the Harbor, giving the usual feeble excuse.

"They claim that this junk was going to become a habitat for marine life. You don't buy that?"

Bless her, she did know how to blow my lid. "Rebecca, goddamnit, since the beginning of time, every corporation that has ever thrown any of its shit into the ocean has claimed that it was going to become a habitat for marine life. It’s the goddamn ocean, Rebecca. That's where all the marine life is. Of course it's going to become a habitat for marine life."

- Neal Stephenson, Zodiac

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Does make one awe struck that so much human output/wealth can end up at the bottom of the sea, and still be considered just the cost of doing business.

I had no idea. Very cool. I think that if I were a sea creature I might like a new home. But this won't be so funny when shipping-container sized crabs ascend onto L.A.

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