Containers on the edge

DW (English)

Containers fall off ships, entire container ships sink. When Garfield telephones end up on the beach, do insurers have to pay? How do ships have to be loaded to prevent this from happening? And how should electric vehicles be secured?

Transcript

00:00 Over 50,000 megafreighters traverse the world's oceans.

00:06 Over and over again, the aftermath of accidents and fires, like oil spills and other hazardous substances, wash up on the world's shores.

00:16 Three examples from recent history.

00:19 The MV Golden Ray, the MSC Zeur and the MV Modern Express.

00:28 Researchers in the Netherlands are looking into the causes and trying to find out how maritime trade can be made safer.

00:36 Case number one took place in the North Sea, off the coast of the Netherlands.

00:44 On January 1st, 2019, the 400-meter-long container ship MSC Zeur was passing the coast of the Netherlands.

00:53 In the middle of a Wind Force 8 storm from the northwest, with 10- to 20-meter-high waves, more than 300 containers went overboard,

01:02 the contents of which contaminated beaches in the region.

01:06 The Coast Guard and the national authorities commissioned the research team at the country's Maritime Research Institute.

01:15 The goal of their investigations is to find out what caused the container loss and how it could be prevented in the future.

01:23 To do this, they built a scale model of the MSC Zeur.

01:28 So this ship was designed to match the ultra-large type of container ships that operate in the modern business.

01:40 So it would have its engine, but it would also have a represented cargo on top.

01:44 The actual ship is almost 400 meters long and 60 meters wide.

01:49 Here it has been shrunk to scale by a factor of 1 to 63.

01:54 With the wave machine in the research pool, they can simulate various currents and even giant waves.

02:03 At the moment, there are currents like those just a few kilometers off the Dutch coast.

02:09 What caused the loss of so many containers?

02:12 When freighters are hit by certain waves mid-ship, they sway along their longitudinal axis and then swing back to their original position.

02:21 With large cargo ships, this process takes 10 to 15 seconds.

02:26 And the stability of the ship was unfortunately just matching the roll period of the ship with the wave period of the incoming waves.

02:34 And that caused it to roll a lot.

02:36 When the MSC Zeur sways back after 15 seconds, it hits the next giant wave, which intensifies the swaying.

02:44 What's more, the ship probably hit the bottom slightly, and this shook the hull even more intensely.

02:53 That's how strong the waves were.

02:55 They were so high and the water depth was so shallow that the ship may have even touched the seabed.

03:06 Then there were the waves up to 20 meters high that crashed against the container wall above deck.

03:12 The force of the ship's impact also blew containers overboard.

03:17 The swaying and the vibrations caused the lashings on the containers to break.

03:22 Lashings are metal rods that hold the containers in place on the ship.

03:27 But in the event of extreme fluctuations, they can break.

03:31 What conclusions did the researchers reach? And how can future accidents be avoided?

03:38 We'll come back to those questions at the end of the report.

03:42 Example number two, the MV Golden Ray.

03:46 It highlights just how grave the economic and ecological damage of shipwrecks can be.

03:51 The Golden Ray, a 200-meter long car transporter, was laden with 4,200 tons of debris.

04:00 4,200 brand new cars.

04:02 Everything seemed to be going well until it capsized off the coast of the US state of Georgia in 2019.

04:09 Just how safe is a ton of cargo today? Is damage on the rise?

04:14 These are questions best answered by an insurance expert.

04:18 We have tracked this total losses, as we call them, on ships for the last 12, 10 years.

04:25 And there has been around 65% decline in ships lost at sea in general.

04:30 But the Golden Ray accident happened anyway, necessitating a huge rescue operation.

04:36 The crew had programmed the loading software with incorrect information about the load weight.

04:42 In addition, hatches were left open. That led to an imbalance.

04:46 Some of the crew members had to be freed from the ship using cutters.

04:51 In the aftermath, several fires broke out. And some of the ship's more than 7,000 barrels of diesel leaked out.

04:58 Because cargo ships are getting bigger and bigger, the dimensions of each individual accident are also increasing.

05:05 Now, any incident happening on such large ships results in a lot more costly damages to the cargo.

05:15 Firstly, because the cargo is a lot more than it used to be.

05:19 But also because the repair costs have increased and the complexity of salvaging or,

05:26 if unfortunately the ship becomes a wreck, the removal of the wreck requirements also are very, very stringent.

05:34 The salvage. The ship was towed to the nearest harbour using a floating lifting crane that was custom made for the job.

05:42 It was cut into pieces using a massive chain covered in diamond dust.

05:48 The value of the cargo was $102 million. And the value of the Golden Ray itself was $62 million.

05:54 But the cost of salvaging the Golden Ray was much, much higher. The highest amount in US history.

06:01 She wasn't the largest, but the wreck removal and salvage cost of the Golden Ray ship went up to upwards of $800 million.

06:13 Case number three. The rescue effort for distressed vessels is becoming increasingly complicated.

06:19 The modern express. Length 164 meters. Normally a car freighter, it was mistakenly loaded with logs.

06:29 This caused it to list off the coast of France in 2019.

06:33 Admiral Jean-Marron de Braillet was immediately dispatched to the rescue with his frigate.

06:40 We realized pretty quickly that it was necessary to bring in special climbing professionals.

06:46 Access to the ship was extremely difficult, and we couldn't send sailors in there who had no training in climbing.

06:54 Their plan, the Navy was to lower specialists from a salvage company onto the ship and attach a tow rope to the vessel.

07:08 On February 3rd, 2019, a helicopter brought the four-person salvage team back onto the ship.

07:14 The third attempt, using a stretchable tow rope, was finally successful.

07:19 From there, the MV Modern Express was towed to the port of Bilbao.

07:23 They were able to prevent the ship from potentially bursting and leaking diesel.

07:28 Conclusion. What specific measures could improve the safety of merchant shipping?

07:35 At the Maritime Research Institute in the Netherlands, researchers can provide some instructions for captains based on their experiments.

07:43 Namely, containers must be loaded strictly according to computer-calculated lists.

07:48 Assuming that the contents of containers are in line with what's on the paper that you get,

07:55 that the containers are stowed in the positions where they are supposed to go.

08:00 Sea containers are often simply loaded on top during stopovers, but they belong at the bottom and in the middle of the ship.

08:07 Otherwise, there is a strong risk of tipping.

08:10 Another lesson. In bad weather, coast guards need to close dangerous areas to ships well in advance.

08:17 By closing off sea areas and recognizing bad weather in advance,

08:22 many spectacular accidents of the past could have been prevented, and more could be avoided in the future.

08:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]

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