Container Ship in Miami with containers falling off

http://tinyurl.com/2ujtd

EDIT: Dang, somebody beat me to it!

Oh well....

This reminds me of M/V Pacific Adventurer, off Moreton Island. The ship lost 31 containers. Not the best of days for that company.

http://********.com/maritime/blog/lost-mv-pacific-adventurer-containers/

Far

Was in the port yesterday and spotted six new azimuts and atlantis yachts with substantial fiberglass damage sitting on cradles not too far from this ship. Does anyone know if they were on this ship or did they have a run in with a certain buoy?

I think I saw the same boats in the Port of Miami about a month ago. They were being unloaded from the deck of a much smaller freighter 400-500ft. There were about 6 of them.....mostly dark blue hulls, I think around 4 expresses (not SF) and 2 flybridge boats.......all of the boats were 35-50ft if I remember correctly.

Tracking device

Great Post Marmot.
Considering the potential damage these lost containers pose, why have they not perfected a tracking device for recovery or at least charting. I hear trawlers hate these as they can tip one over quite easily. Not to mention the rest of us boaters bumping into a partly submerged steel cube. The incident Far refers to also had environmental issues (Fertiliser?) and took a lot of effort to find in a busy and popular boating region. Seems crazy that the containers don't have an electronic tag/gps/ whatever, when my $300 phone has GPS!

Cost would be the main reason they are not installed with GPS, also they may sit around or the container may actually be owned by another company. Then there are the logistics of powering the GPS and such. But, I think the biggest issue is, even if they found it, how would a freighter maneuver to it and get it back on the ship when the vast majority of the time that they are lost the sea is very rough and they're in the middle of nowhere. And it would be more costly to waste the time to recover a few containers, then to keep going to port. A day or two lost at sea for a freightor can delay it's schedule for months and create huge issues. I guess it's cheaper to pay the insurance on the contents, then deal with recovering them.

Wow..........what a mess!!

There are divers working around the ship almost as if a few containers fell off while the ship was at port. Anyone know the story?

Sure hope they had some good trim tabs.

Containerships normally have substantial ballast systems which operate very quickly to control heel and trim since handling boxes can be difficult with too much of of a list. Also, the vessel in the pictures is a RoRo and heeling must be kept to a minimum because of structural limitations on the ramp.