Author Topic: Name and shame shippers who flout box weight rules  (Read 4827 times)

Offline Fotojoe

  • Home away from home
  • ****
  • Posts: 294
    • View Profile
Name and shame shippers who flout box weight rules
« on: February 10, 2010, 08:51:57 AM »
Container lines and terminal operators should make an example of
shippers who provide the wrong information about the weight of a
container.
That is the message from both the TT Club and the International Cargo
Handling Co-ordination Association, which continue to highlight the
dangers of misdeclarations and seek ways of cracking down on a problem
that puts both lives and ships in danger.

The shipping industry should not look for outside assistance in
tackling a practice that is thought to be widespread but is
nevertheless very hard to quantify.

The issue of misdeclarations has come to the fore again in recent
weeks following investigation of an accident involving the feedership
Husky Racer, with a container stack collapsing because boxes thought
to be empty actually contained cargo.

In that particular case, the shipper was not to blame, with the
mistake attributable to a software glitch, but the incident once again
drew attention to the danger of both under and over declaring the
weight of a container.

Ports could ask the shipping lines if they want every container
routinely checked before it is loaded, or to pick out those that
should be weighed.

The two sides would then have to agree about what to do with those
containers whose weight does not match that provided by the customer.

Source: Lloyds List

Offline Michael Martin

  • Top Poster
  • *****
  • Posts: 574
    • View Profile
Re: Name and shame shippers who flout box weight rules
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2010, 06:00:21 PM »
Surely there are load cells in the container cranes, aren't there? Or is that the software glitch you refer? Our shipyard installed load cell systems on about 6 Jack-ups for the deck cranes in a safety measure to prevent crane operators from overloading the cranes. I would expect that the container crane would have a similar system, so the operator would know what the containers weigh when he's stacking them, preventing cargo filled containers being stacked on empty ones.

Excuse any ignorance I may have for container yard operations.

Offline Morten

  • Home away from home
  • ****
  • Posts: 301
    • View Profile
Re: Name and shame shippers who flout box weight rules
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2010, 07:14:23 PM »
Container cranes are fitted with load cells, but these are units which measure dynamic loads (ie. how much force does the container apply to the crane as it is lifting the container through the air).
There isn't any time for the cranes to stop and wait for a steady weight reading for each container.

The unknown weight of containers is actually a huge problem for the crew of the container vessels as the discrepancies might be quite substantial and might actually stress the ship.
When I worked with M

Offline REG

  • Not too shy to talk
  • *
  • Posts: 23
    • View Profile
Re: Name and shame shippers who flout box weight rules
« Reply #3 on: February 11, 2010, 12:13:21 AM »
I have seen the bottoms literally fall out of containers that had been overloaded.  Once, in Livorno, Italy, I saw the result of overloading a 40-foot container with masonry.  The brake gave way on the crane, and the container plummeted down, to end up embedded three centimeters into the paved surface of the dock.  Fortunately, nobody was under it!

However, the worst offenders are unquestionably in the Military.  They U.S. Army doesn't seem to have any conception that there is any weight consideration at all when they load containers.  They simply pile stuff in until the containers are full and then send them on their way.  Working with the U.S. Army in Honduras, I saw the remains of a shore crane that had fallen over under the weight of one of those overloaded boxes, killing the crane operator.  I also saw a fork-lift almost capsize under the weight of another, the quick-witted driver only just setting the container down in time to save himself.  When I asked the Army officer in charge how much the container in question he had no idea, and didn't even seem to have any idea that it was ever an issue.

Bob Scott

  • Guest
Re: Name and shame shippers who flout box weight rules
« Reply #4 on: February 11, 2010, 02:10:22 AM »
I spent the last few years of my working life as a truck driver, a considerable part of that involving the haulage of sea containers.
In the UK the authorities come down so heavily on overloaded trucks (and their drivers) that, if you are a semi-intelligent trucker, you get paranoid about your weight!
In the UK (and, indeed, most of the European Union), the maximum permissible gross (ie all-up) weight for a six-axle truck is 44 tonnes (ie 44,000 kg/97,003 lbs).
This (just-about) enables a fully-laden, 40-foot container to be legally carried. The maximum gross weight of a 40-foot box is usually 30,480 kg (67,200 lbs to you old-fashioned Yanks).
So, normally, you can haul a fully-loaded 40-footer and stay legal in Europe.
If you are even a moderately-experienced truck driver you can tell by the feel of it if your truck if it is grossly overloaded.
 So where are these instances of boxes bending/bottoms falling out under the weight of their loads happening? I would venture to suggest that few, if any, of them are emanating from UK export loads taken to the ports by road.

Offline Morten

  • Home away from home
  • ****
  • Posts: 301
    • View Profile
Re: Name and shame shippers who flout box weight rules
« Reply #5 on: February 11, 2010, 11:46:19 AM »
Most overloaded containers that we received was loaded in Algeciras in southern Spain, so they could have come from Africa as it is a transit port, however, most came from Europe.

But please bare in mind that we consider any container which is above the informed weight as an overweight. That means that a container carrying only 10 t could be considered overweight. The problem is not the ship sinking and, in most cases, neither that the container might buckle. A standard FEU is actually capable of carrying way more than the 30.480, but has been limited to that exactly because of the weight limits for trucks in Europe we regularly carried "Superheavy" FEUs weighing up to 60 t. No problem, as long as we know.
 
The problem is that the stack weight on a containership is actually fairly limited. This might come as a surprise to some, but on the M

Offline Federico

  • Just can't stay away
  • ***
  • Posts: 96
    • View Profile
Re: Name and shame shippers who flout box weight rules
« Reply #6 on: February 12, 2010, 07:36:27 PM »
I can remember a situation which made me upset so much! Port of Cartagena, Colombia, some years ago (2005), reefer containership managed by a primary company. Unloading 120 empty reefers, loading about 100 full reefers (40'HC) loaded with tuna and meat on transhipment from Brazil and bound for the Mediterranean. Weight on the cargo list: 30t,30t,30t,ecc...Real weight: all between 35 and 40 tons. The port foreman had the right list of weights and I could get a copy confidentially to issue a formal protest to my supercargo with the approval of my company superintendent. From draughts surveys I had a difference of about 900 metric tons, experienced stability attention because of no ballast possibility and low fuel oil quantities. Furthermore I was obliged to take all containers onboard because they were cargo in transit and took the risk to leave ashore around 900 pallets of bananas in Costa Rica.

Offline Mike Cornwall

  • Top Poster
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,054
    • View Profile
Re: Name and shame shippers who flout box weight rules
« Reply #7 on: February 12, 2010, 10:12:03 PM »
I have seen this situation all my working life in the container industry.
It is not just overweight containers though.
I recall an instance some years ago when a friend's mother was going back to the UK and asked for my help in shipping her belongings.
When it was all packed I measured it and it came to 1.8cbm, when the freight forwarder declared on the Bill of Lading it was noted as 0.8 cbm, when she got the account from the forwarder she was being charged 2.8cbm.
These guy were scamming all the way through.
This sort of thing is widespread in the industry.
 I also recall unpacking an LCL container that had no hazardous substance declared. When unpacked it had 11 differant types of hazardous cargo, of which 3 were not compatible. In other words they should have been in seperate boxes.
In the 8 years I have been driving straddles at Auckland I would see 10 or 12 overweight boxes every shift, occasionally I see underweight boxes but never by more than 2 or 3 tonnes. Overeights are usually in the 10 to 15 tonnes category.
On the small island traders the shipping companies insist on putting boxes over a weighbridge and do not accept them without a weigbridge certificate.

Worldwide this is a major problem as it is not only a safety issue, it is also fraud.

Mike  (hilifta)
Hilifta

Offline Morten

  • Home away from home
  • ****
  • Posts: 301
    • View Profile
Re: Name and shame shippers who flout box weight rules
« Reply #8 on: February 13, 2010, 12:50:05 AM »
The dangerous cargo not being declared isn't just a container issue! We had huge problems with it onboard the ferry I worked on! I don't know if it was ignorance or just greed, but shippers would frequently "forget" to declare dangerous goods! Once, we found out that we had transported a trailer with Li-Ion batteries and a few assorted flamable chemicals that hadn't been declared and wasn't compatible! If the trailer had tipped over and the Li-Ion batteries had leaked, we would have had an extremely dangerous mix of explosive batteries and flamable liquids... On a ship with a capacity of 850 passengers - all to save a few bucks on the fair!

 

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk