Floating Containers in the Ocean

[mudnut]

Originally Posted by Trim50

I was told that a large percentage of the male drowning at sea are found with their fly open.

Yet another safety issue raised,or was that lowered.So does the missus like the hatch opened or closed.Sorry,Up or Down. Mudnut.

[mudnut]

Originally Posted by Alan Wheeler

You have got to be plain ignorant to make a comment like that. Hit a cor10 steel container the right way, and your steel hull will peel open like a Bakebean can. NOTHING is totaly safe to be able to make a blanket statement like that.

On average, 3500 containers go overboard per year.
A 20ft container has (if I remember correctly) about a 50,000Kg of floatation. A full load weight is only (once again if I remember correctly) 18,000Kg adn I think the tare weight is 20,000kg. so even a fully loaded container will still float. For that reason, most all modern containers are now fitted with special valves that release under pressure and allow the container to sink. However, this doens't always happen. And some containers can have freight that is boyant anyway and will keep the thing afloat. Not that many months back a container ship ran aground in England and spilled most of the containers over the side. Containers were being washed up on the beach and people flocked done to the beach in hundreds to take what was washed up. Some folks rode away on brand spanking new motor bikes. So those containers remained afloat and dry, even though they had heavey cargo in them. The real danger are the notainers that are mostly submerged and usually float with a corner just out of the water. The don't get seen till it is too late. And yes, they do get seen. I have several friends that have circumnavigated and seen containers. One spent 10yrs around the world and has seen three containers on his journey. They came within inches of one that showed it's corner only out of the water. Steel hull and it would have sliced them open if it hit.
However, as other have pointed out, statisticly speaking, you are awefully lucky if you see one and awefully unlucky if you ever hit one. But some have.

New bikes don't usually get shipped ready to ride.Point taken thou.Mudnut.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by Louis Riel

If you are worried about containers , go for a steel hull and forget about them. There is zero chance you will do any significant dammage to a well built and maintained steel boat in a collision with a container or a whale.
Brent

I hope you aren't selling boats to people telling them that. Ok a whale won't hurt a steel boat, but a shipping container certainly could. And if it tears a hole bigger than your bilge pumps can cope with your'e heading for the bottom. Zero chance you aren't.

[BambooSailor]

Andy Copeland posted this relevant report on other thread:

Our son Duncan hit a container at night 2 years ago just north of Menorca in the Mediterranean in our Beneteau 38 Bagheera. There was little wind, so they were moving at only about 4 knots, but the impact stopped the boat dead in the water.

No water was coming into the boat and they proceeded cautiously towards Mahon, the nearest haul-out facility and at daybreak Duncan went over the side to check out the damage. He found a hole in the bow starting about 3 inches below the waterline and 3 inches wide and 18 inches long, with shattered fiberglass bits trailing from each side.

The reason that no water had entered was because of a precaution that I had taken back in '85 when commissioning Bagheera. I filled all the cavities between the inner hull (grid) and the outer hull with high density foam. At the stem, where the damage was, this foam was 5 inches thick and had completely sealed out the ocean. Without it the boat would have gone down in minutes.

In one of our articles in Blue Water Sailing magazine some years ago and before this incident titled 'After 70,000 miles' I mentioned this precaution against collisions and the Head of Beneteau USA was prompted to write to the magazine assuring owners that this was completely unnecessary! I am sorry to have proved him wrong and do suggest to those who buy a modern fiberglass yacht with a grid to follow our example, ensuring that any limber holes remail open. It might save your boat too.

[Brent Swain]

One of my 36 footers doing hull speed , hit the sharp corner of a sunken barge , making contact about 6 inchess off the centreline. It didn't even dent it, just chipped the paint off. I hit a moored barge once at hullspeed, no dammage.
Thus it's already been done , many times, with no dammage. If it didn't pucture the hull first time , nor even dent it , it won't the second time .
Many have hit sharp rocks the same way, rocks far less giving than a floating container, with no dents.
Moitessier put a picture in a Yachting magazine of a 40 ft sister ship to his Joshua , which had been T-boned amidships by a a 35,000 ton freighter, no leaks. You could see the bow shape of the freighter bent into the hull amidships. I later heard that they sailed the boat to Tahiti, found repairs there too expensive, then sailed to New Zealand before attempting repairs.
A german cruiser I met in Sidney a couple of years back ,told me of an aluminium boat he saw in the Caribean which had been run over by a cruise ship and passed right under the ship. Altho badly dented ,it wasn't leaking a drop of water . When they got to port, everyone there took one look and vowed to sell their fibreglas boats and build metal ones.
One of my 36 footers pounded across 300 meters of Fijian coral reef near Suva with all paint knocked off and slight dent in the keel the only hull dammage . He later collided with a freighter in Gibralter with only bulwark and stanchion dammage. Another pounded in 8 ft surf on the west coast of Baja for 16 days,before being pulled off thru 1/4 mile of surf, no major dammage. A hull wich can survive these types of torture tests will never suffer damage from a mere collision with a container.
There is no way you will punch a hole in healthy 3/16 th plate in a boat under 45 feet, by colliding with a container at sailing hull speed, period.
If offshore cruisers had the foggiest idea of the abuse that a properly built and maintained steel hull will endure , there would be a lot more of them and far fewer fibreglass hulls out here.
Build in steel and forget about the containers and whales.
Brent Swain

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

I hope you aren't selling boats to people telling them that. Ok a whale won't hurt a steel boat, but a shipping container certainly could. And if it tears a hole bigger than your bilge pumps can cope with your'e heading for the bottom. Zero chance you aren't.

[Brent Swain]

A container filled with Nike Runners broke up of the BC coast a few years ago and the contents washed up on beaches from BC to Oregon. The open line radio stations were filled with calls like "I've got three size 12 rights if anybody has a couple of size 8 lefts."
Brent

[DeepFrz]

One of my 36 footers doing hull speed , hit the sharp corner of a sunken barge , making contact about 6 inchess off the centreline. It didn't even dent it, just chipped the paint off. I hit a moored barge once at hullspeed, no dammage.

I don't know what kind of steel you use in your boats but this statement just doesn't sound right to me.

[44'cruisingcat]

Sounds like some very accident-prone people getting around in steel boats too.

[Alan Wheeler]

Louise, pity you couldn't tell that to the Cpt of the Titanic that was torn open by ice. Not as hard as steel, yet can do a rather good impression of a can opener. The Mekhail Lermantov here in the Sounds was another. It was a rock, but she was split open for tens of metres. I know of fibreglass, wooden and FC boats that have been on rocks and had no ill effects afterwards. But we all know that with those materials it was nothing but fortunate luck that those boats still are OK. So it really comes down to the situation. I can only say that your friend was very lucky. I imagine a hit with the barge at a few degrees of a different angle could have resulted in a very different situation. different situation.

[44'cruisingcat]

I must admit I'm a bit worried about all these people ramming into things at hull speed!

[northerncat]

Originally Posted by Louis Riel

A german cruiser I met in Sidney a couple of years back ,told me of an aluminium boat he saw in the Caribean which had been run over by a cruise ship and passed right under the ship. Altho badly dented ,it wasn't leaking a drop of water . When they got to port, everyone there took one look and vowed to sell their fibreglas boats and build metal ones.
Brent Swain

this one sounds very fishy
sean

[bmanley]

Mythbusters on Discover just did an episode on a speedboat being bifurcated on a mooring. The image circulating on the internet shows a 15ft or so gouge in the bow. Mythbusters recreated this circumstance... sortof. They had a hard time doing it because the boat kept ricocheting off the mooring.

My point is that if a steel hull has the integrity to withstand the momentum of the boat ricocheting then it might get awy with the impact. But if the collision is head on and no ricochet is possible then the full energy of the impact is applied to both the container (or rock) and boat. Something must give, wether the hull dents, holes, or tears until the boat comes to a stop.

~Brett

[TaoJones]

For what it's worth, I offer the attached image from 'Lectronic Latitude, and published there quite some time ago:

TaoJones

[44'cruisingcat]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis Riel
A german cruiser I met in Sidney a couple of years back ,told me of an aluminium boat he saw in the Caribean which had been run over by a cruise ship and passed right under the ship. Altho badly dented ,it wasn't leaking a drop of water . When they got to port, everyone there took one look and vowed to sell their fibreglas boats and build metal ones.
Brent Swain

Originally Posted by northerncat

this one sounds very fishy
sean

It certainly does. Especially with so many ships having bulb bows which would push a boat out to the side instead of under.

[NoTies]

[quote=44'cruisingcat]Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis Riel
A german cruiser I met in Sidney a couple of years back ,told me of an aluminium boat he saw in the Caribean which had been run over by a cruise ship and passed right under the ship. Altho badly dented ,it wasn't leaking a drop of water . When they got to port, everyone there took one look and vowed to sell their fibreglas boats and build metal ones.
Brent Swain


I've also seen this happen on a 75' fibreglass fishing boat that was run down by a 300' Japanese fishing trawler. Points more towards luck than anything else.