Who has run into a floating container

[Robert Tilbury]

I ran into a PORTAPOTTY Toilet in Botany Bay Sydney Australia ,,,
Someone must have needed to clean it and lost there grip ,,,,,,,

[zboss]

I’m not sure why they are not equipped with flip up radar reflectors that get activated when they go overboard.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by zboss

I’m not sure why they are not equipped with flip up radar reflectors that get activated when they go overboard.

Would look odd on a Porta potty wouldn’t it?
I wasn’t aware they were much of a problem

[Cheechako]

They are not a problem.... until you hit one!
But really, I'm sure you could take a radio controlled model boat, set it to blindly sail around the world on a random water course and 999 out of 1000 times it would not hit another ship or large floating object blindly.

[midnite44]

Originally Posted by freshalaska

Steel shipping containers usually 40 feet sometimes come loose and fall overboard at sea. Who do you know or heard of that has ever hit run into one with their boat? Seems to me the perceived risk is ever blown or maybe it is not.
I know numerous boats that have hit whales including my own last year, but how about who has hit a shipping container and what kind of damage did incure?
Just wondering.

I ran into one off Palm Beach about 30 miles offshore on my Irwin 46 Ketch . It broke the rudder and skeg off 1/2 way down and sheared the rudder post pin jamming the rudder hard over which caused me to be only able to make left turns , had to be towed in to Rybovich ship yard . Most of these things float about 2 to 6 inches below the surface making them very hard to see , worse than that there is no one tasked with recovering them , and according to the USCG at any one time there is approximately 900 floating in all of the oceans . I also found out how they are loaded on the transport ships , they look at the forecasted weather to determine how high they stack them , smooth seas equals stacked high , rough seas equals a lesser stack, so if a forecast is wrong and a ship runs into rough seas which dangerously affects their stability they then start jettisoning them to get a safer stability index for conditions . sometimes they sink and sometimes the ones with electronics in them which are hermetically sealed will float for days or even weeks . All you can hope for if you hit one is that your hull isn't holed as mine wasn't so I was able to limp into port with assistance . The USCG came out an towed me to about 2 miles off shore where seatow took over an towed me in .

[belizesailor]

Container on the beach, San Blas, Pamama:


https://www.dropbox.com/s/1zfahp8hmd...84720.jpg?dl=0

Zoom in on far right of frame and you may be able to also see the rusted skeleton of one on the reef.

[KP44]

Golly Gee, hit a container. It took a long time to sink, but she sank. Everyone got into the raft and all were OK. About 30+ years ago.

There are probably very few that float and you would need to hit just right to do damage. I have heard of sightings and sailors who take the time to drill a hole so the container will sink.

[Fore and Aft]

Here is an interesting article about shipping container losses. One ship of NZ lost 900 containers
https://gcaptain.com/how-many-shippi...s-lost-at-sea/

When you start to look at Google images, there are plenty of containers washed ashore. Check out the mess MV MSC Napoli left on the beach.
Cheers

[Sojourner]

Originally Posted by KP44

Golly Gee, hit a container. It took a long time to sink, but she sank. Everyone got into the raft and all were OK. About 30+ years ago.

There are probably very few that float and you would need to hit just right to do damage. I have heard of sightings and sailors who take the time to drill a hole so the container will sink.

Those things are not airtight, and I can't see how a small diameter hole (or few) presumably above the waterline will do anything to help.

[weavis]

I did run into a shopping cart on the Oxford Canal...

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by KP44

Golly Gee, hit a container. It took a long time to sink, but she sank. Everyone got into the raft and all were OK. About 30+ years ago.

There are probably very few that float and you would need to hit just right to do damage. I have heard of sightings and sailors who take the time to drill a hole so the container will sink.

Well, Golly Gee hit SOMETHING, that is definite. But it was dark and IIRC at the time of contact, no one was actually on deck looking out. Could have been a container, or any other bit of floating hard stuff... from what they told us at the time they did not see what they hit. And it didn't take long for her to sink, either, again IIRC. But they did get to the liferaft OK and were soon picked up by a merchant ship. Another win for EPIRB!

Jim

[Dolphin460]

When I crossed the Atlantic in 2007 from Brazil to the Med, out in the middle, I came across a telephone pole floating. When we got along side it, during daylight hours, it was longer than my 46 foot cat. Only about ⅓ was above the clam flat water that day and it was covered with growth. Hitting it at 6 to 12 knots, especially at night, would ruined a pleasant crossing. Now with the new radars you can see these objects some of the time, but not always.

[a64pilot]

The fear of telephone poles is why my Brother would only go slow at night in a Sportfishing boat, he was sure we were going to hit one and it punch through the hull and get into the Fwd cabin with him.
We only saw one during the day, but that stuck with him

[Fiveslide]

I, too, have seen a pole between Chesapeake Bay and St Maarten. It was floating really high with little to no growth on it. Must have been fresh.

I upped my watch game after that.

[Group9]

I have a picture somewhere of a giant dredge pipe float that washed up on the beach near where I live one morning. This thing was fifteen feet long and five or six feet in diameter. There wasn't any dredging going on for fifty miles, so I wonder how long this thing had been floating around in the Gulf of Mexico, waiting for a boat to come along and hit it.