Floating Hazards In North Pacific

[anjou]

Aparantly 40,000 shipping containers are lost overboard every year and the source of that snippet is a Maersk container ship captain, so he should know.

I think submerged containers in that quantity pose a far more significant threat than tsunami flotsam.
Farm tractors wont be amongst the wreckage even if they did have flotation tyres

[markpierce]

Originally Posted by anjou

Aparantly 40,000 shipping containers are lost overboard every year and the source of that snippet is a Maersk container ship captain, so he should know.

If true, it must be a very tiny percentage. The insurance for shipping a single-quarter-million-dollar shipment transpacific is around $500.

[cal40john]

Originally Posted by anjou

Aparantly 40,000 shipping containers are lost overboard every year and the source of that snippet is a Maersk container ship captain, so he should know.

I think submerged containers in that quantity pose a far more significant threat than tsunami flotsam.
Farm tractors wont be amongst the wreckage even if they did have flotation tyres

Well I put in the link to floating farm tractors as a joke because Jim said he didn't believe in them. But why do you say there won't be any farm tractors at all? Will the tires rot? Anyway the link I gave, the farm tractors floated due to floatation tanks, not because of the tires.

I followed up with another poke at floating farm tractors because the 2nd news link posted stating there were tractors actually said tractor trailor. My guess is that the first news link that said tractor actually meant tractor trailor as well. I don't believe there were many farm tractors washed to sea compared to tractor trailors and it is unlikely any are of the floating kind.

I don't how much debris was washed offshore, but it could be more than 40,000 pieces of large enough floating things to poke a hole in my boat that are unlikely to sink in 3 years and are in a relatively high concentration small area. The shipping containers are lost all around the world in any stormy area and most sink right away. I think that I will be concerned about the debris field.

John

[ScuzzMonkey]

Originally Posted by hummingway

2014. Beachcombing on the west coast of Van Isle. Gonna get me a me new car

I am told that due to the similar characteristics of different types of materials or products, they tend to travel together and end up on the same beaches time after time... so you get beaches in some areas that have, say, mostly golf balls, or mostly old tires. I only half-believed this until I came across a beach on the west coast of Vancouver Island that had nothing but fenders... every size and color, just like a show room floor.

I wonder if we'll see a house beaches and car beaches and tractor beaches when all that stuff gets here finally?

[markpierce]

somebody should catalog the beaches so people know where to go for particular recyclable/reuseable flotsam.

[John A]

Using Google, there are about 10.000 containers lost at see every year. Below is an account of Nike shoes wasing ashore. The interestiong part of this report is that we should treat the bottoms of our boats with whatever the shoes are made of!

http://www.msc.ucla.edu/oceanglobe/pdf/nike_invest.pdf

[Aussiesuede]

What are the salvage rules for items found at sea? If you spotted a 55ft Tayana cutter in sailable condition, floating pilotless in the middle of the north pacific - what are the salvage rights of the party that retrieves it?

[hummingway]

From what I've picked up from other threads I think you have the right to salvage. You can negotiate with the owners a reasonable fee for doing so, based on circumstances etc. The downside is I believe you then become responsible for the care and well being of the boat until the deal is done.

This could be entirely rumour based and have no basis in reality.

[Aussiesuede]

Originally Posted by hummingway

From what I've picked up from other threads I think you have the right to salvage. You can negotiate with the owners a reasonable fee for doing so, based on circumstances etc. The downside is I believe you then become responsible for the care and well being of the boat until the deal is done.

This could be entirely rumour based and have no basis in reality.

Thanx for that! I'm interested in getting an affirmative answer to this. If one does indeed become responsible for the well being of the vessel, then it would seem potentially foolish to attempt the salvage in the off event of damaging/losing the vessel whilst being towed. It would seem to invite a looting of a vessel, then sinking it.

[ScuzzMonkey]

Originally Posted by markpierce

somebody should catalog the beaches so people know where to go for particular recyclable/reuseable flotsam.

Forget about it! That's my private fender shop now, buddy!

I gotta say, in between the discussion about what will or won't last that long and float all the way over here, there is one thing that worries me more than any other: dishwashers! I have to imagine the houses will mostly break up, cars and tractors will sink, and boats will probably show up on radar... but after the house disintegrates around it, a closed dishwasher could well hold an air bubble and bob along mostly submerged until one of those pointy corners intersects my bow... ouch!

[hummingway]

I'm still back at the running shoes ... 50,000 of them floating around! People scrubbing off the barnacles and going to swap meets to find the matching shoe! It's like something from a Kurt Konnegut novel!

[ScuzzMonkey]

Originally Posted by hummingway

I'm still back at the running shoes ... 50,000 of them floating around! People scrubbing off the barnacles and going to swap meets to find the matching shoe! It's like something from a Kurt Konnegut novel!

If you're on Gabriola, then you should already know better than to go around picking up shoes on beaches around here. The barnacles are the least of your worries. *shudder*

[hummingway]

Good point. For those scratching there heads this is one of the places where Joeless Shoe (apologies to W.P. Kinsella) made landing. Right foot only. A running shoe would appear to be the perfect sarcophagus.

[NorthPacific]

Debris have started to wash up on the shore of Vancouver Island already. As someone who intends to sail South in 18 months this is a serious issue. The recent photos of the amount of crap in north pacific is going to be a serious concern. I hope that containers and large crap does sink, however bumping into an overturned 20-50ft japanese fishing boat could do more than ruin my day.

[hummingway]

There is a serious pile of stuff out there and it's going to be out there for a long time.