More Flotsam

    I noticed this headline - "Maersk Ship Loses 750 Containers Overboard in Pacific Ocean" in the Wall Street Journal (Jan 21.), where it was reported that it was "the latest in a series of weather-related accidents at sea affecting millions of dollars in cargo." Looking for additional details, I found them in The Maritime Executive on Jan. 22: " Maersk Boxship Loses 750 Containers Overboard in North Pacific,"

Heavy weather in the North Pacific is being blamed for the loss of containers aboard one of Maersk’s containerships. This is the third container loss incident recently reported in the Pacific.Maersk is saying that approximately 750 containers were lost overboard from the Maersk Essen, a 148,723 dwt vessel with a capacity of 13,100 TEU. The loss occurred on January 16, but the line did not supply details on the vessel’s location. There have been several other incidents in recent month also on the North Pacific. On November 30, the ultra-large containership ONE Apus lost approximately 1,800 containers overboard and damaged scores more during reports of severe weather approximately 1,600 nautical miles northwest of Hawaii.

What's a TEU?

Two forty-foot containers stacked on top of two twenty-foot containers. These four containers represent 6 TEU.

   It is basically a container that is usually 20' long and 8' high, but sometimes they are 40' long. 'TEU" = TWENTY-FOOT EQUIVALENT UNIT. The ship, ONE Apus, lost 1800 of them and you can see a video of the ship, with the remaining containers in disarray, in this YouTube video from the South China Morning Post. 

What Could Go Wrong?

   If a ship could lose 1800 containers, which was only a portion of its load, how many can the largest ship carry? At this time, the largest container ship is the MSC Gülsün which can carry up to 23,756 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) a time. To translate that number into one we consumers can understand, it can carry 8.35 million microwave ovens or 2.94 million washing machines.

Sources: 

There is a Wikipedia entry for TEU - Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit

If you are now intrigued see this article at iContainers.com - "What is TEU? Learn About Its History and Meaning. 

I did not do the math to find out how many microwave ovens could be carried, it was in this article:

"Boat‑lovers Can’t Contain Enthusiasm as MSC Gülsün arrives in UK," Tom Ball, The Times, Sept. 7, 2019. (The ship is 1, 312 feet long.)

For more about the garbage floating and, perhaps soon to be piling up in the Pacific, see my earlier post: Flotsam and Jetsam.  Or this one involving cattle. 

For another post about the Pacific, see this one about a paraplegic woman who attempted to row across it: Angela Madsen (RIP)