Recently the UK P&I Club conducted a webinar to discuss key issues that are affecting the shipping market now. Here’s what Viswa Group wants to highlight from that webinar.
The webinar hosted by UK P&I club & TT club had 255 attendees.
Key Points
- Loss of containers becomes more and more concerning: primarily because of environment – dangerous good & plastics
Existing data:
Very difficult to establish what is the cause of container losses:- Data is aggregated
- Not suitable for causation analysis
- Most casualties relate to extreme weather conditions (in North Atlantic or in Pacific during tropical storms)
- There is no trend, and risk is evenly distributed across vessel types.
- Failures in the following are the most common reasons of container loss:
- Cargo packing
- Container structure
- Stowage planning & implementation
- Lashings
- Routing
- Seamanship
- Naval architecture & dynamic forces
What is being done about it?
- Some areas see more action than others
- Some of the actions taken:
- “Lashing@Sea” Seminal research by MARIN reported to IMO in Sep 2010
- Verified Gross Mass mandatory Jul 2016 (SOLAS Chapter VI, Part A, Regulation 2)
- ISO review / update of container standards
- SOLAS & CSS Code on-going review
- The actions which the panel believes would have the largest impact:
- Neil Gardiner:
- Include vessel movement (bending and twisting) into calculation of lashing forces.
- Tom Starr:
- Rewrite design criteria as they are outdated and developed for the ships of the size that they were 10 years ago.
- Conduct a research equivalent to MARIN’s one back in 2010.
- Neil Gardiner:
Questions from the audience:
Q: Cargo planners often partially load the ship which results in high GM values and a “stiff ship”, i.e. short rolling period, which increases the risk of container loss. Are there any suggestions as to how this might be avoided?
A (Neil Gardiner): Re-stowing will have to be a part of any solution, so there is no cheap option.
Q: Is there difference in failure of loose lashings with fixed deck arrangements?
A (Neil Gardiner): Haven’t been observed. Both take similar working loads and have similar problems. Preventative maintenance is the key.
Q: During managing casualties, what is the advice in dealing with authorities?
A (Neil Gardiner): They try to be helpful, but resources they involve in the matter are very limited. As a result, quality of produced reports is not perfect, carriers often spend a lot of time fixing their misjudgment.
Q: What is the most difficult part in managing disputes and preparing for litigation after the loss of cargo?
A (Tom Starr): Number of parties involved and them being scattered around jurisdictions.
Q: What is being done with mis-declared dangerous goods cargo?
A (Neil Gardiner): First of all deliberate mis-declared happens just as often as simply mistakes. Trust plays a large role in the process. Currently it relies largely on the ability of lines to identify that.
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Source: Viswa Group
