Heavy Pitching and Hull Vibration Trigger Loss of the Containers

MAIB reports the investigation in relation with the Loss of cargo containers overboard from container ship Ever Smart.  The exact location is 700 miles east of Japan, North Pacific Ocean.  The report was published in 22 July, 2020.

Summary of the incident

On 30 October 2017, the UK registered container ship Ever Smart suffered a container stow collapse while on passage between Taipei, Taiwan and Los Angeles, USA.

The master had changed the ship’s passage plan to avoid severe weather caused by a developing depression east of Japan. The ship continued in heavy seas; rolling and pitching heavily with frequent bow flare slamming.

Once the weather had abated, the crew discovered that the container stacks on the aft most bay had collapsed and toppled to port. Of the 151 containers in the stow, 42 were lost overboard and 34 were damaged. Superficial damage was caused to the ship.

Reasons for the loss of the containers

• the loss of the containers most likely occurred during a period of heavy pitching and hull vibration in the early morning of 30 October.
• combination of factors resulted in a loss of integrity for the whole deck cargo bay; in particular, the containers were not stowed or secured in accordance with the cargo securing manual.
• the container lashings might not have been secured correctly.

Safety recommendations

Recommendations (2020/125, 2020/126 and 2020/127) have been made to Evergreen Marine Corp. (Taiwan) Ltd to improve standards of stowage plans produced ashore, knowledge of the dangers of bow flare slamming and lashing gear maintenance management.

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