12

NEWS ANALySIS

ISSUE 1 2010

Why being over weight - and smoking - can be so very bad for your health

which suggested that a good percentage of declared weights were out by three tonnes or more. And while the Marine Accident Investigation Board (MAIB) report into the accident was careful not to pinpoint the accident on any one cause, it did point out that discrepant weights are widespread in shipping. Why does it matter?

Peregrine Storrs-Fox

Some of us are over weight, some of us are under weight and we definitely should give up smoking, say freight handling and insurance experts. Not checking what’s in your box, or how much there is in it, can have serious consequences.

Ever since the MSC Napoli pitched up on a Dorset beach just over three years ago, the twin problems of containers with wrongly declared weights and undeclared dangerous cargoes have exercised cargo experts. Recently, the safety panel

of ICHCA International, a non-governmental

global

organisation dedicated to the handling and movement of cargo, once again considered the implications of the MSC Napoli and other incidents. The meeting in Geneva concluded that there is a serious and continuing problem with the weights of containerised cargo being wrongly declared, sometimes by a considerable margin. One of the best illustrations

of the problem is the audit of the weights of the containers removed from the deck of the Napoli after it was grounded,

Well, if there are enough overweight containers at the top of the ship – or underweight ones down below – it can make a ship top heavy or lead to other stability problems. Ominously, the MAIB report adds that modern containership designs don’t have very much tolerance in areas such as deck loads, and unexpected weight can lead to stresses and strains that could actually break the ship in extreme cases. Chair of ICHCA International’s safety panel Mike Compton, points out: “There is an obligation on shippers to declare weights as part of conditions of carriage, and some shippers and freight consolidators have

been failing to do this.” At insurance organisation,

the TT Club, risk management director, Peregrine Storrs-Fox points to a less well documented but potentially equally serious accident to the Annabella en route to Finland, in which a stack of seven 30-foot boxes collapsed, including three containing Class 2.1 dangerous goods. There, the MAIB report

concluded that there had been “shortcomings in the flow of information relating to container stowage between the shippers, planners, the loading terminal and the vessel. While the industry recognises

that the master must approve the final loading plan, in practice the pace of modern container operations is such that it is very difficult for ship’s staff to maintain control.” But what to do about it? In

fairness, deciding the correct weight of the container can be an awkward and inconvenient task, though not an impossible one. It might be possible to divvy up the weights of individual packages, add an amount for any extra packaging and the weight

and from, and queue at any public facilities. Failing that, most handling equipment at ports, at least the more modern ones, will automatically weigh boxes as they lift them, though admittedly this is a little late to find out that

there seems to be little appetite for dealing with the problem, says Mr Storrs-Fox. Surprising, perhaps, given that the lines have arguably most to lose if one of their ships gets broken in half, but on the other hand they understandably don’t want to risk alienating customers. Existing contracts of carriage do theoretically allow them to penalise shippers if weights are wrongly declared, but it’s a rather blunt instrument. Pulling a box from a vessel

until the declared weight is corrected would also be an effective sanction, but again lines may not want to run the risk of alienating shippers. Storrs-Fox also suggests that

of the empty container – which the operator should be able to supply. Not super-accurate, perhaps, but it should be enough to avoid axle-overloading on the roads – incidentally another serious cause for concern, says Mr Storrs-Fox. There are also simple devices on the market to accurately determine road axle- weights, he adds. Not all container loads can be

calculated like this. For instance, a company exporting a large lump of second-hand machinery, or a groupage operator with a box full of miscellaneous cargo. Here, weighbridges might be a solution, though a somewhat more expensive one, and it doesn’t help that in the UK many of the public ones have been closed down. If there is a convenient weighbridge, or if the firm itself has one in its yard, the truck with the empty container needs to be weighed first, and then again with the loaded container. Subtract the unloaded weight from the loaded, add the weight of the container itself and you should have a reasonable idea of the container gross weight – again, not supremely accurate because the weight of the truck tractor unit may vary - even if it is the same one, because of the amount of fuel in the tank. Admittedly, there is a cost and convenience factor to consider – as well as two weighbridge charges, the haulier will charge for the time it takes to get to

a box was significantly under- or over-weight. However, points out Mr Storrs-Fox, if the weight of the box can be determined reasonably

accurately

before it sets out for the port and then weighed again at the port and, possibly at any subsequent transhipment points along the way – and provided of course there is an IT system capable of processing the information – this could actually be a useful anti- smuggling or counter- terrorism tool. A sudden large apparent change in the weight of the box could trigger an alarm, warning that it has been tampered with. He points out that Maersk Line has developed software that can work out the approximate declared weight for any given cargo commodity type. Of course, none of the

foregoing necessarily applies to containers coming into the country, particularly from the less developed world, where weighing equipment may be scarce and ports and terminals less sophisticated. The TT Club has taken up

the issue of container weights with the shipping lines, but

shipping lines may believe that existing margins of error are sufficient, despite what recent accident reports suggest. None of this would probably cut any ice if a shipping line ended up in front of the International Maritime Organisation, he adds. An allied problem to the

the nearest port because of a smouldering container, perhaps on average one a week, suggests the TT Club. Fortunately not many of these incidents end up costing lives, or ships, but the cost in terms of disruption to the global supply chain must be huge. The TT Cub is campaigning to

promote awareness of shippers’ legal obligation to declare dangerous cargoes and a few years ago ran a campaign to try and persuade shipping lines not to charge extra for DGs, to reduce the incentive to mis- declare. “But the response was next to nothing,” says Peregrine Storrs-Fox. Mike Compton adds that

anyone involved with packaged dangerous goods for export on ships, including shippers and consolidators, is required under the International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code to have training relevant to their responsibility. There are many training providers, and ICHCA and the TT Club recommend the Exis Technologies e- learning package. Exis also offers a useful Freightcheck system to ensure, for example, that incompatible goods aren’t loaded into the same container. N o b o d y

has any quick fixes for either the overloaded box or

overweight box is the undeclared dangerous goods issue, he continues. “It’s one of those ‘iceberg’ problems where we can never quite measure the true extent of the problem, because it’s hidden.” Some analyses suggest that

perhaps a third of consignments are wrongly declared in this respect, and there have been serious accidents, including total ship losses, where spontaneously- combusting boxes were identified as the cause. What doesn’t end up in official reports are the number of vessels that have to hurriedly head for

Heavy session

Maritime public relations company Dunelm Public Relations is organising a one-day conference in on 29 June entitled Weighing containers: is it really that difficult? Details can be found on the website www.dunelmpr.co.uk

mis-declared dangerous goods, and there is not necessarily a universal solution. No doubt, some people are hoping that the problem will simply go away but it is one of those things that is likely to rear its ugly head every time a ship breaks its back or there is a serious fire. Creating greater awareness of the issue and improving training is a good start, though. And it is better that the

industry works among itself to try and achieve a solution rather than have one imposed by international edict at some point in the future. Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36