“Death by Poor Sampling” and


Cargo liquefaction: “Canning the Can Test” BY PROF MIKE BRADLEY


THE WOLFSON CENTRE FOR BULK SOLIDS HANDLING TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF GREENWICH, LONDON, UK


The Wolfson Centre specialises in dealing with “dry” bulk cargo materials (though some are anything but dry!), undertaking studies including forensic investigations of cargo movement and quality problems as well as analysis and design of port facilities for these materials. Not uncommonly in liquefaction events, the cargo certificate showed a Moisture Content (MC) below the certified Transportable Moisture Limit (TML) - but after the ship put to sea, the cargo liquefied even though in theory, it should have been safe. The question is – why did this happen? The IMO code provides, in theory, a protocol to ensure it shouldn’t happen.


There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that cargo certificates sometimes get falsified in order to get a cargo loaded when it isn’t fit. Undoubtedly there are some surveyors that will do this for a fee, but also coercion can happen - stories of cargo surveyors being taken out and beaten, or their families threatened at gunpoint, are not unknown. However this doesn’t seem to be the whole story, and one of the problems we know about is that of getting meaningful samples of cargo to test. The value of the reading from a test on a cargo sample is only as good as the sample – and in practice, many samples are not very good.


The Report • September 2017 • Issue 81 | 69


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