Containers overboard – is theory overtaking practice?


With the number of major container losses at sea seemingly on the rise, International Marine and Cargo Surveyors Battermann + Tillery Group has provided this useful oversight and guide.


Spectacular pictures of containers floating in the sea and container ships with visible gaps in the container stacks in recent months have been featured repeatedly in media coverage. The financial losses resulting from such events are enormous. In addition to the damage to the container itself, in most cases, the cargo cannot be recovered. Furthermore, there are the costs of recovery operations, delays and so on. The long-term environmental


54 | The Report • June 2021 • Issue 96


damage caused by the container or the cargo is generally not taken into account, at least when these incidents take place in international waters.


No mention is made of the circumstances and consequences, not only in media coverage, but also in discussions among the experts. The transportation industry also tries to diminish the extent of the problem by stating that the number of containers actually


lost is small compared to the container volume transported. In this respect, there is no consideration of what has been learned from the incidents which have occurred in the past years and how such incidents can be avoided in the future.


This article aims to shed some light on the known causes of container losses at sea and to initiate a discussion with the aim of understanding and improving the situation.


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