On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 15:32:14 GMT, (Richard
Casady) wrote:

On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 08:10:59 +0700, wrote:

Actually container ships are rated in 20 ft equivalent containers,

The figure I gave was for a twenty foot box. Seemed a lot, so I
refigured and got the same forty tons. I used ' The Calculator That
Takes No Prisoners,' the HP 48. The Chinese are building some 90 000
ton boxboats. To big for the Canal.

The 8000 pounds figure was empty weight, and the 40 ton figure was the
displacement, the weight, at 63 pounds/cubic foot, of a chunk of water
8x8x20 feet. At 35 000 lbs a 20 would float with half of it out of the
water.
The original question was if the could they be made to sink and I
pointed that if they started out that heavy , the all up weight comes
to a ridiculous total for the ships. As it is, a container of
machinery will slowly sink, but foam packing may keep a box,or enough
of them, the boxboat itself, afloat until it lots of rusting has
occured.

Yes, I did sort of miss the point there a bit.

According to the Export911.com website the standard dimensions of a 20
ft, container are 19.875 X 8 X 8.5 or 9.5 with the 8.5 dimension
referred to as a "Standard Container".
The standard Tare weight is 1,800 - 2,400 Kg.(3, 968 - 5,291 Lbs.)

So, using your weight of water a 20 TUE would displace 85,145 lbs less
the tare weight of, say 4639lbs and would require need to be nearly
full of water to sink. Empty.

As "stuff" seems to be mostly packed with plenty of styrofoam packing
it is likely that most containers are floating for a substantial
length of time after they are lost.

If I'm not mistaken the maximum total weight of a 20 ft. container is
35,000 lbs., and a 40 ft. container 45,000 lbs.

The standard for international shipments is 24,000 Kg ( 52.,900 lbs)
and 30,480 Kg. (67,200 Lbs) Can't remember where I got the lower
numbers I initially quoted.

Twice as big as a 20 would translate to 70 000 pounds for a 40, not
35k. 45 000 does sound reasonable for something light enough to be
legal on the roads, however.

I believe that the
Emma Maersk is considered the largest container carrier in the world
with a capacity of at least 11,000 TUE's.. Length 396 M, Breadth 56 M,
Draft 30 M. No mention of displacement. 110,000 BHP, a cruising speed
of 27K and a crew of 13.

Crew of 13? One watch officer, one on the wheel, and one lookout times
three shifts. Plus a cook, the skipper, and the chief engineer. Twelve
right there. The seven masted schooner Thomas Lawson, had steam
winches to work the sails, and a crew of 18, and I believe Lakers
mostly have a crew of 29.

The engine room crew work a standard 8 hour day with annunciators in
the engineer's quarters. Direct engine control from the bridge. At
night, two people on watch., maximum. The "autopilot and the chart
plotter" steer the boat and the O.O.D. writes up reports and MAYBE
there is a man on watch. Say, Captain, two watch keepers X three
shifts, Cook, Two deck hands and a three man engineering crew......

Maresk has the reputation of under stating the capacity of their ships
and outside estimates of capacity are in the range of 14,000 TEU's
giving a possible cargo capacity of 245,000 tons.

Go to www.pancanal.com to watch ships go through the locks in the
Panama Canal. Mostly boxboats.

The world's freight travels by container. Try and get old fashioned
"deck cargo" any more. We were trying to ship a 28 ft. sloop back to
the west coast and "luckily" there was a conventional cargo boat that
ran back and forth between two ports on the east coast and Phuket,
Thailand carrying raw rubber. Otherwise the boat would have to have
been shipped on a container carrier and billed at the cost of the
number of containers displaced by the boat. Plus the cradle would have
to have standard container hold downs and lifting eyes.

It ended up as a "no sale" as we couldn't get it back to the U.S. at a
cost much less then the selling price.

..



Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)