Photo of the month – January 2021

[German version]

To welcome in the new year, we are pleased to bring you two columns.
Evasive action	Poor securing goes before a fall

Poor securing goes before a fall

Our collaboration with the Cargo Incident Notification System CINS gave us this impressive example of cargo loss. The following two photos show that inadequate cargo securing is not a trivial misdemeanor; it represents a serious risk for people, other cargo and the entire vessel. To make a long story short, this container was loaded with two inadequately secured coils. They were able to break free of the “securing arrangements” and broke through the side wall of the container during heavy seas. They fell past one or two other containers and caused considerable damage on the way.

At least three, probably five, refrigerated containers were damaged along with some other standard containers. One of these containers was loaded with dangerous goods. This alone could have led to a disaster. It is fortunate that the coils did not destroy the securing arrangements for the containers themselves, otherwise we could easily have been speaking of the loss of cargo from on board a container ship, and the cause would once again have been inadequate securing of the load in the container.

The question of guilt is easily answered in this case: Those who load the goods in the container are responsible for proper stowage and securing of the cargo. In this context, the CTU Code provides plenty of information on the responsibility of those carrying out the loading. One can only hope that the entire loss, which undoubtedly ran into the hundreds of thousands, was charged to those who caused it. Not because we would take pleasure in their own loss, but rather because we would also want to see a safety management system implemented in this company in order to prevent such gross mistakes from happening again.

CINS provides guidelines for stowage and cargo securing on its website.

GDV gives examples of how to secure coils in sections 5.2.14.1 to 5.2.14.8 of its Container Handbook. Furthermore, the key problems are presented in a separate section entitled “Loading and Transport of Steel Coils in ISO-Containers”. Issues discussed include:

• Permitted loading of the container floor in a lateral direction,
• Permitted loading of the entire container in a longitudinal direction,
• Securing the coils longitudinally and laterally in the container,

and loading and securing examples are also presented.

Any company on Earth that is responsible for loading steel coils or other cylindrical cargo can make use of this freely available information. Which makes it all the more difficult to understand how on Earth such disastrous errors can arise.

Your load securing columnists wish you a happy, healthy and safe 2021

Back to beginning