Shipping

Vessels on route to some European ports are increasingly being requested by charterers to divert to an intermediate port to remove fumigants from the cargo holds prior to the final discharge port. According to North P&I Club, this mostly concerns vessels carrying Ukrainian and South American grains heading to the Dutch discharge ports of Rotterdam or Amsterdam.

Charterers are requesting vessels to divert to Cadiz for the reason that they wish to remove the fumigants to avoid delays due to strict requirements at the discharge port. Some European countries, such as the Netherlands, do indeed have strict requirements on fumigant gas levels in the holds. These requirements must be met before allowing the discharge of cargo. Continue reading “Vessels bound for European ports are diverting to remove fumigants from cargo holds”

On 27 March 2021, the Seoul Express was approximately 52 nm off the coast of Mexico en route from Manzanillo to Long Beach in the United States. The ship was engaged in regular service between various ports in the Mediterranean, Central America and the west coast of North America.

At the end of his morning watch, the later deceased first watchman of the 4-8 watch (deployed at sea as a lookout, referred to below as ‘watchman’) began the usual inspection of the temperatures of the loaded fish meal containers at 0700 on the instructions of the chief mate, who was in charge of the navigational watch. This involved checking 11 containers in Bays 9 10, 29 and 31 during the voyage in question. Continue reading “BSU report into cargo hold ladder death on Seoul Express”

According to Peter Peltenburg, CEO of Dutch-based Cargo Care Solutions, the weight of extra containers and cargo is placing massive amounts of stress on ships’ hatch covers and lashing gear. Containership owners are placing more emphasis on the repair and maintenance of their hatch covers and container lashing equipment as the full loading caused by trong market conditions impacts the condition of their ships.

“With the current strong market conditions, shipowners cannot afford to incur any downtime of their vessels due to a lack of maintenance. And it is the same when it comes to vessel damage impacting on the vessel’s cargo carrying capacity. If you lose any capacity then vessel Continue reading “Excessive container and cargo weight putting stress on containerships”