User:Haus/3

History

Nice quote in Roland, Chapter 42

Found links

• spreader (container)
• twist lock

Background

Container ships avoid the complex stevedoring of break-bulk shipping.

There are two main types of dry cargo: bulk cargo and break bulk cargo. Bulk cargoes, like grain or coal, are transported unpackaged in the hull of the ship, generally in large volume. Break-bulk cargoes, on the other hand, are transported in packages, and are generally manufactured goods. Before the advent of containerization in the 1950s, break-bulk items were loaded, lashed, unlashed and unloaded from the ship one piece at a time. However, by grouping cargo into containers, 1,000 to 3,000 cubic feet (28 to 85 m³) of cargo, or up to about 64,000 pounds (29,000 kg), is moved at once and each container is secured to the ship once in a standardized way. Containerization has increased the efficiency of moving traditional break-bulk cargoes significantly, reducing shipping time by 84% and costs by 35%. As of 2001, more than 90% of world trade in non-bulk goods is transported in standardized shipping containers.

Pre-Ideal X

The lineage of the modern container ship can be traced directly back to the 1956 refit of the oil tanker SS Ideal X by Malcom McLean. That said, experiments similar to McLean's container ship concept can be found reaching back to the 1800s. One of the more successful forays into containerization were Matson Navigation's Jensen Boxes shortly before World War II. The Jensen Box was a 6×6×4 ft (1.8×1.8×1.2 m) unit that could be moved easily with forklifts. Shortly afterward, the U.S. military began using 288-cubic-foot (8.2 m³) CONEX boxes to move cargo during World War II.

One partially-successful implementation of the container idea was effected by Seatrain Lines, a U.S. company founded in 1928 to move railroad cars by ship. While alongside a pier, Seatrain would roll loaded railroad cars on and off their ships. The company, founded by civil engineer Graham Brush, focused on the coastal trade and the Caribbean. The Seatrain concept was particularly successfull in Cuba, and the company was profitable until its business was disrupted by the Cuban Revolution in 1959.

LEVIN CHAPTER 2 HAS MORE INFO ON PRE-MCLEAN CONTAINERS

McLean

Where prior experiments with containerization were partially successful, the technology and processes that McLean developed with Ideal X not only endured but became a worldwide standard that has lasted for more than six decades. His initial idea, inspired by Seatrain's "Trailer Ships" and similar to the modern roll-on roll-off ship, was to drive trailers aboard ships, remove the chassis from the truck and secure the chassis. At the discharge port, a truck would be driven on-board, attached to the chassis, and the cargo would be driven off the ship. He found early that it was generally more economical to separate the box from the trailer chassis, and lift the box aboard using cranes.

ORDER ISN'T QUITE RIGHT

The key to McLean's success went beyond having a good idea and developing good technology, to his ability to sell the idea to financiers, ship designers, port authorities, government regulators, to the trucking, railroad and shipping industries, and to mariners, longshoremen and organized labor. The railroads were a significant source of resistance: not only did they suffer from decreased cargo business after World War II, but they naturally looked at shipowners as competitors, and resented the artificial support shipowners received from the U.S. Maritime Commission.

• a selling point for truckers was decreased investment: they needed only a the tractor portion of a truck to haul containers

McLean's background was in the trucking industry. While operating a gas station in North Carolina, he founded the one-truck McLean Trucking Company in March 1934. The company grew quickly. Within six years, it had 30 trucks, by 1945 that number had increased to 162, and the company had revenues of 2.2 million dollars in 1946. By 1953, McLean was discussing the idea of carrying trucks on coastal ships. A few other companies had carried trucks aboard ships, but had not pursued the idea as a central business strategy. The idea appealed to McLean in several ways, as a way to cut costs, as a way to avoid east-coast traffic jams, and as a way to bypass rate schedules enforced by the Interstate Commerce Commission. Because ships were slower than trucks and trains, the ICC allowed ships to charge lower freight rates. A key to McLean's strategy was to use the rate difference to undercut competing trucking companies.

McLean pursued his new idea aggressively. In 1953, a McLean-controlled real estate company was tasked with finding sites he could develop into terminals. After identifying Newark as a possibility, McLean entered talks with the Port of New York Authority which became an early supporter of the concept of containerization. Newark would later become the first load-port for a container ship, and remain one of the most active container ports for years to come.

In 1954, McLean began investigating the Pan Atlantic Steamship Company as his path to becoming a shipowner. At that time, Pan Atlantic ran four ships between Boston and Houston, but was authorized to operate in sixteen U.S. ports.

Anti-trust laws prohibited McLean from simultaneously being in the trucking and shipping industries, so he set in motion a plan to quickly exit the former and enter the latter. In January 1955, he set up a new company called McLean Industries. Family members put their interests in McLean Trucking in trust, resigned their positions in the trucking company, and "within an hour" McLean Industries took control of Pan Atlantic. Competitors questioned the legality of this maneuvering, but the trust had sold off all its shares of McLean Trucking by September 1955, rendering the point moot. At the time, the trucking company was the tenth largest in the United states, and the sale left McLean with a net worth of $25 million.

In 1955, McLean sold his interest in McLean Trucking, then the tenth-largest trucking company in the United States. He then purchased the small Pan Atlantic Steamship Company, and shortly thereafter acquired Pan Atlantic's parent company Waterman Steamship.

On 6 May 1955, McLean made the transition from being a small shipowner to shipping magnate by completing a leveraged buyout of Waterman Steamship At the time, Waterman was the third largest shipping company in the country, and had a diversified portfolio which included shipbuilding and real estate. The purchase gave him control of thirty-five World War II-era cargo ships, to which he added two T2 tankers. He would modify the two tankers to carry containers on the main-deck, naming one the Ideal X.

Building Ideal X

On top of the tanker's main deck, a spar deck was constructed. This raised platform had fore-and-aft running slots into which the containers could be placed. The containers were separated from their truck chassis, lifted aboard the ship, and secured directly to the spar deck. At this point, the containers were not stacked in tiers, each of the 58 containers was connected directly to the spar deck.

• The first container ship in the United States was the Ideal X, a T2 tanker, owned by McLean
• separating the trailer body from the steel beds, axels, and wheels reduced the space required per trailer by about a third
• another advantage: these "containers" could be stacked, where trailers couldn't
• (reworded) at the time, analysts from the Port of New York Authority made cost projections for sending Ballantine Ale as both breakbulk and containerized cargo from Newark to Miami. Their determination was that the breakbulk cost would be $4/ton, compared to $0.25/ton if sent by container
• with tankers, the return trip from Houston to Newark could carry oil

• McLean chose the 35×8×8.5 ft (10.7×2.4×2.6 m) dimensions to be compatible with highway regulations
• goals: to lower "loss, pilferage, packaging costs, and cargo insurance"
• and adapted its ships to carry cargo in large uniform metal containers.

• carried 58 metal containers between Newark, New Jersey and Houston, Texas on its first voyage, in April 1956.
• On April 26, 1956, the first of these rebuilt container vessels, the Ideal X, left the Port Newark in New Jersey and a new revolution in modern shipping resulted.
• 1st voy of Ideal X: "when Ideal X cast off from Berth 24 at the foot of Marsh Street in Port Newark, New Jersey, on April 26, 1956, and set a course for Houston, Texas"
• "Arriving in Houston six days later, the 58 trailers were hoisted off Ideal X, attached to fresh running gear, and delivered to their intended destinations with no intermediate handling by longshoremen."

Building the containers

• Pan Atlantic hired Keith Tantlinger, chief engineer at Brown Industries to design their containers
  • background in truck trailers
  • also in 1949 had designed stackable 30-ft aluminum boxes used aboard barges running between Seattle and Alaska - only 200 were ordered
• space on the spar deck was divisible by 33 feet, hence the choice of length
• 8 rows abreast on Ideal X spardeck
• Tantlinger suggested standard Brown containers with aluminum sides
• McLean ordered 200 containers, hired Tantlinger as his chief engineer
• several test runs between Newark and Houston with containers filled with coke briquets to test seaworthiness, and assuage concerns from ABS and USCG
• bought two revolving cranes (that moved on rails) from a closed-down shipyard in Chester PA, modified them, and installed them in Newark and Houston
• Tantlinger invented a spreader bar that would hook and unhook the boxes with "a flip of a switch"
• legal challenges and problems from USCG delayed the 1st sailing
• 26 April 1956 at Newark, 100 dignitaries watched Ideal X be loaded, 1 container ever 7 minutes, ship loaded in less than 8 hrs, sailed that day
• McLean and some key employees flew to Houston to oversee the unloading
• cost analysis found that loading Ideal X was $0.158 per ton. vs. $5.83/ton for breakbulk carriers
• ran a weekly Newark-Houston service, 44 voyages between April & December
• added "small deck extensions" to increase from 59->60->62 containers
• railroads and truckers continued legal challenges through 1957

1956

Sea-Land Services

• "In 1960, McLean hauled down the blue-and-white Pan Atlantic house flag and renamed (Pan-Atlantic) Sea-Land Service."

Subsequent container ships

• "Although Ideal X and three other converted T-2 tankers that entered Pan Atlantic service in 1956 are often called the world’s first successful containerships, the basic design features that characterize the modern containership were not introduced until 1957."
• On October 4, 1957... the Pan Atlantic ship Gateway City steamed from Port Newark to Miami, then on to Houston. Ideal X had trans-ported containers that were individually attached to a flat spar deck, but Gateway City, a World War II C-2 class cargo ship, had been modified to stack containers one atop another in below-deck racks and to haul additional" cargo

The earliest container ships were converted T2 tankers.

1956–1959

• Estimates that in 1959, 60–90% of the cost of transporting break-bulk cargo by sea was incurred at the dock
• in its first five years, the new company, Sea-Land, lost money
• McLean converted 6 C2s to carry containers. Each carried 226 boxes in specially designed cells and had its own cranes. This allowed these ships to unload at any port, discharging 2 containers every 5 minutes.
• McLean sold off parts of Waterman and had to borrow money to fund operations
• 9 January 1959, Matson pioneered using shore-based cranes
• around this time, containers became more standardized, were reinforced, and locking devices to allow stacking were developed

• McLean made an offer to buy out SeaTrain in 1959, but the offer was rejected
• In the late 1950s, there was no single standard for container design. Companies like Sea-Land, Matson, and Grace Lines used different types of containers. Seeing the benefits of standardization, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers standardized the 8x8.5 cross section with 10-,20-,30-, and 40-foot lengths. This standard was adopted by the American Standards Association and soon after by the International Standards Organization.

FROM American President Lines

In 1958, American President Lines began investigating the possibility of containerization, and sent investigation teams into 28 major ports. Following the reports, Davies began integrating containers into the company's business. By 1961, the company had begun launching ships capable of container transport, the first two of these being the SS President Tyler and SS President Lincoln. Ports also began adapting to the new container-based system, although many potential customers were still wary. By the end of the decade, the company was still launching more container-capable ships, and by 1969, 23% of the company's business moved via container.

1960s

• Expanded container operations to Puerto Rico
• In 1966, McLean build specialized container port facilities in Rotterdam and started a U.S.-Holland container liner service.
  • His first ship on this line, Fairland carried 226 containers from NYC to Rotterdam.
• by 1960s McLean had developed the design for an intermodal container port
• Sea-Land was having difficult times financially
• McLean sold off assets to fund operations, including his interests in Waterman
• Sea-Land began profitable operations in the Pacific
• McLean successfully introduced containerization to U.S. Army operations during the Vietnam War
• McLean expansion of operations into the Pacific coincided with the the ramp-up to the Vietnam War
• charging a fixed price per ton, McLean built a container infrastructure for supplying the burgeoning military effort in Vietnam
• this included "chassis, trucks, and terminals" in addition to ships & containers
• 7 of McLean's ships met 10% of the shipping demand, while 250 other ships were required for the other 90%
• filling his empty ships coming back from asia introduced containerization to the region

• in the late 1960s, McLean sold off his interests in Sea-Land to the tobacco company R.J. Reynolds

• HERE HERE HERE

Present day

• Today's largest container ships measure almost 400 metres (1,300 ft) in length.
• Emma Maersk has 87-times the capacity of Ideal X
• They carry loads equal to the cargo carrying capacity of sixteen to seventeen pre WWII freighter ships.
• Today, approximately 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide is transported by container, and modern container ships can carry up to 15,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU).
• As a class, container ships now rival crude oil tankers and bulk carriers as the largest commercial vessels on the ocean.
• It has resulted in such revolutions as, on time guaranteed delivery and just in time manufacturing.
• Raw materials arrive in factories in sealed containers less than an hour before they are required in manufacture, resulting in reduced inventory costs.
• Since 1990, the world's traffic in containerized cargo has increased fivefold. In response to this demand, number of container ships worldwide has increased sevenfold.

Apocryphal story

• In 1937, McLean was delivering bales of cotton to New York
• the bales were loaded onto a break-bulk ship bound for Instanbul
• McLean had to wait days at the pier for his cotton to be loaded onto the ship
• small, individual lots of cargo were loaded and secured on board the ship one by one
• During this time, while he used to wait impatiently for the truck’s contents to be loaded on to the ship he kept thinking of a more efficient and quick way to load and unload vessels and thus save enormous time and labour.
• McLean was frustrated, considered the idea of moving the entire truck on board at once

Other bits

• in many cases, existing piers could not be used for container ships
• Sea-Land remained the world's largest container shipping company while McLean owned it
• intermodalism: rail, truck, ship, and aircraft
• "eliminates handling each cargo item at each transshipment point"
• "significantly reduces amount of time to load and discharge a given amount of cargo"
• decreases pilferage & damage
• reduces "stevedore manpower and time"
• RO/RO ships are a type of container ship

• Jensen Boxes introduced to reduce "unholy trinity" of "loss, damage and pilferage"
• In 1951 the first purpose-built container vessels began operating in Denmark, and between Seattle and Alaska.

Notes from laptop

1. Definition/background?
2. History
3. Architecture
   1. Size categories
   2. Hull
   3. Cargo cranes
   4. Cargo holds
      1. Hatch cover
      2. Hatch coaming
      3. Cell guides
   5. Lashing systems
   6. Machinery/ E/R
4. Fleet characteristics
   1. Flag states
   2. Vessel purchases
   3. Scrapping
   4. Largest ships
   5. Builders
   6. Freight rates
   7. Largest fleets
5. Operations
   1. Crew
   2. Voyages
   3. Loading and unloading
      1. Lashing gear
      2. Types of containers
6. Busiest container ports
7. Safety issues
   1. Stability problems
   2. Structural problems
   3. Crew safety
8. See also
9. Notes
10. References
11. External links

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xiv – On the demand side, Chinese containerized exports make up a quarter of the world total. On the supply side, Chinese shipping companies are among the fastest‑growing, and the country is home to the most important container and crane manufacturers. Between 2008 and 2009, China vertook Germany as the third‑largest shipowning country, Japan as the second‑biggest shipbuilding country, and India as the busiest ship‑recycling country.

xv – World container port throughput declined by an estimated 10 per cent to 457.3 million TEUs in 2009.

4 – The global financial crisis of late 2008 and the consequent economic downturn have been referred to as the “Great Trade Collapse”. The year 2009 recorded the sharpest trade decline in more than 70 years, with world merchandise export volumes estimated by UNCTAD to have plummeted by 13.7 per cent.

5 – While a contraction in trade was expected, the magnitude of the drop was unprecedented even in comparison with the Great Depression.

17 – The year 2009 proved to be the most challenging and dramatic year in the history of container shipping. After having grown at an impressive average annual rate of around 10.0 per cent over the last two decades, by far surpassing the growth in other seaborne trade segments (see fig. 1.5), container trade recorded its first absolute contraction ever, since containerization began. In 2009, container trade volumes fell sharply, by 9.0 per cent, with the overall volume totalling 124 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). Of the remaining 2.22 billion tons of other dry cargo (i.e. total dry cargo excluding major bulks and minor bulks), some 1.19 billion tons are estimated to be carried in containers. Reflecting the historical dip, the share of containerized trade in the world’s total dry cargo, which increased from 5.1 per cent in 1980 to 25.4 per cent in 2008, fell to about 24.3 per cent in 2009.

17–18 – The global financial crisis and subsequent economic recession dented demand for consumer and manufactured goods, as well as for durables. As these goods are mainly carried by container, and as major importers, namely the United States and Europe, were badly hit by the recession, container trade received a major blow. Container traffic along the three major east–west container trade routes, namely the trans-Pacific, Asia–Europe, and the trans-Atlantic, was the most significantly affected, with volumes recording double-digit declines on some of the major legs

18 – The transatlantic trade was badly hit by the combined effect of declining volumes, unsustainably low freight rates, and rising bunker costs.

MAERSK 2009 LOSSES

18 – A leading container carrier, Maersk Line, lost $2.1 billion in 2009, compared to the $583 million profit that it recorded in 2008. This loss was incurred even after $1.6 billion of savings had been achieved through restructuring, renegotiating supplier contracts, optimizing networks and reducing fuel consumption. Other carriers have also recorded losses, with the reported collective loss for 2009 estimated to be over $20 billion.

19 – While container trade is forecast to increase by 11.5 per cent in 2010, in view of the large size of the ship order book and the slow pace of improvement, recovery remains fragile. Some observers maintain that resumption of significant growth is not likely until 2011, and more probably, 2012.

MAERSK COST-CUTTING/GREENING

21 – A.P. Moller–Maersk’s reduction of its CO2 emissions by 9.0 per cent in 2008 (compared to 2007), which led to a saving of $500 million through slow steaming, slippery hull coating, better propellers and other efficiency measures. More recently, A.P. Moller-Maersk and Lloyd’s Register have teamed up in a two-year pilot programme to test the use of biodiesel fuel. The ultimate objective for the company is to cut emissions by 50.0 per cent by 2020, and by 70.0 per cent by 2030. That being said, a new international regulatory scheme to address the climate change challenge in maritime transport would change the industry’s regulatory landscape and would entail adjustments in operations, equipment, management, energy use, and technology uptake, as well as costs.

23 – The elasticity of container freight rates to oil prices was found to range between 0.19 and 0.36; a similar elasticity (0.28) was estimated for crude oil carried as cargo... Results have shown that since 2004, the elasticity of container freight rates to oil prices has been larger, suggesting therefore that the effect of oil prices on container freight rates increases in periods of sharply rising and more volatile oil prices.

68- A market segment of particular interest to many developing countries is containerized trade in refrigerated cargo, such as fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. Until the mid-1990s, the majority of this trade was transported in specialized reefer vessels. Since then, the entire growth in this market has been taken over by container shipping, installing slots for reefer containers on new container ships. At the beginning of 2010, the capacity to carry reefer cargo in containers stood at 2,898 million cubic feet, which was 9.5 times greater than the capacity on specialized reefer ships. The export of refrigerated cargo by container benefits from the global liner shipping networks and better door-to-door transport services. At the same time, it obliges ports and exporters to invest in the necessary equipment. Over the last decade, exporters have benefited from the increased competition between containerized and specialized reefer transport providers. As the reefer fleet is getting older and vessels are being phased out, this market segment will become almost fully containerized.

Operations

Loading a container in the top level of the cargo hold

Safety & Security

SEE CUDAHY P. 245 – 246.

CONTAINER SCANNING

UNCTAD 21 – "the United States’ 100-per-cent container-scanning initiative, which requires foreign ports to scan all containers bound for the United States, is of particular concern, especially for trading partners of the United States, for the transport industry and for traders and shippers. Trials at a number of foreign ports show that the technology required to scan containers automatically and effectively does not yet exist. The measure is also costly, as illustrated by the figures put forward by the European Commission, which estimate that investment until 2020 would require $280 million, while operational costs would amount to $270 million annually. Recognizing these difficulties, the Department of Homeland Security announced in December 2009 that it would postpone the mandatory application of this requirement until 2014 (see chapter 6)."