It seems to be incredibly unlucky to hit such a container.

Former, not ex*

@@neues3691 Subs when not on mission likely use shipping lanes for navigation

@@om7303 ha, ha. Are there shipping lanes below the surface. I'll take that as a joke comment.

@@neues3691 yes, but it happens

Idk sounds like an average post delivery

Yeah sounds like what I'd do

Thats hilarious😂😂

Wow! Not quite as rewarding as a container filled with high quality Scotch, but still not a bad haul.

In Soviet Union VHS player had price about 1-4 year average salary. Could exchange it for used car or appartment.

The sea carries them to shore eventually and people pick them up. They'd have quite a story to tell. :)

I don't think wholesome means what you think it does 😂

"That is because you are crazy. It has no feelings." ukposts.info/have/v-deo/hpmpaqp6aqyny6c.html

This is why the sea-level is rising. Because that's years of cars, ships , containers and airplanes.

@@stinga_ this is what happens when u dont graduate high school

Can i have one?

​@@ripnobsure mate!

Ok

Can I have one?

Rrg

Actually tragic

That sucks. I guess we could say at least you yourself was not in there, so you have at least survived 15 years without your life? But for serious, sorry to hear that, must really suck. Stuff like couches and clothes can be replaced, but memorial stuff like pictures, souvenirs etc have such emotional value

If anything good has happened in the last 15 years? it may not have happened had your belongings not been lost - maybe you would have been somewhere else :)

How was the insurance claim? Did they pay up pretty quickly or were they a PITA about everything?

How much data did you lose?

Probably depends on where they get lost, if a ship loses a container in a harbor or "inland" waterway its probably high priority to fish it put of the water so it doesn't disrupt normal operations. Otherwise its unlikely that enough get lost for a full on salvage industry to sustain itself on lost cargo. Maybe a generic ocean cleanup organization will activate fish up lost cargo containers when practical, but thats probably mostly contained to stuff close to shore. (Way easier to intercept junk in rivers than the open ocean)

I've had such an idea for a business venture: fly seach patterns with autonomous, solar-powered UAVs carrying magnetic anomaly detectors. If an anomaly is detected, get visual confirmation, then send out a salvage boat. A small boat's crew can attach buoyancy devices, tracker and a radar reflector while the backoffice traces the owner and determines if salvage will be profitable.

This was my thought as well, especially given the suggestion of radar beacons. Getting them out of the water would be the best solution. But in most cases it probably wouldn't be economically viable to recover them, perhaps if close to shore or a whole load of them, but not a few individual containers here and there. Plus in most cases the cargo would probably be ruined by seawater and, even if something valuable initially, would have little salvage value. Extreme of this would be electronics, a container stuffed with laptops and smartphones is probably the highest value of any, but if it's been in the water and flooded they'd be ruined and nothing but E-waste. Though, just from an ocean safety perspective, a bounty could be incorporated as well, whoever salvages the container and brings it to shore gets the bounty plus the container and contents.

@@quillmaurer6563 One could probably auction off the contents of salvaged containers for a profit. While a distributor will not accept the cargo of a container that swam, there are people in the second-hand trade who might take the gamble that a portion of the cargo will be undamaged, or refurbishable. Cargoes like specialty chemicals in drums or lumber will be not be functionally affected, and the owners and insurers will happily pay salvage. There may also be environmental organizations who will fund the salving of hazardous cargoes that have no value.

I've seen some people make tiny houses out of the containers before.

Friendly Floatees was the product name

Plastic Ducks are still washing up on beaches, not always intact but with bite marks or damage, showing how indestructible plastic is in the oceans.

While, perhaps an ecological concern, those same rubber duckies gave scientists new insights into currents of the ocean

RIP to sea life that choked on those unpleasant duckies

​@@onsokumaru4663evidence? Or speculation that always involves worse case scenario to a highly exaggerated degree? You know, if it saves just ONE microbe!

Fish Cargo Cult!

As there is little light down there, they wouldn't see it coming.

​@@JohnyG29They could feel the negative pressure? I'm not sure how fish work

"Why is that whale rectangular?"

​@JohnyG29 whales and Dolphins might see it, especially near the surface. They're intelligent enough to notice it too. Must be a strange sight.

your brilliance has its own gravitational field

Your genius is almost frightening

🤣🤣

You have no idea how much those torpedoes cost...

@@johnkeith8072 less then a sailing Yacht. Especially if you consider the training value

Yeah companies just have no incentive to do it and this would also have to work no matter which side of the container ends up pointing up. I don't see it being cost effective (needs to be nearly free) and working for all four sides.

* ... *its* stated weight... Remember: his/her/its are a matched set; none have an apostrophe.

I think the cranes can automatically weigh each container every time it is shifted. When it arrives at the port, the weight can be noted automatically; don't rely on documentation that comes with the container.

The float part is easy enough to get working on all four sides. Just install it on one of the two ends,make it strong enough to survive impact with the ocean,then have the tether long enought to counteract it getting wrapped around for whatever reason. Then just have the international community enforce these on containers,because screw corporations,ensuring that containers are made safer. A follow up would then be an international crane ship service that goes out and scoops up any containers that they can find,or outright puncture the daylights out of the container to ensure it sinks,with the bill being footed to the companies who dropped the container in the first place,because screw corporations two,screw harder.

Steal the productive wealth in order throw more government at it. That's always worked in the past.

Oh jeez I didn’t even think of that!!!!! And the worst part is those people are undocumented so who even knows..?

Q how many poor souls are lost in such travels being smuggled like cargo.? A Not enough

@@FC-qe1wlI’d rather have someone who travels the ocean sealed in a cargo container to get here as a fellow American than a moron who makes jokes like this.

@@FC-qe1wl Q how many internet trolls get fed to hogs in the deep forest? A Not enough

​@@FC-qe1wlA lot of drowned people.

No, only on large rivers and canals. 😝

Don't forget sandbars, too!

They're a large portion of a large industry operating globally, so issues will happen from time to time. Excluding that one really expensive incident, I have no idea how their record compares to the rest of the shipping industry.

At this point, everyone are making fun of every company with ‘Ever’ in it's name.

Why were beer kegs flying by helicopter?

@@somethingsomething404 there was no container terminal or dock - the CH47 Chinook helicopter was being used as a flying crane to transfer containers from the land to the ship at anchor.

"up" could be any of four directions, not sure how it would work without batteries and be cost effective, and pop up regardless of orientation

Would it appear on radar/sonar? Tho?

@@paulgemperlein626 six

Good idea, you could also just use buoyancy to pop it up. Have an open drainpipe like structure with a movable buoyant insert. Water enters the bottom and pushes the insert up with the radar reflector on the top of it. the more the container sinks, the higher the reflector gets above the container. Net result is when the container is high in the water, the reflector is only just above it, when the container is very low in the water, the reflector is high above it. Cheap and low maintenance solution.

I was wondering this myself. Could sping loaded retro reflectors be attached within the stacking gap that would release and latch in place effectively hoisting a distress flag visible to radar with no energy requirements beyond the initial potential energy in the spring.

Not possible or viable Cost, electrics ...

@@jonnywakefield8796 That is, why it should be enforced by international law. I'm pretty certain, that even shipping giants like China would support the idea, if universal enforcement is ensured, so nobody can bypass it. And that is actually pretty easy: ban noncomplying shipping companies from entering your port ever again, and confiscate noncompliant containers found during unloading without reimbursement. You'll see the owners running for their money. Just a snarky side node: the countries that have a coast at the Baltic Sea, namely Germany, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia have a long simmering time bomb at the bottom of the Baltic Sea: two wars, and the subsequent shoddy 'cleanup' by the British have let to hundreds of ships and gigatons of ordnance, both chemical and conventional disposed there. The ships often with remnants of toxic fuels in their bunkers, all rusting away. Much of it is in the waters of Poland, and the Poles can't make up their mind whether they should allow the Germans to clean it up, or shoulder the extremely expensive operation on its own. Now that is in the Baltics, where water isn't that deep. Now imagine the same situation with containers of highly toxic chemicals in the midst of the Atlantic. Can you imagine any country volunteering the expenses for that? That is, why it should stick to those that own the risk - the companies managing and ordering the transport.

I'm sure China - with such a splendid record of environmental responsibility - would jump on this idea in a hearbeat and pay all fines promptly with a minimum of hassle in the event they couldn't recover the containers promptly. Or maybe they'll just not care, and pass on the cost of the few fines they might have to pay to Wal-Mart, which will pass on the cost of the fine to the customers, who will continue to shop at Wal-Mart for all their chinese-made crap now that nothing is manufactured in America (or anywhere else) any more.

@@dougearnest7590 1.) Like I said above: the US may enforce compliance by confiscating containers, that are not up to snuff. 2.) China isn't a communist country for some decades by now. It is hyper capitalist. By now, it is second up in the number of billionaires behind the US. You have to go after the shipping companies, not the countries. It is more about having the support for this in the international community. If all the important destinations in Europe and America enforce it, China will fall in. Sure, with an attitude like yours, it will never work.

@@Misophist I'm guessing you weren't burdened with an overabundance of intelligence, and I'm guessing in our current situation that could be cause of congratulations. Your last comment supports this, and proves you weren't imbued with much class, either. So, enjoy the kool-aid, and know the Peoples Liberation Army thanks you for shopping at Wal-mart.

I think these are probably a standard case of maritime salvage, pretty much "finder's keeper's." This channel had a video discussing salvage law and a rare example with a whole ship, but I'm sure containers are far more common. Probably in most cases the owner just writes it off the moment it falls overboard and has no interest in recovery.

Anything washing up on a UK foreshore below the high water line becomes Crown Property as the Crown owns the sea bed up to 3 miles out. Permission has to be obtained to remove it from HM Customs and Excise as is classed as theft of Crown Property without or smuggling if sold on. Beachcombing above the high water line after a storm just needs the beach owners permission if not a public beach although a container or contents are the Insurance Company's property.

@@tonys1636 I am not aware of any crowns washing up on Florida beaches, but it might have happened

@@johnl5316 Our U.S. laws are often derived from traditional English law, with the individual state governments taking on the role of the Crown. The State of Florida owns the seabed itself from the high water line to three miles out. Different types of property on the seabed are administered under different laws, and it isn't immediately obvious to me as a casual Googler who would own a container that washed up on Florida beaches. For example, natural resources and historical shipwrecks in that three mile limit both belong to the state. But foreign military vessels that shipwreck in Florida waters continue to be the property of the foreign country, etc.

@@tonys1636 the monarchy is doomed soon anyway

You are full of sh!t. No shipping container has 'air holes' in them. The shipping containers are weather tight, not air tight. Your reference to '_hazardous chemicals that alter the air in the container, which intern causes the imploding'_ is false. Chemicals cant cause an implotion. And if 'some containers', as you put it, imploded on a regular basis, then a) we would hear about it. And b ) it would be forbidden to transport the chemical in present form and volume both by road, air and rail.

This seems unlikely to me

Why would a container implode??

@@lolzlolz102water pressure

The reason I found this video is because I wanted to know the likelihood of these containers imploding when sinking- this is the closest answer, thank you!

It would depend on the nature of the cargo. If it's bath toys like in that 1992 incident or something that can be easily and swiftly replaced, or something like cars that are already totaled by the ocean, it can and probably will be sunken to save on money. On the other hand, if it's absolutely essential, like food, drinking water, emergency supplies, integrated circuits, crude oil, or other certain chemicals, there's an urge to salvage the container and ship whatever is unaffected onward to the destination

@@LegoWormNoah101 What if you don't know what is in it? It's not always easy to find out especially if the markings are obscured.

@@LegoWormNoah101 I don't think they would try to save water-rotten food or salt-water contaminated drinking water. It's rare for the cargo to be able to survive being submerged in seawater for extended periods of time.

Based on what was in the TV Sea Patrol inspect then sink is likely. A small boat goes over and they look it over. Partly to get the registry number to call in about whoever lost it, whether others were lost at the time etc. Then a few penetrating rounds, which might be rifle or MG fire not cannon, to make the navigation hazard go away. In the show they were about to sink like that when someone noticed an jury rigged vent on it. They checked and it was immigrant smuggling so they almost killed those people.

@@Croz89 You have to investigate a container before sinking it. Several containers filled with immigrants are lost each year, you would NOT want to be blindly shooting at a container full of men.....

Then they just pass the cost on to the customers (or more likely the customers insurers) by declaring general average.

Capitalists are very very rarely held accountable so why would our governments that are essentially ran by capitalists start doing that now?

I think that will require you to implement the plugged sealing system on the containers after they are docked. So, they are not fully weather-proof before that. How is that going to work? If you make it weather-tight it will resist water for some period anyway

@@Gangakinartheke I think it is very simple: A hole on the container, a chain and a plug. By default, like on a truck, the container is plugged with its own plug. But when a container has been put on a cargo ship, the crew is responsible to pull out the plug, and plug the container next to it with it. So every container would be plugged with an other containers plug. Wo when they fall off, plugs would come out. But while on the road, the container would be always sealed. On ships and trucks, the crew is already responsible to check every container regularly, so they would be responsible for the plugs. Super cheap, and simple solution.

Won't help when the cargo itself is bouyant.

@@grizwoldphantasia5005 Still, helps in most of the cases, and does it easily and cheaply. Also, I addressed this in my original comment already. This could be easily done by regulating the proportion of the self floating contents within every container.

The latter might be tricky for the current system to work with, no purchaser is going to want to pay for 3 containers when they only need 1. So you'd need to find a way for low density and high density cargoes to be mixed and then separated again at either end, which would obviously still add cost but would probably still be cheaper.

And taller lashing bridges so that the topmost containers aren't only held vertically by twist-locks, possibly in combination with better lateral lashing.

@@tamsinp7711 or maybe some netting to help the container ship actually contain the containers instead of leaving a trail of polluting hazardous metal boxes across the oceans, just cos they're insured for losses

@@awakeningEmpath problems with that suggestion: 1. The netting would need to have a very high breaking strain (as would its means of attaching) to withstand the force from multiple containers each weighing 20-40 tonnes. That sort of strength would make each net very heavy. If you've ever seen footage of container stacks swaying in rough seas, you'll realise how many the nets would have to take the weight of. 2. You would need multiple sizes of netting for each bay above deck due to different stacking heights. That would require secure storage for all of the nets not currently in use. 3. Netting would have to be removed before each unloading/loading operation. The nets, once removed would need to be stored somewhere. Given the weight of the nets, this would require additional cranes on the dockside; also additional time before and after loading/unloading. Considering how many TEUs of containers are handled by ports each year (in 2009 the figure was something like 450 million TEUs handled; the total number of shipping containers worldwide is about 65 million), the number of containers lost each year is relatively low (average for 2020-2022 was 2301 per year; that is about 0.003% of all containers, or 1 in 28,000), although still problematic. My suggestion of taller lashing bridges to ensure that all containers are lashed, not just the first 5 tiers above deck, would be simpler and more effective. It would also be cheaper than your suggestion for netting and wouldn't impact the available deck space, nor would it delay unloading/loading operations in port.

Good luck with that in the Southern Ocean!

not worth it financially. containers worth maybe 20-60k of goods most off the time (when not water logged mostly worthless after sinking). salvage opps would be 100s off k

further problem: It seems the number of shipping containers on the planet is not known with the vaguest of certainty, but I will say something around 50 million. The cost of fitting all of them with GPS and locator transmitters would not be remotely viable if only 1000 or so go missing each year. And, as per the video, most of those likely sink quick quickly anyway and are unrecoverable.

Its such an incredible video I can hardly contain myself

@@awakeningEmpath omg that joke definitely hit rock bottom

I definitely agree that radar retroreflectors would be an easy solution, even if not perfect. The radar beam still has to actually hit the container, but a retroreflector would atleast return a lot of the energy that strikes it back to the source making it appear to be way bigger than it is. (Hopefully enough to actually count as a target to most systems) I think the only real downside to them would be when cargo ships are in close proximity thats a lot of retroreflectors returning alot more energy than normal. (Not sure how much return energy a typical radar is capable of recieving without issues.)

romania

I was thinking of this. How expensive could summer radar retro reflectors cost? And they don't need any batteries! I think the problem would be that when almost (or completely) submerged, improving the radar signature isn't enough because they're probably going to be completely occluded by waves. Maybe design a system where they raise up as the container sinks?

But who would be obliged to cough up the massive cost for the reflectors? The system you mentioned - RECCO reflectors - costs around 30 USD per piece. You would need at least 4 of them on a container to account for the fact containers can sink any way and so you dont know what parts would be underwater. So 120 USD per container, meaning someone would have to pay 120 MILLION dollars for every million containers they own. Shipping at the moment is in dire straits financially, a cost like that could cripple the industry.

@@Debbiebabe69 The cost of that wouldn't be significant, it's having them all get broken off or caught on things that would be the issue.

@@Debbiebabe69 Shipping SAYS it's in dire straits financially. If you actually go look at the books, certain subcompanies are making record profits. Don't fall for the oldest trick in the book.

​@@Debbiebabe69 its only 5% of a container price - not catastrophic. Especially considering that a wholesale price would be several times smaller.

Haha just put a bunch of sodium in each container, what could go wrong

20.000 TEU on board a vessel. No. Don't add explosives please.

I had a similar thought of a piece in the door latch that dissolves or corrodes when submerged in sea water, after a day or so submerged the doors open. I've heard of some ships with watertight doors having a similar (faster-acting) system that releases the doors automatically to close by gravity or springs if the ship begins to flood, very fail-safe. From what I recall from an Oceanliner Designs video about Titanic, those doors had float mechanisms that released the doors in a similar manner. Problem with such a design - for either a watertight door or container door - is that something that dissolves quickly when submerged would likely still slowly dissolve just from the moisture and humidity of the maritime environment.

Be careful of what you wish for. This might be an interesting solution for bathing toys and empty beer kegs. But would it be for LNG-containers too? Or containers containing hazardous chemicals, like technical lubricants, cooling fluids, etc.? Would you really want to scatter those about into a large area?

That might render possible cargo recovery impossible. Risk of accidental opening would rise. Also wouldnt it mess with crane operators? Because it would have inertia way outside from center while you need throw lot of these around ASAP. It might help with collision risk though.

that sounds like it could work, actually! 🤗

Containers are locked and sealed with pretty crude locking bars, an auto-open function for these tens of millions containers worldwide would require expensive and complicated machinery which takes valuable space inside the container and it would most likely be a nightmare to repair that each time some forklift driver tossed around the container. Also cargo is often strapped down inside the container to prevent it from moving around so just opening the doors won't even help much. But i think it would be possible to put a tracker in all containers who are under a certain weight to track the ones which are dangerous to float for a long time.

We had a boat load of flooring pine, lost overboard about ten years back, ended up on beaches from Littlehampton as far East as Eastbourne.

It's a legitimate salvage I'll have you know!

Or put the transmitter on the inside, activated by water on three of four sensors placed on each face - so once the container is half-submerged, then it'll start transmitting. A minimal power signal, but enough to be picked up a kilometers away and set off a 'container hazard, reduce speed' alarm. Won't happen though. Another hundred dollars worth of equipment per container? That'd be too much.

Or it releases a radar reflector when exposed to sea water?

​@@terryboyer1342they're always exposes to sea water

What do you mean by float buoy? Like it would inflate?

@@paulgemperlein626 a float on a rope to show where it is.bit like a bouy over a wreck.we had flashing lights on life rafts soon as we was in the water

@@whiteonggoy7009 I'm struggling to imagine what this would look like when stowed and how it would deploy. Keep in mind each container has to have one and rope has other possible issues with things getting tangled up

container salvage & reclamation is probably an untapped market

That is expensive military equipment, and even if you had the money to install, those they wouldn't probably sell it to you as it can be used to track submarines ( even though they rarely use active sonar) Also it would be too expensive to mount sonar devices on containers, that's probably worth 5 times the cargo inside anyways

@@cideltacommand7169 Okay, I didn't know that. Thanks for the info

I like this.

My thoughts exactly. As an engineer, I would say that it's very practical, but he cost would be the determining factor. And not just the initial cost of the indicator, it wold need maintenance periodic testing.

the problem with loading a container like that is when it gets put on a semi eventually either the axle weights will be way wrong (so they will have to unload and reload every container), and the other problem is that isn't really possible with (most probably) loads.

polystyrene padding would help with boyancy until it can be retrieved / scuppered

🤭 good one

Use RFID tags, they reflect radio waves transmitted by readera

Covered at 5:00 - doesn't work if the contents itself buoyant.

@@zpvnrt agreed, but it would solve a big part of the problem, it is not a single solution for sure.

And rot and need constant inspection.

@@petermgruhn rubber doesn't rot and inspection is mandatory anyway for containers.

@@pablor3138 Rubber doesn't rot but it does dry out

There are batteries that only produce electricity when salty seawater enters the casing and reacts with the alkalines in the plastic shell, that would be the most obvious solution to this problem imho.

That is to complicated and too expensive. Would never get implemented because of cost.

Yeah, best that there be a mechanism so that the device knows it's one of the low-floating containers before it activates. And even then, it could just be a local radio transmission to keep things cheap but still warn nearby vessels. Would actually be even cooler that way cause then people could decide to just avoid it or attempt salvage

@@bobthegoat7090what would be too expensive? It's just a simple electronic with a few sensors and some sort of radio transmitter. If anything, the trouble would be reliably keeping the battery charged

Doesn't help when the cargo itself is bouyant.

Well, they use metal wires to attach them to on another and the container ship. They have also strapping points, where they also can be attached. They aren't just stacked on top of one another.. That would indeed be childish.

Yeah, they are secured but at some point when a ship is tipping, it's better to let them just fall off rather than catch a wave and take the whole ship down with them. Also, it's somewhat rare and probably covered by insurance. The companies that would have to implement your suggestion are the large entrenched shipping companies and I don't think they have much incentive to drive up costs experimenting with or adopting new innovations that might solve this problem.

Casual Navigation has a video on this topic,as well.

That is not a solution.

@@marshallsayre5015 might not be a solution; however, a few fines and I bet the transport industry will find a solution.

It's likely not be worth the foort tbh.. they are floating in the middle of nowhere, and spread far apart from other containers.. so a salvage operation would be quite costly I'd imagine.

​@@KezenmacherMaking the one that lost it fully liable for all damages and a fine for however long it's in the water might change that.