News Hound

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 Bays9 10, 29 and 31 during the voyage in question. Continue reading “BSU report into death of a crew member who fell from a cargo hold ladder 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”