This week's Economist has an article about the decline in global shipping. In the article it claims that the largest container ships are capable of carrying 15,000 standard containers? Is this possible? Isn't a standard container 40' long and 8' wide or so. How could one vessel carry 15,000 of them?
It states that the cost of shipping one container from China to Europe has dropped from $1400 to $400.

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1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Sounds about right, remember they stack them.

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No question that cargo ships are being parked all over the world and that ship owners and shipbuilders in Asia are bleeding red ink as a result. Since 2007/2008, The upside is that there's more work for the folks that put those freighters to sleep.

I had some pictures floating around here somewhere of a loaded container ship coming up the Savannah River (taken from river street Mistress). It would not surprise me at all if they can hold 15k of them.

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Jim

Just did a Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship

Thats 15,000 TEU (Twenty foot equivalent unit), even though most containers today are 40 footers.

So it's 7,500 40 foot containers.

Still a h of a lot.

And they loose an estimated 10,000 containers per year at sea ?????

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KLK, MCSE

1990 500SL

I was always taught to respect my elders.
I don't have to respect too many people anymore.

That makes sense now. TEU must be an old measure.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

10,000 per year at sea? Wow....Civilizations of the future that explore the ocean are going to be astonished....

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It has been estimated that container ships lose over 10,000 containers at sea each year.[7] Most go overboard on the open sea during storms but there are some examples of whole ships being lost with their cargo.[citation needed] When containers are dropped, they immediately become an environmental threat — termed "marine debris".

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KLK, MCSE

1990 500SL

I was always taught to respect my elders.
I don't have to respect too many people anymore.

From personal experience, I can tell you that in Central America, what is mainly used, are smaller vessels, feeder vessels. The larger ones that you talk about are usually transoceanic. Previous jobs, I used to bring in 40 footers from Italy and Spain to Miami, these would be on a large boat, then in Kingston, transhipped to a feeder vessel that would then hit miami.

Additionally, like 3-4 years ago, in Central America, all of a sudden there was a shortage of boats/ships. What happened was that the demand in Asia, to ship raw materials all around Asia, increased dramatically, basically, in the textile world when China got lots of the quotas lifted back in 2005, or was it 06, anyway, at that time, so the steamship lines, which in the end, are really few in the world, packed up and took all their smaller vessels to Asia to move around raw material and also, transport finished product to transship locations for the long haul to the rest of the world.

As for prices dropping down, would not surprise me. I have been in China for work for the past 5 weeks, in southern China, shenzhen, Foshan and now in Dongguan, again, and I can tell you, and I see it, people tell me that in the last 9 months over 8000 official factories have closed down.

This being said, what is being freighted out of this area, is a hell of a lot less than it was before, these ships must be running empty. I would not be surprised if the frequency of ships has decreased.

Also another note, in shipping containers, it is not necesarily the distance that the container goes, the cost has a lot to do with frequency and availability of vessels.

ie. back in 1999 it would cost me about 1550 to ship a regular 40 foot container from northern italy to miami about 14 day sailing time. When I moved back to central america in 2000, a 40 footer from Miami to Central America cost over 2400 bucks and sailing time was only 3 days.

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I'm not 100% sure but I think those containers can float if they stay sealed....

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"The thing is Bob, its not that I'm lazy...its that I just don't care."

The article interested me because of my plans to ship the FG expedition camper to some other place in the world. It seems now might be a good time to ship.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

In response to the danger of containers floating in the sea, they are required to have a means to cause them to sink after a short time in the drink.

But what happens if they're loaded with ping pong balls or rubber duckys?

No sinkee.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

You obviously haven't watched Nat'l Geographic channel or Science channel lately. Tons of shows about these ships. Huge is an understatement.

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I dunno, and I suspect neither do you. But if some mechanism can let in water and let out air, it can also let out duckies and ping pong balls.