On the 30th of November, the ONE APUS a 14,052 TEU containership built in 2019 and operating on Ocean Network Express’s (ONE) Far East Pacific 2 (FP2) Service suffered multiple stack collapse on board due to severe weather conditions while the vessel was enroute from Yantian in China to Long Beach in USA..
It was reported that the vessel encountered gale-force winds and large swells around 1,600 nautical miles northwest of Hawaii, USA and these severe weather conditions caused the vessel to roll heavily resulting in an estimated 1,816+ containers to be lost or dislodged from its lashings.. It was estimated that there 40 containers of the 1,816 were carrying hazardous goods..
Chidori Ship Holding LLC as owners and NYK Shipmanagement Pte Ltd as managers of the container vessel ONE Apus (IMO# 9806079) have today confirmed in a press release that the number of containers carrying hazardous goods is around 64 containers and that they now know the contents of these hazardous containers..
54 of the these hazardous containers were said to be carrying fireworks whilst a further 8 hold batteries, and 2 contain liquid ethanol.. A notification of the contents of the container has been sent to the JRCC in Honolulu and Guam with maritime navigational warnings subsequently broadcast.. There have still been no sightings of any containers floating..
In the meantime, the vessel is proceeding to the port of Kobe, Japan with an ETB of 1200LT on the 8th of December, subject to all operations proceeding as planned..
As confirmed previously, the priority remains on getting the ship and crew safely to port and once berthed, it’s expected to take some time to offload the dislodged containers that remain on board and conduct a thorough assessment on the exact number and type of containers that have been lost or damaged..
Are you going to write an article about how the affected companies, will start the insurance process? or how the companies need to do in this kind of situation?
If you cant operate a ship in rough weather by course change and control of speed then its obviously not fit for purpose.
Is there a way of predicting how the weather will be like during the voyage? International maritime organization and classification societies need to come up with additional ways of strengthening ships in such incidences. Thanks be to God for saving the crew. Hope that general average has already been declared.