Container Ship Breaks In Two, Sinks 361
Cliff Stoll writes "Along with 7000 containers, ship MOL Comfort broke in half in high seas in the Indian Ocean. The aft section floated for a week, then sank on June 27th. The forward section was towed most of the way to port, but burned and sank on July 10th. This post-panamax ship was 316 meters long and only 5 years old. With a typical value of $40,000 per container (PDF), this amounts to a quarter billion dollar loss. The cause is unknown, but may be structural or perhaps due to overfilled containers that are declared as underweight. Of course, the software used to calculate ship stability relies upon these incorrect physical parameters."
It was Kaiju (Score:2, Funny)
the front fell off (Score:5, Funny)
Why two? (Score:5, Funny)
Why can't ships break in three or break in four even? I mean really. What ever happened to creative engineering?
Should've just paid the ransom (Score:5, Funny)
I guess the Da Vinci virus wasn't playing around. Bummer.
Re:Tough ship (Score:5, Funny)
The forward section stays afloat for over three weeks before it bursts into flames before sinking.
Was it carrying a 787 as cargo?
Re:Declared underweight? (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps they could paint a line on the side of a large vessel floating in water and see if the containers displace enough water to submerge the line.
Eureka!
Re:Declared underweight? (Score:5, Funny)
Can you now explain to me how, in this case, the 'load line' did its job?
Well, if the load line is horizontal, things are generally OK. If it's vertical like in the pictures, then your ship is probably sinking.
Therefore if the load line reaches vertical you might want to consider taking some action, and certainly not just sailing off.