Not gonna lie, before I started watching your videos I had zero interest in What the hell is going on with shipping. Now I do and I'm very pleased with your explanations, information and editing. thanks!
I used to sail on the old Bath-built container ships with the bridge all the way forward and I can attest that it is a very rough ride. All of the forward-facing windows on the lower decks had to be plated over and they kept pre-cut wooden pieces on the bridge to plug up the forward-facing windows there when they were blown out. The also built a railing around the helm stand to prevent the helmsman from being thrown off the wheel. However, the company did not care because the forward house acted as a breakwater to protect the cargo. For those who may not have been familiar with them, those ships included the Sea Witch, Stag Hound, Lightning, Export Patriot, Export Freedom, Argonaut and Resolute. I might also point out that raising the bridge to be able to increase the number of containers carried on deck is something we have already been doing on American container ships since the 1960s-built Lancers-class container ships.
On the great lakes the only two vessels that were built within the last 50 years; the 1,000 foot Stewart J. Cort and Roger Blough (858 feet; both vessels 105 feet wide) were built with pilot house forward & engieering spaces aft. All the rest of the builds have the engineering spaces & house aft on all new builds. The interesting thing about the CORT build is her bow & stern were assembled as one unit down in Louisiana and it transited the St Laurence Seaway into Erie, PA. where the bow & stern wer cut (foollowing a painted dotted line) that stated "CUT HERE"; you can see several images of the CORT in her "STUBBY" configuration on Google Images. The CORT was the only 1,000 footer to be built with the traditional bow & stern superstructures & bears a massive #1 on her aft deckhouse for being the first footer on the lakes
@@Syndr1You're video looks fine. BTW, What's your take on those who say we must eliminate ocean shipping and air travel to meet the 2050 Net-0 climate goals?
Trivia: I come from a small town/village in Yorkshire right on the coast. Marske by the Sea. Settled by the Danish vikings. MAERSKE MARSKE. I believe my town was originally called Maerske.
I have nothing to do with shipping, but I started watching your videos in January 2020 when 1,816 containers fell from a container ship in the Pacific. Since then I have learnt a lot about shipping and always find your videos very well presented and educational.
Love your content!!! I lived in Duluth,Mn for 21 years and loved watching the Salties and Lakers come and go. The Lakers coming into port out of the fog on a -40 degree morning covered in ice were the most majestic sight you can imagine.
The fact that the shipping industry never realized that cross-connecting the stacks would lead to greater cargo stability and thereby..... less freight loss is stunning to me.
Every ship design is a compromise between priorities. If you maximize one characteristic then you have to minimize something else. Sheer cargo capacity may not mean much if your ships constantly collide with the wharf because the captain can't see the ends of the ship.
But then when your need to unload a container from the bottom you would have to have move a lot more containers above it. It would make organizing where containers go much more difficult.
It costs money to stay in port to cross-connect the stacks and then undo that before the containers may be unloaded in the next port. Not only money to pay people to do the work but in lost revenue because the ship only makes money when moving. It doesn't cost the company when containers go into the water, the person shipping the goods either loses their stuff or has insurance to pay for it. There is also the constant rush to get into and out of port as quickly as possible because ports have so much to process and (and don't want to lose business to other ports because they are too slow). I'm not disagreeing with you but there are plenty of things in this world that don't make sense. One of things that I wish would change is transporting goods over long distances on land by train instead of by truck in North America. We are at a point of change and society could decide to utilize trains again for long haul transit. However most of the talk is replacing existing fossil fuel powered vehicles (trucks pulling trailers) with some form of alternative powered vehicle that travels on the road. I know that for local and short to medium distances a truck will be required. Trains between large population centres are much better than masses of trucks, no matter the fuel source, for because trucks still release pollution from their tires and brakes, wear out the infrastructure faster than other vehicles, cause traffic and require expansion of roads & highways, and are involved in proportionately more accidents than other vehicles. In North America there is an upcoming shortage of truck drivers though in the long term that may not be relevant. If you look back at the history it is the decisions made after the introduction of the shipping container that caused the switch from transporting goods long distance on land by train to trucks. The book title "The Box" by Marc Levinson is an interesting read (really!) about the history of the shipping container.
@@capitalinventor4823 That comment needs more likes! Thanks for explaining the situation which most people don't see, mainly because they don't look beyond the end of their noses!
APL used to have vessels with the house on the bow. Since the bow has the smallest below deck bays this should open up more room for containers on the larger areas of the vessel. Also we don’t have to worry about booming up the cranes to travel over the house to get to the aft bays.
I enjoy all of your videos but this was EXCELLENT! I am a visual person and using the Lego ship was great in illustrating your discussion points. Thanks Sal and have a great day.
A split house design also means that the crew quarters are quieter as they are not sleeping on top of the engine room. It’s the little things when you are at sea for months at a time. Not sure about putting the house all the way forward but anyway.
I sailed the great lakes on ships built in 1922 with forward houses.First ship I worked was built in 1896 M/S Black River,where you packed anchor chain by hand down in the chain lockers.Also wooden hatches and tarps and windy bars ..From the world of Iron men on wooden ships.That is now all but history
I sailed on a house forward us flag container ship run by Lykes in the 1990’s . It was so far from house to ER there was a bedroom in the ER for the duty engineer. When the weather was rough it was hard to sleep And the anchor banged on the hull!
Love Your Programs Sal. One minor correction, only one of the 1,000 ft. Great Lakes boats have a forward pilot house. After the sinking of the Fitzgerald the pilot house was moved to near the stern, just ahead of the stack housings, to keep all the crew in one area especially due to emergencies. Thus the 12 "boats" are all simular in design.
With accommodation up forward, it will not just be an uncomfortable ride at times for the crew, but also a lot more wearing for them. As there's also probably less crew than a decade or two ago, I wonder how that will impact crew situational awareness?
Parametric resonance on Maersk Essen reached angles of 26 °to 30 ° a total of 689 containers were lost overboard and 258 damaged. The operational threshold for the lashing system set at 19.18 ° roll.
I'm actually into geopolitics, not shipping per se, but combining your amazing info with Sub Brief and a few other places sheds a surprising amount of light on what's going on around the world. The sea touches just about everything, after all.
Ah, enough of singing from the same choir book. We must be skeptical of Sal, Sub Brief and the like. I am preparing a devastating critique of their work. It will include my own lego models which I expect will help to refute many of their claims. Of course I am a theoretician (despite my lego models). I hope those with practical experience will support my efforts. My treatise may take some time to prepare. Please be patient.
Very very informative. I’ve developed a real interest in Sal’s explanations and visuals. Almost 50 years ago as a young grunt engineer, I was sent to Panama where I visited three different locks and was blown away with ships transiting the Panama Canal.
During my career I was able to tour several cargo ships and my biggest surprise was how few crewman it took to run the ship. I was also impressed on how and where they loaded containers regarding balance, type of cargo, and when and where the containers where off loaded.
Firstly I'm very jealous of your lego :-)! But I cant help remembering that Munchen was a large modern ship with her pilot house right at the front - hit by a freak wave (not as uncomon as might be believed) it smashed straight into the bridge house and knocked out all of the power and navigation capability. The centre of windage is also at the front so (as in this scenario it must have been bow to weather) it will turn broadside onto the sea and then stern on. I get that thsese are big ships and these waves are rare but Munchen was taken out in the middle of the Atlantic.
I don’t know what just happened or how… I’ve never once searched for or watched a video on container shipping; this video turns up in my feed, I start watching out of curiosity, expecting to move on within seconds… 15 minutes later I now subscribed and looking at a career change to container ship designer!
Bio methane has been in use for decades, I was in Thailand back in the '80s and in the country they used waste to capture methane to use as a gas to cook with. I was amazed at how they used waste for such things.
Great video Sal, I'm a stevedore and I've always wondered why lines don't just have higher lashing bridges and incorporate above-deck cell-guides - which I do see on some smaller vessels, usually only one bay directly in front or aft of the accommodation superstructure. Is it due to reduced efficiency by adding all that extra weight, maintenance? Surely there are some gains in terms of port turnaround time and reduced labor cost, plus the obvious increased security of cargo. For example, a car-carrier style above-deck structure incorporating cell-guides, you would never lose a box!
I worked on an old version of the Emma Maersk converted to a FPSO ( floating production storage and offloading) offshore Australia ...sadly it was a route that was very complex and after 5 years Maersk sold the vessel to woodside and exited the FPSO game. I do remember her length 333.3 meters long. When the scandahologans do something well it works.
Some trivia. I was viewing the application for permission to transit the Panama canal. One of the dimensions required was to calculate the area of the blind spot forward from the wheel house. Your comment regarding the Great Lakes. Lake Superior in late fall and winter can have the same vicous weather as the north Atlantic. That is why the shipping season is only roughly March - December
The Great Lakes are shallow with a relatively long reach for the prevailing winter wind patterns. It is analogous to the relatively shallow North Sea and the vast North Atlantic Ocean, which, if you've ever been there in winter, gets very very rough. 13 meter wave sets are not uncommon, with the occasional rogue that tops 30 meters. But you don't see wave heights above 7 or 8 meters on the Lakes.
Thank you Norway for inventing this way of doing shipping. Putting the house in front is an invention made by Ulstein group in Norway for the PSV vessels, now adopted on containerships.
Sal! What a cool model! Lego made that? I thought methanol had many problems - why cars use a mix of ethanol instead. As I recall, one is its corrosiveness another is its production of less energy per unit. As to the ride up for'd, my shared stateroom on my first ship, a 3500T destroyer, was one deck below the fo'c'sle. Lots of fun crossing the Atlantic, then on the Med and especially the Black Sea! I learned to sleep quite well in that rack, though. My tour aboard the 20,000T BLUE RIDGE was much calmer.
I agree. Concerned about that corrosion and the impact on seals in a 20+ year old car I went to ethanol-free gas. It's about 50 cents more a gallon, but I have a smoother running engine and probably better gas mileage.
Ethanol has it own problems it brings to the table, hardening seals and pump diaphragm to name a two in older engines. Another issue is alcohol adsorbs water, i.e. hygroscopic usually not good for other fuels, especially diesel. As a side, did not know that Building 19 weighed 20,000 T
@@at1cvb417: I had to look it up. LOL "Building 19!" We were home-ported in San Diego and deployed every year, made port calls when at home. Perhaps now she's piling up coffee grounds in Yokosuka harbor?
I didn't realize why bridge-forward looks normal to me, until you said Great Lakes ore carriers. Yep, that's what the big ships in the distance look like when you go to the beach, just without all those containers.
I have nothing to with shipping but still find this sort of content fascinating! BTW I spent 6 months at sea on the mighty 9 living on the 02 deck (just below the flight deck) at the bow. It got pretty sporty there when the seas were high! 😮
In the early 70’s, I was fascinated with my Lego Maersk Line ship. It had snap-on red ballast keel pieces that worked wonders in the high seas of my parents’ bath tub.
I worked in the in the maritime industry for 25 years and have been retired for 25 years. I love seeing what has happened to the industry in recent years. fm a new subscriber.
I'm a little surprised they don't put the house in the hull and just use cameras and other sensors for navigation. That seems like a more modern idea. Then you've got even more room for stacks and the crew dont have to be on a rollercoaster ride. In twenty years these ships won't have crews anyway.
@@wgowshipping Also there's the danger of being blinded by equipment failure. You want at least someplace where you can still use your eyes directly while on helm. That said, I asked in my other post - do any of these ships operate a few camera drones to get a better (overhead) view of their positioning while in harbor/docking? They seem like they'd be a useful adjunct, but I don't recall hearing about them being used even experimentally.
Ships without crews may never happen, technology may work on land in stable environment, how would it deal with Hydrodynamics if for example one ship had a crew and the other did not. If you have a solution, it may be considered in International Regulations for Preventing Collision at Sea.
@blueocean2510 I believe the ultimate solution at sea is the same as it is for land vehicles: Remove the human element from all of them. Highly trained personnel could be deployed regionally in case of some anomaly. But otherwise, automating ocean traffic would be far easier than land traffic. Look at commercial airplanes, where most of the flight process has been automated for many years now.
Join Nmu in the early 80's, sailed Lykes Line ships, then US shipping hit bottom and got employed with MSC where I stayed and retired after 25 years in the engine department. No regrets, merchant seaman was a pretty good career.
After the Emma Maersk had the stern thruster tube failure and flooding. I thought that a prop shaft bulkhead seal very much like a forshida V seal with a massive flange like a sombrero hat on either side of each bulkhead could be installed. Any flooding on either side of the bulkhead would hold the seal against the bulkhead tighter.
Los angeles MTA busses tried methanol in slightly modified diesel engines. They could not get more than 50,000 before rebuilding. Where 500 to 750k. But they ran methanol without and added lube.
1':50" Twin screws single rudder. I was second mate on 2nd generation box boats, 2,400TEU. With this configuration of props and rudder, steering was nigh impossible below 8 knots. Transiting the Suez canal, we always were No 1 or 2 in the convoy to reduce any requirements to slow below 8 knots. Even so, these ships would run aground with regular monotony. These new Maersk ships are pushing the envelope as to what is seaworthy. Bridge forward, never mind crew comfort and fatigue on a ten day crossing of the Pacific in winter!
Only thing that will prevent these ships from getting much bigger is fear of scraping bottom in the Malacca Straight or needing to use tons of pleasure gel for easy interstation into the Suez Canal in hope of not plugging the canal.
St Lawrence Seaway is closed due to the strike, big ships have dropped anchor. I live in Alexandria Bay NY and I can see the St Lawrence from my front window.
The model and pictures really helped, thanks for the deep dive. It ain’t green, but it sure is methanol. Just because you make it from gas from a landfill doesn’t make it green, it was gonna get burned anyway. It’s an interesting (kinda crazy) idea considering how difficult methanol can be to handle. Methanol also has less than half the energy density of diesel by volume and that seems important given the dimensional restrictions for neo-Panamax vessels. You also can’t compress it nearly as much as diesel prior to detonation (19:1v23:1) which almost certainly means all new power plants. I’m very curious to see if they go for an old school thermal power plant, a combined cycle turbine or ICE? Maybe something really crazy
Thank you, this is first time seeing your video. I love anything to do with Modern Marvel.::I was born and raised in down river section of Detroit. So being that close to river traffic, I would see those great, long-long ships coming thru-so quiet yet you could tell the engines were very powerful. They are so impressive to see so up close, that it took your breath away and you would feel paralyzed by the image. So I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be so up close to one of these container ships, Y F
I own over 900 shares of Maersk stock, they paid a huge dividend last March, hope things look up next year as pretty much all stock has taken a big hit since the Feds kept raising interest rates.
Ive been in the intermodal side of trucking in the US for 10 years now. Its Fascinating still how everything gets shipped around the world and back again. With these new Maersk ships,are they small enough to get into the Great lakes?
Dumb question, but do any of these ships use camera drones for eyeballing their positions while maneuvering in harbor and trying to dock? Obviously not as good as the Mark I Eyeball for reaction time and precision, but having an overhead view has to be pretty helpful and it would help ameliorate the line-of-sight issues with massive container stacks and (especially) these far-forward pilot houses. Maybe they're already in widespread use and I just don't know about it, but considering how cheap civilian drones are these days and the ease of operating them off of just about any horizontal surface they seem like an obvious accessory. You wouldn't need them at sea so the fact that they don't deal with harsh weather isn't a major issue, and they don't take up much space. Anyone can learn to fly one pretty quickly, and as a strictly part-time job you wouldn't need dedicated crew for them.
There are officers at each end of the vessel with the crew to tie the ship up. They have radios and on bigger ships laser range finder to report distances back to the bridge.
@@jamesmurney1374 Sure, that's been a thing for ages and I expect it always will be (perhaps with fancier gear someday replacing the laser range finders). But I'd still think an eye-in-the-sky view from a drone operator standing right on the bridge would be an assist to situational awareness.
Both the information given on his channel and the legos is interesting, informative and just fun. I studied ancient shipping, in cargo, military and exploratory in the modern world in military ships from the first turbines in the British military to the era around the Korean War. I dropped the study. There just seemed so much information. This channel and how the context is offered has definitely made the subject interesting again. The one thing I want to offer is “thanks for all the fish”.
Are they upgrading the engines with the ten year dry dock? Adding the new stack of containers will add more gross weight tonnage so the hp/ton will decrease with out reengaging the ships
Sal, I stumbled upon your channel when you covered Freemantle Highway fire and stayed on, because you make a topic of shipping so interesting. This was great explanation with Legos, loved it!
Green methenol is a good solution. The short term solution of using organic methane works well for getting started quickly, eventually bulk methane will be made using sabatier reactors in the summer when there is excess solar power.
Sal, thanks for explaining the details of the ship design. I don't have a formal engineering degree but could understand the model and the design intent quite easily. Thank you for the informative video.
From what I have seen on the ship Dali the containers were stacked all the way up to the captain's bridge and how is it possible to see straight ahead to me the ship was overloaded on top of all the mechanical problems Dali had before leaving port also the bridge has been around for 50 years without any serious accidents until Dali came.
Fantastic video yet again Dr Sal. I was going to say that the new design reminded me of Great Lakes vessels with the forward house. Cant wait to see how this works out on the great oceans of the world though.
Just found your channel. Now I'll be looking for the new ships as I sail out our estuary heading out onto SF Bay. We don't get many of the super big container ships but it is interesting when there is a line of them being loaded unloaded and you see older ships with cranes, middle size ships, and large ships. I really need to learn more about these beasts I pay dodge ball with when sailing.
I appreciate you recognizing that methanol is an interim solution. Green ammonia is likely to dominate the industry looking farther out for one reason: cost at scale.
Green Methanol showcases the importance of early exploration of "imperfect" green technologies: When alcohols were introduced as fuels, it soon turned out that it was produced under questionable conditions, mainly precious agricultural crop land was rededicated to fuel crops. In the meantime technology and know how was developed. Now as we have a sustainable and an ethically responsible method, everything comes together!
You might want to speculate on what's happen if one of the larger container vessels rolled over and broke up in a storm, sending those tens of thousands of containers bobbing about the sea lanes. Floating just out of the water, they'd be very hard to spot.
theres nothing to really speculate there. its already an issue with what we have now. there really isnt much of a difference between 10,000 containers and 7000 containers obstructing a sea lane. its an insane amount either way
USMMA Grad, from Long, Long ago. Worked on PFEL LASH Ships with Forward House - Long Passageways just below Deck - The Flexing of the Hull was Visible in Rough Seas when within the Passageways! Overhead Lights would "Go around the Bend"! Also could see Torsional Movement! For the latter part of My Career, worked quite a while running Container Cranes on Sea-Land, Maersk, U.S. Lines, et al - Great Feature of the Forward House was Not Running Cranes into the Houses and Antennae of the Ships, Damaging Both, and The resultant Delays in Handling Cargo. Deleted the Time Booming Cranes Up and Back Down to Transfer Cranes Forward/Aft of the House as Well.
What you didn't mention was that Methonal has less energy density than regular diesel or oil so less range and needing more fuel storage to store the same amount for the same range is going to be an a** for ship designers
The forward pilot house will be miserable for the crew. Ugh. One small thing: he mentioned that you don’t really need to see in front out in the ocean. One of my very great surprises when doing Indian Ocean Transits was how far out to sea the fishing fleets would operate. We’d be days out from port and see hundreds of small wooden fishing vessels that were hard to see on radar, and we’d have to weave our container ship through them by sight. In general they’d leave us enough room between them, but they certainly didn’t leave a “lane”, even close to port where the container ships had to start lining up.
That was a very interesting description of the new Maersk vessels, and as you said, I also thought that it looked like a Great Laker. However the thought of sailing with a forward accommodation is horrifying. Aside from the rough ride (it would probably be frightening at bridge level in a storm), I immediately thought of the Baltimore incident. The casualty numbers would have been appalling.
Smart and proactive in terms of both fuel source and recognition of the problems that both major transition canals have and are currently experiencing in terms of water levels in Panama.
I have sailed on old lash vessels. Biggest issue I haven’t seen mentioned yet is than the vessel needs to slow down for weather sooner than the house being further aft. Schedules will suffer, the days of the SL7’s opening the throttle to meet schedules is long gone. Have fun
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Not gonna lie, before I started watching your videos I had zero interest in What the hell is going on with shipping. Now I do and I'm very pleased with your explanations, information and editing. thanks!
Thanks!
Me as well. Very educational stuff. Well worth the time to watch.@@wgowshipping
Same here. I have nothing in my life to do with shipping, but I love his videos.
Me 2
+1
This entire channel is an elaborate way of getting strangers on the internet to buy him Lego I respect that
It's a way of life I wish I was living. I'd love to see what other lego sets he has
god, ive seen you do great things for others, and i want the same.
Normally, RUclipsrs ask for coffee money, money for equipment or general support. You are the first who is asking for LEGO. That's priceless ❤
I used to sail on the old Bath-built container ships with the bridge all the way forward and I can attest that it is a very rough ride. All of the forward-facing windows on the lower decks had to be plated over and they kept pre-cut wooden pieces on the bridge to plug up the forward-facing windows there when they were blown out. The also built a railing around the helm stand to prevent the helmsman from being thrown off the wheel. However, the company did not care because the forward house acted as a breakwater to protect the cargo. For those who may not have been familiar with them, those ships included the Sea Witch, Stag Hound, Lightning, Export Patriot, Export Freedom, Argonaut and Resolute. I might also point out that raising the bridge to be able to increase the number of containers carried on deck is something we have already been doing on American container ships since the 1960s-built Lancers-class container ships.
really interesting, thanks for sharing!
Yep got to admit I'd really rather not be on one of these...
So was all the bridge electrical equipment waterproofed? ☔
The British were Always inferior ship designers
On the great lakes the only two vessels that were built within the last 50 years; the 1,000 foot Stewart J. Cort and Roger Blough (858 feet; both vessels 105 feet wide) were built with pilot house forward & engieering spaces aft. All the rest of the builds have the engineering spaces & house aft on all new builds. The interesting thing about the CORT build is her bow & stern were assembled as one unit down in Louisiana and it transited the St Laurence Seaway into Erie, PA. where the bow & stern wer cut (foollowing a painted dotted line) that stated "CUT HERE"; you can see several images of the CORT in her "STUBBY" configuration on Google Images. The CORT was the only 1,000 footer to be built with the traditional bow & stern superstructures & bears a massive #1 on her aft deckhouse for being the first footer on the lakes
Love the Lego! As someone who has nothing to do professionally with the maritime world you make your videos extremely accessible and interesting.
Yes. I'd have loved to have had Sal for one or more of my college Naval Science classes.
I appreciate the comments. I will leave the video as is.
Seemed fine to me. 👂
@@Syndr1You're video looks fine. BTW, What's your take on those who say we must eliminate ocean shipping and air travel to meet the 2050 Net-0 climate goals?
I don't understand why they don't fit some cameras around the ship so they can see everything.
I wouldn't worry about it, still very watchable
@@shauny2285 The rulers will do what they want, great food, air travel. We will ride bicycles and eat bugs.
Trivia: I come from a small town/village in Yorkshire right on the coast. Marske by the Sea. Settled by the Danish vikings. MAERSKE MARSKE. I believe my town was originally called Maerske.
I have nothing to do with shipping, but I started watching your videos in January 2020 when 1,816 containers fell from a container ship in the Pacific. Since then I have learnt a lot about shipping and always find your videos very well presented and educational.
Thanks Derek!
that would be the M/V Rena off of New Zealand
Wonderful use of your "visual aid" to explain design differences. Keep up the good work, Sal!
A solid reason for an adult to play with Legos.
Love your content!!! I lived in Duluth,Mn for 21 years and loved watching the Salties and Lakers come and go. The Lakers coming into port out of the fog on a -40 degree morning covered in ice were the most majestic sight you can imagine.
The fact that the shipping industry never realized that cross-connecting the stacks would lead to greater cargo stability and thereby..... less freight loss is stunning to me.
Eh, probably they just assumed it would be fine at the start, and never did the math when they started moving up in size.
Every ship design is a compromise between priorities. If you maximize one characteristic then you have to minimize something else. Sheer cargo capacity may not mean much if your ships constantly collide with the wharf because the captain can't see the ends of the ship.
But then when your need to unload a container from the bottom you would have to have move a lot more containers above it. It would make organizing where containers go much more difficult.
It costs money to stay in port to cross-connect the stacks and then undo that before the containers may be unloaded in the next port. Not only money to pay people to do the work but in lost revenue because the ship only makes money when moving. It doesn't cost the company when containers go into the water, the person shipping the goods either loses their stuff or has insurance to pay for it. There is also the constant rush to get into and out of port as quickly as possible because ports have so much to process and (and don't want to lose business to other ports because they are too slow).
I'm not disagreeing with you but there are plenty of things in this world that don't make sense. One of things that I wish would change is transporting goods over long distances on land by train instead of by truck in North America. We are at a point of change and society could decide to utilize trains again for long haul transit. However most of the talk is replacing existing fossil fuel powered vehicles (trucks pulling trailers) with some form of alternative powered vehicle that travels on the road. I know that for local and short to medium distances a truck will be required. Trains between large population centres are much better than masses of trucks, no matter the fuel source, for because trucks still release pollution from their tires and brakes, wear out the infrastructure faster than other vehicles, cause traffic and require expansion of roads & highways, and are involved in proportionately more accidents than other vehicles. In North America there is an upcoming shortage of truck drivers though in the long term that may not be relevant. If you look back at the history it is the decisions made after the introduction of the shipping container that caused the switch from transporting goods long distance on land by train to trucks. The book title "The Box" by Marc Levinson is an interesting read (really!) about the history of the shipping container.
@@capitalinventor4823 That comment needs more likes! Thanks for explaining the situation which most people don't see, mainly because they don't look beyond the end of their noses!
APL used to have vessels with the house on the bow. Since the bow has the smallest below deck bays this should open up more room for containers on the larger areas of the vessel. Also we don’t have to worry about booming up the cranes to travel over the house to get to the aft bays.
Crews are going to hate the ride.
Yes I think the efficiency in port loading and unloading is definitely a factor in deciding to do this despite the downsides
I enjoy all of your videos but this was EXCELLENT! I am a visual person and using the Lego ship was great in illustrating your discussion points. Thanks Sal and have a great day.
A split house design also means that the crew quarters are quieter as they are not sleeping on top of the engine room. It’s the little things when you are at sea for months at a time.
Not sure about putting the house all the way forward but anyway.
I sailed the great lakes on ships built in 1922 with forward houses.First ship I worked was built in 1896 M/S Black River,where you packed anchor chain by hand down in the chain lockers.Also wooden hatches and tarps and windy bars ..From the world of Iron men on wooden ships.That is now all but history
Kinda surprised it is the same straight facade - the bow is streamlined, yet the house is catching a lot of wind - and water.
I sailed on a house forward us flag container ship run by Lykes in the 1990’s .
It was so far from house to ER there was a bedroom in the ER for the duty engineer.
When the weather was rough it was hard to sleep And the anchor banged on the hull!
I worked on the S.S. Letitia Lykes back in '86-'87. She was my favorite.
Love Your Programs Sal.
One minor correction, only one of the 1,000 ft. Great Lakes boats have a forward pilot house.
After the sinking of the Fitzgerald the pilot house was moved to near the stern, just ahead of
the stack housings, to keep all the crew in one area especially due to emergencies.
Thus the 12 "boats" are all simular in design.
That LEGO set is something I definitely want!!!! Using the lego to explain stuff makes sense and easy to understand
There is a link in the description.
@@wgowshipping I know that lol
It's about $500
With accommodation up forward, it will not just be an uncomfortable ride at times for the crew, but also a lot more wearing for them. As there's also probably less crew than a decade or two ago, I wonder how that will impact crew situational awareness?
Adding weight at height to a vessel is just like compound interest. The exponential increase in rolling, pencils up really fast.
Thanks Sal
Parametric resonance on Maersk Essen reached angles of 26 °to 30 ° a total of 689 containers were lost overboard and 258 damaged. The operational threshold for the lashing system set at 19.18 ° roll.
@@blueocean2510 thank you for that addition
I'm actually into geopolitics, not shipping per se, but combining your amazing info with Sub Brief and a few other places sheds a surprising amount of light on what's going on around the world. The sea touches just about everything, after all.
Do you watch Perun and Willy OEM?
They're both excellent Australian RUclipsrs.
I also really like the Austrian RUclipsr Kraut.
Ditto with Sub Brief
I actually came to this channel from Sub Brief.
Ah, enough of singing from the same choir book. We must be skeptical of Sal, Sub Brief and the like. I am preparing a devastating critique of their work. It will include my own lego models which I expect will help to refute many of their claims. Of course I am a theoretician (despite my lego models). I hope those with practical experience will support my efforts. My treatise may take some time to prepare. Please be patient.
@@roderickcampbell2105 yeah yeah what ever 🥱🥱
I just hope that this means we get another Maersk Lego ship. I’ll be one of the first in line for the new design. I missed that original one.
Plenty of the for sale online - but they're expensive!!
Another well though out and presented video. Thanks for all you do, Sal!
Loved the Maersk video. Really informative. Looks like the new ships are a play on less shipments from China.
The Lego model is prefect for explaining these changes. Great vid! LOVED IT!
Very very informative. I’ve developed a real interest in Sal’s explanations and visuals. Almost 50 years ago as a young grunt engineer, I was sent to Panama where I visited three different locks and was blown away with ships transiting the Panama Canal.
During my career I was able to tour several cargo ships and my biggest surprise was how few crewman it took to run the ship. I was also impressed on how and where they loaded containers regarding balance, type of cargo, and when and where the containers where off loaded.
Firstly I'm very jealous of your lego :-)! But I cant help remembering that Munchen was a large modern ship with her pilot house right at the front - hit by a freak wave (not as uncomon as might be believed) it smashed straight into the bridge house and knocked out all of the power and navigation capability. The centre of windage is also at the front so (as in this scenario it must have been bow to weather) it will turn broadside onto the sea and then stern on. I get that thsese are big ships and these waves are rare but Munchen was taken out in the middle of the Atlantic.
I don’t know what just happened or how… I’ve never once searched for or watched a video on container shipping; this video turns up in my feed, I start watching out of curiosity, expecting to move on within seconds… 15 minutes later I now subscribed and looking at a career change to container ship designer!
Bio methane has been in use for decades, I was in Thailand back in the '80s and in the country they used waste to capture methane to use as a gas to cook with. I was amazed at how they used waste for such things.
Great video Sal, I'm a stevedore and I've always wondered why lines don't just have higher lashing bridges and incorporate above-deck cell-guides - which I do see on some smaller vessels, usually only one bay directly in front or aft of the accommodation superstructure. Is it due to reduced efficiency by adding all that extra weight, maintenance? Surely there are some gains in terms of port turnaround time and reduced labor cost, plus the obvious increased security of cargo. For example, a car-carrier style above-deck structure incorporating cell-guides, you would never lose a box!
Top weight and maintenance.
I worked on an old version of the Emma Maersk converted to a FPSO ( floating production storage and offloading) offshore Australia ...sadly it was a route that was very complex and after 5 years Maersk sold the vessel to woodside and exited the FPSO game. I do remember her length 333.3 meters long. When the scandahologans do something well it works.
Some trivia. I was viewing the application for permission to transit the Panama canal. One of the dimensions required was to calculate the area of the blind spot forward from the wheel house.
Your comment regarding the Great Lakes. Lake Superior in late fall and winter can have the same vicous weather as the north Atlantic. That is why the shipping season is only roughly March - December
The Great Lakes are shallow with a relatively long reach for the prevailing winter wind patterns. It is analogous to the relatively shallow North Sea and the vast North Atlantic Ocean, which, if you've ever been there in winter, gets very very rough. 13 meter wave sets are not uncommon, with the occasional rogue that tops 30 meters. But you don't see wave heights above 7 or 8 meters on the Lakes.
Thank you Norway for inventing this way of doing shipping. Putting the house in front is an invention made by Ulstein group in Norway for the PSV vessels, now adopted on containerships.
Sal! What a cool model! Lego made that?
I thought methanol had many problems - why cars use a mix of ethanol instead. As I recall, one is its corrosiveness another is its production of less energy per unit.
As to the ride up for'd, my shared stateroom on my first ship, a 3500T destroyer, was one deck below the fo'c'sle. Lots of fun crossing the Atlantic, then on the Med and especially the Black Sea! I learned to sleep quite well in that rack, though. My tour aboard the 20,000T BLUE RIDGE was much calmer.
I agree. Concerned about that corrosion and the impact on seals in a 20+ year old car I went to ethanol-free gas. It's about 50 cents more a gallon, but I have a smoother running engine and probably better gas mileage.
Ethanol has it own problems it brings to the table, hardening seals and pump diaphragm to name a two in older engines. Another issue is alcohol adsorbs water, i.e. hygroscopic usually not good for other fuels, especially diesel.
As a side, did not know that Building 19 weighed 20,000 T
@@at1cvb417: I had to look it up.
LOL "Building 19!" We were home-ported in San Diego and deployed every year, made port calls when at home. Perhaps now she's piling up coffee grounds in Yokosuka harbor?
I didn't realize why bridge-forward looks normal to me, until you said Great Lakes ore carriers. Yep, that's what the big ships in the distance look like when you go to the beach, just without all those containers.
Never too old to play with Lego 🙂
Hope to see the new Maersk ship in my home town port soon.
There is a video of ANE MAERSK leaving the port of Hamburg a few days ago
I have nothing to with shipping but still find this sort of content fascinating! BTW I spent 6 months at sea on the mighty 9 living on the 02 deck (just below the flight deck) at the bow. It got pretty sporty there when the seas were high! 😮
In the early 70’s, I was fascinated with my Lego Maersk Line ship. It had snap-on red ballast keel pieces that worked wonders in the high seas of my parents’ bath tub.
I worked in the in the maritime industry for 25 years and have been retired for 25 years. I love seeing what has happened to the industry in recent years. fm a new subscriber.
I'm a little surprised they don't put the house in the hull and just use cameras and other sensors for navigation. That seems like a more modern idea. Then you've got even more room for stacks and the crew dont have to be on a rollercoaster ride. In twenty years these ships won't have crews anyway.
They don't want to rely on cameras as it does not provide the depth perspective needed.
@@wgowshipping Also there's the danger of being blinded by equipment failure. You want at least someplace where you can still use your eyes directly while on helm.
That said, I asked in my other post - do any of these ships operate a few camera drones to get a better (overhead) view of their positioning while in harbor/docking? They seem like they'd be a useful adjunct, but I don't recall hearing about them being used even experimentally.
International Regulations for Collision at Sea, aids to navigation, there is a requirement for a proper look out, by the Officers on watch.
Ships without crews may never happen, technology may work on land in stable environment, how would it deal with Hydrodynamics if for example one ship had a crew and the other did not. If you have a solution, it may be considered in International Regulations for Preventing Collision at Sea.
@blueocean2510 I believe the ultimate solution at sea is the same as it is for land vehicles: Remove the human element from all of them. Highly trained personnel could be deployed regionally in case of some anomaly. But otherwise, automating ocean traffic would be far easier than land traffic. Look at commercial airplanes, where most of the flight process has been automated for many years now.
Great explanation Sal. The model really brings it to life
Join Nmu in the early 80's, sailed Lykes Line ships, then US shipping hit bottom and got employed with MSC where
I stayed and retired after 25 years in the engine department. No regrets, merchant seaman was a pretty good career.
Love the lego ships in the background of your video’s!
Bricked to Perfection is my favorite LEGO channel.....but What is Going on With Shipping is my second favorite. tHanks for a great video
You've got to be one of the best professors in the US. One of my top five YT channels for certain.
Thank you!
After the Emma Maersk had the stern thruster tube failure and flooding. I thought that a prop shaft bulkhead seal very much like a forshida V seal with a massive flange like a sombrero hat on either side of each bulkhead could be installed. Any flooding on either side of the bulkhead would hold the seal against the bulkhead tighter.
Los angeles MTA busses tried methanol in slightly modified diesel engines. They could not get more than 50,000 before rebuilding. Where 500 to 750k. But they ran methanol without and added lube.
1':50" Twin screws single rudder. I was second mate on 2nd generation box boats, 2,400TEU. With this configuration of props and rudder, steering was nigh impossible below 8 knots. Transiting the Suez canal, we always were No 1 or 2 in the convoy to reduce any requirements to slow below 8 knots. Even so, these ships would run aground with regular monotony.
These new Maersk ships are pushing the envelope as to what is seaworthy. Bridge forward, never mind crew comfort and fatigue on a ten day crossing of the Pacific in winter!
I'm surprised with how bluff they made it, seems like a giant liability to me (due to the risk of damage from large waves).
Only thing that will prevent these ships from getting much bigger is fear of scraping bottom in the Malacca Straight or needing to use tons of pleasure gel for easy interstation into the Suez Canal in hope of not plugging the canal.
St Lawrence Seaway is closed due to the strike, big ships have dropped anchor. I live in Alexandria Bay NY and I can see the St Lawrence from my front window.
Informative and not dull. Your legos made me jealous.
The model and pictures really helped, thanks for the deep dive. It ain’t green, but it sure is methanol. Just because you make it from gas from a landfill doesn’t make it green, it was gonna get burned anyway. It’s an interesting (kinda crazy) idea considering how difficult methanol can be to handle. Methanol also has less than half the energy density of diesel by volume and that seems important given the dimensional restrictions for neo-Panamax vessels. You also can’t compress it nearly as much as diesel prior to detonation (19:1v23:1) which almost certainly means all new power plants. I’m very curious to see if they go for an old school thermal power plant, a combined cycle turbine or ICE? Maybe something really crazy
Not to mention the corrosion issues with methanol that weren't a problem with diesel oil. Some lessons will be learned, or relearned...
Thank you, this is first time seeing your video. I love anything to do with Modern Marvel.::I was born and raised in down river section of Detroit. So being that close to river traffic, I would see those great, long-long ships coming thru-so quiet yet you could tell the engines were very powerful. They are so impressive to see so up close, that it took your breath away and you would feel paralyzed by the image. So I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be so up close to one of these container ships,
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Thanks!
Great education on container ships. The Lego Maersk is a great visual. Thank you!
I own over 900 shares of Maersk stock, they paid a huge dividend last March, hope things look up next year as pretty much all stock has taken a big hit since the Feds kept raising interest rates.
Ive been in the intermodal side of trucking in the US for 10 years now.
Its Fascinating still how everything gets shipped around the world and back again. With these new Maersk ships,are they small enough to get into the Great lakes?
No. They are too big.
Thanks for the info.
Dumb question, but do any of these ships use camera drones for eyeballing their positions while maneuvering in harbor and trying to dock? Obviously not as good as the Mark I Eyeball for reaction time and precision, but having an overhead view has to be pretty helpful and it would help ameliorate the line-of-sight issues with massive container stacks and (especially) these far-forward pilot houses.
Maybe they're already in widespread use and I just don't know about it, but considering how cheap civilian drones are these days and the ease of operating them off of just about any horizontal surface they seem like an obvious accessory. You wouldn't need them at sea so the fact that they don't deal with harsh weather isn't a major issue, and they don't take up much space. Anyone can learn to fly one pretty quickly, and as a strictly part-time job you wouldn't need dedicated crew for them.
There are officers at each end of the vessel with the crew to tie the ship up. They have radios and on bigger ships laser range finder to report distances back to the bridge.
@@jamesmurney1374 Sure, that's been a thing for ages and I expect it always will be (perhaps with fancier gear someday replacing the laser range finders). But I'd still think an eye-in-the-sky view from a drone operator standing right on the bridge would be an assist to situational awareness.
Why would you need a drone? Just hardwire cameras and mount them to the ship.
@@stargazer7644 Depth perception.
@@hanzzel6086 What does depth perception have to do with a drone vs a camera? You don't have depth perception with either one.
Both the information given on his channel and the legos is interesting, informative and just fun. I studied ancient shipping, in cargo, military and exploratory in the modern world in military ships from the first turbines in the British military to the era around the Korean War. I dropped the study. There just seemed so much information. This channel and how the context is offered has definitely made the subject interesting again. The one thing I want to offer is “thanks for all the fish”.
Sal. You haven't been on a "laker" in a long time. The few of them that are still sailing with the house forward were built in the 50's.
I have not been a Laker in a while.
There is 1 "1,000 footer" with a forward bridge built (comparatively) recently.
Excellent explanation for what to expect with the forward house. Thank you for your channel.
You are welcome!
I love learning about something I know nothing about. You explain things well.
don't know how I came across a shipping channel, further... how the heck did I fall into subscribing and watching every new video 😅
With that forward bridge, where would the containers with hazardous material be placed?
Thanks for keeping us in the loop!!
Are they upgrading the engines with the ten year dry dock? Adding the new stack of containers will add more gross weight tonnage so the hp/ton will decrease with out reengaging the ships
Have thy added TV camaras to cover the bows?
Sal, I stumbled upon your channel when you covered Freemantle Highway fire and stayed on, because you make a topic of shipping so interesting. This was great explanation with Legos, loved it!
Very fine presentation. I always wanted to know much more about container ships. Thank you!
Green methenol is a good solution. The short term solution of using organic methane works well for getting started quickly, eventually bulk methane will be made using sabatier reactors in the summer when there is excess solar power.
And winter in NW Europe when there is excess wind power.
Sal, thanks for explaining the details of the ship design.
I don't have a formal engineering degree but could understand the model and the design intent quite easily.
Thank you for the informative video.
From what I have seen on the ship Dali the containers were stacked all the way up to the captain's bridge and how is it possible to see straight ahead to me the ship was overloaded on top of all the mechanical problems Dali had before leaving port also the bridge has been around for 50 years without any serious accidents until Dali came.
The gas additive is Ethanol, not methanol. (2 carbon, instead of 1) Geoff Rohde
Love youre teaching aid!
Liked for the LEGO ship. Kept watching because your content is always great!
Sal is very bright I enjoy listening
Fantastic video yet again Dr Sal. I was going to say that the new design reminded me of Great Lakes vessels with the forward house. Cant wait to see how this works out on the great oceans of the world though.
Just found your channel. Now I'll be looking for the new ships as I sail out our estuary heading out onto SF Bay. We don't get many of the super big container ships but it is interesting when there is a line of them being loaded unloaded and you see older ships with cranes, middle size ships, and large ships. I really need to learn more about these beasts I pay dodge ball with when sailing.
I appreciate you recognizing that methanol is an interim solution. Green ammonia is likely to dominate the industry looking farther out for one reason: cost at scale.
Green Methanol showcases the importance of early exploration of "imperfect" green technologies: When alcohols were introduced as fuels, it soon turned out that it was produced under questionable conditions, mainly precious agricultural crop land was rededicated to fuel crops. In the meantime technology and know how was developed. Now as we have a sustainable and an ethically responsible method, everything comes together!
SAL'S PLAYING WITH HIS SHIPPING TOYS AGAIN!! LUV IT!!
Am
Fascinating to learn something new everyday. Thank you
You might want to speculate on what's happen if one of the larger container vessels rolled over and broke up in a storm, sending those tens of thousands of containers bobbing about the sea lanes. Floating just out of the water, they'd be very hard to spot.
theres nothing to really speculate there. its already an issue with what we have now. there really isnt much of a difference between 10,000 containers and 7000 containers obstructing a sea lane. its an insane amount either way
USMMA Grad, from Long, Long ago. Worked on PFEL LASH Ships with Forward House - Long Passageways just below Deck - The Flexing of the Hull was Visible in Rough Seas when within the Passageways! Overhead Lights would "Go around the Bend"! Also could see Torsional Movement!
For the latter part of My Career, worked quite a while running Container Cranes on Sea-Land, Maersk, U.S. Lines, et al - Great Feature of the Forward House was Not Running Cranes into the Houses and Antennae of the Ships, Damaging Both, and The resultant Delays in Handling Cargo. Deleted the Time Booming Cranes Up and Back Down to Transfer Cranes Forward/Aft of the House as Well.
What you didn't mention was that Methonal has less energy density than regular diesel or oil so less range and needing more fuel storage to store the same amount for the same range is going to be an a** for ship designers
The forward pilot house will be miserable for the crew. Ugh.
One small thing: he mentioned that you don’t really need to see in front out in the ocean. One of my very great surprises when doing Indian Ocean Transits was how far out to sea the fishing fleets would operate. We’d be days out from port and see hundreds of small wooden fishing vessels that were hard to see on radar, and we’d have to weave our container ship through them by sight. In general they’d leave us enough room between them, but they certainly didn’t leave a “lane”, even close to port where the container ships had to start lining up.
That's worse than playing chicken with a freight train.
That was a very interesting description of the new Maersk vessels, and as you said, I also thought that it looked like a Great Laker. However the thought of sailing with a forward accommodation is horrifying. Aside from the rough ride (it would probably be frightening at bridge level in a storm), I immediately thought of the Baltimore incident. The casualty numbers would have been appalling.
Smart and proactive in terms of both fuel source and recognition of the problems that both major transition canals have and are currently experiencing in terms of water levels in Panama.
This was fascinating. You always look so cute with your shirts and colors.
Looks like a higher center of gravity. Is this not a problem in rough seas ?
I wonder if the crews will sling hammocks somewhere aft, just to avoid the pounding.
Speaking of bridges how many harbors have bridges that limit the height of the ship?
Will be on the look out for one of the new configurations here in Southport NC.
Very informative. I enjoyed. I was used to being around container ships coming into Houston.
Whoa, this is the first I have heard the methanol news. Wow!
I have sailed on old lash vessels. Biggest issue I haven’t seen mentioned yet is than the vessel needs to slow down for weather sooner than the house being further aft. Schedules will suffer, the days of the SL7’s opening the throttle to meet schedules is long gone. Have fun
Those main engines actually burn heavy fuel oil, not diesel. There generators burn diesel
Great job of explaining this future of shipping THX
I think the new, forward house will have to be extremely robust as well, irrespective of the poorer crew ride.
Very interesting video and extremely well explained. Thank you!!