The US-based World Shipping Council, which represents the interests of the majority of major container lines, has hit back with a stinging retort to claims by the Agriculture Transportation Coalition that SOLAS rules on the verification of gross mass will cause disruption in the supply chain when they take effect on July 1.
The WSC points out that supplying the gross mass of containers has always been a responsibility of shippers and it was only the lack of a definition and enforcement that led to the amendments requiring a verified gross mass being introduced.
In response to AgTC’s assertion that there was no need for VGM as the International Maritime Organization had not referenced a single example of where misdeclared cargo weight had damaged or sunk a vessel, the WSC pointed out that the IMO’s Maritime Safety Committee had for many years considered the issue of overweight containers. While there is no claim that misdeclared box weights have exclusively caused a casualty, there was evidence that overweight containers were a risk to personal injury to crew and port workers, could lead to vessel instability and could cause container stacks to collapse due to incorrect vessel stowage.
