MSC Napoli

In January 2007, the containership MSC Napoli suffered a structural failure and broke up off the coast of the UK. Misdeclared container weights were identified as a factor causing the structural failure.

Excerpts from an opinion piece by Dennis L. Bryant, principal, Bryant’s Maritime Consulting, published in the Journal of Commerce:

It is important for a ship to be stable at the dock. It is absolutely vital for the safety of the ship, crew, and cargo that the ship be stable when underway no matter the conditions at sea.

Shippers have always been required to include a “declared weight” on the manifest for each container, but these often were estimates and sometimes highly inaccurate.

Beginning in 2010, the International Maritime Organization examined the issue. After several years of study, it was formally recommended that shippers be required to verify the gross mass of containers presented for carriage in international commerce. After further vetting, the Safety of Life at Sea, or SOLAS, convention was amended in 2014 to adopt this requirement. At the same time, guidelines for determining the verified gross mass of a container were developed. The requirement is scheduled to enter into effect on July 1, 2016.

In recent months, various shippers and shipper groups have vocally complained about this new obligation. Among other things, it has been asserted that this requirement will impose new costs and place U.S. exports at a competitive disadvantage. It has also been asserted that the requirement is unnecessary as there is no evidence that any ship has been damaged or sunk exclusively due to overweight containers. This latter argument is equivalent to saying that incremental improvements to highway safety are unneeded because they can’t stop all accidents.

Read more of Dennis Bryant’s writings at Bryant’s Maritime Consulting

Source: Journal of Commerce