there's a really good BBC 4 doc about container ships, which might be, uh obtainable somehow, called "The Box That Changed Britain" ... talks a lot about the old culture of the docks and how that basically vanished overnight, how nobody besides port computers have any idea what's in any of the containers, how shipping costs have made it more cost-effective to farm, say, prawns in the UK, ship them to thailand for processing, then ship them back for sale to the UK public
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Friday, 7 October 2011 16:26 (twelve years ago) link
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Comparison_knock_nevis_with_other_large_buildings.png
― dayo, Friday, 7 October 2011 16:27 (twelve years ago) link
mother of god!
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Friday, 7 October 2011 16:29 (twelve years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/4IKPA.jpg
http://www.ships-info.info/design/knock_nevis_tug.jpg
― dayo, Friday, 7 October 2011 16:29 (twelve years ago) link
That graphic is amaaazing
― Axolotl with an Atlatl (Jon Lewis), Friday, 7 October 2011 16:33 (twelve years ago) link
"an empire state building's worth of party poppers gets shipped from shanghai to LA every 2 weeks"
― dayo, Friday, 7 October 2011 16:34 (twelve years ago) link
We will try to explain everything about Knock Nevis, or better known as Jahre Viking or Seawise Giant.
― Axolotl with an Atlatl (Jon Lewis), Friday, 7 October 2011 16:37 (twelve years ago) link
Knock Nevis is crazy - on its Wikipedia page it says that it was actually sunk by the Iraqi air force in the Straits of Hormuz, raised from the bottom and repaired, bish bosh!
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Friday, 7 October 2011 16:39 (twelve years ago) link
And renamed Happy Giant after the repair! ;_;
― Axolotl with an Atlatl (Jon Lewis), Friday, 7 October 2011 16:41 (twelve years ago) link
Tugboat captains = balls of steel. Seriously.
― You people are supposed to be some kind of music culture intelligentsi (Phil D.), Friday, 7 October 2011 16:42 (twelve years ago) link
must be so weird to spend 6 months at sea on one of these things. a ship the size of the empire state building, and you're part of its 20 man skeleton crew, just walking around between the containers at night, listening to the ocean.
― dayo, Friday, 7 October 2011 16:44 (twelve years ago) link
lol
The shipyard exercised its right to sell the vessel and a deal was brokered with Hong Kong Orient Overseas Container Line founder C. Y. Tung to lengthen the ship by several metres and add 156,000 metric tons of cargo capacity through jumboisation. Two years later she was relaunched as Seawise Giant.
IT'S NOT BIG ENOUGH, GODDAMMIT
― dayo, Friday, 7 October 2011 16:45 (twelve years ago) link
more cost-effective to farm, say, prawns in the UK, ship them to thailand for processing, then ship them back
Stuff like this is almost reassuring, like there's a lot of fat to be cut. I'll try to resist the temptation to be reassured.
― lukas, Friday, 7 October 2011 16:45 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah I can't overstate how interesting it's going to be to see how these matrices revise themselves as fuel gets more and more costly.
― Axolotl with an Atlatl (Jon Lewis), Friday, 7 October 2011 16:53 (twelve years ago) link
Sales departments everywhere will be THRILLED because they won't have to figure 6 weeks' shipping lead times into their sales forecasts.
― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Friday, 7 October 2011 16:55 (twelve years ago) link
there also will be fewer sales
― iatee, Friday, 7 October 2011 16:57 (twelve years ago) link
Pretty sure the natural relationship between those two phenomena won't even occur to them.
― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Friday, 7 October 2011 16:58 (twelve years ago) link
Anyone know how much it costs to truck an 18-wheeler's worth of goods from, say, Mississippi to NY today vs. 20 years ago?
― Axolotl with an Atlatl (Jon Lewis), Friday, 7 October 2011 17:00 (twelve years ago) link
In terms of rising fuel $
I wonder if anyone's done simulations, would be interesting to know the range of scenarios.
― lukas, Friday, 7 October 2011 17:01 (twelve years ago) link
We started to see it earlier this year when container ships slowed down to their most fuel-efficient speeds, which are not their top speeds, and ocean transits started to take an extra week or so. But when the price of oil went back down, that seemed to go away.
― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Friday, 7 October 2011 17:03 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5741896/Could-ship-be-a-scavengers-bonanza
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/6287457.stm
― Dios mio! This kid is FUN to hit! (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 8 October 2011 10:06 (twelve years ago) link
lol @ getting a BMW bike from a broken up container washed up on the shore
― dayo, Saturday, 8 October 2011 11:13 (twelve years ago) link
i know, i was mad jealous
― Dios mio! This kid is FUN to hit! (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 8 October 2011 11:14 (twelve years ago) link
*shot of containers slowly bobbing in the frothy waves, a dim red sun rises in the distance as seagulls circle listlessly*
*cut to shot of kids in newsie caps gunning BMW motorbikes up and off dunes, doing flips*
― dayo, Saturday, 8 October 2011 11:24 (twelve years ago) link
iirc the cops blocked the beach off after a day or so cos people were travelling from all over the country to grab what they cd get
― Dios mio! This kid is FUN to hit! (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 8 October 2011 11:27 (twelve years ago) link
I wld like to make one trip on a container ship before peak oil makes it unreasonable. think of the photos
― dayo, Saturday, 8 October 2011 11:28 (twelve years ago) link
always wanted to be a sailor when i was a kid, dunno why i didn't follow that thru. wish i had.
― Dios mio! This kid is FUN to hit! (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 8 October 2011 11:30 (twelve years ago) link
'sailor' isn't really a job anymore tbh
― at-zing-two-boards (darraghmac), Saturday, 8 October 2011 11:46 (twelve years ago) link
i know :(
just a casual hitcher then, live on the containers, never touch land :D
― Dios mio! This kid is FUN to hit! (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 8 October 2011 11:47 (twelve years ago) link
full-time stowaway, an alright gig but the pay isn't all that
― at-zing-two-boards (darraghmac), Saturday, 8 October 2011 12:06 (twelve years ago) link
― dayo, Friday, 7 October 2011 17:44 (Yesterday) Bookmark
this is a real poetic post, transit logistics thread or no
― honest weights, square dealings (schlump), Saturday, 8 October 2011 12:13 (twelve years ago) link
a low, full and orange moon over the silent north sea with no land in sight is something to remember
― at-zing-two-boards (darraghmac), Saturday, 8 October 2011 12:23 (twelve years ago) link
tho tbf we were chucking dead mackerel over the side at the time iirc
― at-zing-two-boards (darraghmac), Saturday, 8 October 2011 12:24 (twelve years ago) link
I know someone whose dad was a merchant marine until retirement, and now her brother is one, too. Weird life imo.
― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Saturday, 8 October 2011 13:13 (twelve years ago) link
Also you can get a passenger berth on a container ship, it's just kind of weird, I think, to be a passenger when everyone else is working. For days and days and days.
― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Saturday, 8 October 2011 13:49 (twelve years ago) link
yeah i remember years ago there was some kind of website that helped you book passage on various merchant ships, iirc u cd pitch in with the work and get the ride even cheaper that way
― Dios mio! This kid is FUN to hit! (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 8 October 2011 14:09 (twelve years ago) link
it sounds like something out of graham greene really, hitching a ride on a working vessel
a man could get paid for an honest day's work
― dayo, Saturday, 8 October 2011 14:18 (twelve years ago) link
I have to confess that I find giant container ships filled with containers extremely beautiful
― Disraeli Geirs (Hurting 2), Saturday, 8 October 2011 17:43 (twelve years ago) link
I think a lot of people do! you can post to my other thread
sublime machinery
― 2001: a based godyssey (dayo), Saturday, 8 October 2011 17:47 (twelve years ago) link
esp maersk ships
― Disraeli Geirs (Hurting 2), Saturday, 8 October 2011 17:52 (twelve years ago) link
http://vimeo.com/27982653
x-posted in steve jobs thread
― 2001: a based godyssey (dayo), Sunday, 9 October 2011 13:30 (twelve years ago) link
2 days and nobody has called out the word "jumboisation" yet!
― psychedelicatessen (seandalai), Sunday, 9 October 2011 18:00 (twelve years ago) link
Great thread btw!
― psychedelicatessen (seandalai), Sunday, 9 October 2011 18:01 (twelve years ago) link
I did look twice at that word! Is it a word?
― Silent Hedgehogs (Trayce), Sunday, 9 October 2011 23:33 (twelve years ago) link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumboisation
Did they really need to coin a new word for this?
― psychedelicatessen (seandalai), Sunday, 9 October 2011 23:39 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah, embiggen is a perfectly cromulent word after all.
― Silent Hedgehogs (Trayce), Sunday, 9 October 2011 23:39 (twelve years ago) link
guess it would be remiss to not mention the serious flooding in thailand. I've heard that some of the companies are donating money to flood relief - hope that that extends to all the companies who own plants there
― dayo, Sunday, 23 October 2011 15:44 (twelve years ago) link
huge lol:
http://shanghaiist.com/2011/11/08/us_military_riddled_with_shanzhai_p.php
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 12:54 (twelve years ago) link