If you are sailing off Key West and think you saw something big float by, your eyes might be just fine. (The accompanying photo of tilted containers on M/V Ital Florida is from an earlier incident and is from the Cargolaw site). The Journal of Commerce reports that up to 30 containers fell off a Seaboard Marine ship, the 544-foot Seaboard Intrepid when it was approximately 30 miles off Key West. About 23 of the containers were said to be empty and most probably sank fairlky quickly. Another seven, however, were refrigerated containers that are believed by the company and the Coast Guard to be still afloat. Seaboard reportedly plans to find and mark the floating containers and then sink them in 500 to 1,300 feet depths.
Pacific voyagers traversing between the West Coast and Hawaii shouldn’t get too smug, however. A Horizon Lines ship bound from Los Angeles to Guam lost six containers overboard about 1,200 miles east of Honolulu. The ship was hit by a storm with 25-foot seas and 50 mile per hour winds. The wind and seas knocked the containers into the drink.
