In today’s society, it is necessary to be incredibly vigilant in terms of national security and also the potentially illegal goods which may enter the country. This, of course is particularly relevant within the shipping industry where high amounts of goods are imported every single day.

Ideally, every shipping container which enters the country should be searched and it’s contents verified. However, in practice this is impossible, due to the sheer number of containers which are received each day and the fact that it would be incredibly expensive to hire the required number of people to search these in a quick and effective manner.

Over recent times, there has been a growing fear that shipping containers could be utilised to smuggle drugs, terrorist devices and illegal immigrants into the country, which are not being picked up. As a result of this, the measures which govern the shipping industry are being tightened all the time to ensure that the amount of illegal products entering the country are heavily minimised.

One of the leading set of objectives which has been proposed to this end, is the American Container Security Initiative. This implores that all containers which are deemed to be of high risk, are thoroughly searched, either by manual or electronic means, ideally before the transportation has been made.

The movement of illegal products cannot be totally eradicated, but the shipping industry is evolving at a remarkably quick pace to ensure that the procedures are implemented for this to be minimised.

The merchant shipping industry is one of the largest and most lucrative in the world. We all rely on this industry to provide us with many of the products which play a pivotal role in our day to day lives.

As we have previously explored, products are stored within large shipping containers and transported around the world until they reach their destination. But what happens when the size of the cargo which requires to be shipped, is larger than the actual container? Obviously the size and weight constrictions within the shipping industry are much more lenient in comparison to transportation via land or air, yet there are some situations where even this are not enough.

In these circumstances, then the products can be transported via platforms, open top containers and flat racks which maximise the area available. Additionally, there are certain types of merchant ships termed “roll-on / roll-off” vessels which employ ramp systems and easily allow the containers to be placed onboard the ship and unloaded following the journey. These are most commonly utilised during fairly short distances of transportation, due to the fact that they are not able to hold the high volumes of containers which can be accommodated on crane based ships.

RORO’s place at the heart of the merchant shipping industry is assured, as their high speeds and adaptability render them indispensable.

Shipping containers which are used to transport cargo throughout the world are design to withhold a high magnitude of wear and tear. This relates to both the transportation of goods and the forces of nature which affect them when left out in the open. To this end, all shipping containers are created to withstand constant usage – as soon as one shipment has arrived at it’s destination, the container should be ready to progress with another job.

Such is the durability of modern shipping containers, they should last almost an infinite amount of time, if the process of transportation is conducted within suitable guidelines.

However, this is not always possible. In certain situations the amount of money which is involved in moving a used container from it’s previous destination, to the location of a new consignment, is actually greater than the value of the container itself. As a result therefore, it is common for new containers to be purchased and therefore minimising the cost of transporting the structure to the required starting destination.

This has meant that there are vast areas in some ports, which are flooded with empty shipping containers that have been left there after their last transportation. Sometimes these are utilised within the architecture of other container structures, or the steel from them is recycled for use in unrelated products.

Very rarely, shipping containers have been known to slip off the ships which are carrying them. This usually happens during very inclement weather and in particular during storms and high winds which create the conditions where the containers are most likely to become unstable and fall overboard. According to statisticians, it is thought that over ten thousand containers are affected by this each year and are therefore considered to be lost at sea.

In one incident during November 2006, a shipping container became dislodged and was carried to an area near North Carolina. The container was transporting thousands of packets of tortilla crisps, and once locals heard about the event, made their way to the scene and tried to hoard the products.

The shipping containers which do fall victim to the elements are not guaranteed to sink and many such items float for many miles at a time. However, it is uncommon that the containers float on the surface of the water which is blessing as this would make them a potential danger which is incredibly hard to detect.

Following on from this, it is an interesting fact that the cargo which has been lost as part of this process, does provide oceanographers with much empirical information in their quest to track worldwide ocean currents.

Last year, the World Shipping Council, together with the International Chamber of Shipping started to compile a standardised code of practice relating to shipping containers. As part of this, the issues surrounding stacking methods, educating crew with regard to parametric rolling, security of cargo held above-deck and container marking were all considered.

Today, the ships which are used to carry shipping containers are some of the most lavish and expensive vessels in the world. Yet, the first purpose built ships for this job were developed in Denmark over fifty years ago.

These ships started off by transporting containers between Alaska and Seattle back in 1951 and four years later, the first intermodal container system employed the grand ship “Clifford J Rogers”. The maiden trip transported six hundred containers from British Columbia to Alaska. On reaching their destination, the containers were all removed from the ship and were transported to Yukon via railroad cars.

The American shipping container industry also began in the 1950s and owes much to the exploits of Malcolm McLean. He transported fifty eight containers from Newark to Houston in a renovated taker ship back in 1956. The idea of employing large containers which were not entered during transportation, and transferred on an intermodal basis with ships, truck and railroad cars was an innovative one at that time.

It is thought that McLean preferred the building of “trailerships” at first – these would transport trailers from large lorries and stow them within the cargo hold of the ship. This stowage method, known as “roll on / roll off” was rejected however, due to the fact that there would be a great amount of waste in available cargo space – known as “broken stowage”. As an alternative, McLean amended is original idea to loading the containers on to the ship but not the chassis.