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From: Ken James (no email)
Date: Mon Jun 05 2006 - 20:24:36 EDT
The links I sent before, in my previous email, the first link of them was a
study done by a scientist using thousands of toy rubber ducks that spilled
from a shipping container. He tracked them all over the world for many years
and they are still being tracked now. They reveal that such floating objects
will show up in many unexcpected locations. So it could be inferred that
objects like shipping containers have a real and significant probability of
showing up far outside of the shipping lanes if they float long enough, as
some will.
The fact that a submarine spends most of its time at sea neither on the
bottom or on the surface shows it is in fact possible for very large metal
objects to 'float' indefinatly between the top and bottom of the ocean.
There are many confirmed reports of both shipping containers and such things
as logs that float for long times either semi-submerged or just below the
surface.
Whales can also do that. Also after they die they slowly sink, it takes over
a year for many of them to reach the bottom.
An equalivent statement would be "ballons must either stay on the ground or
float to the very top of the atmosphere" yet they do not, even simple helium
ballons will not go all the way to the top before they stabilze and go no
higher.
Maybe the best example is fish...they float at all different levels, don't
they? And when they die they only sink when they decompose.
As others have pointed out, the physics will dictate where the item floats,
and that may or may not be on the surface.
And in fact, shipping containers are sometimes found washed up
ashore...there have been many reported and documented examples, it is
ongoing.
As I pointed out in my previous postings with the links, it has been firmly
established that many thousands of containers are lost overboard each year,
and also that a larger percentage will float for some time, a lesser
percentage for a longer time, and a small percentage for a very long time.
Now if that small percentage is say 5% out of 10,000 lost (as reported) then
we have 500 floating containers added per year to whatever is already there.
So maybe there are one or two thousand floating containers at any given
time.
Now if there are 800 floating containers in the Pacific, and only 8,000 big
ships (just a guess) then the risk of hitting a container is a signifigent
portion of the risk of hitting a big ship. But what tilts the odds is that
you cannot detect the container most times.
So if you are concerned about the risk of collsion with a big ship, (and who
would not be) then it is also reasonable to be concerned about the risk of
colliding with a container.
These are concerns that are indeed well founded in my opinion. Again, NOT
just because of the statistics of a container 'being there', as based on
them the risk would seem to be much less than hitting a ship, but due to the
fact you cannot detect them...if you had no choice but to sail on when you
saw a ship with no course or speed chage allowed, how long would it be
before the inevitable?
So whether or not the stories are inflated by those who tell them or not,
based on facts I think the risk is real and the concern is valid. I just
wish someone had a good solution. -Ken
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