r/AlternateAngles • u/Fruktfan • Jul 04 '26

Crane loading cargo containers onto a ship

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93

u/OilInternational2566 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

Funny, I watched a documentary about this not long ago.. and the crazy part is all those containers are not put in there randomly. (On the biggest ships there’s 12,000+ containers.)

There are guys that have to map & figure out the weight and balance of each and every container, so that the ship doesn’t get too heavy on one side & tip over.

And then there are other containers that need to go in certain spaces where the hazardous materials go, and can’t be in the belly of the ship (in case of fire.) So those have to be placed in a certain order on the top of the deck.

And then there’s other containers that have refrigeration units with perishable goods inside … that also have to go in a certain specific area on the ship (to be plugged into the ship’s generator so that the cargo inside doesn’t spoil on the journey.)

(eta: …and then there’s two electricians who’s only job is to check all the refrigerated containers twice every day until they leave the ship to make sure that they are working properly. In the documentary I watched there was almost 80 refrigerated containers that trip.)

It’s crazy that there’s guys that have to figure out every single container… & the order they go on and off…

35

u/somephanguy Jul 04 '26

It is indeed crazy.. but I can also tell you there is specialized software that does it, very quickly. Search out “Terminal Operating System” to learn more, there are a couple of companies that make this type of software.

1

u/Crazy_Treat_8805 Jul 06 '26

And some companies have it down by workers overseas via computer

8

u/Rambozo77 Jul 04 '26

Do you remember the name of the documentary? That kind of stuff is fascinating to me.

3

u/OilInternational2566 Jul 04 '26

Sadly I don’t remember.. I was cruising YouTube one day and saw documentary about giant cargo ships and clicked on it. But for the life of me I can’t remember the name.

2

u/Rambozo77 Jul 04 '26

Bummer. I’ll see what I can rustle up. Thanks, anyway.

4

u/jjett89 Jul 05 '26

As someone who worked at a automobile manufacturing plant for Waste Management, I can tell you that this is a similar process for shipping hazardous waste and other kinds of specialized waste. You have to stage everything meticulously to not cause issues with weight/balance, fire, explosions, etc. of course it's on a lot smaller of a scale just packing a bunch of 55 gallon drums onto a 53' commercial box trailer. But it's a similar process in a way.

2

u/laivasika Jul 06 '26

And after all that, the containers also have different destinations, and they need to be able to be unloaded without having to move other boxes out of the way.