Conradsen gives us some insight into the decision-making process when ships encounter storms like Hurricane Sandy.įor more information, video and pictures of ships caught in the hurricane check out 's official shipping and transportation blog here on Forbes. The following video is an interview with Steffen Conradsen, Head of Global Execution at Maersk Line, the world’s largest containership owner. He is the person ultimately responsible for avoiding the storm." Lanes depiction of the clipper ship Golden Rule, for example, with its soft, rose-hued light glowing on the horizon, and Silvas Evening in Gloucester Harbor (1871), illuminated by a fiery red sky, both achieved auction records for the artists at Christies in the last. "At the end of the day," says Konrad, "the decision on where to pilot the ship is made by the ship captain. The bay is named after the clipper ship Loch Ard that sunk nearby in 1878. With new mega-ships costing hundreds of millions of dollars and with lives at stake, companies like Maersk spare no time or expense in providing weather advice and guidance to individual ship captains. Information from NOAA gets combined with weather data from the ships and experts in the movement of storms send alerts to each individual ship with guidance on the best route to take for avoiding the storm. Ship captains, meteorologists and executives sit behind banks of phones and computers while massive hurricane maps plotted with the location of every ship in the company's fleet, are projected on the wall. In the Copenhagen headquarters of Maersk, there is a room that looks more like a NASA control center than the offices of a major shipping company. This is why shipping companies keep a close eye on their ships and the path of all developing storms". "Even the largest ships however, like the 1,302 foot long, 170,974 ton container ship, Emma Maersk, can sink if she is beaten by massive waves for too long a period of time. Ships are built of heavy steel and designed to be capable of riding out most storms. "When battling a storm at sea, size and mass are your friend. Hurricanes do not move on tracks and even the smallest veering of a storm in the direction of the ocean (east) will cause ships to get caught in its destructive path. But this is not like a foolish teenager's game of chicken with an approaching train. Their only hope is to leave early enough to cross ahead of the hurricane path, hoping they don't get nailed by the storm. With top speeds ranging between 15 and 30 miles per hour, commercial ships don't move very fast. If a ship were to break loose from the dock, it would turn into a floating wrecking ball.įor this reason, the United States Coast Guard recently closed most ports along the hurricane path and ordered all ships to leave port and head east at the best possible speed. Ships are built with hardened steel, but if left tied up to the dock, they can be easily damaged as waves push them against concrete pilings.
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