Policy & Compliance
Maersk was not in breach of this duty. It was stated that the position would have likely been different if the two weights had been in front of the person who was issuing the bills of lading. The court found that in 2019, Maersk was not expected to compare VGM with bill of lading weights. From further reading, it would appear that additional case law may develop and change this concept of the duty of care. Container stack collapse The second incident occurred on 6 February 2024, onboard the US-flagged containership President Eisenhower, which resulted in the loss of 23 shipping containers overboard and damage to another ten. The damage to the vessel and the value of the lost cargo was estimated at over $735,000. When considering this incident, it should be noted that the ‘booking agent’ as referred to in the official report is the party receiving the booking on behalf of the line. As we will see, the cargo loading plan had been drawn up by the ship’s planners using the verified gross mass provided to them by the booking agent. The official investigation noted that during the booking process, a shipping reservation for 40 containers was automatically flagged in the booking system due to a single overweight container. To resolve the issue, the booking agent split the reservation into two bookings: one with the single overweight container and one with the other 39 containers. An error in the booking system prevented
the shipper’s information, particularly the cargo weights, from automatically populating in the new booking, so the cargo weights for each of the 39 containers had to be re-entered manually. During the manual entry, the 39 container cargo weights were each incorrectly entered by the booking agent as 2,500 kilograms (5,511 pounds). The system automatically added the incorrect cargo weight with the tare weight of each container, which produced a VGM of between 6.2 and 6.4 tonnes for each of the 39 containers. These incorrect VGM values were then given to the ship load planning team and used to create the cargo loading plan. The actual VGM for the 39 containers was found to be 18.3 to 22.2 tonnes greater than the VGM used to develop the cargo loading plan. The situation was compounded because the port had no suitable equipment to weigh the laden containers. Since the container VGM were incorrect on the cargo loading plan, the container stacks on the port side of the vessel were inadvertently arranged with heavier containers in the upper tiers and progressively lighter containers toward the bottom tiers – an arrangement called reverse stratification. This placed significant strain on the lashing systems and the structure of the container stack which eventually collapsed, resulting in the loss and damage as described. Both incidents highlight the importance of supplying the correct VGM to the ship’s master or representative. The second incident is interesting because it was the
“ Both incidents highlight the importance of supplying the correct VGM to the ship’s master or represent- ative
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