The United Kingdom P&I Club recently issued a warning to its members about the consequences of improper repairs to door locking mechanisms.
In its bulletin 397 - 01/05 the Club's loss-prevention director says that it has recently learned of several incidents where products have mysteriously disappeared from sealed freight containers in transit. On investigation it was discovered that the door handle retainer plate and retainer itself on the containers had been repaired at one time or another, but that instead of fixing them with the correct "mushroom head" type of bolt, the repairers had used common hexagonal head bolts.
The result was that a seemingly sealed container could be opened in a matter of minutes using an ordinary spanner or pair of pliers, leaving the seal intact. After the cargo had been removed, the bolt was then replaced, with some putty used to hold the inner nut in place.
One of the TT Club's standard recommendations is that members should always inspect containers thoroughly before loading any cargo. The inspection should cover things like cargo residues from previous loads, protruding nails etc used to secure items on an earlier journey and include a check that there are no holes, not even pinholes, in the roof or walls. These pre-loading checks should also include one on the locking mechanism to ensure that the bolts holding it in place are correct and cannot be removed from the outside. If the container does not meet the requirements, it should be rejected. That may be a bit of a hassle in the short term, but when you think of the management time that can be tied up to no good purpose in dealing with a claim later on, it is undoubtedly a worth-while investment.
An estimated two million containers are sold annually by container shipping lines and leasing companies. They may be re-purposed for a wide range of applications or carry on their working life in the shipping industry.
Container operators need to ensure they have in place a system for monitoring and maintaining the state of the containers under their stewardship. Diverse stakeholders drive differing requirements.
In collaboration with UK P&I Club, TT Club has developed a new StopLoss publication which considers the risk exposures associated with the transport of temperature controlled cargo through the global supply chain and provides guidance as to how to avoid losses.
The use of standardised containers for much of global trade has become second nature; the range of cargo types utilising such units continues to expand. There is significant reliance placed by the various stakeholders on the overall integrity of the concept, some explicit and some implicit.
