Container Ships

Container Ships or Container carriers are made to carry containers with the length 20 feet each or 40feets.The modern day container fleet is with good speed and bigger space to carry more containers. They do speed of 20 - 30 Knots and they reach in less time than the older days ships.

In the 80’s 4,000 TEU became normal and now there are 12,000 ETU containers are normal in operation. There are plans to introduce 15,000 TEU ships in the coming years.

But on the other hand when ships are coming modern the seaman jobs are decreasing. The ships are with Engine rooms certified as UMS; bridges are fully automated for sailing and with alarms where the shipping company requires only one officer to be on watch while sailing. The normal 25 - 30 crew requirements in the old days are now staying with 13 crew members of which includes the Ship Master, Ship Officers and Ship crew.

This provides the shipping company with a good reduction on crew member’s salary.

But on the other hand ship personal are required to do more work with out enough rest and if there is any accidents, fire or flooding then they don't have the man power to face the situation, thus leaving the crew in dangerous situation. Even some ships are big in size but crew accommodation is less where 2 or 4 crew members must have to share the same cabin.

Some container ships which are small in size used to operate in costal run to collect and delivery containers to the nearest ports and mother ship calling port. These ships crew and officers are most of the time have to work with out rest as they have to meet the deadline to supply to the mother ship with the empty containers.

The container ship related onboard seaman jobs are dangerous more in the side of accidents, falls and unexpected listing of the ship, some time side wise drowned in the ports because of the sudden cargo displacement. Some time the seaman must do the container lashing and unlashing onboard. Most of the collective agreements recommend payment s for this kind of jobs.

But most of the ship masters are with the company and agree to pay for the job. So before sign the contact must check it out. Crew members who are stealing from the containers are punishable offence under the international law.