Deadline looms for declaration of box weights

In another high-profile accident, the capsizing of the Xpress Container Line vessel Deneb during unloading at the Spanish port of  Algeciras in June 2011, an even higher percentage of boxes – 64 out of 150 – were not laden as recorded.

Speaking at last week’s Multimodal show in Birmingham, Richard Marks, director of the International Cargo Handling Coordination Association (ICHCA), reminded delegates of these startling statistics.

“The tendency is to assume that the weight on the booking form is the actual weight – this must account for a large proportion of misdeclarations,” he said, adding that on occasions there is human error as well.  The degree of “variation”, as he described it – error ratios of 22% in the case of the Napoli and 42% for the Deneb – were no surprise.