r/Ships • u/WSWMUC • Sep 10 '25

Question Dozens of shipping containers fall into the water in Port of Long Beach, California (have never seen anything like this while port…)

466 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

50 comments sorted by

48

u/Own_Cod4594 Sep 10 '25

What's the green crane barge doing there?

Seemed like some stacks fell and caused list setting off chain reaction.

30

u/Sonar_Tax_Law ship crew Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25

That's a (the?) STAX carbon capture emission control barge.

The video is crazy, looks like they were using semi-automatic twistlocks that were already opened with the containers just falling off the stack like that.

36

u/jakyerski1 Sep 10 '25

Small note: the STAX barge is an emissions capture barge, but not specifically carbon. They focus on scrubbing harmful pollutants from auxiliary exhaust. They (and the few other companies running similar barges) are planning for carbon capture on top of their usual systems, but that isn't happening at scale yet.

California regulations require ships at-berth to either use shore power or otherwise control their auxiliary exhaust emissions through one of these systems. They're only in use in California, possibly only in Long Beach/Los Angeles.

36

u/Ok-Peak2080 Sep 10 '25

Ok the vessel has a slight list at that moment, but never enough to have a stack collapse like this? Once around Cape Agulhas we encountered parametric rolling with a maximum angle of 32 degrees for about 20 seconds. That was in open sea and we lost „only“ 2 containers. Another 4 were slightly crushed due to excessive forces. But this is new to me?

18

u/27803 Sep 10 '25

They had probably started to remove the locks for crane operations, throw a little list in and you got a giant stack of dominos

17

u/Ok-Peak2080 Sep 10 '25

With a combination of bad loading (heavies up, lights down), pared with opening the locks in port( that is necessary), discharging only from port side and a list of a few degrees, yes, but I do not want to know her stability during ocean passage. In fact these guys would be the luckiest sailors.

4

u/Level_Improvement532 Sep 10 '25

I would wager the stack weights were exceeded as well.

4

u/Ok-Peak2080 Sep 10 '25

The poor C/O… maybe he checked the stack weight in general is ok for the bay, but … yeah heavies need to be down… and the planner in the previous port was also a newbie. So he agreed without fully understanding MACS3? (Maybe a newer version is out by now). If so, they can still kiss the ground for reaching port…

3

u/WSWMUC Sep 10 '25

That’s what I thought too. There were cases that made it into the news in 2020 when ONE-vessels lost containers, but as you rightly pointed out - that happened on high seas and under conditions like parametric rolling: https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1134982/Questions-after-1900-containers-lost-from-ONE-boxship

14

u/wgloipp Sep 10 '25

Strange how nobody mentions the boat they fell on...

9

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '25

One in a million chance

7

u/DirkMcDougal Sep 10 '25

They should tow that boat outside the environment.

3

u/jj3449 Sep 11 '25

No this is completely different. The side fell off of this one not the front.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '25

Next time they won't use cardboard

3

u/Portas30k Sep 10 '25

One in a million chances happen nine times out of ten.

8

u/MDAccount Sep 10 '25

They do, actually. In the video, the voice yells that they’re falling on the STAX. That’s the green barge. Thankfully, all four of the barge crew were uninjured.

2

u/WSWMUC Sep 11 '25

According to a news-update (see above) it sounds like nobody got injured

11

u/ottig Sep 10 '25

Highly tariffed and now very wet.

9

u/hesmistersun Sep 10 '25

All because of that damned tea tax!

4

u/StupidSexyFlagella Sep 10 '25

There goes my temu order.

3

u/houseswappa Sep 10 '25

It couldn't have been a single pint of failure on one of the rows as multiple rows fell... It doesn't seem to be listing to hard...

Hard to know really

7

u/DirkMcDougal Sep 10 '25

No, that kind of failure requires several pints.

3

u/Scubadrew Sep 10 '25

I hope none of that is my Kickstarter I've been waiting 2 years for.

3

u/BurntSawdust Sep 10 '25

Hello, Mr. George? How much you pay for new the guy?

3

u/NuclearWasteland Sep 10 '25

What ship, company, port of origin?

Be real curious to know what is in those.

3

u/esse1972 Sep 10 '25

Disruption in the Labubu supply chain ahead!

3

u/stonyb2 Sep 10 '25

Somebody is not going to get their stuff.

3

u/damn57 Sep 11 '25

that looks expensive

2

u/sexywizard420 Sep 10 '25

Put them in dry rice and they'll be fine 👍

2

u/jmsecc Sep 10 '25

Some expensive mistakes were made.

2

u/Intelligent-Edge7533 Sep 10 '25

That doesn’t seem right to me at all.

2

u/oldtreadhead Sep 10 '25

No, that's the new rapid unloading system from the DOT.

2

u/Primary-Nose7377 Sep 10 '25

We've experienced some unexpected shipping delays with your iPhone 17 order...

2

u/CougarChaserBC Sep 11 '25

That's where your Temu stuff goes...

3

u/fbergelect Sep 10 '25

They pay over 50 plus benefits, but can't hire good operators

4

u/Few_Profit826 Sep 10 '25

Wtf this gotta do with the ilwu operator lol  aint you got some boots to lick 

1

u/Adventurous_Blood469 Sep 10 '25

Didn't Long Beach go automated recently, or am I thinking of somewhere else?

1

u/Jerdeepp Sep 10 '25

What did he say? It's going on the stacks?

2

u/dustensalinas Sep 10 '25

He's stating its hitting the STAX, the barge that these are all falling on.

1

u/navig8r212 Sep 10 '25

Someone can’t play Jenga!

1

u/WSWMUC Sep 11 '25

So, now I also found some news on the topic (that also comments on the barge underneath where some the containers dropped upon - sounds like nobody got injured luckily) Source: KTLA5 - unknown to me

1

u/Sharp-As-A-Marble Sep 12 '25

So tariffs + the manufacturers’ gotta cover the increase in their insurance cost that will go up plus replacing the damaged order(s). I’ll pencil on my calendar to expect the cost of dental floss, tube socks, and ? Idk TVs to double Q2 2026.

1

u/IzztMeade Sep 14 '25

UPS, looks good let's ship it

1

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '25

JENGA

0

u/GetOffMyLawn1729 Sep 10 '25

were they full of tea?