Insurance provider TT Club has renewed its call for more caution while handling coiled cargo.
According to TT Club, which has issued specific guidelines on packing and securing coiled materials in containers – investigations into incidents along the international supply chain – w[ds_preview]hether on roads, rail, inland waterway or at sea – can often be attributed to poor practices in the packing of cargo transport units (CTUs). »And coiled materials are a particular hazard«, the company said in a statement released today.
It has dealt with many incidents where coils, mostly of steel, have been improperly packed and insufficiently secured in the container, leading to the cargo shifting inside the unit and usually breaking out, resulting in injuries or damage to property. »The packing process is critical given the forces exerted on the freight during a typical journey, such as braking or turning of a road vehicle, variable handling techniques at port terminals and significant, sometimes violent motions of a ship at sea«, it was added.
The consequences of these types of forces on poorly packed cargo would vary from over-turned trucks, to train derailment and damaged cranes to containers lost overboard and damage to the ship. Coils have even been known to break through the floor of a carrying unit and escaped into traffic.
TT Club’s Peregrine Storrs-Fox said that they would collaborate with the CINS Organisation – a safety-based initiative set up by major container shipping lines. »In order to update and expand our earlier ‘Stop Loss’ briefing guide, which addressed carriage of metal coils.«
The freely available revised guidelines, ‘Transport of Coiled Materials in Containers’, focus attention on how a container packer can understand the risks involved through the supply chain in order to ensure that the coils are packed and secured successfully. Equally, while recognising that there are a number of proprietary solutions available, these guidelines specifically support less sophisticated operations reliant primarily on timber for load distribution and bracing, where the greatest risk exposure has been seen.
Patrick Hicks, CINS General Secretary, commented, »A convergence of interests between TT Club and maritime carriers involved in the CINS Organisation in relation to incidents involving coiled materials has led to this collaboration and we are keen to extend the knowledge it contains, as well as engender further training of cargo packers throughout the global shipper and forwarder community.«
