WEBVTT - RoRos 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.360 Welcome to Car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:11.840 How Stuff Works. Welcome to the show, friends and neighbors. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:15.360 Thank you so much for tuning in. I am one 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.200 of your host to date, and people call me Ben 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.960 Bowling because that is in fact my name, and people 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:23.520 also call me by my name, which is Kurt Garin. 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:27.400 That's right, Kurt. You and I have had this topic 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.200 circling around in our heads for a few weeks now, 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:34.080 and it's something that longtime car Stuff listeners may be 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:38.920 familiar with. We know that cars are sold around the world, 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:43.159 right and in some countries like here in the United States. 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:48.199 We're lucky enough to have car manufacturing facilities here in 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:52.920 our own country, so it's pretty easy to ship a 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:57.280 car from a factory to a consumer here in the States. 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:01.360 But how did these cars get all over the world? 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:06.120 After all, cars exist in every country, but not every 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:10.920 country has its own car company or car manufacturing ability. 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:13.960 So how do they get from point A to point B? 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:17.200 I would say, by C and that is not the 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:21.640 letter C. That is by shipping, Yes, yes, sir. Every year, 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:24.120 millions of cars or shipped from one place to the 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:28.839 next via truck, rail, air, even and as you said 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:42.039 cargo ships, car go ships. Sorry, swinging a miss. That 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:44.840 is the worst pun. I'm going to acknowledge it, but 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.080 we're not going to speak of it again today, Kurt, 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.360 you and I are focusing on the ships. And I 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:52.800 don't know if I ever told you, but you know 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.640 it was. It's been a longstanding, uh goal of mine. 0:01:56.680 --> 0:02:00.640 Dare I say a dream to travel via cargo ship? Yeah, 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:02.480 it's a thing you can do. You just have to 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:08.320 You just have to be flexible with your schedule. You 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.360 usually need to book several months in advance. But you 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:14.040 can go across the Pacific, you can go across the world, 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.000 and you can do round trips. You can do a 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:20.600 one way slow boat to China kind of thing. You 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:24.840 just have to be under like seventy seven. So I 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:28.119 think we've got time, That's what I'm saying. But if 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:30.400 you and I did that, we would They wouldn't put 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:32.800 us to work swab in the deck or anything, but 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:37.840 we would very much just be ancillary passengers. Because cargo 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:42.679 ships are this enormous industry. They move billions of dollars 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:46.600 worth of goods and they ship anything from you know, 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:50.480 like a million beanie babies to just like imagine a 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:55.240 random thing, fidget spinners, it doesn't matter. And every single 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:01.440 day cargo vessels are criss crossing these sans of hours 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:07.960 shipping automobiles, shipping cars, and they're they're specialized vehicles, these 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.160 vessels that ship these cars. Some of them can hold 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:16.360 up to what eight thousand vehicles, between four thousand, eight 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.880 thousand five vehicles, I believe. Yeah, they're enormous. They're like 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.919 giant parking garages. And some of the levels can even 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:27.880 raise and lower in height to accommodate taller and shorter vehicles, 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:31.280 so they're flexible in that way as well. It's very 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:36.600 very cool vehicles. They're just giant parking lots basically, that's yeah, 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:39.880 they're floating parking lots and they look weird. Could see 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:44.120 some fascinating videos of loading and unloading the trucks, which 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:48.600 we can explore a little bit. These ships move cars 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:54.160 and trucks to the US. They go to different ports 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:56.320 on the East and West coast, and then once they 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.720 hit the coast here they're unloaded and the cars are 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:04.600 transported either to a dealer or to a individual person 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:07.400 who has purchased a car from abroad or is having 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.040 it shipped and then it just gets on a truck 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:13.680 where he gets on a rail and off to the races. 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.400 That's right, in fact, just down the road in Brunswick, Georgia. 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:21.120 I believe it's the second busiest port. First would be Baltimore. 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:27.080 Brunswick apparently handles about forty ships a month. I didn't 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:28.919 know that. I wouldn't have even thought that because Brunswick 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.800 isn't really um like Baltimore yet sure giant, that makes sense. 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:35.919 I would have thought Savannah. Savannah handles some of the traffic, 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.920 but um, but Brunswick gets most of the row row 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.520 Oh okay, this is the first time we've used this 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:47.520 term today. What is r row? It's a ship used 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:51.440 to carry cars are actually just vehicles, even semi trucks 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.480 or other heavy machinery. And row row stands for roll 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.360 on roll off, which is the way that the vehicles 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:00.040 get on the ship, so they're not lifted by a 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:04.120 crane like you're talking about LOLO. There's the road road 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:06.560 and the LOWLO. I feel like a nine year old 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:10.120 saying that, but those are accurate terms. LOLO is where 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.599 you use a crane to load and unload cargo. And 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.159 a row road is cutting out the middleman of the crane. 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:20.440 You're able to physically move the vehicle on its wheels 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.680 into the vessel. Yeah, they just drive them on. What's 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.440 weird about this is that we don't really think about 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.400 the amazing journey a lot of these vehicles take before 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:34.080 they end up in the dealership or double parked in 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:37.600 front of your favorite grocery store. Car Carrier ships are 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:42.560 these industrial workhorses. Some can haul up to eight thousand 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:46.200 five vehicles, which is the highest number I had found. 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:49.880 And and there was one particular case that really stood 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:52.480 out to me because I think there's a good, uh 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.120 specific example that we can look at to get a 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:59.279 snapshot of the industry overall, and that is a boat 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:04.320 called the Andromeda Leader. Pretty cool name for a boat, right, Definitely, 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:06.919 it sounds like a spaceship or something that does, and 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.279 it looks kind of like a spaceship. The scale is 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:13.279 just enormous. It's huge. It has a cargo capacity of 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:17.800 twenty one, four hundred and forty three tons. That makes 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.960 it bigger than some of the largest cruise ships on Earth. 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:25.920 This one specifically is carried of five thousand, five hundred vehicles, 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.960 which is right in that range you described earlier. And 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:34.160 it's built to Panamax standards. Yeah, the ship is a 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.120 thirty two meters or one hundred and five ft wide. 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:43.120 Panamax is the dimensions of or it's the requirements to 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.680 go through the Panama Canal, and I believe that that 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:51.080 is a round about the largest that could fit through 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.560 the Panama can Hour, at least the old standards. They 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:57.200 did update these, I believe in two thousand six. It's 0:06:57.200 --> 0:06:59.000 a bit wider. I think a few of the locks 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:01.520 are now a little wider, but still you'd want to 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.360 you want to fit through any of them. Check over 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:09.119 Panamax and so for a while, that was a hard 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:12.760 limit on even the biggest ships making that kind of route. 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:16.720 The Andromeda Leader, despite sounding like a spaceship, as a 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:21.000 cargo ship, it moves Toyota, Lexus, Scions and so on 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:24.000 across the Pacific and it gets them to the US. 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.440 So here's the thing. Some of us listening may be 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:33.120 familiar with the former football player Joe Montana. The name 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.200 is at least from Joe Montana, at least from what 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:40.080 I can remember, was kind of well known for throwing 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:45.760 ugly passes that get the job done. In the Andromeda 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:48.760 Leader and these car carrier ships, they're kind of like 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:53.080 a Joe Montana pass because they look ugly as sin. 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.280 Their performance is not you know, they're not gonna win 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:01.080 a beauty contest. The nuts and bolts of the ship 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:05.680 and its propulsion are I guess impressive in the scale, 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.480 but not not as impressive as you might think because 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:13.760 this is a transport craft. It is only supposed to 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:20.160 move cars without wrecking them or sinking itself in the process. 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:21.840 And if you see it on the on the water, 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.520 it looks goofy because it looks like it's standing too 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.160 far out from the water, you know what I mean. 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:31.480 They're very very tall ships. They're like nine or ten 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:36.160 stories tall, and they're just they're giant boxes, so they 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:39.199 look like, I mean, very few windows. Some of them 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.320 do carry passengers like you alluded to earlier, but the 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.839 ones that are built purely for rolling cargo, they are 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.839 just giant boxes purpose built to get from point A 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:53.000 to point B. Yeah, only about fift of the hull 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:56.240 on the Andromeda Leader is actually submerged when it's in 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:59.640 the water, and the captain to tell you a fund 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:02.800 is fine. The captain describes the ship as a quote 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:07.960 floating coconut. It sails at seventeen to nineteen knots and 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:12.120 its journey takes it twenty eight days. It leaves from 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:16.679 a port near Nagoya, Japan, where there's an awesome Toyota museum, 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:21.720 to Jacksonville, Florida, and then these cars are unloaded in Jacksonville. 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:25.440 They're generally meant for the Southeast if they're unloaded there, 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:29.640 and then it goes to Newark where it unloads some stuff. 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:32.920 And then on its return leg as it's as it's 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.880 sailing back home, it stops in Puerto Rico to drop 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.080 off a few more cars, and then it goes to 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.720 Japan empty. And I would assume it travels a little 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.960 bit faster without all that weight. So that's an example 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:50.640 of a specific vehicle. But how does the rubber hit 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.599 the road here? How how do they get these cars 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:59.839 into these vessels? There's a science to it, arguably all 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.199 so an art. We'll answer that after a word from 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:22.720 our sponsor, and we're back. And as you can imagine, 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:25.600 maximizing the number of cars the ship can carry while 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:29.680 minimizing the damage of those cars can be complex, which 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:33.480 is why they switched to a vessel that you can 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.240 roll the cars on and off of. Until of the 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:41.880 nineteen sixties, they were generally using cranes to transfer cars 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:44.400 off one or two at a time. The introduction of 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.280 car carrier ships changed that. Before that, there were amphibious 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:52.439 vehicles and ships that would transport vehicles to shorelines and 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.840 various other places, and ramps would load the vehicles on 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.520 and off of land. So rolloffs kind of started long 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.480 before they were introduced in kind of like a commercial sense. 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:06.920 So the ramps are also incorporated on the ships of today. 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:10.520 On the large rorow ships, they have a one giant ramp. 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:12.880 It's usually towards the back of the ship, the stern, 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:15.720 I guess that is what they would call that, and 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:19.600 cars are driven on one by one very quickly, though 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.720 very efficiently. If you've ever seen this done, it's a 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.680 ballet of sorts. Yeah, it's fascinating, especially because it feels 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:31.400 like it's like watching a circus performance or watching those 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:38.319 uh stunts where motorcycle motorcycles drive in sphere you're talking about. 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:42.040 Because I keeping the game of inches, yeah, it seems 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:45.440 I keep expecting something to wreck you know what I mean. 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:47.800 Even the Semis when they load them on, they're driving 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:51.319 them up the ramps that are just wide enough to 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:54.600 fit these vehicles, so there's very little margin of air. 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:57.720 They need about ten centimeters or about four inches of 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:01.160 overhead clearance. UM. So the high determines which deck they're 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.400 parked on. Like I said before, some of the decks 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:09.079 can lower and raise. On the Andromeda specifically, the shortest 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:13.000 deck is too short for suv certain SUVs, but like 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:17.199 you said, two of those decks on the Andromeda specifically 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:20.240 can be raised to a pretty big height. It's like 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.840 sixteen feet right, and so, and spacing between the cars 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.600 is just as critical. They allow for about thirty centimeters 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.240 or about a foot that separate the front and rear 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.320 bumpers of the car. There's a gap of some six 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:36.200 inches from side to side. If you've ever seen some 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.959 of the catastrophes where the cars of either they were 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.840 not secured correct or they had come loose during shipment, 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:47.000 as you can imagine complete disaster for everything around them. 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.320 So I guess parking them close to each other limits 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:51.920 that damage a little bit. If one car comes loose, 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:53.520 there's not a lot of room for it to travel, 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:56.319 but those types of things are rare, but they do happen. 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.160 So that said, the mirrors are folded in to make 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:03.640 for more room to park, and according to a guy 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:08.920 named Bill Barrett, a national logistics manager for Toyota, consistent 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:11.719 spacing is the key here and says, you don't want 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:14.800 scratches on bumpers, you don't want dense scrape ups and 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:19.400 so on, so parking them this closely doesn't do the 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:23.959 job by itself. They also lashed the vehicles down, and 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.199 at least in the case of Andromeda, they specifically use 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:32.400 a minimum of four nylon straps that are looped through 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:36.360 these removable hooks at the bumpers or on the frame, 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:39.760 And of course large vehicles need more straps, and those 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:44.320 parked perpendicular to the keel needs more straps, and the 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.720 clasp on the other end of the straps are attached 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:51.000 to holes or rings on the floor and these things 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:55.400 are super taught. They want the cars to barely be 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:59.000 able to budge at all, because if evil one comes 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:02.160 loose when they're part that closely, it can kind of 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.040 minimize damage to an area. Depend on how rough the 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:07.680 seas are, how bad the bumps are. But on the 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.120 other hand, if the boat takes a big enough knock 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:13.600 and there's a loose car, that thing could cran everywhere. 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.480 It could be like a ricochet effect. Enough enough cars 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:20.560 get dislodged. Obviously, cargo shifting in a boat like that 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.240 it's not a good thing. So if massive amounts of 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.680 these things are not secured properly, it could spell disaster 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:28.840 for the ship itself. When you were a kid, did 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:31.360 you ever do those relay things where you have to 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.360 like run with an egg and a spoon, but you 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:37.120 can't drop the egg. This is to me, this is 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.920 like that if every every moment that you ran with 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:44.360 the spoon was worth millions of dollars, and if you 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:49.520 drop the egg, uh, if you drop the egg, people 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:52.720 could die their lives on the line. And that leads 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.640 us to something else that we we wanted to hit 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:58.880 when we talk about the amazing journey that your cars 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.640 take a across the world to meet you, and that 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:07.040 is that this kind of endeavor, in this kind of trip, 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:10.320 not only is it complicated, not only is there a 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.000 lot on the line, but it can also be dangerous. 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:29.840 We'll tell you why afterward. From our sponsor, and we 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:33.680 are back, Kurt. This is something you and I talked 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:36.480 about a little bit off air, and I think maybe 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.920 we alluded to it in the episode already. But there 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:42.400 have been a lot of accidents with roll on and 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:46.040 roll off vessels. I see. It turns out that there 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.080 are quite a few row Row vessels that have taken 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:54.280 on water and capsized or actually sank due to one 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.640 problem or another. Problems with the loading doors, pretty common 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.520 problems with vehicle decks and other things that could happen 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.040 to any vessel. Yeah, I would imagine that when one 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.480 of these begins to take on water, it fills those 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.200 giant cavities fairly quickly, and I guess that's why they're 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.680 so disastrous when and if they do have issues where 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:18.359 they start to leak. Probably one of the worst disasters 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:22.160 in terms of human life was the MS Estonia in 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:27.040 nineteen four. And of course some of these are passenger 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.720 ships as well, because I would imagine that a lot 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:33.480 of the pure car only our vehicle only row rows 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.000 wouldn't have too many people on them. That's true, you 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:38.800 want to minimize the amount of people you need on board. 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:42.720 But yeah, the Estonia was a row row, but it 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.600 was it was a faery, so it had a lot 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:50.440 of passengers on it. And in the sinking of the 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:55.960 Estonian eight hundred and fifty two people lost their lives 0:16:56.440 --> 0:17:00.040 because she listed different rowroad accidents. Now, not all of 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:03.840 these are huge disasters, but they do continue to happen. 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:07.000 For instance, consider the story of the m V Golden 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:12.240 Bay which capsized on September nine, nineteen, and that's a 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.360 that's a car carrier through and through. Here's how things 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:18.480 went down. It was at the port of Brunswick Harbor 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.960 after it unbirthed and was heading towards the Port of Baltimore. 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:27.000 It had some serious listing and they immediately closed the port. 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.600 The United States Coast Guards sent a rescue mission to 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:34.600 find four of the twenty three crew members that went missing. 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:37.280 They were all eventually rescued. They appeared to be in 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:40.720 okay health and as far as they could guess, the 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:44.480 incident was probably caused by a sudden loss of stability. 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:48.760 Maybe they had stowed the cargoing correctly, or maybe the 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:53.320 water ballast was miscalculated. They were carrying Kia and Hondai 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:57.520 cars that were meant to be delivered in the Middle 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:01.359 East Hondai executive said, well, there was some kind of 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:04.400 internal fire and it couldn't be controlled. Then it capsized, 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:09.360 So people still weren't completely in agreement on what happened. 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:13.240 And can you imagine if we were loading those cars ourselves, 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.280 we definitely wouldn't want people to say something was wrong 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:18.879 with the way it was stacked in, you know. And 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:23.200 although there were no lives lost in this accident, obviously 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:26.399 there's an environmental impact to the general or to the 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:30.000 surrounding area where the accident happens, as well as damage 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:33.000 to the cargo. You know, all those all those cars, 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.240 and they have a lot of redundant safety measures in place. 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:40.480 It's just that you can't plan for everything, you know 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:43.240 what I mean. And the weird thing is that these 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:47.840 sea going pure car carriers row row car ferries have 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.320 a reputation on the seas for being what's called high 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:55.720 risk design. They're considered notoriously tough to keep stable, and 0:18:56.080 --> 0:19:02.600 they've actually been referred to before as roll on rollovers. Yeah, 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.400 kind of like when Jeep gets a hard time, you know, 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:09.480 And we know that any improperly secured loading door can 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.679 cause the ship to start to take on water and 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.480 sink that happened in eight seven with the Herald of 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:19.520 Free Enterprise. It can also this is so weird, but 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:24.960 water sloshing on the deck can make something called the 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.320 free surface effect, and this makes the ship unstable and 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:32.400 it makes it capsize. Free surface water on a deck 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:37.040 was the likely cause of the nineteen eight capsizing of 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.600 the TV Wahin. But you might ask, why would people 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:44.240 do this if it were so risky? Right, the sheer 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:47.879 volume that you can ship in this manner would justify 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:51.200 the risk involved. Really, how else are you going to 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.919 get the massive amount of vehicles from Japan to the 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.320 United States or from the United States to other countries 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.280 around the world. This's just see sames like, it's the 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:05.680 most cost effective and safe estoption, even with the accidents 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:08.600 that can happen. Yeah, and people are still working on 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:12.080 and refining the row row idea. And there are a 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:15.440 couple of different variations of row row that you may 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:19.040 have heard of. One is the l m s R 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:23.960 Large Medium speed roll on roll off, which refers to 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:28.000 some military craft and these are the things that are 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:32.240 purposely built to carry you know, armored vehicles other military cargo. 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:36.000 Then there's the con row. The con row is a 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:40.600 hybrid of the row road and container ship. Conrow ships 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.600 are pretty cool because they can carry a you guessed it, 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:48.000 combination of containers along with heavy equipment, oversized cargo, and 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:52.280 cars so well, plenty of cars are shipped in containers 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:55.000 as well. It's a very common way for individuals. The 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:57.639 ship we even talk about that, Yeah, lay it on me. 0:20:58.119 --> 0:20:59.840 Usually when you would want to ship a car over 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:04.000 these most people probably think of enlisting the services of 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:07.440 a company that would use just a giant shipping container 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:10.199 to haul the car in and put it on just 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.240 your standard container ship. And normally they can get one 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:15.360 or two vehicles depending on the size of the car 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:19.520 into these containers. They build wooden ramps and whatnot to 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:23.240 elevate one car over the other if the size is right. Um, 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:25.800 but it's a fairly fairly safe, tried and true way 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:28.280 to ship a car. It's just a little bit more invasive. 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.919 There's a little bit if you're concerned about your vehicle 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:33.920 getting scratched because there's a lot of handling when you're 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:37.479 shipping in a cargo container. It's a lot less if 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:39.480 you're rolling the car on and off the ship a 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:41.840 lot less can happen to the car that way. When 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:43.800 you ship in a container. If they're going to stack 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:45.800 the cars, they would have to go around your car 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:50.280 and build a Basically, it's a wooden structure around your 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:53.960 car to elevate the other car above it. So obviously 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:56.440 things can happen there, but it was a pretty neat 0:21:56.560 --> 0:21:59.280 option to explore though. If you're looking to ship your car, 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:03.760 and you can find plenty of people and outfits online 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.959 that have pretty good reps that will give you a quote, 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:12.639 I suggest shopping around if you're read reviews. Of course, 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:16.199 always read the reviews, and then if you're able to 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:20.720 see what kind of shipping vessel they're going to use, 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:24.440 let me know. If they've got some extra extra seats. 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:28.119 Maybe this would be the time I can ride along 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:33.199 with your car across the high seas. So this concludes 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:36.840 today's episode, but not our show. Have you ever worked 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:39.360 on a cargo ship? Have you ever shipped a car 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:42.840 across the planet? If so, let us know. You can 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:45.760 find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter where we are 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:49.960 Car Stuff HSW on Facebook and Twitter, and The Car 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:53.040 Stuff Show dot Com is where you can find us 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:56.440 on the worldwide Web. With every single episode that we 0:22:56.520 --> 0:23:00.840 have ever ever done. Kurt Scott and I just going back, 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:05.080 oh gosh, going back further than I would like to admit. 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:08.719 As always, folks, thank you so much for tuning in 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:11.680 and we look forward to hearing from you. Tune in 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:16.480 for our next episode. Thanks to everyone. Car Stuff is 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:19.080 a production of I Heeart Radio's How Stuff Works. 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