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Can't sleep. Too much chocolate !

You think 3,500 containers are excessive ?

what do you think of Maersk Line, capacity up 23,756 TEU ?

This image was a record set in 2018 of 19,038 Mumbai Maersk.

For the journey I used http://ports.com/sea-route/port-of-shanghai,china/port-of-liverpool,united-kingdom/ and the normal cruising speed of a container ship of 24 knots (that is probably faster than it used to be), I guess the canal would slow it down a bit with its 10knots speed limit and other faffing around.

The products delivered to APH were made in China, I doubt anywhere else would release a stockpile that big at the moment. I could trace the ship on ships AIS to find exactly where it came from and how long it took but cba.

I happened to have some packets of examination gloves to hand (out of date stock), a box of 200 weighed 2kg, a normal 20ft container takes 21 tons so just over two million gloves.

The volume of the 200 packet was 25cm X 13cm X 7cm = 0.002275m3. container volume is 39m3 so would take around 3.4 million gloves by volume ignoring packaging. Therefore weight was the limit.

Crow flies from Shanghai to Liverpool is 9,185 km, cruising range of C17 is 4,480 km at full load, cruising range of 787-9 is 14,140km at normal passenger load so guessed one refuel for full load. Max payloads were a straight lookup.

Didn't take long as I like numbers, probably about 10 minutes including some repeats due to not being able to read my scribbles (again!).

The reporter stated they had not been able to come by road from Europe. So I don't know where they were loaded from, but I am 100% he said Europe .

Also, with a cargo of only 3.500 containers it would definitely not have been a cost effective operation from China so had it carried more cargo, it would have taken a lot longer. Shipping companies are generally not in the business of making a massive loss, so bigger ships, more cargo, greater distance.

Just because a container is half empty of gloves, makes no difference. It has to go by weight. The mathematics involved in loading these ships is incredible. If they aren't loaded correctly, funnily enough, they can tip over ! Everything has to be charted, and positioned to be easily accessible for any other ports en route where cargo is to be despatched, and in many cases more loaded from those ports to be taken somewhere else en route for despatch . That's why the cargo plan of weight, even distribution and accessibility all come into play. They don't just sit on the deck either, they're down in the hold . Depending on the size of the ship there could be at least 6 or 7 tiers below deck .

Stowage of containers :

https://www.aimuedu.org/aimupapers/OnDeck.pdf

Where's Casper ? I thought he was MN . He should know far more than I do.

BY the way, that BBC report went out on the 20 march.

https://www.peelports.com/news/2019/customer-supplier-communication-covid-19-003

It wasn’t the capacity of the ship, it’s just the count of containers. 33.5 million items of which most were ppe wouldn’t need anything like that.

Didn’t they mean they couldn’t go by road in Europe, not from Europe? They were worried about other countries blocking their movement?

I was surprised at it landing at Liverpool, there are regular ships to Portsmouth (if coming from China). Wherever it landed goods would have to be transported, Liverpool hasn’t got a proper rail service to its docks yet. Unless they used Garson.

Anyway, they are doing airlifts from China now, loads of spare aeroplanes floating around.

Well according to the news, ppe from China doesn't comply with ppe standards here and my well be useless, I really hope this isn't the case, another snippet suggests more people of ethnic origins are dying here implying that this my be down to some social disadvantage.

Don't know why we are getting stuff from China, there should be a boycott from this country still it starts paying up

Paying up for what? If every time a virus mutates you are going to blame the country it happens in it would be totally random.

There are some signs that one of the eight strains of CV mutated in UK then went to Spain, should we compensate Spain if that is proven?

France had closed her land borders

Do you think ethnic groups are more concentrated in high rise flats etc. ?

I read that too, Casper, about the testing kits from China not being accurate.

The whole world is now looking for supplies of such items. Listening to Al Jazeera (far better from a universal point of view than our BBC, SKY and ITV ) The refugee camps in so many countries particularly Africa haven't got enough food any longer. Rations in Uganda have been cut by half. $£150 million short, (that's a lot of bowls of rice) and hoping the world community will come to their aid. Growing produce such as lemon grass, spices etc. in Malaysia and other Asian countries by the indigenous populations , that is the only source of income, cannot sell their produce now and unable to support themselves.
Villages in other such places are barricading themselves in, away from any contact with the outside world.
Uganda is seeing a rise in poaching, a) for meat b) for ivory again. Threatening the already threatened species such as the mountain gorilla's.

The list goes on, some say we should wear face masks to prevent passing the virus on, others say not. World population is 7.5 billion people , and I think the catastrophe is yet to hit. It's all very well for us to pontificate, but we can't all have supplies all at the same time.

One real problem is the amount of refugee camps. How has the world gone so badly wrong that people are having to flee and live in such places for protection ?

Our day of reckoning will come , but I suspect the Greta's of this world will be rubbing their hands in glee..

Sorry granny never sailed on a container ship, from what I remember end of the end of the 60's / early70's saw the rise of containerisation although not having fully taken off, interesting you mentioned face masks China,Spain and Italy are encouraging the use of these and some are handing them out, if they are as useless as they tell us for the general population protection then why? there is even a suggestion that the toll is lower in South Korea and Japan because a lot of the population normally wear them, Mmm.

Think we'll all have to learn how to make face masks because it's a possibility they will become compulsory.
I should imagine there will be a shortage of them . Many countries now are wearing them, I must admit I wear a scarf not a woolly one and have that over my mouth and nose in shops also gloves.
Lots of ideas on internet how to make them even from baby wipes and kitchen roll.
Sounds ludicrous but strange times we living in.

may be a barrier to yourself touching your own face.

Masks are not very effective at protecting the person wearing them, they are much more effective at protecting everybody else from you.

I think the argument for wearing them is that if you are assymptomatic there is less chance of you passing it on without realising you have it, and if you just have mild sypmptoms and cough, the mask will impede most of the virus even if it doesn't stop it all getting out into the great beyond. Every litle helps, I guess, but the Govenment is not going to recommend masks unless they can guarantee there will be a lot of masks readily available, or people can make their own - otherwise it'll be a case of PANIC II, The Sequel, coming to a supermarket aisle near you...