Clearly, there is a huge burden of responsibility on the port, whose stevedores, generally charged with lashing duties, must get it right. But with that responsibility comes a significant level of danger. “The ports industry continues to have a high accident rate – almost 3,000/100,000 workers.

Accidents on board ships account for over 40% of all cargo handling accidents in ports,” says David Tozer, manager – container ships, at classification society Lloyd’s Register. “Key factors are deficiencies in the design, construction and maintenance of ships.” It is, says Mr Tozer, becoming increasingly clear that there is a need for greater protection of stevedores and also crew when working on containerships.

Containership cargo operations are known to be hazardous, he points out, and fatalities, serious injuries and musculo-skeletal disorders (MSDs) involving stevedores occur with a frequency that is becoming unacceptable.

Until now, the ship design community has had little involvement in cargo operational safety issues, says Mr Tozer. “Lloyd’s Register has been working with port operators to improve the dialogue between ship  design and port operations, to improve safety,”he says.

According to a presentation given by Lloyd’s Register’s Brian Sherwood and Roland Ives, and Hutchison Ports (UK)’s Roy Smith last November, risk assessments on 248 container ships at one UK port between 1998 and 2002 revealed that 61 failed to provide any form of fall protection on outboard lashing pillars or gunwales, while 118 had defective lashing

The International Labour Organisation has identified seven major reasons for accidents while working onboard containerships, including dangerous environment, changing environment from day to day, variable safety standards, unstable working platform, split responsibilities between port operator and shipowner, competitive pressure, and human error.

key problem is the working space between container stacks – inadequate space leads to slow work, encourages MSDs and cannot promote good securing, says Mr Tozer.

“The space between stacks is ‘dead’, carrying no cargo, and the desire to minimise it is understandable.

However, there is a trade-off with turnaround time that may be worth examining in purely economic terms. Gaps as narrow as 300 mm can be encountered. Small working space of this type leads to very slow working, slower turnaround and higher charges from the port.”

Container top working is a hazard to be avoided, he adds.“At the moment it is treated as a port issue, rather than a ship design issue.However,the use of cell guides would eliminate the hazard.”

The pressure for better designs is not likely to go away, he says.“However, this issue is still largely seen as a port problem and education and awareness among the ship design community is required.” LR is in the process of producing guidance for the ship design community.