The ONE Apus has unloaded its cargo at the Port of Long Beach after losing nearly 2,000 containers overboard in the Pacific Ocean last year.
An update from Ocean Network Express says the ship arrived in Long Beach and was expected to dock on April 12. AIS data shows the ship has departed Long Beach bound for Oakland, California. Its current status shows the vessel to be “drifting,” likely as a result of port congestion that has spread to Oakland from Southern California.
The ONE Apus departed Kobe, Japan in mid-March following a major operation to remove hundreds of damaged and dislodged containers on deck.
The ONE Apus was en route from China to Long Beach, California, when it lost some 1,816 containers overboard in a severe storm about 1,600 nautical miles northwest of Hawaii on November 30. Hundreds more collapsed on deck.
The vessel arrived in Kobe on Dec. 8, where cargo operations and repairs have been underway. A February 26 update from ONE said a total of 940 containerized equipment had been discharged to date.
The incident was the worst in a series of weather-related cargo losses on the trans-Pacific route this season, as fully loaded vessels arrive in the U.S. from China.
The ONE Apus, registered in Japan, operates on Ocean Network Express’ Far East Pacific 2 (FP2) service and has a capacity of 14,000 twenty-foot equivalent boxes, or TEUs. No general average was declared in the accident.
According to a November report by the World Shipping Council, an average of just 1,382 containers are lost at sea each year from some 5,000 container ships in operation, although the figure can vary widely when catastrophic events such as the ONE Apus cargo loss are taken into account.
