Ocean shipping is not billed by weight but by cube.
The amount of freight a ship can carry is almost
always limited by physical size of the cargo, not
weight. Draining a few gallons of gas out of every
car wouldn't even count as to the number of autos the
ship could carry. It's limited by space. Possibly
may effect the amount of HP and thus fuel to drive the
ship, however. If they save a 100 pounds in fuel,
that's 50,000#s less water that has to be displaced
and pushed out of the way as the ship moves.
There may be something to limiting the amount of
gasoline that could spill. Twenty gallons of gas
splashed on a deck full of vehicles could be enough to
light the entire ship on fire. Of course most fuel
leaks are pin hole corrosion that lets the gasoline
drip out and evaporate before it can accumulate. A
full tank is definitely less of an explosion hazard,
however.
Aloha
Peter O.
> I talked to a bloke about this when I shipped
> Smudger to the
> USA. He said they were most concerned about two
> factors, i.e.
> weight and the possibility fuel would spill when
> rough seas
> were encountered or an accident resulted in a
> ruptured fuel
> tank. Less fuel in the tanks equates to less
> spillage.
>
> Figuring about 4kg (~9 lbs.) per (US) gallon of
> petrol, and an
> average auto holding ~15 gallons of fuel, and let's
> say 100
> autos per shipload, you could save up to 5700kg
> (12,600 lbs or
> 6+ US tons) by draining all but 1 gallon of fuel
> from each one.
> That represents ~3 more cars or equivalent cargo
> tonnage per
> ship.
>
> cheers,
>
> dj
> 1974 SIII Airportable, 'Smudger'
>
> At 08:01 27-03-03 -0700, you wrote:
>
> >A tank full of gas is much safer than a tank full
> of fumes, which is why I
> >don't understand why shipping companies only let
> you ship vehicles from
> >England to the US with less than a gallon of fuel.
> They say the fuel is a
> >fire hazard. . . and the fumes aren't?
> >
> >Todd Vess
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