Container vessels lost 576 boxes overboard last year, the World Shipping Council (WSC) has found.
This marks an alarming increase from the record low of 221 containers reported in 2023, the WSC notes in its latest Containers Lost at Sea report.
A major factor in the sharp rise of overboard incidents was the disruption of vessels transiting the Suez Canal due to attacks on maritime trade in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Seatrade Maritime reports that a key contributor to the increase was the diversion of shipping routes around the Cape of Good Hope (CoGH), as operators sought to avoid the security threats south of the Suez.
According to the WSC, container ship transits via the region surged by 191%, and the South African Maritime Safety Authority reported that approximately 200 containers were lost overboard in these waters—accounting for more than one-third of the global total.
This rerouting exposed vessels, which would not typically pass the CoGH, to harsh winter storms in the region between June and August.
Among the most significant losses during this period were the CMA CGM Belem, which lost around 99 containers; the CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin, which lost 44; and the MSC Antonia, which saw 46 containers go overboard.
Joe Kramek, president and CEO of the WSC, said that despite the industry’s continued efforts in loss prevention, rerouting away from the Red Sea via the CoGH to maintain global trade flows has resulted in ocean carriers navigating one of the world’s most challenging maritime passages.
With the southern hemisphere entering its winter months, a recurrence of last year’s losses off the CoGH has not yet been observed in 2025.
However, despite the sharp increase in container losses, the data remains exceptionally low for overboard incidents, representing just 0.0002% of the estimated 250 million containers transported worldwide in 2024.
