LEGOs and Other Floating Flotsam
Curtis Morgan Miami Herald 17may98
Memo: LOST AT SEA; See LEGO ALERT! at end of text
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Comments Conspicuously absent, for a press account originating with scientific researchers and observers is any mention of the (probable) threat to marine life of this specific cargo loss. The items are detailed as tiny, soft, and shiny and highly-colored bits of plastic, in some cases less than one inch long. One cannot but surmise that they may be mistaken for foodstuff by many fish and other marine organisms, and marine birds... with predictable consequences. Would it not be to the point in all future such releases to be sure to include this kind of observation and comment? Further, is there - or should there be - enforceable legislation, with fines or imprisonment - for firms involved in such "cargo spills?" Was LEGO fined for this dereliction? Was the carrier fined? Were the parties responsible identified? At a minimum it would appear that there should be some accounting for these deck cargo losses - said to be increasing worldwide. It is appalling to read that in the LEGO incident alone, 62 containers were lost overboard - one container alone releasing 4,756,940 pieces of this plastic trash into the North Atlantic! B. W. Powell |
Any week now, a bright yellow life raft should wash ashore somewhere between Miami Beach and Cape Canaveral, ending an epic voyage spanning more than a year and thousands of nautical miles.
Since the raft -- bearing the brand name LEGO -- is about the size of a fat sardine, it probably will escape notice. But that won't last long.
Because out there in the deep blue are another 28,699 rafts exactly like it, along with 3.1 million more miniature plastic objects such as diver flippers (418,000 pairs in red, black or blue) frying pans (18,200 in black) and swords (92,400 in gray). It's a veritable LEGO armada, part of a cargo the Danish toymaker lost last year off England, and it's drifting toward Florida.
At least that's the projection of Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a Seattle oceanographer and foremost authority in the arcane field of tracking marine trash.``They should wash up this summer,'' says Ebbesmeyer, who edits the newsletter Beachcombers Alert! ( www.beachcombers.org ). ``That's the good news. The bad news is you'll have to get down on your hands and knees to find them.''
And LEGO pieces merely top the list of fascinating flotsam floating Florida's way, says Cathie Katz, a Melbourne Beach author of nature books and editor-publisher of The Drifting Seed, a newsletter named for floating tropical plant pods and seeds called sea beans.
offshore, she says. Starting this fall, she expects East Coast sands to be scattered with various items from toilet seats to golf bags to plastic bags originally bound for an Irish grocery chain stamped with the slogan: Help Save The Environment.
``I'm predicting a surge of activity,'' says Katz. ``It's almost like we're going to get a double whammy this year.''
Freighters primary source
Freighters are the primary source of this strange stuff. They lose a surprising amount of cargo, generally when rough seas send storage containers tumbling from deck to drink. One industry magazine reported 1,000 containers lost in December and January alone, Ebbesmeyer says. Banged around or tossed from high stacks, the boxes often burst, spilling goods into the sea.
For Ebbesmeyer, who helps companies figure how currents will disperse oil or pollution spills, following flotsam isn't a paying job, but it has become a passion. His mother's curiosity got him started. In 1991, she called him about reports of Nike shoes washing up along the Pacific northwest. Could he solve the mystery?
Ebbesmeyer traced the probable source: The previous May, the ship Hansa Carrier lost containers with 80,000 pairs of Nikes in high seas between Korea and the West Coast. Ebbesmeyer and fellow oceanographer James Ingraham of the National Marine Fisheries Service produced a computer simulation showing currents sloshing sneakers up on Vancouver Island 220 days after such a spill -- right on the mark.
The next year, the scientists wrote an analysis for an academic journal tracking 29,000 plastic bathtub toys (yellow ducks, blue turtles, red beavers and green frogs). Some, now considered collector's items, made Alaska. The rest likely drifted into Arctic waters, where they're locked in ice awaiting a thaw to continue their journey. Last year, Ebbesmeyer forecast the landfall of 34,000 hockey gloves along the Pacific coast from another spill.
`It really is science'
It sounds like silly stuff, but Ebbesmeyer emphasizes ``it really is science.''
The LEGOs pose an especially intriguing loss. On Feb. 13, 1997, a rogue wave rocked the Tokio Express 20 miles off Land's End, England. The ship rolled 60 degrees one way and 40 the other, flinging 62 containers overboard, including one containing 4,756,940 LEGO pieces. The parts, in 100 shapes, were to be placed into kits in Connecticut.
Ironically, many were sea-related. Along with the rafts and fins are tiny life preservers (26,000, yellow), scuba tanks (97,500, gray), diver legs (132,000, gray and yellow) and octopuses (4,200, black). ``I guess the ocean really wanted to play,'' he chuckles.
LEGO sent Ebbesmeyer samples and a manifest. Working with his sophisticated test tank -- a bucket -- he found 53 types floated and calculated that as many as 3,178,407 pieces could be adrift. Ebbesmeyer knows at least some escaped the container because pieces washed up in Cornwall, England, including dragons (33,941, black and green) and seagrass (54,400, green). By summer, he expects people on the opposite side of the pond to be finding LEGOs, too.
Landfall predictions vary
``It takes about 14 months to go around the Atlantic gyre, down to Spain and then looping over to Florida, basically the route Columbus followed,'' he says. The gyre is the loop formed by the currents circulating in the North Atlantic -- the Canary, the North Equatorial and the Gulf Stream. Once in the fast-flowing stream, pieces will flow north toward the Carolinas, but winds and waves should bring some pieces ashore, likely starting in Florida, Ebbesmeyer says.
Katz, a veteran comber of Florida beaches, predicts a later LEGO landfall. ``It's going to all come up in the fall. I'd bet nobody will see things in June or July.''
The pieces are very small, ranging from 383,244 daisies three-eighths of an inch long to 26,400 pieces of ship rigging measuring five inches. Ebbesmeyer figures that only about 3,000 pieces will be reported found.
Ebbesmeyer believes the LEGOs could come ashore in clots of similar sized pieces but not likely one long LEGO tide. ``Flotsam, like birds of a feather, flocks together,'' Ebbesmeyer says. The hockey gloves, for instance, were found with shin guards and other gear nearby.
Goods affect drift
But it's difficult to predict. Along with the vagaries of winds and waves, the goods themselves also affect drift. The hockey gloves traveled faster with the extended forefinger, which floated up, acting as a sail. And the Nikes didn't travel in matched pairs, though West Coasters managed to pair up thousands of recovered shoes through the mail.
``It turned out the lefts and rights go to different places,'' Ebbesmeyer says, presumably steered in part by the curve of the soles. ``Take a pair of old sneakers, go home and put them in your bathtub and then imagine what happens in the ocean.''
Eventually, Ebbesmeyer expects currents will whirl LEGOs through waters covering the entire Northern Hemisphere.
``LEGO makes very fine toys and the plastic is extremely hard and durable,'' he says. ``I would guess people would be finding these for decades.''
LEGO ALERT! IF YOU'RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO FIND A LOST LEGO, OCEANOGRAPHER CURTIS EBBESMEYER HOPES TO HEAR FROM YOU. HE REQUESTS YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS, THE LOCATION OF THE FIND, A PICTURE OF THE PIECE OR PIECES, AND ANY ANECDOTES ABOUT THE DISCOVERY. WRITE HIM AT 6306 21ST AVE. NE, SEATTLE, WA 98115. HIS NEWSLETTER, BEACHCOMBERS ALERT!, CAN BE FOUND ON-LINE AT WWW.BEACHCOMBERS.ORG
Cathie Katz, editor and publisher of The Drifting Seed, is also interested in details of LEGO finds, as well as any other unusual beachcombing discoveries. Write her at P.O. Box 510366, Melbourne Beach, FL 32951.
Illustration: color graphics: Lego raft, World Globe; photo: Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer (a)JAMES INGRAHAM / Special to The Herald ESOTERIC SCIENCE: Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer traced Nike sneakers that washed up on the California coast in 1991 to a ship that had lost its load months earlier in the North Atlantic.
PHIL LONG / Herald Staff FASCINATING FLOTSAM: Cathie Katz of Melbourne Beach, author of The Drifting Seed newsletter, says LEGO pieces will be joined by toilet seats and golf bags washing up on Florida's shore.PROJECTED ROUTE OF LOST LEGOs:
1.) Off England: Load of LEGOs falls overboard.
2.) Florida: Atlantic currents push tiny toys west.3.) Carolinas: Gulf Stream carries pieces north.
original title: LEGO ARMADA HEADED THIS WAY
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