July 15, 2003. Copyright, 2003, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Rubber duck flotilla washes up after 11 years at sea

LONDON, July 15, Graphic News:  A consignment of thousands of rubber ducks is expected to wash up any day on the coast of New England, after more than a decade at sea.

The ducks have been adrift since falling overboard from a container ship during a storm while en route from China to Seattle, Washington, in 1992. Now, battered and bleached by Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic waters, they and other once brightly-coloured plastic friends, including beavers, turtles and frogs, are nearing the end of their lengthy odyssey.

The toys plunged into the Pacific Ocean at a point close to where the 45th parallel meets the international date line, from where they floated along the Alaska coast, reaching the Bering Strait by 1995. There they seem to have been trapped by slow moving ice for several years, as they did not reach Iceland until 2000. The following year they were spotted in the area of the north Atlantic where the Titanic sank.

During their voyage, some broke away and headed for Europe, while others have surfaced in Hawaii.

ÒSome kept going, some turned and headed to Europe,Ó says Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a retired, Seattle-based oceanographer who has tracked the ducksÕ progress throughout their long voyage with the help of strays that washed ashore along the way. He says it has taught oceanographers valuable lessons about the way surface currents behave.

Environmentalists are now using the ducksÕ journey to highlight the problem of overboard cargo. About 10,000 containers fall off cargo ships each year, causing hazards for shipping and marine life.

ÒWhen trash goes into the ocean, it doesnÕt disappear,Ó says Ebbesmeyer, ÒIt just goes somewhere else.Ó He regularly gets reports on Nike trainers washing up on coasts and recently tracked the movement of 34,000 ice hockey gloves lost overboard.

Fred Felleman, of the environmental group Ocean Advocates, said container ships transport 95 percent of the worldÕs consumer goods and are stacked higher and wider than ever before, raising the odds of spillage.

ÒSome 30 percent have hazardous materials in themÓ, he says. ÒThey're not just spilling Nikes.Ó
/ENDS