Disinformation seems to have cachet, especially in the pub after the cruise. But, isn't it amazing the amount of generally believed disinformation that abounds on the waterfront? In the last few years there seems to be a large increase in the number of self-minted experts passing rumors off as truth, at every yacht club, ship's chandlery or waterfront dive.

Horror sea legends are making the rounds about unsuspecting yachts sinking in mid-ocean after striking a floating container, or running into a floating log off the Canadian coast and shattering their hull.

Truthfully, in my 40 years at sea and over 130,000 cruising miles, I have never sighted one of these rumored floating containers. After several decades on the U.S. North Pacific coast and the waters off British Columbia, I have seen thousands of floating logs, but I have never struck one, not even when cruising at night. All the available evidence for these deadly collisions with floating containers, and dead heads (logs) comes from the hearsay of sooth-sayers with less sea experience and who were non-participants. So, how much of this disinformation is to be believed?

But, then I came across the following in an e-mail from the Single-Handed TransPac fleet as they made their way across the North Pacific to Hawaii in July a couple of years ago. The e-mail came from 1,100 nautical miles off shore half way through the race.

Mark Deepe aboard Alchera wrote that another yacht had come "across something yesterday that makes every single-hander shudder -- a huge steel floating mooring buoy for a ship, covered with tires, just cut loose and drifting around. Jim popped his head out of the cockpit just in time to see this massive thing go by. If he had hit it square on, it could have been a serious situation." Mark went on to say: "That's one of my biggest worries, hitting a large solid object, particularly lost shipping containers. I once read a report about how many lost containers were floating around in the ocean at any one time and it was a scary number. Hit one of those at speed and there's a good chance you're going down."

Eureka!!! Finally, I had found real proof in mid-ocean of the legendary floating nightmare.

But, after a few moments of euphoria, feeling like an anthropologist who has found the missing link, I realized that, although the e-mail's author had mentioned his own personal dread of floating containers, and the other skipper had seen a scary object made of steel floating in mid-ocean, this still wasn't one of those legendary death trap steel containers. No, instead it was merely a mooring buoy which had gone adrift. In fact, it had only reminded him of the feared floating container, and was not in fact the genuine article.

After a little more level headed thinking I realized that as a mooring buoy it was designed to float forever, and had accidentally gotten adrift from its mooring. A cargo container, on the other hand, is not designed to float. Also, that mooring buoy was fully visible floating on the surface. Frankly, it just was not at all like the haunting, semi-submerged, floating container villains which spawn so many unverified sea legends.

THEY DON'T FLOAT: Internet research revealed that containers are not built to float. They are weather-tight to keep out the elements of wind and spray, but not water-tight. Consequently, nearly all of them sink almost immediately. Their ventilation openings prevent air from being trapped inside. If a container does continue to float after being lost overboard it would be a rare occurrence caused by the buoyancy of the cargo that it happens to contain. Since many things are shipped packed in Styrofoam the cargo could be buoyant enough to float the container for a period of time. However, while Styrofoam seems to be bulky when we unpack our latest computer, it is actually full of great voids. If you break up the Styro it all fits in a little bag. Consequently, in each packing crate there is not enough styrofoam to float the heavy object being shipped, much less the steel shipping container. So except in rare cases, the truth is that as the cardboard and paper packing becomes waterlogged there would soon be insufficient buoyancy remaining in the Styrofoam to keep a container afloat after a day or two.

NOT THAT MANY ARE LOST: According to USA Today, industry experts estimate that anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 containers fall off ships each year, less than 1 percent of the number of containers sent by sea annually but representing a huge cost to those who lose cargo to the ocean.

There are a total of 97,745,706 square nautical miles of ocean worldwide, so even if all containers that are lost annually each stayed afloat for an average of one week, then on any given day there would be only 38 containers floating in the world's oceans.

Looking at it another way, the United States has an area of 2,732,619 square nautical miles so there would be only one floating container in each piece of ocean the size of the entire United States.

Now, what are the chances of your 10-foot wide boat, hitting that 40-foot long container, in an area the size of the United States? Statistically, your chance of hitting it is simply non-existent. So, next time you hear a braggart in the grille room with ten years experience sailing on weekends puffing about how, "he almost hit a floating container," e-mail him this article and call his bluff.

FLOATING LOGS: On the other hand, floating logs, or dead heads seem to be a clear and present danger sighted by almost every pleasure boater of wide experience. I have never struck one, but the several persons I have interviewed who struck dead heads only tell of damage to their boat, bent propellers, scratches to the hull, and none speak of catastrophic collisions, sinking or death.

Most floating logs would strike a boat hull at an angle and glance off with a loud and scary thump. Also floating logs tend to lie across the direction of the swell pattern, spending most of their time in the troughs of the waves. Consequently, if you are not plowing directly into the waves or heading directly downwind which is never a good course, you will strike any floating log with a glancing blow, which won't do more damage than a large scratch.

REAL DEAD HEADS: We're not talking about the acid rock group here. Most floating logs escape from log booms and are already dressed for the mill with roots or branches already trimmed off. The only floating log to actually fear is a huge tree washed out to sea in a storm with a heavy rock filled root ball which might be floating vertically just below the surface. That vertical submerged tree, when struck, would not glance off and might hole your bottom. Similarly a broken off piling that had some concrete or other weight on one end causing it to float vertically, could also become a nearly immovable object. But, even here the damage may be merely negligible.

For instance I interviewed a commercial captain who was operating a large dinner cruise vessel on the San Francisco Bay in Raccoon Straight on the north side of Angel Island in 1997 when he hit such a floating piling in a vertical position. This occurred off Ayala Cove in over 100-feet of water, and he was making about 6 knots with his steel hulled, 185-foot ship. The bow struck the piling a glancing blow, and the piling was pushed down by the ship's bow, leaving only a scratch on the hull. Then, the piling resurfaced under the ship's shaft where it caused the stuffing box to start leaking. The only result was a significant leak in the propeller shaft stuffing box, which the bilge pump could easily handle. All of this was easily repaired, but did require a drydocking. No one was even knocked down or injured by the collision, and the dinner cruise continued unabated, but with the bilge pump coming on and off more than normal.

Consequently, even as a boating journalist covering the news, I have never heard a credible, verified incident of anyone hitting a floating container or even sighting one, and of the dead head collisions I have been able to investigate, none qualify as even approaching disaster status. But, wherever there are seafarers, I suppose there will always be sea stories of leviathans and sea monsters prowling the deep.