The French company Seatrackbox has developed a beacon designed to be fitted to containers carried on global trade container ships. 

Equipped with positioning functions and satellite capability, these boxes can communicate the position of containers that have fallen into the water.

This is such a serious issue that international maritime transport regulations should make it compulsory.

500,000,000 containers carry all the world's trade. These millions of boxes are carried by a fleet of 5,700 container ships. Several thousand of these boxes are lost at sea, with disastrous consequences.

A container that falls into the water and floats between two bodies of water represents an enormous danger for a pleasure yacht on a crossing. Loaded with 30 tonnes of cargo and weighed down by a dozen more tonnes of seawater, a collision between a sailing boat travelling at 7 or 8 knots and such a UFO is like smashing a car against a stationary lorry. If, by chance, no one is injured in the collision, and the boat is neither metal nor fitted with a crashbox or watertight bulkhead to limit flooding, there is a very good chance that the boat will be lost.

Lost in the water, a container loaded with plastic pellets (industrial plastic granules) will eventually run aground on a shore and break open, dispersing its granules on the beaches and in the organisms of marine animals.

Some containers are loaded with very expensive goods. This is the case with cargoes of high-tech smartphones, but also with certain tanks of cryogenic gas, which are contained and present a potential explosive risk as well as a unit value of several million euros.

The IMO (International Maritime Organisation) has issued an enforceable rule from 2026 requiring captains to report the loss of containers when they occur, with the number, position and contents of the boxes.

The rule does not make it compulsory to track the millions of boxes individually, but paves the way for tracking some of those containing the most dangerous products. The constraint could also come from insurance companies, which fear incidents involving ships (collusion) as well as those involving the pollution of oceans and coastlines. 

The Seatrackbox box is fitted with a magnetic plate that fits into a recess in a container door. The device is equipped with a lithium battery, gyroscope, sensors and satellite communication capability. 

When the equipped container falls into the water, the device detects it and tracks its status (emerged, submerged or sunk) and transmits this status via the Kineis IoT satellite network.

Seatrackbox receives the information on its servers and forwards it to the relevant CROSS and transport operators.

The company, which has the backing of the BPI, is currently looking for investors.