the result of Earth's rotation on weather patterns and ocean currents. . For further details of our complaints policy and to make a complaint please click this link: thesun.co.uk/editorial-complaints/, This new map illustrates how the ducks went on to rule the high seas. ", On the importance of the spills to the scientific community, "They do show us something. Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham is expected to have many such opportunities to study ocean currents in future. Ducks Overboard, Ducks Swimming, Ocean Waves, and Seagull Floating in Harbor videos) Engage. Even more are likely trapped in the Texas-sized garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean. "When I first heard the phrase 'garbage patch,' I imagined something dense," he says. First, students predict where the ducks landed. Based on magnificent illustrations by author/illustrator . Shop today & save, plus get free shipping offers at OrientalTrading.com. . National Geographic Headquarters In 1992, approximately 29000 rubber duckies fell off a cargo ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. In 2014, the average annual loss between 2011-13 was approximately 2,683 containers. Donovan Hohn's work has also appeared in Harpers, The New York Times Magazine and Outside Magazine. Ask students to make a final prediction using this new information about where the rubber ducks would end up. Route taken by the Friendly Floatees initially lost in the Pacific Ocean in 1992. In this activity, students follow the path of the Friendly Floatees, a shipment of 29,000 rubber ducks that spilled overboard in 1992. OSCAR successfully predicted the direction of the Friendly Floatees, which arrived in Washington state a couple of years later. Attend a rubber duck race. piece of plastic between 0.3 and 5 millimeters in diameter. They're almost comparable to the wind the way that they move and the way that they vary. Travel route of the friendly floatees. On Thanksgiving Day 1992 a party of beachcombers strolling . The story helped researchers piece together a clearer picture of how the sea works, inspired a book, and even earned a spot in David Attenboroughs Blue Planet II. The ship was going from Hong . "We know that in the marine food web, there is an alarmingly elevated contaminant burden in species at the top of the food web," he says. It wasnt the first time Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham had turned a mid-ocean spill into an oceanographic experiment. Those Lego pieces have drifted some 62,000 miles since then. Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer with flotsam he uses to monitor ocean currents. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. A shipping container filled with rubber duckies was lost at sea in 1992, and the bath toys are still washing ashore. It is presumed that many Friendly Floatees are still adrift at sea, including in the infamous North Pacific Gyre (the location of the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch). Researchers charting the world's ocean currents are interested in the journey of these bath toys. But the ducks werent confined to the Subpolar Gyre. Ingraham's model was built to help fisheries but it is also used to predict flotsam movements or the likely locations of those lost at sea. have travelled 17,000 miles, floating over the site where the Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg, landing in Hawaii and even spending years frozen in an Arctic ice pack. Students use data to figure out which ocean currents the ducks may have traveled, and how long it took them to reach certain destinations. Moving slowly with the ice across the Pole, they predicted it would take five or six years for the toys to reach the North Atlantic where the ice would thaw and release them. In 2003, Rich Eilbert wrote a song "Yellow Rubber Ducks" commemorating the ducks' journey. Ebbesmeyer studied the movements of a consignment of 28,800 Friendly Floateesyellow ducks, red beavers, blue turtles, and green frogsthat were washed into the Pacific Ocean in 1992. Therefore, spilled rubber ducks would likely follow a clockwise path since they were spilled in the Northern Hemisphere. 1996 - 2023 National Geographic Society. Jose Gil/iStockphoto.com What was the approximate average speed of the ocean current that carried the; Question: Rubber Ducks A severe storm on January 10, 1992, caused a cargo ship near the Aleutian Islands to spill 29,000 rubber ducks and other . In this activity, students follow the path of the Friendly Floatees, a shipment of 29,000 rubber ducks that spilled overboard in 1992. Free to ride the ocean waves since January 1992, many of those ducks have found their way to Alaska ' s shores. (850 x 523 px) Close. [Directed by Cabong Studios, narrated by Addison . Now, two decades from the initial spillage, these toys are still washing up on beaches around the world. How did this happen? [There's a magazine] called Beachcombers Alert [that] puts the beachcombers on alert for Nikes or whatever because there was a spill that's been reported and then people go out and find them. In 1992, a crate holding nearly 30,000 bathtub toys including rubber ducks was washed overboard from a cargo ship. A year went by and a further 400 followed suit traveling to the eastern coast of the Gulf of Alaska. Nearly three decades later, the floaties are still making rounds of the ocean, occasionally washing up on distant beaches where they instantly become prized items, some reportedly fetching prices as high as $1,000. Terms of Service| Now funded by NASA, Ebbesmeyer and Ingrahams model, called Ocean Surface Currents Simulation (OSCURS), has many practical applications aside from predicting the movement of flotsam, such as helping fishing vessels navigate and locate shoals of fish. Honestly, I didn't know what "pelagic" or "adsorb" meant, and if asked to use "lipophilic" and "hydrophobic" in a sentence I'd have applied them to someone with a weight problem and a debilitating fear of drowning. JAN DERICK CARPIO - Lab #25-26_ Rubber Duck Ocean Currents and Coastal Climate Factors.docx. Back in 1992 a shipping container filled with rubber duckies was lost in the Pacific Ocean and the bath toys are still washing ashore today . One night, sleep-deprived and nearly broken, in thirty-five-knot winds and twelve-foot seas, I would overindulge all six rolling, pitching, yawing, heaving, swaying, and surging like a drunken libertine and, after buckling myself into an emergency harness and helping to lower the mainsail, I would sway and surge and pitch as if drunkenly into the head, where, heaving, I would liberate my dinner into a bucket. It's snowing. In the decades since, rubber ducks have washed up on beaches around the world and given scientists clues about ocean currents. Solitary, nocturnal circumambulations of the outer decks by supernumerary passengers are strictly forbidden, for good reason. In general, additives in synthetic rubbers make them more flexible and stretchable at room temperature, while some other plastics tend to be harder and more brittle. At least that's what happens if you're a nearsighted, school-teaching, would-be archaeologist of the ordinary, with an indulgent, long-suffering wife and a juvenile imagination, and you receive in the mail a manila envelope, and inside this envelope you find a dozen back issues of a cheaply produced newsletter, and in one of those newsletters you discover a wonderful map if, in other words, you're me. "I figured I'd interview a few oceanographers, talk to a few beachcombers, read up on ocean currents and Arctic geography and then write an account of the incredible journey of the bath toys lost at sea," he tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies. On February 25, 1970, rubber ducks got their biggest break yet. Their story has been popularized for both adult and youth audiences, notably with the books Moby-Duck (Hohn 2011) 1 and 10 Little Rubber Ducks (Carle 2005). By August 1993, some 400 of them were found over a stretch of 850 km of coastline along the eastern coast of the Gulf of Alaska. Search. Curtis Ebbesmeyer has reconstructed the drift routes of the toys, using an ocean surface current simulator. Remind students that the Coriolis effect holds true for both wind and water currents. In 1992, a cargo ship container tumbled into the North Pacific, dumping 28,000 rubber ducks and other bath toys that were headed from China to the U.S. Currents took them, and news reports said some may have eventually reached Maine and other shores on the Atlantic. (NordNordWest via Wikimedia . So you not only have the thrill of discovering a surprise or treasure, but you also have the chance of, like on a scavenger hunt, finding something that you're looking for that actually might serve some scientific purpose. To see all content on The Sun, please use the Site Map. {{posts[0].commentsNum}} {{messages_comments}}, {{posts[1].commentsNum}} {{messages_comments}}, {{posts[2].commentsNum}} {{messages_comments}}, {{posts[3].commentsNum}} {{messages_comments}}, Insectothopter: CIAs Dragonfly-Shaped Bug, Mokomokai: Tattooed Maori Heads And The Musket Wars, The Mystery of Puma Punkus Precise Stonework, Joseph Samuel: The Man Who Couldnt be Hanged, Scaly-foot Gastropod: The Snail With an Armor of Iron. Having never taken organic chemistry, I didn't know and therefore didn't care that pelagic plastic has the peculiar propensity to adsorb hydrophobic, lipophilic, polysyllabic toxins such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (a.k.a. In 1992, 28,800 rubber ducks were lost at sea. Teacher Note . The forces included in this model are large and global in scale. In fact, theres even an interactive map devoted to tracking the path of flotsam, using data provided chiefly by the ducks! A large flock of bath toys, including 7,200 iconic yellow duckies, like the rubber duckies made famous by Ernie of Sesame Street, went overboard from the Greek container ship Ever Laurel in the North Pacific Ocean on January 10, 1992. In 1992, 28,800 rubber ducks were lost at sea. Coriolis Earth should be printed in advance on cardstock, with scissors and tape provided for students to assemble their miniature Earths. [citation needed]. Three decades ago, an unfortunate incident led to an unexpected study into global ocean currents using rubber ducks. He gained public attention by his reporting of studies of the movement and distribution of a consignment of rubber bath toys, which were washed from a ship into the Pacific Ocean in 1992, and continued to be . Bath toys overboard! Nevertheless, there you are, not a goner yet, gazing up at the shipping containers stacked six-high overhead, and from them cataracts of snowmelt and rain are spattering on your head. In 1992, a shipping barge headed from China to the U.S. encountered a major storm in the Pacific Ocean. As the map below shows, the colorful toys . We pay for your stories! . All rights reserved. Also, I'm not entirely sure why there are arrows going to Indonesia, Australia, and South America. The Startup. Another beachcomber discovered twenty of the toys on 28 November 1992, and in total 400 were found along the eastern coast of the Gulf of Alaska in the period up to August 1993. A freighter traveling from China to America was caught up in the storm, which tipped the vessel into what I like to call the Uh-Oh Zone. Since the spilland to this dayducks continue to wash up on every continent in the world, sometimes in groups and sometimes all by themselves. In May 2007 the rubber duck story ran in UK newspapers. Then zoom in on the Southern Hemisphere and ask students to describe the direction of the prevailing winds. are what naval architects call the six different motions floating vessels make. Ask: Possible responses: Water currents generally move clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. By following flotsam spills, you do have useful data to show us the movement of the currents and how they change. The turtles and frogs still have their original colors. You're wishing you'd never given Big Poppa the chance to write about Luck Duck, because if you hadn't you'd never have heard the fable of the rubber ducks lost at sea. via GIPHY. Help. Using the models they had developed, the oceanographers correctly predicted further landfalls of the toys in Washington state in 1996 and theorized that many of the remaining Floatees would have traveled to Alaska, westward to Japan, back to Alaska, and then drifted northwards through the Bering Strait and become trapped in the Arctic pack ice. "They set out on a pretty heroic undertaking, because to get this [ocean debris] out of the wilderness required 2 to 3 months of people camping and packing [the debris] up in a bag, and eventually an airlift," he says. He details the journey via plane, foot and container ship in Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them. But it's not like that. (Answer: clockwise). (Answer: Explain that this phenomenon is known as the Coriolis effect, which students will explore through a mini-lab to see how it works. Some of them had been pancaked flat by the ones on top of them. Pacific Ocean; Fun365. But they didn't stick together -- the ducks have since washed up all over the world. You might think nothing of itsomething a child dropped while they were playing in the water, right? I liked my job and loved my wife and was inclined to agree with Emerson that travel is a fool's paradise. On 10 January 1992, during a storm in the North Pacific Ocean close to the International Date Line, twelve 40-foot (12-m) intermodal containers were washed overboard. In fact, different kinds of plastics are often combined in various ratios to create materials that have hybrid properties. 16 . How long have Keir Starmer and Sue Gray been secretly cooking up their plot? News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. For the past 21 years . Zoom in on the Northern Hemisphere. Privacy Notice| Its possible that there are still Friendly Floatees at sea to this day, whether caught up in one of the oceans great garbage patches or having washed up on shores where there are no people, or their significance is unknown. The ducks are currently being used to track ice-melt rates and ocean-current patterns in the North Atlantic. The news of a container ship losing 29,000 rubber toys attracted the attention of Seattle oceanographers Curtis Ebbesmeyer and James Ingraham, who were working on an ocean surface current model at that time. Use these resources after students have developed their Ocean Plastics Movement Model to provide more information about the story of the Friendly Floatees and what they teach us about ocean currents. Ten months later hundreds of rubber ducks began to appear along the shoreline near Sitka, Alaska, roughly 2600 km away. 10th January 1992 some 28,800 plastic bath-tub toys splashed into the sea at 44.7N, 178.1E. I'd never heard of the Great North Pacific Garbage Patch. Some of the toys landed along Pacific Ocean shores, like Hawaii. Status. 2. You want to know what it's like inside the toy factories of Guangdong. The slow rate of degradation proves that plastic pollution is effectively indestructible, and all the plastic garbage that we dump into the seas and oceans will be around for centuries to come. In January 1992, a ship reportedly operated by Evergreen and owned by a Greek company called Technomar Shipping spilled 28,800 plastic toys into the Pacific Ocean during a storm. garbage, refuse, or other objects that enter the coastal or ocean environment. In 1992, shipping containers with around 28,000 rubber ducks were lost in the Pacific Ocean. The decks are slick. blue turtles, green frogs and classic yellow rubber ducks were accidentally released into the Pacific. Image credit: Sinan Sinanoglu/Shutterstock.com. Three years earlier, an eastbound freighter got caught in a storm five hundred miles south of the Alaskan Peninsula, and several containers had gone overboard, including a shipment of eighty thousand Nike shoes. The varied journeys of the bath toys taught oceanographers a lot about the connectedness of our seas. In 1992, a cargo ship on its way from Hong Kong to the United States lost a crate in the Pacific Ocean. A journalist on an ocean quest for 28,800 rubber ducks lost at sea discovers where they came from, where they drifted, and why. Over the decades, Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham have tracked many similar spills, such as the Lego spill of 1997 where millions of Lego pieces fell overboard in the sea off Cornwall. With Bernadette Peters. 1145 17th Street NW A consignment of Friendly Floatee toys, manufactured in China for The First Years Inc., departed from Hong Kong on a container ship, the Evergreen Ever Laurel,[1] destined for Tacoma, Washington. All Rights Reserved. In collaboration with. every manufacture and possible drift location of the rubber ducks that dumped overboard in 1992 is an amazing journey.Read this book if you love following quests to their roots. Or to ride a high-speed ferry through the smoggy, industrial backwaters of China's Pearl River Delta, where, inside the Po Sing plastic factory, I would witness yellow pellets of polyethylene resin transmogrify into icons of childhood. Over the years, the . Ducks, beavers, turtles, and frogs had bobbed their way to the shores of Alaska, through the Bering Strait, around the northern coast of Greenland, and into the Atlantic Ocean. Ducks are still being found today. Post date: Mar 23, 2015 3:35:59 PM. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media. In 1992, a cargo ship carrying approximately 29,000 bath toys (mostly rubber ducks) spilled in the northern Pacific Ocean. And some of it floats on the surface where you can find it. Today, we know more than ever about ocean currents, thanks largely to the Friendly Floatees. The next thing you know years have passed, and you're still adrift, still waiting to see where the questions take you. At least two children's books have been inspired by the Floatees. If you're ever out in the ocean, you might just run into a rubber ducky. This colorful flotsam included beavers, frogs, turtles, and, of course, yellow rubber ducks. Hans Christian Andersen Award winner Eric Carle wrote 10 Little Rubber Ducks (Harper Collins 2005, ISBN978-0-00-720242-3).[6]. "When I set out following these toys, I didn't expect it to turn into an environmental story, but I very quickly learned that unlike the flotsam of ages past, the flotsam of today much of it plastic persists," he says. Clickheretouploadyours. Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer employed the help of beachcombers to map the progress of their movements. You're marveling at the scale of humanity's impact on this terraqueous globe and at the oceanic magnitude of your own ignorance. hide caption. Usually in such experiments, 98 percent of all floaters get lost, so researchers expect to recover only about 10 or 20 bottles from each drop. All Rights Reserved. The winds are gale force. GEOG MISC. The Friendly Floatees, as they were called, first began to wash up on the Alaskan coast towards the end of 1992, approximately 3,200 kilometers (2,000 miles) from their point of origin. Background Information In January of 1992, during a winter storm, a container ship lost several containers overboard in the middle The standard method of tracking ocean currents is to release drift bottle, five hundred to one thousand at a time, and chart their movement. Ebbesmeyer and Ingrahams model correctly predicted landfall of the toys in Washington state in 1996. The photographs that were taken when it was in port are pretty dramatic. Probably not Scotch. A strange thing happened today in 1992: the Pacific Ocean filled up with rubber duckies. Rubber (including both natural and synthetic rubber) and plastics are related in that both are carbon-based polymers that can be made from either plant-based materials or fossil fuels, although the vast majority currently come from fossil-based fuels. 10 Little Rubber Ducks fall overboard and land on shores all around the world. Once you have ensured that all tops are correctly assembled, tell students to complete the mini-lab according to the directions on the sheet, answering the questions as they work. By studying the route of these floaties, Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham developed a model of the ocean currents and from this model they correctly predicted where and when these yellow ducks and blue turtles are going to wash up. Photo: 88390133 Teen00000 / Dreamstime.com. Fall overboard and no one would miss you. And, like any book about . "What role plastic plays in that is an ongoing area of study. In doing so, it cast a light on the complexities of ocean currents not only in the pacific, but worldwide. What happened to them is the subject of Donovan Hohn's book Moby-Duck. Using wind data and other ocean current variables, OSCAR was able to map the suspected route of a duck from the point of origin to the point of discovery. . In 1992 when a container of yellow rubber ducks, fell into the Pacific Ocean, it allowed scientists to gain insight into a hidden world of ocean currents. Since rubber ducks are small, they are sensitive to much smaller, local variations in water direction. Hurricane-force winds and waves thirty-six feet tall rocked the 28,900-ton ship from side to side. Within a day, the water dissolved the glue releasing the plastic animals and setting them free from their plastic prison. Called convergence zones or "garbage patches," these parts of the ocean contain trash, plastic and toys whatever happens to get sucked in while floating past. Then, another bunch washed up on the shores of Shemya Island, AK, 3,200 miles from the spill site. PCBs). However, one of the main forces driving ocean current patterns is the rotation of the Earth, which produces the Coriolis effect. Or to cross the Graveyard of the Pacific on a container ship at the height of the winter storm season. First, have students cut out the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, tape them together, and stick a pencil through the poles so that the Earth can spin like a top. In the 1930s, these rubber toys began to take their place in bathrooms. The Geography of Ocean Currents is an activity that uses these concepts to predict the impacts of major oil spills. This represented a 1.4% recovery rate. in. Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? "The Sun", "Sun", "Sun Online" are registered trademarks or trade names of News Group Newspapers Limited. ", "Moby-Duck: Or, The Synthetic Wilderness of Childhood", "First of the plastic duck invasion fleet makes landfall on the Devon coast", "Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea by Donovan Hohn", "Pacific Toy Spill Fuels Ocean Current Pathways Research", "Plastic duck armada is heading for Britain after 15-year global voyage", "The popular television show "Touch" based season 1 episode 11, "The Gyre, Pt. © 2023 IFLScience. Amidst the rocking and tossing of the waves, several shipping containers fell overboard, spilling their contents into the sea. And you're dreaming nostalgically of your former life of chalkboards and Emily Dickinson and parent-teacher conferences, and wishing you could go back to it, wishing you'd never contacted the heavyset Dr. E., or learned of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or met the Ahab of plastic hunters, or the heartsick conservationist or the foulmouthed beachcomber or the blind oceanographer, any of them. By the early 2000s, a few had even been found as far away as Maine and the British Isles. View our online Press Pack. "But while I was out there with them, toys were found. 61,000 Nike running shoes that had been lost overboard in 1990, Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them, "What connects the 'Ever Given', the Suez Canal and 7,200 rubber ducks loose in the Pacific? This lists the logos of programs or partners of, NASA Ocean Motion: Curt Ebbesmeyer Profile, National Geographic: The Global Conveyor Belt, National Geographic: Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Polymer Science Learning Center: All About Elastomers. Explore how the currents that make up the five major ocean gyres carry plastic around the world and concentrate it into areas of floating trash commonly referred to as garbage patches.. Others traveled over 17,000 miles, floating over the site where the . You're giving the plight of the Laysan albatross many moments of thought. Oceanography Color by . On January 10, 1992, a storm at sea in the Pacific set in motion one of the largest and most unusual studies into global ocean currents. The years following the number of these floatees visiting beaches increased manifold. San Jose City College. Emphasize to students that while models are useful, they are also theoretical. Join our community of educators and receive the latest information on National Geographic's resources for you and your students. 28,000 Rubber Ducks Accidentally Fell Into The Sea In 1992. Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service. You cannot download interactives. This circuitAlaska to Japan, then back againprovides important insight into ocean gyres: circular ocean currents that recirculate over certain areas of the globe. This is evidenced by the fact that the ducks started washing up all around the world over the next three to five years! In 1992, a shipment of 29,000 bathtub toys fell overboard from a container ship in the Pacific Ocean. Scientists could never ethically dump tens of thousands of plastic toys into the ocean, but the accidental release of so many toys represented an opportunity too fortuitous to miss out on. Thirteen years later, journalist Donovan Hohn undertook a mission: He wanted to track the movements of the wayward ducks, from the comfort of his own living room. In 1992, a shipment of 29,000 bathtub toys fell overboard from a container ship in the Pacific Ocean. A container ship traveling from China to the United States accidentally lost 12 containers. Devoted followers have dubbed the rubber ducks as friendly floatees. The water is deep and black, and so is the sky. And another beachcomber found a duck and had mercy he gave it to me.". In fact, due to the nature of where they were cast into the ocean, many also split off into the Subtropical Gyrea gyre with a huge circular pattern that touches the equator and intersects other gyres. Although each toy was mounted in a cardboard housing attached to a backing card, subsequent tests showed that the cardboard quickly degraded in sea water allowing the Floatees to escape. A bumper crop of 28,800 ocean current trackers was therefore a boon for oceanography as it would likely return much more data. Nick Wignall. Students use maps to learn about ocean currents, research case studies of ocean spills, and discuss the role of oceanographers. Learn about how they managed to bring international attention to the danger of cargo pollution. Oceanographers and marine scientists were quick to recognize the potential of 28,000 rubber bath toys-turned-flotsam (floating trash). Blue Planet II in new fakery storm after film crew admit planting rubber ducks in ocean supposedly from 1992 ship. But the journey also reveals a much more concerning state-of-affairs. The currents have been compared to rivers in the sea, but ocean currents don't flow like rivers between two banks they meander [and] they change seasonally and are, in a way, more mysterious than one might think. How 'deluded' Putin thought Ukraine invasion would break up Nato & have West bowing down to Russia, leaked docs show, Man had sex with his wife on bollard after fuming neighbour placed it in cul-de-sac in protest during parking row, 'Bubbly' nightclub worker, 31, killed after her Audi crashed into a bridge on her way home from work, Sir David Attenboroughs latest Blue Planet series on BBC One, Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). We pay forvideostoo. It was oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer who looked into the curious case of rubber ducks being washed ashore at different beaches. What's In My Plastic? They weren't supposed to go into the ocean. 18,000 toys move south washing up in Indonesia, Australia and South America Nov 1992 Ducks begin landing on the . A year . Inspired by the true story of these ducks at sea, Eric Carle has imagined their voyage in the wide open waters and the creatures they meet who live in and around the ocean. 2.9k. When groups have finished adding to their. Students lab sheets, their participation in discussions, their developing Ocean Plastics Movement Model, and their responses to the exit ticket questions provide insights into their current understanding and ideas about oceanic circulation, and the relationships between models, data, and predictions. And all this I would do, I hoped, without leaving my desk, so that I could be sure to be present at the birth of my first child. Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from Moby-Duck by Donovan Hohn. STARRED REVIEW * "Carle takes an actual incident, when numerous bathtub toys fell off a . In 2005, Eric Carle wrote Ten Little Rubber Ducks, a story about a shipping carton that leaked dozens of plastic rubber ducks into the sea, and their adventures after landing in the water.The book is based on a true story that took place in 1992 . Then they observe the role of the Earths rotation in creating ocean currents. The small, plastic adventurers were accidentally dumped into the ocean in January 1992. The world's largest rubber duck is six stories high and 1,500 pounds. You'd inhale the ocean and go down, alone. Often, its done with a thousand or so beacons at a time, with the expectation that only a few will ever be recovered.