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Does anyone know if the containers interlock in some way? I figure that they don't, because that would make it more difficult during unloading.

I get that the bottom and middle containers are held in place by the hull or the "racks", but the top contains seems to just be sitting there held in place only by their own weight.

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They use these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twistlock

gCaptain has some good photos from the MV Rena sinking which show how much abuse they can take before failing.

http://gcaptain.com/incident-photos-week-rena/

A great book to learn all about the history of shipping containers, container ships, and the technical innovations involved therein, is The Box by Marc Levinson.

http://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Economy...

They are attached to each other and the ship via some mechanism that interacts with their corner castings. (Each corner has a box with slots in it.) Turnbuckles, twist locks, rails, etc are used to secure the containers.

See http://www.pacificmarine.net/marine-deck/cargo-securing/cont... for some options.

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