125 hours lost through wind delay

The Cape’s windy season has arrived with gusto. The Port of Cape Town was wind-bound for 125 hours in November while 94 hours were lost in October. “The South Easter has been blowing pretty heavily in the past few weeks,” a spokesman for Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) said. Whilst the Cape Town port manages to stay operational in very high winds compared to other ports in the country, the wind has been exceptionally strong, reaching speeds of up to 120km per hour. After much consultation with industry in recent years the port has instituted a wind strategy that sees its West Coast straddle stack remaining operational when other cranes are wind-bound. This allows the container terminal to recover fairly fast when the wind dies down. According to Mike Walwyn, chairman of the Port Liaison Forum, an initiative of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry, this has been a major achievement for TPT. “Unlike other ports where the recovery time adds to the lost operational time, the Cape Town port recovers very quickly thanks to the West Coast straddle stack remaining operational. They are able to catch up on lost time very quickly because of this strategy.” The 125 hours lost in November equates to around 20% operational time, he said. “The port has some of the windiest spots in Cape Town and so it is heavily affected by wind.” INSERT 94 The number of hours lost at CT port in October.