Cape Doctor adds to congestion woes

Cape shippers faced a double whammy in December as the notorious Cape Doctor added to their congestion woes. With the port heavily impacted by winds – around 100 consecutive hours in one case – keeping operations fluid has been the ongoing focus. “It has been a very trying December,” said Terry Gale, chairman of the Exporters’ Club Western Cape. He said the port was still affected by the congestion in Durban resulting in unreliable sailing schedules. According to Mike Walwyn, chairman of the Cape Port Liaison Forum (PLF), there has been some improvement even though statistics are not yet available for the past month. “However, Durban remains congested, which means we still have vessels from the East arriving in Cape Town well after their original scheduled time of arrival,” he told FTW. Gale said the USA service was of extreme concern. Cape Town has a guaranteed weekly sailing to the US, but this has not been the case now for several months as vessels either bypass Cape Town or have to reschedule to make up lost time in Durban.