Caretaker MD takes over at Sails as Wicks is suspended

IAN WICKS, the founder and MD of SA-registered shipping line SA Independent Liner Services (Sails), has been suspended from his post by majority shareholders, Lonrho, “pending an investigation”, according to Rob Scott, Lonrho country manager for southern Africa. “That investigation,” he told FTW, “will take as long as it takes. But, while we are going through all the correct procedures with Wicks, we have already started to look for a new MD for SA.” The line HO in Cape Town is currently in the hands of a caretaker MD, he added, with Peter Albeck, who heads up Lonrho’s ports and shipping division, manning the post. “But I hope to be here only for a short while,” Albeck told FTW, “until we can find a new person to fill the post full-time.” And Lonrho, he added, felt it would be best for that to be an SAbased candidate, with appropriate experience in the SA-West Africa-Europe trade. In the meantime, Sails will continue to be run on a “business as normal” basis, said Albeck, with the current staff still operating the line’s two separate services. The first is the “A service”. Four 1 100-teu capacity, geared vessels running a container service on the port rotation: Durban-Port Elizabeth- Cape Town-Dakar- Rotterdam-Felixstowe- Bremerhaven-Antwerp – returning to S A via Dakar and Tema. The “B service”, according to Albeck, is run more as a tramping operation, with the two 8 300-ton combi-ships – the Berta and Emilia – sailing a flexible port rotation based on the run from Durban- Cape Town-Lagos-Tema- Angola (where Lonrho has a contract)-Gabon (for timber) and back to S A. Both the vessels are selfgeared for 36-t lifts. “We move them around a choice of ports where there is cargo at that time,” Albeck added Lonrho is planning to grow both services, but with a special focus on the “B service”, where Albeck told FTW that they had identified a “big potential development in cargo volumes, and where we plan to expand”.