Container congestion in Cape Town

Containerships were lined up, much like taxis at an airport, as vicious southeasterly winds sandblasted Cape Town for four days last week, resulting in nearly 44 hours of work stoppages and overall berthing delays of well over 100 hours in some instances. If that’s not bad enough, the Mother City terminal had been hit by the self-same ‘Cape Doctor’ the previous week, accounting for total disruption of roughly 90 hours over two weeks. The knock-on effects are evident, compounded by the terminal operating at 25% below capacity, due to construction at Berth 602, and teething problems with a new container handling system. When the wind finally blew itself out on Thursday (October 22), ship watchers were greeted by the unusual sight of eight containerships (and a single bulk carrier) at anchor in Table Bay. Working the backlog away will not be easy, as Transnet Port Terminals’ planning manager, Mike Powles, concedes. “It’s been a rough, tough, two weeks,” the 30-something-year shipping veteran said. What is more, the terminal expects a further 18 vessels to call in the seven days to October 29, not an unusually large number for Cape Town; however the daily handling target over that period has been determined at 1 684 teus. As the sun set over a duck-like Table Bay pond at week’s end, TPT sketched a none-too-pretty picture of the situation. Delays (weather included) were to the Brilliant, (108.83 hours), Maersk Montreal (122 hours), MSC Borneo (114.67 hours), MSC Boston (95 hours), Hansa Aalesund (108.67 hours), Willie Rickmers (123.58 hours), Kota Wangi (144.50 hours) and Kota Latif (59.23 hours). Cape Town harbour master, Captain Ravi Naicker, tells FTW the container terminal was worst affected, given that vessel entry and departure was at times impossible.