Namibia’s national ports authority has had all four of its new ship-to-shore gantries service a single vessel for the first time since the commissioning of the new container terminal in Walvis Bay last month.
The vessel in question was the 4 500-TEU box ship, Maersk Iyo.
In addition to the Panama-flagged vessel’s other specs – having a gross tonnage of 45 169 and a length of 255.17 metres with a width of 37.5 metres – it boasts a call size of 909 moves that includes discharge and load capacity.
Immanuel !Hanabeb, executive for commercial at Namport, said the concentrated use of all the gantries on one ship made an all-round significant contribution for port-side efficiencies.
“The significance of having all four cranes operational on the same vessel simultaneously exponentially increases the moves per hour.
“This in turn speeds up the turnaround time of vessels, therefore shortening the stay along the quayside.”