Durban-based Sandock Austral Shipyards is now suppling a new maritime barge that it believes could “revolutionise” the way containers are handled in South Africa’s ports.
Splash 247 reported that the internationally patented, German-designed self-propelled and self-sustained Port Feeder Barge is “set to solve a host of challenges experienced by South African ports as it can be deployed at a moment’s notice to wherever it is needed and can operate easily in low-water depth or high berth”. The barge is expected to lead to a reduction in road congestion and faster turnaround times for imports and exports.
Durban Port experienced severe congestion after the recent floods that made container terminals inaccessible to trucks, a situation in which the use of the barge could have provided a logistical solution.
The 168 TEU pontoon is independent from quayside equipment and can be used to move containers from different handling facilities and shifted from road to waterway. The key feature of the barge is its own full-scale container crane.
Dr Ulrich Malchow, whose company designed the barge and has been marketing it for the past 13 years, told Splash247: “While it looks like a standard shipboard crane, all its mechanical components have been especially designed for continuous operation. Due to its nature, the Port Feeder Barge is continuously in port – seven days a week. The load cycle requirements are even higher than for many quayside cranes, which have significant consequences on the layout of its mechanical components.”
“Durban, like Lagos or even Hamburg, has a lot of container movement within the port from one terminal to another, which requires the use of trucks. Furthermore containers need to be carried for stuffing and stripping activities to off-dock facilities which often have their own shallow water access, but no cranes, resulting in additional road haulage. The Port Feeder Barge eliminates this so there is less traffic congestion and, moreover, reduces the carbon emissions,” Malchow said.
He added that the vessel could also serve as a floating container truck, a floating terminal or a floating crane for non-containerised cargo.
The most visible example is at the land-constrained port of Hong Kong, where barges move an estimated 30% of containers.
