Shaping up with 8 100-TEU ships

Handling 8100-TEU vessels like the MSC Maeva (below) is now all in a day’s work for the Port of Durban which has already seen the arrival of sister ship MSC Lucy as well. Both are deployed on the line’s Cheetah service between South Africa and the Far East and replace the 4 000-6 000-TEU capacity vessels that previously plied the route. The line uses either Durban or the new 14-m draught, deepwater port of Ngqura extensively as alternate hubs for cargoes from Europe and the Far East directly into SA or up the coasts to East and West Africa, which are integral to its service offering (see Africa Outlook). FTW understands that MSC intends deploying more of these large container ships on its North Europe-South Africa services – all of which has been facilitated by the introduction of bigger vessels on denser routes, creating a domino effect. As MSC has started deploying 14 000-TEU ships between Europe and the Far East and the Far East to North America services, with 16 already in service and another 14 on the way, the ‘smaller’ 8000- TEU vessels have been redeployed. MSC chairman Captain Salvatore Sarno believes Transnet should be using these vessels as a training opportunity in handling larger vessels which will dominate in the years ahead.