IT WAS full speed ahead for the Luzon Strait when it loaded 243 pallets an hour at Durban’s Fresh Produce Terminal recently, four times the speed of conventional loading. The reefer vessel entered service in the closing stages of the citrus fruit export season in mid-October. Built in Taiwan for Sea Trade Groningen, with local agents ISS-Voigt Shipping, the vessel has unusual state-of-the-art loading equipment which includes four side-loading doors, each equipped with 12-ton pallet lifts. Pallets can be lifted in all weathers, eight or 12 at a time. The Luzon Strait . . . achieving rates four times faster than conventional loading.
