Strong winds push January delays from 10 to 27 hours

The Port of Cape Town faced
some of the highest winds in
five years in January this year,
impacting significantly on port
operations.
In a presentation to the Cape
Chamber of Commerce and
Industry’s Port Liaison Forum,
Transnet Port Terminals
(TPT) representatives said
that January had seen the port
wind-bound for at least 302
hours. “We saw some of the
highest wind speeds in the
past five years and the impact
was massive in terms of our
performance,” said one official.
The average time for vessels
waiting to berth in 2014 and
2015 was just over ten hours,
but the strong winds and
subsequent down time at the
port increased this over the past
few months to an average vessel
waiting time closer to 27 hours.
Wind remains one of the
biggest challenges for the
Cape Town port due to its
geographical location.
The port however made up
for the downtime in February
this year handling a whopping
92 138 TEUs in the month.