. . . as she travels to Tanzania with her cargo,
writes Leonard Neill
TAKE A tall, attractive blonde and send her aboard a vessel with 30 seamen for a five-day trip to a foreign land and you may be asking for trouble. But nothing was further from the truth, says lissom Ronel Opperman who did just that to accompany a cargo of containers in order to gain first-hand knowledge of how a consignment is handled from point of pick-up to delivery.
The young woman from Primrose in Gauteng, who had never been far from home before the eventful voyage from Durban to Dar es Salaam, packed her bags and set sail after African Explosives arranged for the international freight department newcomer to learn the rudiments of the business first hand.
"It was a tricky decision to make," says commercial services manager Ron McConnell. "After all, would you let your good looking daughter go on a trip like that? But we had consultations with the shipping line and with her parents and it was agreed. Ronel would learn all about the handling of a shipment by going the full distance with it.
"We feel there are too many freight clerks who sit in offices, some of them even overlooking Durban's harbour, who never see the ship on which their consignments are booked. They also know little about the industry apart from the documents they fill in. We felt a hands-on approach was needed. After four years in sales, Ronel was moved to the freight section 18 months ago to be groomed for a major role in this rapidly growing department."
African Explosive's freight manager Bentley Cook, who supervised her introduction into export freight, arranged with Polaris Shipping for her to travel with two containers of explosives to Tanzania.
"You couldn't have had a better response," he says. "Their man John Mellows went out of his way to ensure everything went to order, even collecting her from the hotel in Durban where she was booked and taking her to the vessel itself."
On board the Emirate Star, Ronel Opperman came face to face with 30 smiling seaman including Filipinos, Indians, Sri Lankans and two South Africans, one of whom, engineer Burgert Roets, appointed himself as her bodyguard.
"I didn't know one end of a ship from the other until I went aboard," she says. "Now I've done my bit stuffing containers and working alongside stevedores and crane drivers. I learnt their language. I think that experience was the best way possible to learn what it is all about."
Experiences on board the vessel?
"The crew was great. They treated me like a queen. Yes, I'd do it again tomorrow given the chance."
But tomorrow has more demanding tasks for the young woman who now talks in general terms of 'new generation explosives' and was busy undergoing training on the designing of explosives magazines for transportation at the time of this interview.
