Vessel waits in port – to maintain schedule

A water canon salute was accorded Safmarine Ngami on her approach to the port of Cape Town last week, with Louise Angel, Safmarine’s first female master, in command. The 2 500 newbuild, delivered to Safmarine in February, had dropped anchor in Table Bay about 23:00 on October 18, where she remained until the morning of October 23 – a total of some 105 hours. The handover of command by Captain Iain Ross to Angel had taken place on the vessel’s voyage from Durban. According to Mike Powles, planning manager at Transnet Port Terminals Cape Town, the vessel had “requested to work” on October 23. Deployed on Safmarine’s weekly Amex service, she was originally scheduled to load 200 containers but in the end only took 50. Safmarine explained that the vessel was ahead of schedule when she arrived in Cape Town, and in the interests of keeping to a named-day schedule, she was berthed – as advertised/scheduled – on October 23. Commenting on her ‘smaller lift’, fewer boxes were loaded on board because another Amex vessel was in port at the same time. According to the trade, there were no ‘short shipments’ – the only boxes not loaded were 11 containers which had not met the WCRS (US Customs approval – 24 hour notification).