Vicious southeaster strikes again

A vicious Cape South- Easter lambasted Cape Town over the weekend, blowing continuously for 40 hours, disrupting terminal operations and causing at least one vessel to ‘cut and run’. Three cranes were working the Maersk Daesan at Berth 601 when, according to a report over the weekend, the vessel’s operators apparently decided she should sail prematurely. The container terminal had earlier been windbound (up till Friday morning) for 20 hours and 25 minutes but the wind resumed with a weekend vengeance during the afternoon, blowing in excess of 100km/h at times. A Mother City fresh produce exporter who spends much of his time in the terminal says it has to be remembered the terminal only has two working berths for larger containerships, the remaining two still under construction. “Volumes currently appear to be down but had this not been the case and they had been normal, we could have been in a terrible, terrible mess.”