Trip to hidden wonderland an eye-opener – now, about those empty berths…

CAPE TOWN’S Docklands is hidden from the public by security hawks who seem unable to appreciate the real interest folks have in shipping. In the process, they deny the younger generation access to harbour vantage points to watch ships pass by and to savour the docklands atmosphere.

Some of those banished youngsters might become enthralled by shipping and thus become the future generation of local seafarers who enjoy an interesting, worthwhile and lucrative career.

I was delighted to break that barrier by taking a group of church folks and Rotarians around the harbour. Some were of the vintage to recall the Friday afternoon mailship departures, or even tug rides; others had enjoyed a more recent sortie to sea aboard the more glitzy cruise ships; a few were yachties who move through the harbour for their occasional sailing pleasure, while others simply soaked in the sights of the harbour for the first time.

Then, at the weekend, youngsters from Simon’s Town School’s Lawhill Maritime Centre received a taste of real ships from a launch normally used for off-port-limits supply service. From close quarters, they marvelled at the 334m container ship MSC Bilbao, an impressive vessel that was almost down to her marks, having arrived from Europe.

At the next berth in the container terminal, they saw the smaller MSC Grace that is on MSC’s west African feeder service, a maritime concept that is covered in the Maritime Economics classes at Simon’s Town.

As the launch was heading back to the Waterfront, tugs were connecting up to the incoming Safmarine Chachai, one of the largest geared container ships, illustrating for the young people aboard the launch another of the classroom topics – the role of harbour tugs.

Taking place at the Landing Wall was a ship-to-ship trans-shipment of gas oil between the tankers Torm Ragnhild and Sea Phantom, the umpteenth such operation at that jetty.

As long as several strict guidelines are adhered to by the Amsol team conducting the operation, pragmatic Samsa and harbour officials approve these trans-shipments that involve one ship berthing at either side of the jetty – the pipes connecting the two tankers lie across the jetty, and within about 24 hours the job is finished.

The downturn in the offshore oil business was very much in evidence. Laid up until the fortunes of the oil industry improve, the relatively modern drill ship Noble Globetrotter II has been idle at A Berth for four months. She has the capacity to drill in water depths of 3 000m and to a total drilling depth of 11 000m.

The protracted stay of Swire’s powerful tugs Pacific Dispatch and Pacific Discoverer is another indication of the state of the offshore oil and gas industry. Their bollard pull capacity of around 240 tons and their 17 864 brake horsepower make them useful in ocean towage, especially in moving rigs and other structures such as floating, production, storage and offloading units associated with the oil industry.

Only a few years ago, such tugs were on charter to North Sea operators at around $100 000 a day!

While these points of interest underlined much of the Lawhill students’ classroom work, empty berths remain a problem for the port authorities. Over the weekend came news that Singapore remains at top spot in the maritime world, securing three “firsts” and one “second” out of five criteria, including the ease of doing maritime business, the growth in its shipping register and the number of maritime companies operating from its impressive CBD.

Cape Town can – and should – become the African equivalent of Singapore, but that port would have solved the problem of those empty berths long ago!