Ports of call
SHIPPING: Even on a holiday, I can’t get away from the container biz
Irecently returned from a cruise. Yes, this is related to commercial trucking and in a very direct way.
Where do you think the cruise ship docked every single night? Yep, a container ship pier.
I was on a busman’s holiday and didn’t realize it until my “shipmate” started taking cheap shots about our ports of call.
Our ship was 290 metres in length. That’s darn close to the length of a good-size container ship that slips back and forth across the Pacific Ocean on a regular basis. So where else to tie up than a dock that is ready for another one of the big boys?
It doesn’t happen too often in Vancouver, except when Ballantyne Pieris used in an emergency. That’s the pier between the Van Term and Centerm Container docks in Burrard Inlet.
Back on board my cruise ship, we left Vancouver and did a lot of slow, lazy days to the 50th state in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Then for four days in a row, we tied up to a different container pier.
And for me, every one of those tieups was interesting.
The most notable difference to me was that the containers sitting on the ground had names on them I was somewhat unfamiliar with.
The main one seemed to be Matson Line. Bright white in colour and of every size known in the industry.
Don’t see too many Matson containers on this side of the Pacific, though they sometimes show up during holiday time periods and especially the reefer containers — ones with a built-in freezer unit to protect the perishable loads within, like grapefruits, etc.
I thought I had been in this industry long enough that I had seen, loaded, unloaded and carried most container lines ever built.
Not the case. I was like a kid in a candy store when I was allowed off the cruise ship and could wander around.
It wasn’t just one or two containers with unfamiliar names. No, hundreds and hundreds just like Matson Line all over the various docks.
There was Johnson Brothers. Been around for over 50 years, according to the logo’s on most of the equipment I could eyeball.
Then there were Pasha Container line containers mixed in with everything else.
There were about five major names that I started to recognize from port to port, but I was too impressed to write their names down. Hey, I was on vacation already.
Cruise and container ships have something else in common beside size. They can pretty much put themselves in and out of any pier.
Side thrusters are a thrill to watch in operation and when the ship slips into place, it is almost impossible to feel it come to a stop against the dock.
It is also fun to watch the longshoremen. They seem to be the same in all Hawaiian ports. Definitely on Hawaiian time. Groups of them, standing around with their backs to the incoming ship. Could-care-less attitude about the hundreds of passengers who are hanging over their balcony cabin railings, watching them not watching us.
Then, in a sudden burst of slow motion, the lines are all secured and they all disappear. Poof. Gone. It was a highlight show for me every time we docked.
In the islands, commerce is handled quite differently than it is in Vancouver’s ports. I could see it by what was on the dock face. Also, what kind of equipment used to handle what size ships. Those huge, hang-over-the-ship cranes we’re so used to here in Vancouver were few and far between.
One item that really interested me was a portable ramp that I spotted in two ports. It apparently is used to load inter-island barges and small container ships. The ramp is of a sturdy-but-simple construction design and is wide enough to allow forklifts to pass side by side on the ramp. Would like to have seen it in use.
Also, cars both brand new and others that had been recently damaged were constantly being driven onto two different docks, waiting to be transported by ship. One longshoreman told me, after the cruise ship pulls out, the docks are constantly in use.
Hawaiian time may be slow, but it is interesting and different. And without containers, regardless of whose shipping line it is or where on the planet we are, I don’t know how the world of commerce would continue to function.
It’s just that simple.