EFFECTS OF SHIP MOVEMENT ON PRODUCTIVITY

An endlessly argued topic between terminal operators and landlord ports is the effect of ship movement on productivity. “Again, it would be much easier to research this on a simulator, ” observes Clarke: ” Frequently we are asked: How many days downtime is this port going to have in bad weather? What happens in reality is you get a few days downtime due to bad weather but you get a lot more days where the productivity is reduced because there is 100-150mm movement on the deck of the ship and if you’re trying to spot where the guides are from 30 metres up it becomes very difficult.

This can make a big difference to overall berth productivity.”

Increasingly shipping lines are looking for contracts with guaranteed throughputs and of course the operator is looking for wordings in those contracts which will exclude certain circumstances. “At the moment, in terms of weather, there is just not the data to write the contracts, ” says Clarke. “Everybody is just guessing when they write the clauses as to what sort of conditions may occur. In a Force 8 gusty gale your handling is going to be slowed down, if you can do it at all. If you have a big ship calling during a period of bad weather you want some exemption on your contract from having to guarantee 120 boxes an hour, or whatever has been agreed.”

Clarke cites Port Louis in Mauritius where there is a terminal with the Mauritius Port Authority as landlord, and the Cargo Handling Corporation, which actually operates the container terminal, has a guaranteed productivity clause in its contract. “When they have a cyclone, yes, they shut the port and that is covered in the contract but for a near-miss from a cyclone they get wave conditions that can cause 200mm of movement on the deck of the ship and so they can’t achieve the productivity. It cuts the handling rate to about a third of the still vessel numbers but the contract doesn’t cover that. This becomes quite a big commercial issue at a number of ports. There is no factual evidence so nothing to quantify it against.

Hence the need for a benchmarking study which is much more easily done with a crane simulator than with a live crane.”

Clarke throws out a challenge: “This sort of research should really be done by the industry as a whole but no one has taken up the issue seriously.”