Inherently dangerous, the question of who should take on the task of onboard lashing while at berth is divisive. While some ports take the line that this should be offered as a professional, outsourced service, others rely on stevedores to stow and secure boxes.<\/p>\n
The Port of Rotterdam sits in the camp of the former: its rules require that any containership longer than 170 metres that calls at the port must contract the services of a certified lashing company for onboard securing of cargo.<\/p>\n
However, currently, only Matrans Marine Services and International Lashing Service provide such services, despite the fact that, theoretically, any company can apply for a license, just so long as it has the necessary ISO certificate, has provided adequate training for all employees and that all those employees have a certificate of good conduct.<\/p>\n
ILS’ main client at the port is APM Terminals, although it also provides lashing services for other liner companies, such as Maersk Line for break-bulk, project and out-of-gauge cargo. Matrans provides services for HPH group company ECT.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Open market<\/b> <\/p>\n
Nees Maas of ILS says that while there are no barriers to entry, lashing companies have to invest significant amounts of money in professionalising their workforce and ensuring that training is on-going, not simply a one off activity.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to invest a lot in training, but you won’t necessarily make a big return. That might put off many companies, since this is a low margin business,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Snoeck Services, which undertakes the lashing and securing of cargo before it is loaded, is contemplating acquiring on board lashing certification, reveals managing director Frenk Snoeck.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no real barriers to entry; our current reluctance being the result of internal reasons,\u201d he says. Another of Rotterdam’s lashing companies, Qargo, focusses on lashing out-of-gauge cargo on flat racks and open top containers, but prefers to steer well clear of any vessel lashing activities. \u201cOn board lashing of containers is a different ball game. You are dealing directly with shipping lines and therefore it is beneficial to have a presence in the terminals. It’s also a more closed market and more protected,\u201d says company spokesperson Peter Bokhout.<\/p>\n
In most other countries, it is the stevedores themselves that undertake lashing services. However, the clear division of labour at Rotterdam between stevedoring and lashing does appear to make sense in that, despite the latter notoriously being a very dangerous activity, ILS has few accidents.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see lots of accidents in other countries, but not here in the Netherlands,\u201d he says, justifying the split and noting that the low accident rate is a function of providing the correct training. \u201cOther ports could definitely learn from what we have achieved here in Rotterdam in minimising accidents. The statistics on accidents speak for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Setting standards<\/b> <\/p>\n
Mr Maas is a member of the project team set up to establish a European lashing standard across all ports. This standard is only currently found at facilities operated by APM Terminals. Nevertheless, he doesn’t believe that lashing activities in other ports will eventually be undertaken by dedicated lashing companies, given very real difficulties in doing this. In fact, at almost every European port all activities are carried by stevedoring companies themselves; in the US, lashing is only done by longshoremen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn those countries, port unions are opposed to the creation of independent lashing companies. In the developed world, this is not a major problem, because workers undertaking lashing duties are well trained and the level of accidents is comparatively low. However, in less developed regions, a lot of accidents are taking place and many of them are fatal,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
While the situation at Rotterdam is clearly better than at most ports, problems remain. A 2010 report found that 46% of the inspected sea-going vessels at the port had not lashed containers in accordance with the CSM regulations. However, Mr Maas says that this, almost certainly, refers to vessels under 170 metres in length. On these vessels, mostly feeders, the crew itself invariably undertake lashing duties.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis report does not reflect how we do business,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Asked whether poor on board lashing of containers might undermine the good preparation work that Snoeck Services does on shore, Mr Snoeck concedes he is concerned. \u201cInvariably, third party lashing companies provide a better service than the crew could normally do, because they are specialists. Often, lashing is regarded as extra work for the crew, which they are sometimes not happy about doing. However, the final responsibility for the vessel and for the activities of the crew remain with the captain,\u201d Mr Snoeck says. Goods do get damaged in transit, he says, simply because either the onboard lashing was not good enough, or the securing of the goods themselves was not up to standard.<\/p>\n
\u201cVessel owners or charterers think they are saving money by asking the crew to do they lashing, but they might just end up having extra problems and costs. This is because, in some cases, they do not have the right lashing materials to hand, whereas we always have enough, extra manpower if needed and the right lashing materials.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Well connected<\/b> <\/p>\n
Mr Bokhout adds that containerised cargo should not only be lashed and secured in a professional way, but that the containers themselves require professional lashing on board to prevent them falling overboard.<\/p>\n
\u201cShipping lines require lashing\/securing of cargo in containers and on flat racks to be undertaken in accordance with their manuals and with IMO regulations, so you would hope that they expect those regulations to be applied by the lashers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
However, he notes that standards are improving, with port captains becoming ever stricter, for example, when accepting out-of-gauge cargo, which he says is good for specialist providers, such as Qargo.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be extremely welcome if shipping lines allowed independent lashing companies to make adjustment, improvements and\/or corrections at the terminals, too. Although there are no restrictions on lashing companies working there, shipping lines often refuse to cooperate with them. At the moment, we are faced with the awkward problem whereby the inspection of out-of-gauge<\/strike> cargo at the terminal is undertaken by the same company that has the exclusive right to make corrections. This is not an ideal situation – and that is an understatement!\u201d says Mr Bokhout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just who should be responsible for onboard lashing when ships are in port, asks Alex Hughes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":8805,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-8804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-container-cargo-handling"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8804"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=8804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}