Container weighing forward thinking

And it’s already been adopted by the UK ports of Felixstowe and Tilbury, with interest being expressed from both Belgium and Canada and as far afield as Chile and Dubai.

Scott Cruttenden, Strainstall, explained to Port Strategy that the driving force behind developing the system was the IMO legislation that looks likely to make container verification mandatory by the port operator.

At present containers should be verified at their source – but overloading incidents onboard container vessels such as the Napoli, Comfort and Deneb may suggest that this isn’t always happening which further pushes the point over the port operator’s responsibility for safety.

“Cranes and RTGs have their own overload protection but this is not accurate enough to determine container weight”, Mr Cruttenden told PS.

“We’ve come up with a solution which measures an accurate point of measurement from the four corners of the container which then calculates the load. There is no modification needed to the spreader as with most other systems”, he added.

He pointed out that components of some container weighing systems on the market require a 40-50ml space envelope between the twistlock and the spreader – when in reality the actual amount of space available is far less. So with its innovative solution, Strainstall was answering a plea from the market.

Some operators are seeing the system as an additional revenue stream too – upon discovery of an overweight container, they can pass on a surcharge to the carrier.

The word on the street is that the IMO legislation may come into effect in 2017 – despite the fact that some port operators still believe that verification should be performed by the carrier.

“Port operators seem to be accepting the inevitable,” Mr Cruttenden said. “The new legislation will affect all port operators regardless of size.”