PORT EQUIPMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 247, 18 October 1928, Page 21

PORT EQUIPMENT.

( ■ 1 A tfIMT TO AUCKLAND. HOUtZBI AT SOUTHAMPTON. L " ■ - - £APH> BUNKERING AT COLON. •One respect in which Auckland is far Ibead of many ofthe parts I visited on •trip round the world is in port equipment," writes "Traveller"Wer handle aargo more expeditiously than they do at •ay of these Australian ports, except Sydney. At Hobart we took on board 40,000 cases of apples, every one,of which Was lifted by the ship's own winches, aad the job took several days. Titer wasn't an electric crane on the wharf. At Melbourne there are a couple of cranes, but none ati the. wharf where we •hipped more cases of fruit.. The only place where I saw equipment superior to Auckland's wa* at which & one of the finest ports in .the world, and is now the terminus or calling port for all the greatest lines afloat. Auckland cranes are quite equal to those-in at Southampton, but cncethe cargo li over the ship's sid£ the British port has methods that struck me as being Miles ahead of Auckland's. The cargo S» sent up from the hold on wooden gutforms, about six feet by live feet, ted vith runners like a sledge, which keep tile floor off the ground. To shift these platforms, which hold about four times the amount of cargo in one sling, •Uch as we use in Auckland, electric run-about trades are used.' In front of these trucks, which are run by one man, there is a platform which slides under the cargo skip between the 'runers.' the whole is then lifted a few indies off the ground, and the truck runs away With its lewd into the sheds. Instead of the four gangs of truckers to each "winch, which I believe is the Auckland figure, Southampton has two men to ateady the dling, and one man to work the electric truck. It is the most-expe-ditious way of handling cargo I have •Mr seen. ' 'Another instance of quick handling Was noticed at Colon, at the entrance to tfca Panama CanaL Incidentally 1 may mention the Amei[icari there use the •Bine sort of electric truck as Southampton for handling the cargo, but it was £» eoal burkering facilities that astonwfced me vumL At the coaling island

there is the very last word In the way of elevators and shoots for rapid loading. The Rimutaka, for instance, took on about 1500 tons of coal in several hours, whereas to banker tin same vessel in Wellington would take six or seven days. A steamer with modern bunkers can be coaled In two hoars. The coal is carried np by elevators, filled into trucks which run round an elevated railway, tip automatically into a huge shoot, the coal falling direct into the ship's bunkers, and tfce whole of the operations are purely mechanical, no handling being necessary. This was characteristic of the whole canal. Everything was done with an expedition and ease that was marvellous, huge ocean liners being handled in the lodes with no more trouble 4han the mooring of a feriy steamer."