ACT 3, delayed in loading, may sail

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32696, 27 August 1971, Page 1

ACT 3, delayed in loading, may sail

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 26. If the container working rate on ACT 3 is not improved the ship, which has a strict schedule to keep, may sail and leave a large number of loaded containers on the wharf. Shipping company officials are not at all happy at the rate containers are being shipped in and out of the ACT 3.

Yesterday, during a 15-hour period, spread over two shifts, 100 containers were handled an average of only seven an hour which is not good, they say. This morning, from 7.30 a.m. to 12 noon, when workers finished for lunch, 24 containers were either loaded or unloaded.

Some delay was incurred by one of the straddle carriers having to be taken off the job to load six containers into waggons.

On Tuesday, the first day the ship started working, 43 containers were handled in the nine-hour day. Five cbntainers an hour is half the “beginners” rate expected. It is hoped that about 20 an hour would be the average when the operators became efficient at the job. Eighth day This is the ACT 3’s eighth day in port; she was originally scheduled to be here only four. The container company spokesman said that the

biggest delay seemed to be in the straddle carriers which lift the container after it has been landed on the wharf and take it away to a stack.

“The straddles are not going very fast,” he said. “We’ve tried to hurry them up—but the men don’t say much.”

There are 200 containers to come off the ACT 3—all of them empty. There are also 365 containers—half of them refrigerated ones —to go on. Doubled time By early this morning there were still another 442 containers to be either unloaded or loaded. If the present rate continues the ship might be in Wellington for a further six days, her working time being exactly twice as long as scheduled.

There is talk at the terminal that the ship might not be able to afford this additional delay and might sail leaving some containers behind.

The container company spokesman said that at this stage no preference had been given as to what would be

put on the ship and what might be left. Much depended on the rate of working.

Minister’s visit When the question of the vessel’s sailing was referred to the general manager of Associated Container Transportation for New Zealand (Mr C. S. Cullen) he said: “I wouldn’t like to speculate at this juncture.” Yesterday afternoon the container terminal complex was visited by the Minister of Labour (Mr Marshall). In the morning the working rate of the ship was plagued by a number of stoppages. Cab fumes At 11 a.m. Harbour Board employees held a stop-work meeting over fumes entering the cab of the container crane. Only four containers had been handled by this time. Work on ACT 3 resumed at 1 p.m. When the Columbus New Zealand was in Wellington several weeks ago, the rate of loading and discharging was 10 to 15 containers an hour, but this ship used her own deck equipment and did not need the services of the Harbour Board’s special container crane.

Fixed position The fume problem in the cab of the container crane was one that was under immediate investigation, said the chief engineer of the Wellington Harbour Board (Mr K. S. Renner) today. Fumes from the funnels of ships had been a problem to crane drivers over the last 30 years, he said. But it is more acute with the container crane.

Whereas in the conventional cranes the driver remained in' his cab in a fixed position, he moved with the container right over the ACT 3, right in the path of any fumes.

Filter and blower There was a filter and a blower fited in the cab of the container crane, but it did not stop the smell, said Mr Renner.

The board was looking at several remedies. A ducted air system might be fitted with a flexible hose leading to some point along the wharf.