Page 25 - Port of Hamburg | Port of Hamburg Magazine 1.2022

Prior to closure of the containers, lashing material fre- quently serves to secure cargo. Lashing points on the corner pillars as well as the container floor/roof supply the lashing points. ‘Lashing’ is the term for the pro- cess of fastening down and tying up the cargo to pre- vent it from slipping. Apart from lashing in the con- tainer, lashing down is subsequently essential on the seagoing vessel.
TIGHT-FIT STOWAGE NOT ALWAYS FEASIBLE
Crates and pallets can normally be tight-fit stacked and secured easily. Yet not every cargo is quadratic. Bundles of steel pipes weighing almost 23 tons have arrived at the WSG – Grasbrook Cargo Handling Sta- tion. From a single shipper, these are due for contain- erized transport by sea. The bundles of pipes accord- ingly constitute an FCL shipment. “For special cargo like these bundles of pipes, prior to any stowage we need to prepare a container,” explains Tomas Orsol- ic, Works Manager for WSG.
Specifically, this case involves both a great weight making the container almost fully loaded, and also special length dimensions. The container is twelve metres long, the bundles only roughly between sev- en and eight metres. Tomas and his colleagues there- fore shorten the interior of the box with a reinforced
interim wall. This ensures that for container handling at the terminal, the pivotal point of the project cargo will lie and remain in its centre.
The pipe bundle itself is held together with belts and stowed in the container by two forklifts. Whereas the crates and pallets in the LCL ship- ments can readily be loaded by a single forklift driver, this type of project cargo calls for team- work. The lashed pipe bundles are finally pushed into the open container with the aid of a wooden sliding floor. This simplifies all pushing/positioning in the container and also prevents any damage to the container floor itself.
Perfect positioning of non-normed cargo like this is not always achieved at once. For an LCL shipment, similar package dimensions and characteristics pri- marily call for a practiced eye in correctly arranging/ aligning the contents of a container. Unusual project cargo calls in addition for cooperation and precise consultation on stowage coordination.
These Hamburgian packing experts rely on expertise, precision in observing the regulations, and the team’s sense of responsibility. “With every shipment arriving here, we learn something new. What finally matter are experience and good cooperation. Here we have both,” says Ole Brügmann. ■ Birte Hirsch
CONTAINER WORLDS ■
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