How the shipping industry chooses where to drop anchor
For the shipping and freight trade when it comes to choosing a port
, information beyond mere physical location is a vital necessity. Other factors beyond simple proximity and ease of access play a huge part in deciding where to dock and offload cargo or people to land, many of which are not immediately obvious to those outside of the industry.
For example, whilst commercial ports are universally situated in locations chosen for optimal access to land and navigable water, there are several complicating factors in even these basic criteria. How navigable any stretch of coastal water is depends on both tidal movements and weather conditions, as well as the size of the vessel in question.
The access to land can be affected by the local services in the area and the transport infrastructure of the wider country; for example, though one port may be closer to the final destination of cargo than another, the second port may have much better intermodal facilities such as a freight rail connection or even access to canals and rivers - which may not suit the majority of the large vessels used in modern shipping but can be extremely useful for smaller ships carrying time-sensitive or highly valuable cargo.
Furthermore, although access to and from the port is undoubtedly one of the most important factors in choosing where to offload cargo, its far from the only consideration. There's also the prosaic matters of berth availability and the price of docking and customs fees; the ocean may be vast but the facilities of docks and ports can be rather more limited - particularly where the immense container ships used by the modern freight industry are concerned. The price for a stay at each port and the attached paperwork is also an important factor in the business of running a cargo operation; in some cases, it may be cheaper and more efficient to dock at another destination and have the cargo transported overland, bypassing the costs and delays of maritime customs and freeing the vessel to move onto the next leg of its journey.
Finally, there's the question of the port's facilities for handling cargo. Different ports can handle very different types of cargo, as the loading and unloading of some freight can require specialist mechanical means to be on hand - and of course, the workload capabilities of each port can also be different. Even if two ports can handle the same cargo, the rate at which stevedores can unload it from the vessel can depend on staffing levels and the scale of their facilities.
In the shipping industry, time and money are extremely closely linked and an efficient operation is crucial to meeting supply of goods with demand. Only with the right information can operators and crew make the right decisions.
How the shipping industry chooses where to drop anchor
By: Lewis Grundon
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