Manual labour achieves enviable handling rate

MANUAL LABOUR is the order of the day when Walvis Bay Stevedoring goes into action to load or unload vessels in the port.
“We don’t have gantry cranes so it’s 12 to 14 men per vessel to handle the work, whether it’s bulk or containerised cargo,” says operations manager Thomas Wolff.
After 17 years with the company, he is satisfied however that the working system is not only highly successful, but has a handling rate equal to any harbour of its size in the world.
Annually the company handles more than 300 000 tons of export salt, bagged and in bulk, along with 90% of Namibia’s major export of frozen fish.
“We recently handled an unusual commodity in the form of blister copper with 1,6tons going to the US. We also handle coal and lead concentrates on a regular basis,”
he says.
During December 2003 the stevedoring company was ISO 9001/2000 audited.
In strict contrast to the mining and consumable items handled was the arrival and eventual dispatch of the broken down parts of an aircraft from the US used in the filming of ‘Flight of the Phoenix’ last year in the Namib desert.