New shortsea service for Thamesport
'El Temerario' is seen alongside in Thamesport last recently.
The recent docking of the 1,118 teu El Temerario at London Thamesport follows an agreement with Team Lines, which is to deploy the ship on its new North Europe Service. A number of the company’ s vessels are expected to join the Temerario in making regular calls at the UK port, such as its sister ship, El Bravo.
It is no surprise that Team Lines has added the Thamesport connection, since the port is located in the heart of southeast England, 10 miles from the M2 motorway and only 35 miles from London. Adding value to the stopover, Hamburg based Team Lines is also to start offering a door to door services to and from the UK via its ‘Delphis Logistics’ brand.
David Gledhill, chief executive officer of Hutchison Ports (UK) Ltd, which owns London Thamesport, said that both organisations share ‘customer focus and a high degree of flexibility’, adding that ‘whilst providing additional container volumes to the port, access to the Team Lines service network for our existing customers represents an exciting opportunity.’
This follows the recent operational capability of London Thamesport being set to increase still further with the confirmation that an order has been placed for the port’s eighth ship to shore gantry crane.
The ultra post-panamax unit is being built by Zhenhua Port Machinery Company (ZPMC) in Shanghai, and will be delivered in April 2010. With an outreach of 62.5m, the crane will be able to handle ships with containers stowed 22 wide on deck.
The new crane has an 85 ton heavy lift capability, and will be able to twin-lift twenty foot containers. The electrical drive system is to be supplied by Siemens and based upon the Siemens Master Drive system. This is the same as the previous ZPMC quay crane delivered to London Thamesport in April 2008.
The operator’s cabin is being supplied by Merford Cabins of the Netherlands. The special ‘Ergo’ cabin is similar to those used on existing cranes at London Thamesport and is specially designed to provide an ergonomic working environment to improve the performance of the operators and the efficiency of the crane.
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