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The Container

HAMBURG PORTText: Michael Martin

Photos: Nicole Keller and Oliver Schumacher

Book

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Foreword

Why would anyone willingly spend months researching, writing and photographing to create a book about an industrial complex; a port? The simple reason is the port has always been more than a business. We share a fascination with its sheer presence, its character and its inimitable ability to define the city of Hamburg through industry, architecture and innovation. Where else do people sit on a beach gazing at docks and container bridges and call it romantic?

This book is for the enthusiasts, dreamers, romantics and visitors to Hamburg who have discovered their own affection for our port!

Discover and have fun!

Michael Martin, Nicole Keller, Oliver Schumacher Hamburg, August 2008

Impressum

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Contents

Chapter 1 The Container

Chapter 2 People & Careers

Chapter 3 Kaffeeklappen & Supplies

Chapter 4 Ships & Shipyards

Chapter 5 History & the Future

Chapter 6 Law & Order

Chapter 7 Nature & Culture

Chapter 8 Buildings & Architecture

Chapter 9 Goods & Transport

Port Map

Maritime Signal Flags

Impressum

4 – 17 18 – 35

36 – 49

50 – 65

66 – 81

82 – 99

100 – 123

124 – 139

140 – 159

160 – 161

162 – 163

164 – 171

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The Container

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On April 26,1956 the M.V. ”Ideal X,” a conver- ted tanker, set off from Port Newark, New Jersey to Houston, Texas with 58 steel boxes on board. The story of this seminal voyage began as a persistent dream of the American transport entrepreneur, Malcolm McLean.

Nineteen years earlier, McLean stood on a New Jersey pier with his truck waiting to receive a load of cotton. For Malcolm the sight of steve - dores tediously slinging each cotton bale with rope to offload them from the ship prompted

an idea – an idea that was as in-genious as it was simple. Wouldn’t it be easier to trans- port the truck, including its cargo, directly on to the vessel? In order to stack the trucks, the chassis would have to be removed and thus the notion of a ‘container’ was born. Predictably,

not everyone shared his enthusiasm and McLean found not one steamship line interested in his idea. Undeterred, he sold his successful forwarding business and founded his own transport company: “Sea-Land Corporation.” With this solo move he established himself as the pioneer of container traffic. He would later be heard to say,”I don’t have vessels, I have seagoing trucks.”

The biggest advantage of the container is that the goods carried do not require double-hand-

„I don’t have vessels, I have seagoing trucks.“ Malcolm McLean – Inventor of the container

ling, meaning being stripped and reloaded. Instead the entire container can be seam-lessly moved to its next mode of transport. In addition, these transportable ‘warehouses’ offer a degree of protection for the goods and enable the cargo to be safely transported on trucks, rail and also deep-sea and river vessels.

On April 6, 1966 the M.V. “Fairland” arrived in Bremen bringing the first containers to Germany. A short time later more containers were off-loaded in the port of Hamburg. By 1968 a global standard for the container was established. Kurt Eckelmann, a businessman from Hamburg, was involved from the outset in the process of establishing this standard. The purported success of the container was not yet a foregone conclusion in Hamburg. That being the case, in 1961, Kurt Eckelmann demonstra-ted both courage and foresight to set in motion the concept of a privately-owned and managed container terminal in Hamburg. In 1964 he was part of a German delegation that met in Paris to discuss aspects of the container as rudi-mentary as its dimensions. He met with delegates from the United States, Russia and

France and was instrumental in the creation of an agreement on the internationally recognized size of the container. The container measure-ments established in Paris still apply today. Later at the legendary “Crazy Horse,” sustained by some fine whiskey, he cleverly laid the cornerstone for the eventual compromises on the standard measurement of containers with the head of the American delegation.

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The 20 foot container’s exterior is 6.06 meters long, 8 feet (2.44 meters) wide and 8 feet 6 inches (2.59 meters) high. The tare weight of a 20 foot container is about 2,300 kilograms and has the capacity to carry up to 28 tons depending on its design specifications.

A 28 ton load = 24 VW Golf V

What fits in a 20 foot container?

5 million cigarettes

The big brother, the 40 foot standard-container, measures the same in height and width as the 20 foot container but is 12.19 meters long. A 40 foot container takes up the entire truck and counts as two TEU’s. Its tare weight is approximately 3,900 kilograms and the average payload capacity is 26 tons. When reference is made to a ship’s capacity as 6,000 TEU’s that simply means the ship can carry up to 6,000 20 foot standard-containers on board. On average container vessels carry more 40 foot containers than 20 foot containers.

When the conversation turns to globalization, one cannot omit mention of the container; the logistical pillar that supported this phenomenal development. Today there are an astounding 14 million containers en route on the world’s oceans and in terms of TEU’s that is 20 million, of which according to the experts, 10,000 may go lost at sea each year. Most containers are manufactured in China and are expected to remain in service an average of twelve years. As a rule, containers are made of steel and in compliance with building specifications, the floors may be made of wood.

Approximately one half of all containers are the property of the container vessel owners and operators while the other half are available through leasing companies. Today the purchase price of a 20 foot container is on average 2,300 Euros.

The measurement of the 20 foot container is recognized with the designation TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) which in Germany is equivalent to half the space of the truck bed.

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The Container

1 Mercedes195 sets of beer garden benches and tables350 carts 24,192 bottles of beer

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The handling of containers is the same the world over executed through the use of the so-called ‘container spreader.’ These tele-scopic constructions adjust to the size of the container. Each of the spreader’s four corners has twist locks that grab hold and are

interlocked with the four corner castings of the container. Once twist locks and corner castings are interlocked, it is safe to lift the container.

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The Container

The standard dimensions of a container, in such instances where goods are shipped on a Euro pallet (1.20 meters x 0.80 meters) – and that would account for a lot of shipments – is simply not practical. With an interior width of 2.33 meters, only a few centimeters remain in the container in which to fit two pallets next to one another. Instead every pallet must be stowed across and length-wise. Stowing the pallets this way sacrifices valuable floor space. At the time when the dimensions of the container were agreed upon this fact was not a consideration. The situation called for a special container to be conceived; a container allowing stowage of two Euro pallets next to one another. This container type is primarily used for short sea traffic and for shipments within the European Community.

‘Afterthoughts …’

The Container

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Hamburg is recognized as a universal port, i.e., a port in which every type of cargo is handled and goods shipped in containers have a special significance.

It is worth noting that a whopping 97 % of the general cargo goods that leave the port of Hamburg do so in a container. Today there are several varieties of containers; the high-cube, with additional height (9 feet 6 inches or 2.90 meters), the 45 foot container which is clearly a bit longer and the flat rack; a transport platform suitable for large machinery pieces and other types of heavy equipment. There is the open-top container which allows goods to protrude over the top of the container and the reefer (refrig-erated) container which contributes to the well-stocked shelves in our supermarkets.Der Container wird auch einfach „Kiste“ oder The container has many ‘aliases’ and in Hamburg one often hears, ‘where’s the box?’

In order to be able to identify these ubiquitous boxes, every container has in the upper right hand corner a seven digit number prefaced by four letters unique to each container. The first three letters identify the owner of the container. For those who possess a more than casual curiosity, there is a website where one can find the prefix list of owners.

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The ContainerThe Container

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A comparison:

In the past, meaning before there were con-tainers, a time when general cargo traffic consisted of sacks, bundles, bales, push carts and the indispensable muscle to move these goods, it would have required seven days to discharge and load cargo from the M.V. “Cap San Diego” which has a carrying capacity of 10,000 tons. The M.V. “Cap San Diego” was launched in 1961 and remains a permanent fixture in the port of Hamburg as a unique venue for a museum.

Today container ships load and discharge on average up to 2,400 tons per hour. This statistic may easily be improved upon considering that an individual container bridge can already handle a container with a 28 ton load, i.e., it moves the container from the ship to the pier in two minutes time. Often there are five con-tainer bridges working in unison on one ship. Even mega-carriers can safely rely on such a remarkable pace in the process of loading and discharging, enabling them to leave the port within two days time.Di

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The Container

Today the entire payload of the M.V. “Cap San Diego” would require a maximum of a mere eight hours to be completely discharged and reloaded and that with a fraction of the manpower essential in the past. By comparison, today only five stevedores belong to a container bridge ‘gang’ or work team. During the 1920’s, 10,000 workers streamed through the ‘Landungs-brücken‘ and to the launches that carried them to their work places in the port.

In 1965 there were still 14,000 workers employed in direct cargo handling; today there are about 5,000.

That said, the number of port-related work-places continues to grow today. More than 150,000 people work in the port and this is a growing trend.

The commercial value of cargos moved in containers has a broad range. It can vary between an average of $ 20,000 to $ 100,000per container depending on the trading area.

Higher values can be quickly reached. A 20 foot container with a high-value load of electronic goods can come to cost more than $ 1 million.

The value of a 20 foot container loaded with cigarettes can amount to around $ 80,000 (without tax, in Germany you have to add 75 % on top).

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Back in 1968 the first container ships of “Hapag” and “Bremer Norddeutscher Lloyd” had a capacity of around 750 TEU’s. The largest container ship in the world today, the M.V. “Emma Maersk” and her sister ships with approximately 14,500 TEU‘s, can transport nearly twenty times more goods and accomplish this feat with a crew of just 13 men. The “Emma Maersk” is 56 meters wide, 397 meters long and with a height of 68 meters is half as tall as the St. Michaelis. 22 containers sit side by side with 19 containers stacked one above the other.

8 m 9,6 m 12 m

68 m

132,14 m

one family house ship’s propeller M.V. ”Emma Maersk”

van carrier M.V. ”Emma Maersk” St. Michaelis in Hamburg

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The Container

Given the impressive capacity of today’s vessels it is not too surprising then that throughout this period the cost of overland transport has remained comparatively high compared to the cost of sea transport.

A bottle of red wine shipped from Australia to Hamburg incurs transport costs of around 15 cents.

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The Container

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Singapore (Singapore) 27.9 million TEU’s = + 12.7 % compared to 2006Shanghai (China) 26.2 million TEU’s = + 20.1 %Hong Kong (China) 23.9 million TEU’s = + 1.5 %Shenzen Ports (China) 21.1 million TEU’s = + 14.2 %Pusan (South Korea) 13.3 million TEU’s = + 10.5 %Rotterdam (Holland) 10.8 million TEU’s = + 11.8 %Dubai Ports (UAE) 10.7 million TEU’s = + 19.9 %Kaohsiung (Taiwan) 10.2 million TEU’s = + 4.4 %Hamburg (Germany) 9.9 million TEU’s = + 11.6 %Quingdao (China) 9.5 million TEU’s = + 22.9 %

Comparison of containers handled in 2007 worldwide:

A comparison: Bremen Ports – 4.9 million TEU’s Source: Hafen HH Marketing 08

Today there are two large container handling companies in Hamburg. The “Hamburger Hafen und Logistik Aktiengesellschaft” (HHLA) operates three terminals. The first of these, the largest container terminal in Hamburg, is the “Container Terminal Burchard-kai” (CTB). There is the “Container Terminal Altenwerder” (CTA), one of the world’s most modern terminals and the “Container Terminal Tollerort” (CTT). The second company is the firm “Eurogate” with the “Container Terminal Hamburg” (CTH) and like CTB, is located in the Waltershofer Hafen. “Eurogate” is a joint venture between “Eurokai,” a Hamburg company originally established by Kurt Eckelmann and “BLG Logistics,” owned by the state of Bremen. Located throughout Europe and with an overall turnover of 13.8 million TEU‘s in 2007, it is Europe’s largest terminal operator.

The introduction of containers has unalterably changed the picture of ports around the globe and the manner in which the work is carried out. Terminals, ships, trucks, trains and no less, those who work in the port (those of whom who managed to hold on to their jobs after the container-induced transformation) had to find their place and adapt to the far reaching changes. For the corporations involved, the business of containers is as good as ever. In the past few years, the growth rates for container handling are almost exclusively in double digits. The future looks just as bright with continued growth forecasted.

What’s a ‚Tallyman,’ what does a ‚Lasher’ do? How many bottles of beer actually fit in a container?

How long does it take to discharge a container ship? And what happens with the millions of ‘fake’

sport shoes that land in Hamburg from China?

“The Hamburg Port Book” supplies the answers in a spirited and detailed account of the port.

A book not simply for those passionate about ships but rather a tour de force for all who appreciate

Hamburg the city and its port.

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TEXT: MICHAEL MARTINPHOTOS: NICOLE KELLER & OLIVER SCHUMACHER