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Coordination ensures safe offloading of vehicles
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
While the MV Faust was in port earlier this month, it was up to Anthony Perez, operations manager for Wallenius Wilhelmsen here in Charleston, to manage the complex but efficient loading and offloading operation.
On this August morning, nearly 100 members of the International Longshoreman Association’s Charleston local were busily offloading Caterpillar and John Deere tractors and driving aboard a shipment of BMW X5 luxury sport utility vehicles bound for Europe.
“Once we know when a ship is arriving, we have until 4 p.m. the day before to arrange for gangs of men to load and unload it,” Perez said. “I’ll call our stevedore, MTC East, and say, ‘Based on this much cargo, I’ll need this many men to get the job done in a specific amount of time.’ ”
A “gang” averages roughly 32 men. Perez said that at peak efficiency, a gang can offload about 150 vehicles an hour or load 80 in the same amount of time.
“It takes longer to load them because you have to position them just right and lash them down without damaging them,” he explained.
While Perez represents the highest level of supervision in the offloading operation, there are two levels of management below him: representatives of the stevedoring company, and then gang bosses below them.
On this given day, the top union man on the job was Thelonas Bennett.
Bennett said he and his men first get word of an impending job from an automated phone message left by the stevedore at ILA headquarters on Morrison Drive.
“Right now my job is to make sure these cars are parked correctly and lashed securely,” he said.
When they’re done with a vehicle, the gang members jump into a waiting car provided by the stevedore to drive back onto the terminal grounds and get more BMWs to load.
“There’s a lot of coordination that goes into the process,” Bennett said.
Given the irregular shape and size of the cargo, security is a somewhat different issue when the Faust or any vehicle carrier comes into port. While cargo containers bear seals that can be checked and monitored, and must pass through radiation detectors at the terminal before continuing onto local roadways, vehicles can’t be sealed in such a fail-safe fashion, Perez said.
Instead, all cargo aboard a vehicle carrier is thoroughly inspected at its port of debarkation.
Once a carrier arrives in Charleston, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers bring handheld radiation units on board to scan the vehicles and take dogs through the cargo holds to check for bombs and drugs.
“We do find some odd things from time to time-clothes, computers and, in one instance, some boxes that appeared to be covered in Arabic writing,” Perez said. “That latter find turned out to be nothing, but that’s what you’re looking for, things that you wouldn’t expect to find in a new car. They have to travel clean.”
The Faust’s captain, Bjorn H. Larde, said he has found security to be much tighter at European facilities than in the United States, something he characterized as “a bit strange” considering the focus on port security among politicians in the United States.
“Europe has really tightened up on the security issue and imposed lots of new requirements,” he said. “It’s much easier to interact with ports here in the United States.”
Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.
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