E. Lorenzo di Casagrande, the top official in Baltimore for Mediterranean Shipping Co., is sleeping better these days, thanks to the cranes at Seagirt Marine Terminal.
On Captain di Casagrande's recommendation, Mediterranean decided last summer to become the pioneer steamship line at Seagirt, the port of Baltimore's new high-tech terminal.
The risks, he knew, were substantial. Typically, it takes many months to get a new crane operating properly. To make them as fast as possible, the Seagirt machines employ a high degree of computer technology. These cranes, billed as among the fastest in the world, were not just new, they were in a sense experimental. And it would fall to Mediterranean to conduct the experiments.
Eight and a half months and 29 ships later, the cranes have exceeded his expectations, Captain di Casagrande said.
They have been exceptionally trouble-free. "When we first started, we were skeptical about the mechanical ability of the cranes to perform steadily. It's been a nice surprise," Captain di Casagrande said during a recent interview aboard a Mediterranean containership, the Water Gina, as two of Seagirt's seven cranes steadily moved containers on and off the vessel.
The cranes are achieving production levels he did not expect to see for months. "I told my company it would take one year to get where we are now. I was expecting one year of aggravation," he said.
Captain di Casagrande is not alone in his satisfaction with Seagirt. Evergreen Marine Corp., the other line currently using Seagirt, has experienced similar success. Other lines that had been holding back, such as Puerto Rico Marine Management, also like what they have seen and have agreed to use Seagirt.
The success of Seagirt will be crucial to Baltimore's future as a major port for containerships.
Baltimore has been on the defensive in recent years. Virginia ports at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay have stolen away ships and cargo, causing a sharp decline in the port of Baltimore's market share. Seagirt is at the heart of the port's hopes for reversing that decline and restoring Baltimore's pre-eminence as the gateway to the Midwest.
Mediterranean Shipping Co.'s experience at Seagirt provides some evidence that the terminal can help lines compete more effectively for Midwest traffic. During the first quarter of this year, the line experienced a 22 percent increase in cargo at the four ports it calls along the East Coast. Two-thirds of that increase came in Baltimore, evidence that the line's strategy of cracking Midwest markets through Baltimore is succeeding.
Seagirt and its cranes are a large part of that success. At Seagirt, Mediterranean has been able to achieve a substantial decrease in its costs, while offering customers much faster service to the Midwest.
To a large degree it is the Seagirt cranes that make that success possible. Before moving to Seagirt, the line's ships were unloaded at South Locust Point Marine Terminal. The cranes there averaged about 18 containers an hour on MSC's ships. But during the Water Gina's visit to Baltimore last month, the Seagirt cranes averaged 26 containers an hour, an increase of 44 percent.
That's still far short of the theoretical capacity of 35 moves an hour for the single-hoist cranes used by Mediterranean. Reaching that capacity would require optimal conditions that rarely occur in the real world. "I am happy at 25. If we increase it to 30, I will be much happier," said Captain di Casagrande.
That rate of 25 containers an hour is the minimum the line needs to handle its increased volume of cargo in Baltimore without delaying ship departures. That's the central issue, since keeping ships on schedule is of paramount importance. A late ship means higher operating costs for the line and unsatisfactory service for the customer. And that, of course, is a formula for disaster.
"When we sell to customers, we give a transit time," Captain di Casagrande said. And from Seagirt, Mediterranean offers the fastest service in the industry between Europe and the Midwest. A container picked up by the line in Le Havre, France, can be in Chicago 16 days later. The only line that can match that delivery time, he said, is Evergreen, Seagirt's only other tenant.
The speedy delivery to the Midwest is largely a matter of proximity to the CSX rail yard, an integral part of the Seagirt complex. But the cranes are what lower the line's costs and permit the ships to stay on schedule as cargo volumes grow.
At South Locust Point, the line could move only 300 containers per ship, the amount two gangs of longshoremen could handle (( with cranes moving 17 or 18 boxes an hour. Any significant
increase in cargo would have meant substantial increases in overtime -- and, more importantly, serious delays for the ship.
At Seagirt the line has handled much higher volumes without delaying ships. The Water Gina, for example, loaded 430 boxes with two cranes and left on time.
Evergreen, the largest container line in the world, is very different from Mediterranean. Evergreen's ships are twice as large as Mediterranean's and typically load and discharge 50 percent more cargo in Baltimore, about 600 boxes, compared to 400 for Mediterranean.
Despite the differences, the experience of the two lines at Seagirt has been very similar. Like Mediterranean, Evergreen has experienced a significant increase in crane productivity since moving from nearby Dundalk Marine Terminal, and Evergreen officials are pleased with the continuing progress they have seen.
At Dundalk, Evergreen would average about 26 containers when the cranes were running well, according to David M. Thomas, the line's assistant manager of operations. At Seagirt, Evergreen has been running close to 30 an hour during the last two months.
Seagirt has two kinds of cranes: four single-hoist cranes of the type used by Mediterranean and three dual-hoists, which are used by Evergreen. The dual-hoists, with a capacity rating of 55 boxes an hour, have the potential to be substantially faster than the single-hoists.
Evergreen has not come close to reaching 55 boxes an hour and probably never will. Nonetheless, the line is pleased with what the cranes have done so far and what they promise to do in the future.
Going from 26 boxes an hour to 30 might not seem like a huge difference, but it means a lot for a steamship line, especially in view of the time and expense a ship incurs by sailing right past Norfolk, Va., in order to reach Baltimore -- 150 miles up the Chesapeake Bay.
Some lines that call in Baltimore can save several hours by using the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal as a shortcut between Baltimore and ports to the north. That shortcut is usually off limits to Evergreen because its ships have trouble fitting underneath the highway bridges that cross the canal. The cranes help save Evergreen time in port to offset some of the time spent sailing up and down the bay.
To illustrate, a Seagirt crane doing 30 boxes an hour can do in 10 hours what a Dundalk crane making 26 moves can do in 11 1/2 hours. That difference makes the 9 1/2 -hour trip up the bay a little less burdensome.
"Four or five boxes doesn't sound like much, but it give us a lot more flexibility," Mr. Thomas said.
He, too, had high praise for the the Seagirt cranes and the job the Maryland Port Administration has done getting the bugs out. The only other dual-hoist cranes in operation in the United States are in Norfolk. It took Virginia more than a year to get those cranes to perform well.
"We haven't experienced anything near the problems they had," Mr. Thomas said. He said that he expects the cranes to continue bettering their performance, perhaps eventually reaching the upper 30s. "I could see them pushing 40," he said. "The faster, the cheaper, the better."
At the MPA -- an agency that has had little to crow about in recent years -- the success of the cranes is a source of pride and confidence.
That's not to say there have been no problems. The section of the crane hoist known as the spreader, which locks on to the top of the containers, had to be modified because the locking devices had a tendency to jam. In addition, some of the photosensing devices that fed information to the crane's computers about the exact position of the container tended to fail in the harsh and dirty working environment. In accordance with the "keep it simple" principle, the problem devices were replaced with mechanical devices, according to Morgan "Trip" Bailey, the MPA's head of operations.
But for the lines using Seagirt, the prospects are very bright. Each time the production level of the cranes goes up a box, the lines' basic cost of doing business in the port goes down, and their competitive edge increases.
"We are satisfied," Captain di Casagrande said. "Everybody is very happy to be in this terminal."