Port seeks consent to deepen channel
Ports of Auckland (POAL) is seeking to deepen the city’s shipping channel in order to accommodate vessels carrying twice the number of containers of ships currently visiting the site.
Auckland Council is due to hold a resource consent hearing on the matter, which will start on June 22 and is set down for four days.
The largest container ships currently calling into POAL carry up to 5,000 twenty-foot containers (TEU).
“Shipping lines want to bring 6,000-7,000 TEU ships here in the next two to three years and in future we will need to host New Panamax ships that can carry around 12,000 TEU,” the company says.
“The channel is currently 12.5 metres deep at low tide, but New Panamax ships are 366 metres long with a maximum draft of 15.2 metres.”
POAL is applying to deepen the channel to 14 metres, but it says using “tidal windows” will allow deeper draft ships to enter or leave port when the tide is high enough.
“To create a tidal window suitable for New Panamax ships to access port safely we will need a channel which is 14 metres deep on the straights and 14.2 metres deep on the bends,” POAL explains.
“Our berth will be dredged to 15.5 metres so ships can stay through a full tide cycle.”
The work is deemed necessary to meet the demand for items from Auckland’s growing population, with a million more people expected to live in the city by 2050.
POAL says dredging will be done by the lowest-impact method available – a digger on a barge – and no blasting will be required.
More than 200 submissions have been made on the consent application. If consent is granted by the council, work on deepening the channel may start in 2021.
E-tug to be called Sparky
The world’s first full-size electric ship-handling tug is coming to Auckland next year and following a public vote it will be called “Sparky”.
New Zealanders were asked to come up with a name for the tug, which is being built by Dutch shipbuilder Damen Shipyards in Vietnam.
POAL narrowed the list of suggestions – which included Tuggy McTugface, Ashley Bloomfield, and The Fighting Queen of Covid – to four names, with Sparky winning a vote ahead of Hiko, Arahi, and E.T.
Tony Gibson, chief executive of POAL, says it announced in 2019 that it was buying the tug as part of an effort to become zero emission by 2040.
“It’s a big deal for us, but it’s also a big deal for New Zealand that we’re leading the way in this innovation,” he adds. “So, we wanted to share that with the country, and that’s why we asked Kiwis to come up with a name.
“The most popular name sent in – by a long way – was Sparky. When it came down to the final vote, it was the same: nearly half of the over 8,000 people who voted, picked Sparky.”
The steel cutting ceremony for the electric tug was held in June and the keel is expected to be laid down in July. The craft will take about a year to build and after testing is due to be delivered to Auckland in late 2021.
