While tracking bulk carriers on AIS, I noticed an interesting case at Dar es Salaam.
Maple Harvest arrived at the port anchorage on 7 August and, as of 26 August, was only then proceeding to berth — roughly 19 days at anchorage.
That got me thinking:
Is a vessel waiting nearly 20 days to berth necessarily evidence of poor port performance?
Or could the waiting be caused by factors such as cargo readiness, documentation, vessel scheduling, weather, or terminal constraints?
More importantly, should we judge ports by average waiting time, or should we also measure waiting-time predictability and the actual cause of the delay?
I’d be interested to hear from people working in port operations, ship agency, terminal management, chartering or vessel operations:
At what point does anchorage waiting become unacceptable, and what KPI would you use to measure it?
There’s a lot of reasons for long waits at anchorage. Loading, common reason cargo readiness. The charters fixed because the ship is available but the cargo has not arrived at port. Terminal won’t allow the ship to dock blocking, Number of reasons for late arrivals, weather, inland carrier delays etc. most times the ship is collecting demurage while waiting. Common delay with bulk grain is various government grain inspectors must certify the hatches are clean before the vessel can be loaded. Terminal won’t allow her alongside until passing
Discharging same in reverse, ship has arrived, load out from the terminal delayed due inland problems. Generally they won’t receive more than they can load out so the vessel waits. Ship behind will be delayed due berth congestion
Explanation that is best bulk or liquid cargo movement is a chain, Terminal is probably the most reliable link. Fixed capacity fairly simple equipment that can be easily maintained and repaired quickly, not many reasons for terminal delay
