Good planning means that a barge picks up new cargo close to, or at best directly in, the port of discharge. For the “MS Henja”, the Projects Division of Haeger & Schmidt Logistics (HSL) succeeded in doing this three times in a row. Fabian Bartels from the Projects Division outlines the six-week round trip.
“As a project department, we can rarely offer round trips to a single ship, as our transports are rarely scheduled to coincide and often involve many different trade lanes. But sometimes it just fits,” says Bartels with satisfaction. The “MS Henja” was able to book a total of three non-stop transports, one vacation and one stopover.
Shipment 1: Bridge parts ex Spelle to Krefeld
The series started in mid-June this year with the transportation of two bridge parts from Spelle, which were destined for Felbermayr’s heavy lift terminal in Krefeld. The preparations for this included initially positioning the “MS Henja” near Spelle with paying cargo in order to avoid a cost-intensive empty run. “This was achieved in cooperation with our Inland Navigation division, which transported granulated blast furnace slag from Duisburg to Dörenthe near Spelle on the “MS Henja”,” explains Bartels. The barge then took the project cargo on board in Spelle. The challenge here was the low bridge heights of less than 4.25 m in front of the port of departure. The loaded bridge parts with their low weight did not give the “MS Henja” the necessary draught. The special barge itself had the solution on board. It has appropriate ballast cells into which water can be pumped to compensate.
Shipment 2: Tunnel drilling components ex Ibbenbüren to Kehl
After unloading the bridge sections in Krefeld, the journey continued back along the Rhine, the Rhine-Herne Canal, the Dortmund-Ems Canal and the Mittelland Canal to Ibbenbüren. There, the next order from the HSL Group (Neuenburg am Rhein) was waiting for the “MS Henja”. There were tunnel drilling components to be transported to Kehl. The construction parts, which were reloaded directly onto trucks at the port of destination in Kehl, were delivered to the construction site just in time.
A breather and stopover
This trip was followed by a two-week vacation for the skipper. But the “series” did not end there. Because the next HSL loading was within reach, so to speak, in Walheim. In order to make the journey to the loading location efficient, the “MS Henja” transported sand from Otterstadt to Heilbronn on its positioning journey. The voyage paid for the barge’s journey into the Neckar and the sand, of which around 150 tons remained in the hold after unloading, served as ballast for the subsequent order.
Shipment 3: Container ex Walheim to Brunsbüttel
After the ballast sand had been cleared into the corners of the hold using a mini excavator, the “MS Henja” called at Walheim am Neckar. There, a few days later, the barge took on three tanks, fully ballasted and ready for the journey to the German canal area. Two of them measured 6.30 m in diameter. “These heights made it impossible to take the quickest route to the unloading port of Brunsbüttel via Münster,” reports Bartels and explains the solution: “We adapted the route.” This led via the IJsselmeer, the Ems, the Dortmund-Ems Canal and the coastal canal, where there was a particular degree of difficulty. At 4.80 m, the lowest bridge on the route had to be passed. The route then took in the Weser, Mittelland Canal, Elbe-Seiten Canal and Elbe on the Kiel Canal.
After a total of 14 days, the barge finally arrived at its destination on August 1. The unloading was a special event for the customer. The camera team that filmed the handling, for which a mobile crane was specially used, bore witness to this. This was also used to lift the slingers, who are responsible for expertly attaching and detaching the cargo, into the hold using a man basket. After around three hours, the ship was unloaded and the big round trip for “MS Henja” was completed.