WWII Cargo ship loading/unloading time

[Ivan Cloherty]

. And yes I know for container ships they would need to carry their own cargo handling equipment. .

You are not wasting anyone's time, we all love a challenge, especially us oldies, keeps us alive, but the reasons for our questions are quite valid, as we do need to know information to give an accurate answer as we are able.

Containerisation alas, was not available during WWII as a general concept, it is muted as being instituted by Sealand Services in the 60's, but prior to that British Railway Ferries in the 1930's had 8' x 8' x 8' steel and wood containers loaded straight from rail wagons onto the ferries for cross channel crossings, still in service until the 1950's Luckily for us oldies, ocean ship carriers never saw the viability of the system, otherwise we may have had different careers,being down the mines or plowing the land, instead of ploughing the seas.

The vast majority of container ships have been gearless for over two decades, the exceptions being what are called 'feeder ships' which load from the major container ports and distribute to smaller ports which do not have dedicated container cranes, but even these smaller feeder ships are becoming gearless as ports invest in mobile cranes whose capabilities have increased tenfold in a decade with lifting capacity and outreach at a reasonable cost (compared to berth restricted container cranes)

Not really answering your question, but sometimes, with all due respect, non seafarers (including naval architects) do do really understand ships as seafarers do.

Good luck in your endeavours.

[John Arton]

https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/...arEcon-10.html
Although it doesn't give lengths of time spent in port, this document does give an insight into how ships and their cargos were managed during the war.
One other avenue of information could be, if you know a particular ships name, try searching voyage record cards that may give a date of arrival and departure from a port.
Rgds
J.A.

[Mdphotographer]

Thank you for the link it made for interesting reading especially in regards to Britain’s manpower issues.

I was able to find this which is the closest I was able to find about the subject.

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia: Logistics

In the transportation section they list various ships turn around times which I am assuming means loading-voyage-discharging-return voyage. They list San Francisco to Hawaii turn around at 32 days for transports cargo ships at 41 days. San Francisco to Southwest Pacific which I am guessing means Brisbane at 69 days and 115 days respectively.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Ref. The reason for this question are you doing a theme question for B.Ed degree.? My daughter who did one years ago her main question re History was the Hitler years. She did succeed with the degree with honours , what she knew of the Hitler years I have no idea. All I knew about Hitler he was a small ex corporal out of the German Army WW1 , a despatch rider I believe , with a big ego and a small moustache . Cheers JS.

And not a very long life span.
Des

[j.sabourn]

It was the moustache that did it Des. People went off him. JS

[Art Wadsworth]

The nature of the cargo also plays a big role. I was a volunteer on John W Brown, in Baltimore and she carried a number of vehicles on her first voyage to Persian Gulf in '42. A dozen Sherman's on deck and a large number of trucks. I imagine these would be handled with the jumbo booms, 50 ton at number 2 and a 35 ton serving number four. Don't know how much time, but certainly a matter of days. Art from Balto.

[Mdphotographer]

Thank you for the info!

[happy daze john in oz]

Of course if you were unloading in Oz back in the 60's there was not even the chance it would be loaded at all.

[j.sabourn]

In answer to the original Question the answer would be the drive on drive off system as practised by ferries world wide. However to do this you would have to have a specialised vessel with either or both bow and stern doors and suitable shoreside berths and roadworks to get the cargo as per mechanised load ashore and to its final destination. I have worked with this system so aptly named , but on a 7 hold geared bulk carrier of 32, 000 ddwt. With no doors but built stability and strength wise to go with 2 empty holds 2 and 6. The Indian owners in their wisdom decided to make this permanent and the two holds were fitted with car decks to accommodate 600 new cars. They claimed then to have the right to charter the vessel as re motor cars on the drive on and drive off system. Every motor was driven to vessel and then loaded with ships derricks. Again unfortuanerley the cars had to be loaded with petrol in the tanks, so large extractor fans had to be fitted to be able to change the explosive or ignitable air mixture on long passages at frequent intervals , unfortuanetley this again caused the holds to sweat and caused corrosion on the cars metalwork, so it was a gamble to not use the fans and break the rules. Either that or have large court cases on the damage to the vehicles. If one went by the rule book there would be very few ships at sea. JS… I spent 13 months on this ship 8 of those with the adapted car decks. Then the owners against my advise said they could go with a further two holds empty and I said they couldn’t , as I was only the mate I was over ruled , so we sailed from WA with literally 3 loaded hatches and 4 empty , 600 motor cars only equaled at most 300 tons per the 2 hold a neglible weight in this case. Looking back God was on our side crossing the Indian Ocean and managed to make Durban where the partially empty ship was loaded again with grain and more or less safe. I went home from Durban in one piece and told the managers in London what I thought of their knowledge of shipping on my arrival. Cheers JS

[Mdphotographer]

Thank you for the information. My idea for a ro/ro would be based on a modified T3 tanks with a length of 600ft 80ft beam DWT of 14,000 and full load displacement of 25,000 tons powered by either 2 Doxford diesel engine rated at 7500hp with 2 shafts or since EMD was already producing the 567 increasing bore and stroke to the 710 standard and using 4 16cyl 4000hp engines on 2 shafts. I figure either combination should give me a top speed of 16-18knts.From what I have read the Doxfords were hard to maintain and not very reliable so I am leaning towards the EMD 710's. Loading configuration would be similar to USNS Bob Hope class with a stern ramp for heavy equipment and midships ramps for lighter vehicles. The containers ship I am thinking about would be roughly the same hull/machinery combination with all of the superstructure in the stern and all stowage being below decks.Containers would only be 20ft units rated to carry 20 tons. Ships equipment would include 4 railed gantry cranes that could extend 30 ft outboard of the ship to discharge cargo without aid of shore based equipment.each crane would be rated at 30 tons and I am thinking total weight for each gantry at 75 tons.

This is where my imagination has taken me I know I have painted some broad strokes and while I don't plan to get into detailed technical explanations on subjects like the cranes I hope my thinking is at least plausible.

My main thinking here is maximizing efficiency in loading/discharging cargo to keep ships at sea and not in port. I know the other factors you have mentioned such as moving cargo away from the ports either by road or rail also has an impact on ships turn around time.