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Re:Is that ship still stuck? by onlyrealcuzzo on Thursday March 25, 2021 @11:32PM (#26588497)
How do they load and unload these things in a port in only a couple of days?! Do the cranes take off several containers at a time? It's hard for me to imagine they can move a container off the ship and get back to another container in less than a minute.
Re:Is that ship still stuck? by toast0 on Friday March 26, 2021 @04:06AM (#26589778)
The cranes take one container off at a time (except when the container underneath sticks to the top one, which is not good). Actually, wikipedia says some cranes do two to four containers on purpose now.

Usually the crane operator will load/unload several containers without moving along the dock; because they're all lined up, the crane only needs to travel in two dimensions (vertically and across the boat from port to starboard). The cranes are specialized to pick up containers by the top corners, which makes connecting fast. Standardized containers means the corners are at the same place (ok, there's a few sizes, but 40 ft containers are the vast majority of ocean shipping) and lining up is easy. On the dockside, there's a crew of longshoremen that move chassis (trailers) into place for the crane to drop (gently, usually) the containers on, those are then parked nearby, etc.

Depending on the ship (and the dockside staffing), you can have multiple cranes working the ship. Planning is required to keep the ship balanced and minimize the number of containers moved. These ships generally visit several ports in order, and usually both unload and load at all of them, so it's complex.

Depending on the traffic (and pandemics), the port runs up to three shifts.

Re:Is that ship still stuck? by petronio on Friday March 26, 2021 @02:00AM (#26589164)
You can have multiple cranes working on a ship in parallel, like in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=590t6mbebsc
Re:Is that ship still stuck? by kqr on Friday March 26, 2021 @02:48AM (#26589414)
And they are unloaded onto something that can transport them out of the way. Even in the desert, after 3,000 or so containers, finding room in the big pile to unload number 3,001 without moving the crane to make a new pile might be problematic.
Re:Is that ship still stuck? by gala8y on Friday March 26, 2021 @12:09PM (#26593769)
This video really shows the process up close:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj7ixi2lqF4

Re:Is that ship still stuck? by Cthulhu_ on Friday March 26, 2021 @04:48AM (#26589987)
Yeah, and those systems are fully automated too - years if not decades before e.g. Amazon started doing something similar in their warehouses. Mind you, containers were standardized in the 60's so there's a bit of a head start there.