The largest vessel to call at Northport to date is tying up as we post this. Her cargo includes items that will make their way into Christmas stockings and under Christmas trees all across New Zealand.

‘Constantinos P’, a 261m gearless container ship is carrying about 1,340 containers bound for Auckland that otherwise would not make it into the shops in time for Christmas due to congestion at other ports around the country. She is operating under a Vessel Sharing Agreement between four shipping lines; ANL, OOCL, COSCO and PIL.

Containers will be offloaded by our two mobile harbour cranes. This will be a slower process than would be the case if we were equipped with container gantry cranes. Operations will start at about 2pm on Sunday 6 and are expected to be complete around mid-day on Wednesday 9.