Deep Seaport: A Reminder
Understanding the Lock chamber and its positioning as a major determinant in deep Seaport location.
With the congestion of our already existing ports, reminding ourselves of the great impact and relief it will create, the economic expansion, increase in the populace standard of living and a general change in citizens' livelihoods when new ports are created will be of great service. At this point encouraging processes engineered towards actualizing this kind of project is a patriotic thing to do, eschewing politics of all forms and focusing on the common good and betterment of lives. Understating and knowing the details, requirements and gains if it's executed places the citizenry at the advantage and a better way to prepare to have an edge and be on the advantage.
Let's elucidate and remind ourselves of what a port is. A port is usually an area or platform entered into from the sea, by vessels, boats, and ships which also allows for protected staging and anchoring or docking for these ships to load and unload consignments and continue up towards their destination. For regular ports, the depth is less than or equal to twenty (20) feet {<=20 feet deep}, in meters, it should be 6.096m.
A deep sea port is usually made up for the usage of very large and heavily loaded ships. The depth of water helps get them access to the deep water ports. For deep sea ports, the depth is greater than or equal to thirty (30) feet deep {>=30 feet deep} visualize it in meters to be 9.11 m. Now let this point sink in because this is one of the major determinants of the actual location or what is called the lock chambers, the lock chamber serves as a gate or access point for the ship into the deep seaport it has dimensions in length and wide, for instance a deep sea port can accommodate a fully laden Panamax ship which is determined principally by the dimensions of the Panama Canal's lock chamber i.e. 48 miles long or 77 Kilometers international waterway that allows the ship to pass between the Atlantic ocean and Pacific ocean saving about 8000 miles(12,875KM) from a journey around the southern tip of South America, Cape Horn.
Before anyone confuses you or wants to play politics with location or present skewed reasons why the lock chambers were shifted, kindly ask the person whether he knows the depth requirements for a lock chamber and its implications on the location of a deep sea port. Having an understanding of the depth implication of the lock chambers buries arguments and acrimony on a shift in location or whatever. Our consideration and focus should be on the gains and how to better position ourselves to get the full benefits of the deep sea port.
Some deep water facilities that should give you ideas on where to channel your focus;
- Modern diversified facilities
- Deep sheltered waters
- Track record in oil and gas
- On and offshore renewable support
- Premier Cruise destinations
- Good communication links
- Skilled labour force
- 24 hours access.
The deep-water facilities should open your mind to business opportunities inherent in the entire system of deep seaports.
Also, we can deduce from the broad opportunities these features;
- it deals with the import and export of raw materials and finished goods.
- Provides facilities for the fishing industry, maybe what we can call industrial or large-scale fishing.
- provides ferry and cruise ship terminals
- offers recreational facilities, such as yacht marinas.
As we had posited in the previous issue of BetterAhead, community leaders should be interested in negotiating terms that favour community members' intake into the deep sea port project pre-, during and after construction and encourage their people to take up professional training or take up courses that will make them relevant in the deep sea port industry safeguarded the interest of the community for posterity. The following areas could be considered:
- Marine/port operatives
- Passenger operatives
- Stev dores
- Vessel traffic services operatives.
- Marine Pilots
- Harbour Masters
- Engineers
- Port managers.
Instead of creating confusion and instigating community people against such a project, an understanding of the inherent opportunities and how to position the people to benefit should be paramount. This is a reminder that should make us separate politics from the growth of our community and people.