Today the waterfront area at Port Chalmers has large reclaimed areas, cargo sheds, stacks of containers, two container-handling berths, plus logs and woodchips awaiting shipment from the Beach St berth.
The area has certainly changed since that berth was officially opened on May 13, 1969, when the refrigerated cargo liner Empire Star was alongside. A few weeks later on July 29, Kyoto Maru berthed there to inaugurate the export log trade, which has now seen more than 560 shipments loaded there.
Beach St has accommodated 119 visits by woodchip carriers from April, 1977, and calls by more than 200 car carriers from October, 1990, to May 2006. And for some time it has been the preferred berth for cruise ships.
Forty years ago last Tuesday Cap Melville tied up at that berth. Its cargo was the first of several shipments of empty containers brought here for loading in preparation for the start of the Hamburg-Sud's Columbus Line container-ship service the following month.
The chartered 6012gt Danish-owned Cap Melville had entered service in October 1970. Renamed Limpsfield in 1973, the vessel berthed at Dunedin in Shaw Savill colours on October 6, 1974, to discharge general cargo from the United Kingdom.
The Columbus Line service, started by Columbus New Zealand, was the only one to operate out of Port Chalmers over the next few years. The ships used the Beach St berth; the present container berth was only opened in time to receive the influx of the other lines in 1977.
The first of these, to Japan, was by the jointly-owned Japan and Mitsui-OSK Lines Godwit on January 29, 1977. The following month it was joined on this run by the British-flag Aotea operated by the Crusader Swire Container Service.
In 1969 Associated Container Transport (ACT) and Overseas Containers Ltd (OCL) commenced services to Australia. Both were set up by owners of conventional cargo liners.
The first ACT vessel to call here was ACT 3 on March 23, 1977, and the first in OCL colours was Remuera Bay on August 23, 1977. The following year the Blue Star Line, also part of ACT, introduced sister ships Australia Star and New Zealand Star to a Persian Gulf service.
The Australian National Line (ANL) and the Shipping Corporation of New Zealand (SCONZ) were state-owned shipping ventures that operated in both the overseas and transtasman trades until they were sold off.
Of the foreign lines that turned to container ships, Italy's Lloyd Triestino Lloydiana appeared in April, 1977, Hapag-Lloyd's Melbourne Express two months later and Kangorou from the French-owned Messageries Maritime's fleet in April, 1978. Exactly two years later the Nedlloyd group's Nedlloyd Tasman made its debut here.
The first decade of containerisation was interesting in terms of the types of vessels that visited and the services they were employed in. But most of those companies have disappeared into the history books.
Of the operators seen here today, Maersk has been calling since February 1998 and Mediterranean Shipping since March 2006. Hamburg-Sud stopped calling after November 2002, but has been back since June 2008.
