How One Of The World's Busiest Ports Operates - Industrious - Documentary

a 21st century megaport handling ships of every shape and size everybody's rush rush rush rush thank you the ship has to fail by five thousands of people park over there operating one of the most complicated collections of heavy equipment on the planet about to get hit here all must work in perfect harmony somebody goal or the smallest problem you got some luggage coming at us we'll turn into a global headache it's really important that we get out on time to stay afloat around here you must be industrious [Music] [Music] and then [Music] the port of vancouver is the end of the line for thousands of miles of road rail and pipelines it's the last north american stop before asia if there is a problem in this complicated network that slows the flow of cargo the ripple effects will be felt around the world the port is made up of 28 terminals covering 400 miles of shoreline employing 40 000 people [Music] and it's about to be a very busy day at the coal terminal two vessels are already at the dock downtown they are getting ready for a container ship and two cruise ships that should arrive over the next few hours down on the river they're loading a log ship and waiting for an auto carrier to arrive with a full load of brand new cars like most deep water ports it was here before the city the chief architect is mother nature creating the perfect conditions for a port steep mountains plunging into the ocean allows ships to tie up close to shore without hitting bottom with 4 000 ships cruising in and out of the port every year knowing who goes where and when is a big job that starts with the equivalent of an airport control tower the maritime controllers have a bird's eye view of the main protected harbor and what they can't see through their windows they monitor with dozens of cameras and radar stations that cover every inch of the port before a ship can enter the control zone they must first contact the control tower by radio norwegian sunbank for trafficking the vessels are guided to parking spots in the middle of the harbor until a terminal is ready for them the norwegian sun is off brainerd but for most ships the goal is to get in and out of port as quickly as possible avoiding the parking lot and heading straight to the terminals [Music] for the past two weeks the yangming south has pounded her way across the north pacific on board asian made goods thank you everything from kitchen sinks to car stereos all packed into the 1700 containers [Music] twice a month this ship crosses the pacific when it arrives on this trip just off of north america it's the middle of the night and the start of the most dangerous part of its journey go around now and uh stop engines for boarding please okay the coast here is a navigator's nightmare rocks shoals and vicious currents safety first to help keep the yangming south safe local navigation pilot larry wilson is sent aboard he must transfer from a pilot vessel to a four-story tall rope ladder a slip up here could cost him his life worldwide over the past three years there have been over a dozen pilots killed by falling off the pilot ladder the yangming south has survived wicked pacific storms that threatened to knock her off schedule it's now up to larry to make sure she survives the last leg of her voyage the ship will be approaching first narrows at 5 15 and we'll have 1.4 knots of flood tide behind us [Music] the challenge now is to get her slowed down we're doing almost nine knots with a tie behind us we've got 45 000 tons of ship stuff engine we're uh just about half a mile from the dock under the bridge they still need to get to the terminal son spirit of the eight let's switch down to 15. tugs at either end either into the dock a little white mark on the dock this side of the containers that's our bridge mark basically a parking spot that will allow cranes and big equipment to access the containers if you get too close let me know uh stop stop two weeks eight hours and 27 minutes after leaving asia the yangming south is secured we call containers cans on this ship there's probably 3 000 cans total if it's fully loaded the ship is now in the hands of the container terminals carrie liggy there's huge consequences if we don't do the job that we're supposed to do and our responsibility is to get it out within the time that we have allotted to get it on to its next protocol with just eight hours to move 340 containers off the ship and load 200 new cans the terminal must run with precision and so as far as we're concerned we can be able to handle that cargo the movement of each container is coordinated in the central control room these guys are the guys that are watching the day-to-day operations they've got the technology that monitors everything that we're doing out there [Music] the stars of the show are the three gantry cranes each more than 10 stories tall their long arms can reach across the widest ships in the world [Music] for the crane operators success is measured and moves per four-hour shift each one of these containers can weigh as much as 50 tons and could be worth millions of dollars to make the departure deadline crane has less than a minute per container to lift swing and drop 540 moves are planned for the yang ming south today but there is already a potential problem the weather forecast at the port is calling for high winds the sirens will go off and it'll start beeping when the wind gusts goes over you know 35 miles an hour too much wind could send the container swinging or worse spinning making it impossible to lift and lower onto the trucks if the wind gets any stronger the terminal will shut down a delay that will cost big time and big money this morning meanwhile several miles south the maritime controllers have just closed a section of river a giant log barge is leaning heavily to one side it looks serious but around here looks can be deceiving all right this is actually a good thing whenever you're ready in fact the self-unloading log barge is about to knock 12 hours off the loading process of the mv kenzui [Music] it's a fair bit of boredom and preparation followed by seconds of terror tanks on one side of the barge are filling up with water causing it to list ah it's gonna go pretty fast eventually the logs will let go and spill into the water [Music] that was a good one the bars went over pretty far another great day at the port with the load in the water small tugs start moving logs around sorting them by size and tight once the logs hit the water they're bundled up they're bagged in a boom and then the tug company brings them down alongside the ship it's up to scott petrie to make sure the ship is loaded correctly hey gary there's movement up a bit on the tour the customer in japan wants only certain sizes and certain species of logs so it's level okay move up a little bit [Music] i'm about to get hit here there we go oh we're okay that's okay gary you missed me [Music] if this looks dangerous it is you can crush somebody really easily right each one of those bundles swinging through the air weighs as much as a rail car keep going if one of the cables lets go the logs will spill everywhere you're okay gary scott can't afford to waste time but he can't afford to rush and put lives in danger [Music] back downtown a half dozen ships are parked and waiting to dock a cruise ship is heading to its terminal and the yangming south is already well into its day at the container terminal earlier wind was threatening to shut down the loading but for now the cranes are still swinging [Applause] the wind speeds have dropped off and the pace on the dock has been cranked up the giant cranes are moved on rails up the terminal to reach new stacks of containers and just when things look like they are running perfectly we've got a whole track record coming in carrie is about to get hit with a new problem all we have is cn cargo on on site and we got to get it on the rail the railway is supposed to send a new train here every four hours but this morning a problem on the line means those cars didn't show up carrie must now scramble to keep up if that rail car doesn't get to us in time we can't load it to the ship and the same responsibility applies to us if we don't get that container off that ship and onto that rail car that could mean that that container doesn't get to its destination when it's required in terms of time the ship's departure time is in jeopardy the captain may now face a tough choice wait for the missing cargo or leave without it at the container terminal half the load is off the ship strong winds that could have shut the terminal down are no longer an issue but a new problem has cropped up the yangming south has been in port now for almost six hours it's scheduled to leave in two hours [Music] cargo has been arriving by truck all afternoon but a problem on the main rail link into the port has choked off train traffic and then we just ran out of cargo the crew at the terminal is worried containers bound for the yangming south may be stuck on a rail siding somewhere malfunctioned with the railways engine offsite here it could delay the ship's departure but when the crew checks the loading plan they catch a lucky break none of the containers on the broken down train were bound for the yang ming the ship in tomorrow does need those containers kerry has a little breathing room but he still needs that train problem fixed fast so looking at 20 30 finish and sailing at 2100 okay when the departure time does roll around the yangming is still at the dock the gantry cranes are still going strong but kerry isn't upset the ship's captain has been asked if he wants to take on some extra last-minute cargo a process that should take about four hours it's not uncommon for us to have a situation where the customer has an opportunity to load extra cargo extra cargo is extra revenue for them it's extra revenue for us back at the logging terminal the money man is paul gallant he's also trying to squeeze as much cargo on his ship as possible i'll talk to the mate yeah wasted space on a vessel is wasted money as the eyes and ears of the asian company he's delivering to if there's a problem or a delay paul needs to know about it the customer expects us to get it in and out as quickly and as efficiently as possible keeping the logs moving quickly from the river to one of the ship's five holds will keep the mv kansui on schedule it all hinges on the crane operator the crane driver can't see down to the water side i have to take my signals from my foreman it makes it real difficult sometimes [Music] and then when it comes into the hatch the hatch foreman takes over and stows the cargo so he'll actually uh tell the crane driver where to put it and signal to him how to put it in the hatch once in the ship bundles need to be released and the load needs to settle go down the hatch with the ratchet cutters and we cut every band the holds are filling up but the mv kenzui isn't even close to being fully loaded to close the hatch covers and then we go on top and these lids here will close down and then they raise these popsicle statues here so they act as a wall for the on-deck cargo and then we'll go right off right up to the bottom of the crane the shipping company wants to take as much cargo as possible so nearly half the load will be stacked on deck [Music] no two loads are the same this is where experience comes in you know we're starting to get a port list two top heavy and the ship could capsize at sea paul needs to be ready to fix any problems fast come on boys keep pulling the slack up let's go the mv kenzui is nearly ready to sail one more tony then come on get the lashing block we gotta get that off the crew has managed to squeeze on a pretty big load but before she can leave the dock the ship must get approval from the coast guard so one and two are fully lashed with chain and everything they're starting to catwalk in the forward and you can see they're just pulling the foot wires here on three hatch unless i find the ship safe i will not let her see it's kind of stressful for me right now because i'm worried about getting the ship out on time we got another one coming in right behind it if the coast guard doesn't approve the way the ship has been loaded logs will need to be removed it's just something i don't even want to contemplate ready to go okay any time tim the coast guard will check stability of the ship with something called a roll test get it rocking an on-board crane lures a bundle of logs over the side of the vessel to start rocking it the inspector measures how much time it takes for the vessel to stabilize what it's supposed to replicate is the open seas for the entire load crew a week's worth of work boils down to a test of less than half a minute what'd you get [Music] at 24. the coast guard must now calculate if 24 seconds is safe for the crew the next few minutes will feel like hours just up from the logging terminal where they have packed every corner of this japan-bound ship a new vessel from asia has just been cleared into port [Music] this is the planet ace at five stories tall and longer than two football fields this is one of the most specialized ships in port this year [Music] she is basically a floating parking garage packed full of shiny new japanese cars [Music] it kicked into high gear 12 days ago when it left japan today they start unloading 3 000 cars [Music] all right we got a job today we got 300 cars up there one bus this is the closest port to asia so it's the first stop on a route that will take it up and down the pacific coast last year this terminal put through 243 000 new automobiles far so good this is a railroad ship it's a roll-on roll-off basically carries things with wheels keep your speed down on the ship and the dock we're only bottoming out in the accidents so uh let's go into the safety search [Music] each of the five decks on the planet ace are packed door to door bumpered bumper-to-bumper [Music] the crossing to north america can be rough each car must be tied down tight to keep it from sliding and bumping into other vehicles there's little hooks under the car and they lash it down so when it's at sea it doesn't move the white suits are so they don't like if they have belt buckles on they don't scratch the cars this is the crack to make sure he turns out that way not this way into the car with this many cars and very little road it helps to have a traffic cop jamie zanetti is in charge of making sure nothing gets bent or scratched and we're here to make sure they do it quickly but efficiently without any damage over the next two hours they must get 300 cars off the ship another ship with another load of cars is waiting to dock so the port can't afford a traffic jam when we have delays at the terminal it can be very expensive the ship being delayed is at least 25 000 dollars a day to the owners and obviously they don't like that [Music] the key to staying on schedule is these guys over here boys the ports factory rally team a dozen guys that like to drive fast the cars must move through a labyrinth inside the ship down the ramp and into a parking lot that's how it's done a waiting van takes the drivers back to the ship to do it all over again to keep their numbers up each driver must move 15 cars an hour yes we're done up top some of the cars are sent across the parking lot directly to the on-site detailing shop where changes are made to meet special orders shrimp shop we call it our accessory shop where it gets accessories from audio to running boards to spoilers to floor mats each of us is expected to install 50 car audio systems a day as the detailing work is progressing rail cars and tractor trailers are arriving at the terminal to move the cars to dealerships across the country [Music] what we'd like to see is vehicles come in have a destination we can load them very quickly that gives us new ground space so that we can bring in more vehicles again back at the ship the offload is about half complete but the crew has just spotted a problem a falling tide means the water levels in the port have dropped the ship is sitting lower at the dock and the car ramp is now dangerously close to hanging up on a steel bullard what we don't want is the uh the ramp to hit this part here the baller because then it'll screw up the ramp and we'll have to stop the operation while we fix it jamie needs to turn up the speed to try to outrun the falling tie close the door mark somebody go of all the ships in port today the mv kansui has been here the longest five days she's supposed to leave tonight the final hurdle is a coast guard inspection and roll test to check stability get it rockin the ship was rocked from side to side the coast guard timed how long it took to stabilize what'd you get if the ship fails the test some cargo will be removed costing the ship its departure time so it would at least be another day and certainly more labor by her calculation so basically they're right on the calculation slightly better yeah okay great okay thank you and we're good to go paul couldn't be happier as soon as he can he will send the ship on her way we are in harder the maritime controllers have another vessel waiting at anchor ready to do this all over again but over at the auto terminal the race is still on with mother nature as they rush to get a load of brand new cars to shore the port of vancouver is firing on all cylinders 28 terminals are open today dealing with dozens of ships carrying everything from cruise passengers to containers to logs at the auto terminal where a majority of the nation's asian cars are unloaded the planet ace is in a race against the tides a falling tide has threatened to stop the offloading of hundreds of new cars and the ramp is now dangerously close to striking a dockballer that threatens to tip the ramp potentially damaging it the crew of drivers has just been told to step on it i have to give direction all the time and by shifting the offload into high gear they seem to be staying ahead of that tide what happened is with the tide going out and the tide dropping but we're discharging cars at the same time so the weight is coming off of the ship as the cars are coming off that raises that up and we made it but jamie's job doesn't finish until he ensures that the vessel's giant door is safely closed with the door securely locked jamie's job is done at least until the next auto carrier arrives it's gonna sail come back another day [Music] the dna from just about every japanese automobile can be traced directly back to this port and these giant black piles at one of the largest coal terminals in the world this is some of the finest metallurgical coal on the planet the main ingredient for japanese auto steel each one of these coal cars produces 320 vehicles two ships are docked the first job is to get the coal out of the rail cars and into the terminal system this is called the rotary dumper giant claws grasp each car and turn it upside down with the coal spilling onto a conveyor belt five stories below each loaded car weighs 30 tons the dumper can flip 60 cars an hour [Music] now it's either earmax for the stockpile or if we're lucky in about 30 to 40 of the time we are it goes directly to the ship we call that a direct hit [Music] if they can't make a direct hit onto a waiting ship the coal is sent into the yard and on to giant piles [Music] each one of these piles is a different type of coal comes from different mines each factory has its own secret steel recipe it's up to the coal terminal to mix and match the different coal piles to fill each exact order the piles tower five stories high they've been created by this machine it's a stacker reclaimer it can move about 3 500 tons of coal in an hour conveyor belts lead from the rotary dumper to the top of the stacker from there it's a short flight to the top of the piles when the piles are ready to be shipped the stacker converts into a reclaimer a giant wheel with buckets on it rips into the pile in an 8 hour shift with this machine if you reclaim 20 000 ton which is the equivalent of about two whole train loads that would be a good day when i first started on the waterfront we used to carry the sacks around by hand and here we are now loading 4000 tons an hour an operation this big needs to be coordinated every machine every belt can be started and stopped from the control room i put the wrong type of coal at the wrong hatch on that ship that ship can refuse that cargo because it's contaminated it's no secret working with coal is hard dirty work the main enemy of the terminal is wind to control coal dust the piles are watered by a sophisticated dust suppression system that'll be the thing that'll shut us down more than ice or snow or heavy rain the winds today are calm the dust system is working in fact with two ships in port the terminal is running perfectly they may be on track to break their single day loading record challenge today is to try to keep all the equipment running the ship at birth 2 has taken 66 000 tons and this has taken 142 we've got three vessels waiting out at anchor behind her so we've got to get it loaded as quickly as possible so we can uh get the next one in behind right now we're in the process of loading number four hatch ship loader one go ahead how much more do you have to go in that corner 485 the ship loader is tied to the coal piles by another conveyor system the operator must direct the coal into every corner of the ship's hold to maximize the load but it's a process that must be done carefully you can't just put everything at the forward end or the after end or even in the middle it has to be distributed evenly to maintain the good order of the ship or it'll break literally break snap i know it's hard to believe but it [Music] will as one of the holds fills up the loader is moved forward on the ship the machine can move seven thousand tons of coal an hour things are running perfectly okay thank you but down in the yard the process is slowing [Music] one of the reclaimers is having a problem with its swinging arm and it can only reach a fraction of the pile it should so it's actually stopping before it it gets to its full swing so we're not able to reclaim all the product from that pile so we've got to get that fixed as quickly as possible to make things worse one of the yard's main conveyor belts has just shut down we're not having any luck at all there right the perfect day and that new record is now in serious trouble they have to get back up and running fast [Music] what was supposed to be a record-setting day at the coal terminal has just hit two serious snags a main conveyor belt has just shut down and the reclaimer that was scooping coal off the piles is acting up machine slews like this and it's stopping about five or eight degrees before it should leaving valuable coal out of its reach a crew is off to fix the conveyor belt [Music] and a bulldozer has been sent to help the reclaimer we have two cats going out there right now to make sure we get the back of that pile pushed in so that we can make the temperatures for our layers the problems won't affect the ship's departure this time but it does cost the terminal that record a little hiccup in dumper 31 here at the end of the day but both ships will go out uh sometime early tomorrow morning take the boredom when everything's running just smooth and perfectly everything everything's doing just wonderfully then when it goes crazy you have to be able to pick it up and rock and roll [Music] traffic too miles west back downtown the maritime controllers are guiding a fully loaded cruise ship into port there's north they are sending her to a parking spot right next door to the container terminal the ball and dam will end up on the west side of canada place [Music] the volun dam has just returned from a west coast cruise it needs fuel food and fresh passengers it all must happen in eight short hours we are very quick uh in offloading standing by on shore is an army it's always busy on a cruise ship we have a very limited time limit everybody's rush rush rush running the show is barry carlson and his team of longshoremen the ship has to fail by five the first job is to get the passengers and their bags off so the crews have room to work as soon as all the lines are tight then we'll be installing the gangway that our guys go on board then they come down to this location within minutes of arrival bags are pouring off the ship the drivers pick it up take it to the elevator goes up to the passengers once it gets going everybody's just into the groove and away they go three thousand bags to come up in the morning three thousand more to go on in the afternoon [Music] on board staff start cleaning rooms immediately each cabin needs to be stripped down and made perfect in just minutes in the laundry room industrial machines will wash thousands of sheets and pillowcases a folding machine three floors below the main entertainment deck presses and folds each sheet to perfection ready to head out to another cabin [Music] back on the dock trucks are arriving with supplies by the minute there's a lot of stuff going on everything from toilet paper to tangerines and i'll go around check all the produce give it a taste and smell all the produce and just check everything's legitimate if it's not then we send it back to a supplier we get new stuff on board the stakes are high the executive chef double checks to ensure nothing is forgotten ultra careful smallest smallest one item there you go no bread you've come over eight days and ten days so you're gonna be so careful every item is important no matter what it is that's good that's good somebody said it's like a dance down here like one person moves in the other one moves out and they unload the truck and it's a good a coordination effort between everybody but sniffing out problems isn't only the job of the chef security on the ship is serious business and before a pallet can be loaded it must pass a sniff test are you ready to work by these guys search them okay girl over here search it up high there you go and she'll tell us if there's any explosive devices on this mode sure up here okay girl this is all secure now there's no explosive devices so we're going down to another six kids [Music] while they prepare to start loading below decks the trash room is filling up as the staterooms are clean [Music] every bit of garbage must be hand sorted pulling out anything that can be recycled it's as important as anything else on the ship the garbage has to come on a week's worth of trash must be moved on to a barge that will take the garbage to a landfill [Music] it could be 40 50 tons of garbage within an hour of arrival the skids are inspected and the first loads are sent aboard one gang is loading all the food and liquor and water and whatnot reload everything you can't eat in this area once on board the food must be moved to refrigerators on the lower decks on a good day it's a hard job pretty fast we do have until 2 o'clock to have everything coming in and not going out but today the crew has just learned that one of the two elevators they use is broken [Music] right now what happened is just like the elevator have got stuck [Music] let's try to figure out what's wrong with that the captain knows that delays like this can mean a late departure it's something he can't afford time is money and with the current fuel prices it's really important that we get out on time fixing that broken elevator is now the number one focus on the ship the single working elevator is jammed to capacity leaving staff and crew standing around [Music] the volandam has been in port since early morning it's on a tight schedule and must leave within eight hours of its arrival or face a hefty overtime bill an expensive delay that could put the entire cruise behind schedule [Music] the fact that one of the two critical service elevators has broken down has created a backlog on the ship and on the docks [Music] a pair of crews have been scrambling to fix the elevator while the captain watches the clock but by 1 pm the elevators are back online they had a little problem uh two bags of rice fell down the elevator shop they jam the elevator so they had to put guys down there at coffee time clean it all out but they gotta go and they said it was gonna take an hour it took about 20 minutes so very happy i would say it's very happy yeah definitely with the process back online the crew keeps loading the supplies while the passengers start arriving at the terminal passport's ready please that way please your nationality below bags are now flooding in keep her coming and just like in an airport each must be x-rayed what you're seeing right now is a stockpile of luggage from 11 30 to 1 o'clock [Music] on board the ship it takes only a few minutes to fill the receiving room to overflowing with new bags the elevator problem may be fixed but it has put the ship behind causing a backlog and a major headache in the back room now less than an hour before departure the second most powerful man on the ship is personally inspecting newly cleaned staterooms beverage glassware and they have a standard company set up and that everything is clean organized this is dual boards 15 16 knots on the bridge the captain is briefing his crew on tonight's tides and route and then about this area we start to slow down now we're just finishing up the luggage we got a couple more cribs on the dock just to catch up on and then basically we're just waiting as they come in we're loading their luggage we'll just see in 45 minutes if the ship sails there's a perfect day and what is your cabin number sir but in the terminal that perfect day has just hit a speed bump all of the passengers should be checked in by now but there's a problem we're still waiting for the bus seattle shuttle with four people if the tour bus doesn't show up in the next few minutes the ship will set sail talk to me jay you got some luggage coming at us yes we do barry has a plan all we can do is go as fast as we can his crew will inspect and hand carry all of the luggage directly onto the passenger deck avoiding any long trips to conveyor belts three levels below we'll load it on ship trolleys with just minutes to spare the missing bus finally arrives here it comes out welcome aboard the passengers make a mad dash for a vacation that almost sailed without them good afternoon barry make sure the bags make it away from the day of a cruise ship the dock lines are pulled exactly on schedule and the volandam sails again as long as the ship sails at five nothing else during the day matters [Music] it's been a crazy few days at vancouver's high-tech port wind missing trains broken equipment problems that were all solved quickly barely made a ripple everyone got in and out of port on time logs loaded on the river are now headed for japan the auto carrier left port three hours ago that enormous coal carrier will leave at sunrise [Music] by dark the container ship has its load and is cranking up the speed to make its next city by morning running a big port requires big equipment and big ideas here it pays to be industrious [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] you

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Keywords: I love docs, i love documentaries, documentary film, free documentaries, documentaries on youtube, syndicado, documentaries online, full documentary, award winning documentary, watch documentaries, best documentary, free documentary, hd documentary, Industrious, how ports work, worlds busiest port

Id: s-Ycl7LRO-w

Length: 45min 59sec (2759 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 23 2021