High Tech Boat at Port of Redwood City Unloads Itself

A new type of cargo boat unloaded itself at the Port of Redwood City Wednesday, signaling a shift in the way Bay Area businesses are using technology to reduce the cost of building structures.  

This shipment also improves the forecast for the port’s fiscal health by creating a significant amount of revenue per delivery in much less time.

The CSL Tecumseh made its maiden voyage this week, carrying a load of 40,000 tons of material used to make ready-mix concrete. The Tecumseh is a sister ship to the Rt. Hon Paul E. Martin, which docked at the Port of Redwood City last November.  Both of these ships feature a new class of efficiencies that allow local companies to import higher-grade materials at a reasonable cost. 

Mike Giari is the executive director for the Port of Redwood City.  Giari has a high-level view of the types of materials that are ordered by Bay Area construction companies, which use the port as a hub to obtain their products. He said there’s a shortage of high-quality concrete aggregates, which are made of sand and gravel, in northern California.

“Construction is up in the San Francisco Bay Area and there’s a big demand for it,” he said, describing the materials that were ordered by Cemex, a major client for the port. 

Cemex shipped the materials from British Columbia to three ports, unloading first at Redwood City, then Richmond and San Francisco.  The Port of Redwood City is the only deep draft port in the South Bay that can handle ocean-going ships like the Tecumseh, he said. 

The CSL Tecumseh’s unique ability to unload itself reduced the amount of time the ship needed to be at each port, opening up the ports for other deliveries and additional revenue, which bodes well for the port’s future.  

The Port of Redwood City charges about 70 cents per ton of cargo plus a dockage fee, which is essentially a parking fee, per vessel. A vessel carrying 40,000 tons, such as the CSL Tecumseh, pays about $30,000 to the port, Giari said. 

The port averages about 60 ships per year plus cargo barges that differ in cargo capacity.  The unloading of bauxite ore, which is shipped in from Australia, offers a comparison point to determine average unloading times.

Usually it takes four to five days to manually unload 25,000 tons of ore.  The CSL Tecumseh unloaded its cargo of concrete aggregates at the Port of Redwood City in 16 hours.

The self-unloading system utilized a series of conveyor belts to relieve itself of its cargo, enabling Cemex to reduce labor costs and delivery times.    

Take a look at the video attached to this article to see the how the self-unloading system works.