Continuing with our history of exporting beautiful and exotic sports cars, we recently moved a couple of real beauties!

First was a rather impressive burnt orange McLaren MP4-12C to the Far East. For you fellow petrol heads, here are the official stats;

The MP4-12C features a carbon fibre composite chassis, and is powered by a mid-mounted McLaren M838T 3.8-litre V8, twin-turbo engine developing approximately 592 bhp. Power is transmitted to the wheels through a 7-speed Seamless Shift dual-clutch gearbox. It is stated that the MP4-12C can accelerate from 0 to 200 km/h (124 mph) in 8.9 seconds.

The car has a top speed in excess of 322 km/h (200 mph) and can brake from 200 km/h (124 mph) to a complete stop in under 5 seconds.

In short, the car is slightly faster than the average family saloon !!

Following the McLaren is not an easy task, although this beautiful Lamborghini Aventador will not only follow, it would race past!

LP700-4

The Aventador LP 700-4 uses Lamborghini’s new 700 PS ( 690 hp) 6.5 litre V12 engine. Performance is estimated to be 0–100 km/h (62 mph) in 2.9 seconds with a top speed of around 349.2 km/h (217.0 mph).

Our Managing Director Ross Negus, together with our Network members from Spain, Denmark, Italy, Germany and the USA

The event was a huge success for our network and for Southampton Freight Services Ltd where our Managing Director, Ross Negus, met with clients, partners and representatives from various product suppliers, technical suppliers, shipyards and port operators and agents from around the world. We also had the pleasure of welcoming our newest members into the network, Andrew Cooper of J.R Williams in Montevideo, Uruguay and Ivan Mifsud of MBL Shipping Agency Ltd in Malta.

J.R Williams, trading since 1868, are a leading shipping agency in Uruguay offering support to some of the worlds largest vessel operators and marine suppliers. In addition to their port agency and husbandry operations, they also handle freight forwarding logistics and customs clearance of ocean freight containers and air freight consignments delivered for marine vessels calling into Montevideo.

Mifsud Brothers Ltd (MBL) in Malta too have a wonderful longevity of trading history. They were originally set up in 1860 under the name C&G Fratelli Mifsud by the great great grandfather of Ivan Mifsud, today’s managing director, its main function being that of attending vessels entering the Grand Harbour. After changing it’s name to Mifsud Brothers Ltd 1933, the company now operates port agent operations, freight forwarding services and even shore excursions for passengers throughout Malta.

With Amadeu and Angel, our partners from Barcelona

with Alfredo of Smart Logistics, Argentina

Ross with Jeremy of Freeport Ship Services, Bahamas

Our network continues to offer detailed logistical assistance across the globe to cruise lines, ship builders and suppliers to the marine industry. From strategically placed global consolidation warehouses and ocean freight loading, re-supplying cruise ships during their cruises, to last minute airfreights of urgent technical spares or medical supplies and chartered aircraft for project movements, our global team specialises in all aspects of international supply chain logistics for the marine industry and together we are creating a network of incomparable expertise

The products supplied for the cruise by C&H International AS in Norway were gifts/give-aways for the guests. E.g. Travel journals (note books –pictured right) and hotel slippers.

Carl Jorgen Helberg, General Manager of C&H explains;

“C&H International AS is supplying hotel amenities and gifts to cruise ships world wide. These products are specially made for the Titanic memorial cruise with their logo. The products are produced in China, and shipped by ocean to Southampton.

Due to the logo, the merchandise can not be sold to other customers, therefore it was extremely important to reach the deadline of April 8^th. The Titanic memorial cruise is a one-time cruise.

C&H International AS is a Norwegian company, without any UK office. It was therefore very important to us to be served by both BWS and Southampton Freight Services because the communication and updating from both companies has been very good. We are very thankful to all involved in both companies. The schedule was very tight, and you reached it! “

The deadline was indeed a tight one. Whilst part of the shipment arrived into London in relative good time to customs clear and transfer to our warehouse, the remainder of the goods arrived into Southampton on Monday 2nd April as LCL cargo (consolidated), which meant it had to be devanned (broken down from the container) and customs cleared before delivery could be executed. The Memorial Cruise was leaving port on Easter Sunday, 8th April, and therefore the UK was shutting down for the long weekend on Thursday 5th April!

We had just four days to work with so our import department used their expertise, charm and powers of persuasion to have the container discharged from the vessel and transferred as quickly as possible to the consolidator for unloading. They expressed the urgency to the consolidator, explaining that the shipment was desperately important, particularly in light of our city’s historical connection with the world famous RMS Titanic, and their assistance unpacking the container quickly would be greatly appreciated.

The hard work and pressure paid off and subsequently the items were delivered to the                                          port agent on Wednesday 4th April !! We were delighted to be a small yet important part of this operation and we hope the passengers on-board the Titanic Memorial Cruise thoroughly enjoyed the event.

The cruise itself sailed from Southampton Port to New York, visiting en route Cobh in Ireland, sailing onto the coordinates of the sinking of Titanic and penultimately Halifax (Nova Scotia) before turning around in New York and returning to Southampton. The cruise vessel is the Balmoral, operated by Fred Olsen Cruise Lines.

You can view the BBC News Titanic 100 mini site here with interesting features, analysis and coverage of the memorial cruise.

At SFS we pride ourselves on our ability to handle project movements that require close attention to detail and around the clock supervision. In October this year we were called by a good friend and partner in Miami regarding a time critical project to Guatemala to enable the zafra (sugar refining process) to begin.

Our partner Al Germi of Acco Foreign Shipping, Inc in Miami, Florida explains the story;

“We coordinate shipments for all the major sugar mills in all of Central America. The zafra or burning of the sugar cane typically begins around the first or second week of November.

The sugar mills are the biggest employers in most Central American countries, employing upwards of 10,000 people or more per mill during the zafra, and generating millions of dollars in revenue on a daily basis.

For this reason, it’s critical that all equipment and parts are shipped, cleared, delivered, installed and tested prior to the commencement of the zafra. Otherwise, each day the start-up of a sugar mill is delayed can mean millions of dollars in losses.

So when I was in Guatemala on business in early September, one of the largest sugar mills in Guatemala enlisted our assistance. They had ordered critical parts and equipment for their mill through a local distributor in Guatemala, who in turn was sourcing the product from a supplier in Europe that has factories throughout Western Europe.

Whereas the shipments were to have already been received in Guatemala at the time we met, the sugar mill was now being told that it would not be until early or mid-November until the cargo would be ready to ship. This would mean the loss of tens of millions of dollars in lost production.

Knowing that if there was anyone that could help them, it would be Acco Terramar, we came up to the plate, and told the customer to leave it to us. Because the majority of the cargo was originating from the UK, Acco Terramar partnered up with Ross Negus and Russell Cox of Southampton Freight.

Over the course of the next 2 months, the Southampton team worked day and night, often travelling to different parts of Europe to meet-up with factory personnel, calling and e-mailing both ourselves and our customer in Guatemala until the early hours of the morning.

Using pressure, persuasion and nothing short of sheer genius, Southampton Freight had the factory make the cargo available for shipment in the nick of time, and proceeded to successfully orchestrate countless air shipments, open tops and dry containers.

It all culminated in a phone call from the head of the sugar mill that I received today, where he profusely thanked Acco Terramar and Southampton Freight for our herculean efforts, as all the cargo had arrived on time to be installed, and that the mill will now be ready for the zafra.

In all fairness, respect and deference to Southampton Freight, I told the customer that much, if not all, the credit belongs to Southampton Freight and it was an honour to work with them on this project.

Having successfully coordinated this project move, not only have we strengthened our relationship with this customer, but will now be afforded the opportunity to coordinate an extremely large generator and turbine from the Far East and Europe in the coming months, not to mention the fact that Southampton has now made a name for itself and very good inroads with this particular shipper on this project.”

The shipments were a mixture of out of gauge ocean and air consignments and we had to use a number of different types of equipment to move such as open top ocean freight containers and flat bed vehicles for the transportation. The air shipments were a mixture of heavy pumps (weighing several tonnes each) and also a shaft almost 6 metres long weighing 1.7 tonnes!

We would like to thank Al and his client for the opportunity to be involved with this exciting project and look forward working on future projects. Watch this space!

The operation required a 40′ open top container and the hard work of Hunter Aviation to dismantle the beautiful BAC Strikemaster jet and pack inside the container for transport.

In October our Managing Director, Ross Negus visited the South Island with Tony Newell, of Compass Shipping, and met Brian Hall (pictured), a charming and delightful enthusiast who purchased the aircraft and has been carefully overseeing the complete restoration at his hangar on Christchurch airfield, with the expertise of flight engineer Kevin (also pictured).

As you can see the work is almost done and we’re looking forward to seeing it fly in the near future. We would like to thank Brian and Tony for the opportunity to be part of something so unique and exciting, and wish Brian and Kevin the very best of luck with the final restoration.

We have been informed that two engine trials have been completed on the ground at maximum revs, so hopefully we can report back soon with pictures of the flight!

Our personal care and attention to such movements is borne of a desire to challenge ourselves on a daily basis. There are times, however, when a certain request proves to be more of a test of character !

In July 2011 we were requested by Prestige Cruises, our joint Cruise & Marine Logistic Network client, to pack a piano and airfreight it to Vancouver. Whilst this sounds like a fairly simple exercise, the challenge was that the AvantGrand hybrid piano was on-board the Oceana Regatta cruise vessel, arriving into Dover at 0700 hrs and leaving at 1800 hrs the same day!

We arranged for our packer, accompanied by our Cruise Logistics Manager, Russell Cox to board the vessel at dawn and begin the packing process. Our careful and meticulous planning ensured we already had measured each individual section of the of the instrument, and had part prepared a case for the items.

The piano itself was behind the entertainment stage area and had to be moved through the ship to the loading area where we could then undertake the dismantling, wrapping and packing – whilst the passengers were still on-board the vessel! Our team, assisted by two crew members worked tirelessly to ensure the process went to plan. Indeed they were finished in record time and the packed piano was unloaded from the cruise ship at 1300 hrs and returned safely to our warehouse by 1700hrs where it underwent final checking, weighing and labelling before being loaded onto our night truck destined for London Heathrow Airport.

Less than a week later the piano was loaded onto the cruise ship in Vancouver by our partners Aerostream Logistics, leaving our client extremely happy with the seamless professionalism of our Global Cruise Network.

Caring for the local community, working with local people and businesses is important to us. For some people, the wider community is a real lifeline – a way of surviving. In a little town in Northern India a local Catholic Priest runs an orphanage housing the ‘forgotten children’ of the Railways, abandoned by their families and left to fend for themselves.

Our client, The Rooflight Company, asked us to assist with a reduced charge for sending some charitable items to the orphanage. After hearing more detail we decided to offer the export completely free of charge. When you read the story below, you’ll understand why…

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Five years ago when a Catholic priest from Kerala took two street urchins from the Agra Cantt station into his protective care to rid them of the “drug-sniffing” habit, little did he know he would soon be a father to more than 50 kids who had made the railway platforms their permanent home

Father Akkara’s Navjeevan Bal Bhawan in Aligarh has 50-odd street children as inmates. “They come from varied backgrounds, different religions and are in the age group of six to 20. They are all studying in different schools like Lady Fatima, St Fedilis; some are in a Mathura school,” Father Jose told local press.

Rakesh, Shaheen, Farooqi, Gulzar and many others like them who know nothing about their backgrounds, laugh, chat, fight or watch TV, play computer games and study in a homely environment.

“Each day brings in a new challenge, I hardly get to sleep, someone’s always sick needing affectionate care. I try and make them comfortable and see they don’t miss anything in life and they respond with such warmth and love. We make no distinction of caste or religion here,” Father Jose explained.

When Father Jose started the centre for street children about five years ago, the Agra Archdiocese was cold and reluctant to help him. “But the new archbishop has seen the usefulness of the centre and the role it is playing. He has extended support and very soon we may have our own premises and better facilities,” Father Jose added.

Two years ago Aligarh’s district magistrate Bhuvnesh took the kids to see the popular film “Taare Zameen Par”. “It was a wonderful feeling to see an IAS officer mixing and chatting with the kids for three hours and watching the film together,” recalls senior Tamil journalist Shaffi Munna who operates from Aligarh.

“Every now and then we go to the railway stations in Aligarh, Mathura or Agra and look for abandoned kids or others who have no shelter or wherewithal,” Shaffi said.

“The idea came to me whenever I took a long distance train to visit Kerala or some other place. All through the journey kids would come and clean the compartment or sell something. When I talked with some of them, I learnt there were quite a few at every station,” Father Jose told IANS in an interview.

“When I returned I took a small house on rent and started with two-three kids. But help did not come my way and I was in fact transferred to Shillong. I returned after two years with more resolve and determination.

“People in Aligarh helped me raise some support and provided me with flour, dal, and other cooking materials free on a regular basis. Till date I keep getting free support from locals and it gives me a wonderful feeling of being of some use to society,” he said.

The senior-most boy Shaheen, from Bihar, said he does not want to return to his home as “I will not be able to pursue my education there.”

Dressed in a simple kurta-pyjama, Father Jose today has many admirers and supporters in Aligarh, but his dream is to set up a string of such shelters in all the districts so that street children not only get care and protection but also an opportunity to pursue their studies.

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The Rooflight Company sent clothes and sporting equipment for the children. We would like to thank them for the opportunity to help such a wonderful cause.

We would also like to thank our partners Air India, UCH Logistics, X-Ray Logistics and OM Freight in New Delhi for their help in delivering this consignment.

Whether we’re moving an envelope containing passports for crew members on-board a cruise ship in a remote part of South America or loading a container of medical equipment to move into the USA, every day is a challenge.

Some days however are a little more exciting… for example when we moved a beautiful Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera by ocean freight to the Far East. We export hundreds of motor vehicles via ocean and air each year, although not all of them are quite so specialist as this 5.2 litre, V10 supercar – with a top speed in excess of 200 mph ! Needless to say we were not able to take it for a spin, however being part of the logistics process for such a beautiful motor vehicle is drive enough for us!

Thanks for the email. I have had the delivery confirmed by our customer, and told him we’ll also credit him back the shipping costs. He is quite happy, as am I. This hasn’t reflected badly on SFS thanks to the understanding and personal care which all of your team has shown. You have a first class customer service, which has only been backed up by recent bad experience I’ve had with one of the main domestic courier, who couldn’t give two hoots that they had lost a large and high value item.

I would like to thank you, and everyone who was involved in sorting this out for us, it is very important to us that our customers have the confidence in us to deliver a service, and working with people like yourselves I know even if it does go wrong, you have the custom care to back it up. You have gone above and beyond our expectations

Andy

LDC Sailing

Collection was made on individual flat bed vehicles and transported to our packing yard for wrapping, (heat shrink wrapping for some of the units), loading and lashing. All of this was completed under the watchful eye of our experienced surveyor, who was checking to ensure the units were adequately secured and protected prior to their journey – some 9000 nautical miles.

Because the generators were protruding the top of the container we have to overwrap each unit and then secure with tarpaulin to ensure no water could damage the expensive cargo. Desiccants we attached for moisture absorption and shock watches to record and measure any impact during transit. For added safety from mother nature,we arranged for the containers to be stowed under deck for added protection, although the initial shipments were due to arrive into Fremantle during the peak of the winter season, so heavy rains upon arrival were a concern. However the movements were delivered without any problems and several more shipments followed. We loaded a further 5 units in the middle of November weighing a combined 100 tonnes! These were delivered on site between Christmas and New Year.

Project moves such as this allow our ocean export team to express their ability of working to tight deadlines, under constant pressure to ensure each section of the huge logistical operations moves without a hitch. In doing so we ensure our partners are constantly in control of their cargo, safe in the knowledge that Southampton Freight Services are working as an extension of their own operation – even if we are several thousand miles and half a working day apart.