Waiting for his ship to come in

By DAVID LINKLATER

Great news: the Wilhelmsen Lines vessel Tourcoing is going to be late arriving at the Port of Auckland. That means we only have to get up at 7am on Sunday morning.

Our host is Captain John Robinson, managing director of Wilhelmsen Lines in New Zealand. If you drive a New Zealand-new, European-made car, it's almost certain that his company has played a big part in getting it from the factory door to your local showroom.

Wilhelmsen carries all of the European marques into New Zealand except for Alfa Romeo , Fiat and General Motors. That's over 22,000 vehicles distributed among 48 ships every year.

Not that he meets them all personally. But he's offered to give Automotive News a guided tour of the Tourcoing, hence the less-than-sociable Sunday start.

The stevedores are assembling as the 600-tonne capacity ramp starts to lower onto the wharf. We have to be quick, though. Within three hours the New Zealand-bound cars will start to flow through the vessel and into the port.

Another 24 hours and the Tourcoing will be heading for its next port in Australia.

Step on to a car deck and the world takes on a strange angle. Nothing to do with the motion of the sea. It's because they're closed up to within a few inches of your average car roof.

The floors are also as light as possible, to save weight. On the car decks they're designed to hold between one and two tonnes per square metre. That's more than enough to support a car, but the metal is so thin that it flexes underneath your feet. Elsewhere on the ship, the decks will hold up to 10 tonnes per square metre.

There are only two ways to walk around a car deck. One is on your knees, which doesn't work too well when you're trying to step over all the lashings. The other (recommended) is to stoop, and tilt your head as far to the side as you can.

Not that there's a lot of waste space to start with. "Normally the cars will positioned nine inches apart side-to-side and 15 inches front-to-back," says Robinson. "For the most part they go fore-to-aft, too, because that's better for movement out at sea."

The cars on the end of the tightly packed rows are known as key cars, because they're the only ones to be locked. The nine-inch gaps mean that the doors can't be opened on any vehicles except those on the outside of the rows, so the rest are left unlocked, usually with the keys on the floor.

"In fact, one of the biggest problems we have is with keys accidentally being left in ignitions when the cars are loaded onto the vessel," says Robinson.

"With modern cars there's a significant drain on the battery even though the ignition isn't actually on. Thirty days on a ship with the key left in and the battery is flat, no question."

What's really surprising is the varied ways in which manufacturers protect their products for shipping.

BMWs from South Africa, for example, have little more than a dull coat of wax to protect the paintwork.

Ford Mondeos from Belgium always come without wheel covers, while Chryslers from the United States pack huge foam bolsters on the door edges to prevent paint damage.

Most vehicles wear white adhesive tape on the bonnet and roof to protect the most vulnerable areas of paintwork against damage while loading and during the voyage.

Each sheet is stamped with a date. The plastic can only be left on for 90 days; then it must be removed to prevent surface damage.

Some cars from America and Germany even come completely shrouded in plastic covers.

Interiors are similarly protected, which is not surprising given that the cars are always driven off the vessel.

Plastic seat covers are the bare minimum. Some luxury-car manufacturers leave nothing to chance.

For example, every interior surface of the Jaguar S-type is covered by a custom-made plastic shroud.

And if you thought motoring journalists were always the first to drive new models, you're wrong.

Stevedores are always first behind the wheel, and get special training in dealing with the idiosyncrasies of specific models.