A ship will come to a harbour to do one or more of the following

• load and/or discharge cargo
• take on fuel (“to bunker”)
• take on stores (food, deck stores or engineroom stores)
• undergo repairs or maintenance (which may include drydocking)
• in the case of passenger ships, to land and embark passengers and to enable passengers to visit tourist sites.
• to land an injured or ill seafarer or to land survivors from a maritime accident

Some terms relating to ports :

• Hinterland is the area served by a port. This is the area to which cargo goes from the port and the area from which cargo comes for export through that port. The map below shows the hinterlands of each southern African port – M = Maputo, R = Richards Bay, D = Durban, E = East London, P = Port Elizabeth and Ngqura; C = Cape Town, S = Saldanha Bay; L = Luderitz and W = Walvis Bay.

M – Maputo; R – Richards Bay; D – Durban; E – East London; P – Port Elizabeth and Ngqura; C – Cape Town; S – Saldanha Bay; L – Luderitz; W – Walvis Bay

• Break-of-bulk Point : This term applies to any place where the medium of transport changes, e.g., a port where cargo is brought to the port by road or rail and then leaves the port by ship. It also applies to a railway siding where cargo arrives by train and leaves by truck.
• Trans-shipment : Cargo sometimes arrives in a port aboard one ship and is then transferred (trans-shipped) to another ship for movement to another port. The process of transferring cargo from one ship to another is called trans-shipment.
• Hub Port (sometimes called an Entrepot) : Cargo is often brought by ships to a major port and is then carried to other ports (often smaller ports or ports off the main shipping routes) by another ship, called a feeder ship. The feeder ship may also bring cargo from smaller ports or ports off the shipping routes to a major port (a hub port).

An example is as follows :

The containership Sea Eagle arrives in Cape Town from Europe and, besides containers for the Western Cape, discharges 45 containers that are bound for West Africa. Another containership Antonio arrives in Cape Town from Asia and discharges 85 containers that are also bound for West Africa. Similarly, Cape Agulhas brings 42 containers from South America and bound for West Africa. Three other ships bring to Cape Town 154 containers bound for West Africa. The feeder ship African Dream arrives in Cape Town and loads all these containers to take them to West Africa.

The reasons for the ships not going to West Africa might be:

 • the ports are too far off the course of the ships, and/or

• the ports might be too small or too shallow to accommodate the large containerships, and/or

• the number of containers to be discharged is too small to warrant the expense of a call by a large containership at the West African ports, and/or

• the West African ports might not have container gantry cranes and the containership is probably gearless.

African Dream will bring containers from West Africa to Cape Town for onward shipment to South America, Asia and Europe. In this context, Cape Town is a hub port for West Africa.

Durban is a hub port for East Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands, while Rotterdam is a hub port for north-west Europe.

• Free trade area : This is an area (usually in or near a port) where trade can be conducted without any customs duty being paid. This is usually to attract industry or other commercial activities to an area.
• Link between sea transport and road or rail : When a cargo is brought to a port for onward movement to an inland centre – or even to a nearby warehouse – road or rail transport needs to be used to move the cargo from the harbour to the place to which the cargo is being sent. If a grain cargo arrives in Cape Town from Argentina, the grain is loaded into ether railway trucks or road trucks to be taken to a storage facility which may be close to the harbour or some distance from the harbour. If a bulk cargo needs to be moved some distance from the harbour (e.g. from Cape Town to Bloemfontein) the ship will discharge the grain straight into railway trucks for the journey to Bloemfontein. If a shorter distance is involved (e.g. Cape Town to Malmesbury), the ship will probably discharge the grain directly into road trucks for movement to Malmesbury. Although some containers are moved between the ports and the Johannesburg area (usually to the City Deep Inland Container Terminal) by train, many containers are moved to and from inland centres by road truck.