22nd January 2009 Some believe that rain on a wedding day is a sign of good luck

The much anticipated first call of the feeder vessel Stella J at the Valletta Grand Harbour Terminal, commissioned by Maersk Lines and Hapag Lloyd, occurred 22nd January 2009. Despite the appalling weather the operation proceeded smoothly. The vessel arrived on the berth and operations commenced at 14:40hrs, these were completed at 16:10hrs. This new weekly call has a port rotation of Gioia Tauro, Palermo, Cagliari, Malta, Catania, Gioia Tauro. Since up to last week, the vessel was still operating at Marsaxlokk, the volume was rather small; only 32 units. The quay crane operated at 21 moves per hour and the only slight delay was due to the very heavy rain which resulted in a minor power cut at the end of operations. However this was quickly resolved and the vessel could depart on schedule.One significant point to note is that with the introduction of this service, Valletta Grand Harbour now has a direct link with two of the busiest transhipment hubs in the Mediterranean, i.e. Gioia Tauro and Cagliari which in turn have total connection of more than 100 ports of call worldwide. This is a significant advantage for both local importers and exporters.     Overall this proved to be a very satisfactory first call. Since then we are already receiving enquiries from other container lines who wish to utilise this service. We expect that the volume will continue to increase significantly in the coming weeks.