The Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor celebrated the opening of its 41st
international shipping season with the arrival of the “M/V Avonborg.”
This year the first ship of the season wasn’t loaded with imported steel.
This year it was loaded with imported wind turbine blades made of steel.
Port and local officials boarded the vessel for a brief ceremony, presenting
the ship’s captain, Capt. Gert J.K. Mol, with gifts including an Indiana
state flag and a vintage Port of Indiana South Shore poster.
“The first ship signifies the start of the shipping season, the arrival of
vital materials for local business, and the start of another work season for
longshoremen, crane operators, truckers and businesses that depend on the
port,” the Port said in a statement released on Tuesday.
The Avonborg was the first ship through the St. Lambert lock in Québec,
Canada, as the St. Lawrence Seaway opened its 53rd shipping season on March
22. The vessel carries 75 of the longest wind turbine blades in existence in
North America on their journey from Esbjerg, Denmark to Payne, Ohio, where
the turbines will be installed in Horizon Wind Energy’s Timber Road project.
Two more ships will move through the port in coming weeks carrying
additional wind turbine components for the project.
“Waterborne shipping generates more than 104,000 jobs and $14.2 billion in
economic activity per year for the Indiana lakeshore economy,” the statement
said. “In recent years, the Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor has become a hub
for shipping wind turbines. The port handled its largest single shipment of
turbine components in 2010 with 11 ships carrying 134 complete wind turbine
units. The port also moved its first export shipment of wind equipment last
year as two loads of turbines from Acciona Windpower in Iowa were shipped to
Belledune, New Brunswick.
The Avonborg is owned by Wagenborg Shipping of the Netherlands and was built
in 2009 at the Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard in Shanghai, China. The vessel
weighs in at 12,000 tons. Flagged for the Netherlands, the Avonborg is
manned by a crew from both the Netherlands and Philippines.
The Ports of Indiana is a statewide port authority that operates a system of
three ports on the Ohio River and Lake Michigan in Mount Vernon, Burns
Harbor, and Jeffersonville. The Ports of Indiana manages approximately 2,600
acres, which are home to 60 companies and 800 acres of available industrial
sites. For more information, please visit
www.portsofindiana.com
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