This is how we do it at UPakWeShip

  Today I’m going to show you how we load a 40 foot shipping container at UPakWeShip. The trucker has collected an empty container from the port of Charleston and has just backed up onto our loading dock number 3.

Now I have to load it with U Crates and Pallets that are wanting to go to Europe.

So the office runs a load list report and gives to the warehouse to prep the right shipments near the loading dock ready to load when the container arrives.

The load list is based on the destination obviously, meaning either Europe, The UK, New Zealand or Australia. The shipments that have sat patiently the longest will go first as long as their owners have paid for them to travel.

  I am loading a container (one of 6 actually) going to the Dutch port of Rotterdam. Once it arrives there, out local UPakWeShip team will arrange clearing customs and delivering to all the European homes the U Crates and pallets are eager to go to.

I am driving the forklift so your view is what I see from the forklift seat. The first picture here is of the first two U Crate 100’s loaded in the 40 foot long shipping container. You can see how the two fit snugly together side by side for the ride.

The next few pictures show me gradually loading up the 40 foot shipping container with UPakWeShip’s U Crate 100’s They are very popular and make up the majority of the load today. This is because they are the safest way to move and ship your things to Europe from the USA and Canada.

At last as we are nearly near the end of the shipping container we have something different to load. Here is a U Crate 200 known in the trade as a liftvan. Its made of wood and many international movers use these for packing in to. In this case a customer has used a professional international mover to pack and load their items into a “liftvan” and deliver to us for shipping overseas.

The last two to catch this container ride to Europe are a couple of pallets going to Switzerland. Because Switzerland is not part of the European Union it has different customs regulations than most. For this destination we have to clear the shipment through Swiss customs at the border as we enter Switzerland rather than in our bonded warehouse in the Netherlands. Norway has the same procedures as Switzerland when we go there as well. Anyhow here are the last two pallets getting loaded and the container is now full.

A 40 foot shipping container holds 20 U Crate 100,s but in this case we have loaded 16 U Crate 100’s, a U Crate 200 which takes up two pallet positions and two pallets making the 20.

You can see, nothing can move side to side in a rough sea on the ship as they are all loaded nice and tight. They cant move front to back either as its loaded all the way from the front to the back doors. All we have left to do is shut the container doors, fix a security seal lock through the door handle so no one can open it except for customs and do the paperwork for the driver to take it back to Charleston Port for it to be loaded on the ship to Rotterdam.

The transit time across the Atlantic is about 10 days but first the ship carries on up the coast after departing Charleston to unload and load other containers before heading out across the Atlantic so that might take another 7 days or so.

When our system automatically sends you the sailing details of the ship your shipment will be traveling on, its a great idea to get an app for your phone like Marine Traffic so you can track the progress of the ship and see where it is each day.

The three pictures here show me and the forklift, the container with the doors shut ready to ship and a container vessel leaving Charleston Port.

I hope you enjoyed the “This is how we do it” at UPakWeShip presentation.

Any questions don’t forget to ask the International Moving Doctor.