"The gentle press of a button could soon be all it takes to keep a giant ship secured to the dockside. The port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands is getting ready to test an experimental system later in 2003 that will use a series of strong electromagnets built into the quay to moor giant container ships. If it works, they say the system could save them around 5 million Euro a year in labour costs, and speed ships" average turnaround times by 40 minutes.
Mooring a ship can be a time-consuming, labour-intensive affair in which dock workers grab ropes hurled from the deck of the incoming ship and secure them to the dockside. Alternatives proposed in the past range from robotic arms that pull the ship to the shore, to outlandish underwater elevators that raise the vessel up out of the water and hold it secure at the dockside, free from interference by the tides.
Docking magnets have always been ruled out in the past because of the risk of damaging sensitive cargo or on-board equipment, such as TV sets and computer monitors. Cathode-ray tube screens in TVs and monitors are specially vulnerable to magnetic interference. If their metal chassis become magnetised, the field sends the electron beam off centre, distorting colours. And such magnets might even make it impossible to remove steel freight containers from the hold."