Some load of lumber !

/ANE OF the few ships in the Llworld designed sPecificallY to carry lumber, the 634' monster You see above is the Norwegian shiP Sandar, which recently entered Long Beach, Ca., harbor at a ponderous pace to discharge a little over one million feet of lumber for the Fremont Forest Products Co. of Whittier.

Impressive as a million of anything is, that represented only the top layer of 5.5 million board feet of lumber visible on her decks. And that'snotall: below decks she carried an additional bulk cargo.

Time chartered bY MacMillan Bloedel, the giant Canadian forest products firm, the ship had onloaded at Vancouver Island, made the stop pictured here and then proceeded through the Panama Canal to Antwerp, Belgium and then on to London, England.

Fremont's cargo was all Douglas fir and hemlock. It was in the form of 707 standardized packages or units, with a typical unit comprised of 208 pieces of 2x4. Some 2x6 and 2x8 lumber was also on board. Observers calculated that each unit averaged approximately 1600 board feet and had a dollar value of about $350.

The 90' wide ship carries six electric cranes mounted equal distances apart down the middle of the cargo area. The basic idea behind shipping lumber, or any other commodity, bY this method is the reduction in handling, saving both in time and labor charges. For example, one million feet of lumber would require 50 truck and trailers to transport, resulting in sharply increased handling costs.

Story at a Glance

Huge ocean going ship, designed specifically to carry lumber, makes West Coast stop off on its way to the European market from Canada it carries 5.5 million board feetof lumber on deck.