Volvo Ocean Race Village belies big logistical task between ports
by Sail-World NZ/TNL Pindar 4 Mar 2018 14:01 PST
5 March 2018
Volvo Ocean Race Village - Auckland, New Zealand - TNL Pindar © Rick Tomlinson
The Volvo Ocean Race Village opened in Auckland on Saturday 23rd February.
For those who have visited the Viaduct area in Auckland in the preceding ten days, would have seen the village grow from the ground up and the logistics in getting everything into New Zealand and onto site was the responsibility of Auckland based TNL Pindar.
TNL Pindar is the local agent for GAC Pindar, the official logistics provider for the Volvo Ocean Race. Working as instructed by GAC Pindar, TNL Pindar was responsible for the import customs clearance of all containers and airfreight arriving into New Zealand and arranging delivery to site. Its responsibility also stretched as far as sending one MPI Officer to Lisbon to pre-clear 33 containers in Lisbon and two Officers to Cape Town to clear a further 91 containers.
TNL Pindar’s Australasian Manager, Richard Thorpe, also travelled to Cape Town with the MPI officers. Richard told us, “It was important to travel to Cape Town to manage communications between stakeholders and the officers who required certain criteria to be met at the packing stage. It also gave me the opportunity to see the various structures in their completed form which assisted planning for the Auckland Stopover with the GAC Pindar travelling team.”
To produce the Volvo Ocean Race Village that can be seen now required 135 containers, 14 AKN Airfreight units and numerous airfreight shipments. The team also organised the cranes that built the village and all the forklifts, scissor lifts and other equipment on site.
While the Auckland public enjoy the Volvo Stopover, plans are already well ahead to organise the removal of the Village in five days starting on 18th March!