The Port of Alexandria handles three quarters of the foreign import and export trade of Egypt, with the port city as the second most important city in the country after Cairo. Alexandria is located on the western end of the Nile delta between the Mediterranean and Lake Mariout at position 31°11′ North, 29 °56′ East. The Port of Alexandria Authority (APA) is the most important port authority in the country, the others being the East Port Said Authority, Damietta Port Authority, the Suez Canal Authority and the Red Sea Port Authority.

The Port of Alexandria actually consists of four ports, the main Western port originally known in ancient times as Portus Eunostus, the Eastern port known in ancient times as Portus Magnus or the Great Port and today not navigable by vessels and used only by yachts, and El Dekheila Port lying almost twenty kilometres to the west of the main port, and the very small Abu Qir Port to the north east as a commercial port handling general cargo and phosphates.

One of the most famous sons of Alexandria was the film actor Omar Sharif, born in the city on 10th April 1932 and who died in Behman Hospital in Egypt on 10th July 2015 at the age of 83 years. His most famous films were ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ of 1962 in which he acted alongside Peter O’Toole, Alec Guinness. Anthony Quinn, Anthony Quayle and Jack Hawkins, as well as the films ‘Dr. Zhivago’ of 1965 and ‘Funny Girl’ of 1968. Omar lived mostly in Cairo and also in his houses in Europe and a large white house in a desert area near Teguise on the Canary island of Lanzarote. The famous film with Alexandria in the title was ‘Ice Cold in Alex’ of 1958 which starred John Mills, Anthony Quayle and Harry Andrews, and was about the battle fatigued survivors of tank and ambulance crews who attempted to drive an ambulance over sand dunes to reach Alexandria to have ice cold beers in the many bars of the port.

HISTORY OF ALEXANDRIA

The city was founded by the great Greek hero Alexander the Great in 332 BC, Alexander commanded armies raised from Macedonia and Greece that conquered most of the Middle East including Egypt, as well as present day Iran and Iraq and continued onwards to take parts of present day Afghanistan and Pakistan. After the death of Alexander in 322 BC, the city was ruled by Pharaoh Ptolemy I until the Greeks finally departed in 30 BC, and the city then came under Roman rule in a time known as the ‘Golden Age of Egypt’, until the city was forcibly overthrown by Arab armies in 642 AD.

The Arab armies introduced Islamic culture and the Arabic language and number system into the country, with the Al Azhar Koranic University established in Cairo in 988 AD and is the oldest university in the world. The great Arab leader Saladin led his armies to conquer the Western Crusaders from Britain, France and other European powers, and he established himself on the throne of Egypt in 1171 until the Marmeluke Army of slaves from Circassia in the Caucasus seized power in 1250. Eventually, Egypt became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1517, until Napoleon Bonaparte landed at Alexandria and conquered Egypt in 1798. Napoleon was ousted three years later by British and Turkish forces in the great sea battle of the Battle of the Nile, with Mohammed Ali established as the Ottoman Governor in 1805. Mohammed Ali reopened access to the Nile from the Port of Alexandria with the Al Mahmudiyah Canal of length 45 miles in 1820. Egypt was brought to the verge of bankruptcy in the great civil engineering construction of the Suez Canal by French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps, and Britain stepped in to rescue the country from financial ruin in 1875 by purchasing the controlling shares of the Suez Canal.

In 1882, Alexandria and Egypt had been occupied by British forces after the Orabi Revolt against the Egyptian Khedive, but remained under British control even after the formal recognition of Egypt as a member of the British Empire, although it was never formally occupied as a colony, but with the Suez Canal heavily guarded by British troops. The British governors then ruled Egypt as despotic leaders, with Egypt declared a British Protectorate on 18th December 1914, becoming an independent sovereign state on 28th February 1922. The British rulers dominated the political life of Egypt and fostered fiscal, administrative, military and governmental rule over the whole of the country. The Port of Alexandria became the great Eastern Mediterranean strongly fortified base for the Royal Navy, to protect the vital British sea link of the Suez Canal for her huge Merchant Navy. During World War I, the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force that took part in the ill fated Gallipoli campaign used the Port of Alexandria as its main base for troops and supplies bound for the landings at Cape Helles.

The Egyptian Railways were supplied with coal from the U. K. for many decades, with a jointly owned company formed in 1931 by Watts, Watts & Company Ltd. of London and the Alexandria Navigation Company S. A. E. The company was known as the Red Rose Line with a green swallow tail houseflag and ‘ANC’ in white, with many owned steam tramps all with black hulls and a black funnel with two central white bands separated by one green band, anda ‘Star’ prefix to their names e.g. Star of Alexandria, Star of Assuan, Star of Cairo, Star of Luxor, Star of Suez and Star of Egypt.

ALEXANDRIA HARBOUR IN WORLD WAR II

The British naval base of Alexandria had the entrance heavily blocked by booms, chains and anti – submarine nets in World War II to protect the long line of battleships and aircraft carriers moored in line ahead across the full length of the wide Port of Alexandria. Marauding U boats and Italian submarines were thus kept out of the port, but the British naval fleet suffered from nuisance air attacks by long range German planes based in Crete.

Italian Navy divers of the Decima Flottiglia (10th Flotilla) carried out a raid on the harbour on 19th December 1941 and disabled two Royal Navy battleships anchored in the stream. The Italian submarine Scire sailed from La Spezia Naval Base under the command of Lt. Junio Valerio with three manned midget submarines attached to its deck. At the Greek island of Lesbos, six Italian crewmen were picked up for the midget submarines, and Scire sailed for the outer limit of the Alexandria approach channel to await the lifting of the heavy boom and chain defences when three British destroyers were allowed to pass and steamed into the harbour.

One of the midget submarines placed a limpet mine under the hull of the battleship Valiant, with its crewmen injured in the attack and they were forced to surface and were captured. Despite heavy interrogation by the commander and officers of Valiant, the midget submariners were ‘tight lipped’ as to where the mine had been placed, and was in fact directly under the locked room where they were incarcerated when the mine exploded, although they suffered only bruising. The second midget submarine placed its limpet mine five feet under the hull of the battleship Queen Elizabeth as planned. The crew were able to get ashore and slipped through unnoticed near the harbour gates posing as French sailors, but were captured two days later at Rosetta to the east of the harbour by Egyptian police while awaiting rescue by the Italian submarine Scire. The third midget submarine fixed its limpet mine under the stern of the Norwegian tanker Sagona of 7,554 grt as no large naval target had been found. The crew were arrested at a harbour checkpoint and imprisoned, but the explosion ripped off the entire stern of the tanker, with the famous flotilla leader destroyer Jervis, one of four destroyers refuelling alongside, badly damaged with repairs taking over one month.

The naval balance of power in the Mediterranean had swung towards the Italian Navy as a result of this attack carried out with great audacity, with Valiant and Queen Elizabeth out of action for periods of six and nine months respectively while undergoing hull repairs in the Admiralty Floating Dock 5, followed by longer periods in American dockyards. Also, during the night of 4th February 1942, British tanks surrounded the palace of King Farouk in Cairo, and he was presented with an ultimatum by the British Ambassador to replace himself as ruler of Egypt and constitutional leader by a British and Egyptian coalition government. Farouk had never been a supporter of the British in Egypt since his ascendancy to the throne in 1937, and in fact after the war was long over he recruited German military advisers to help train his fledgling Egyptian Army.

PORT OF ALEXANDRIA IN POST-WAR YEARS

The British Royal Navy sailed away from the Port of Alexandria in 1946 and never returned, with the British Army mine disposal and explosive experts clearing the harbour for the Arab League association of Arab states to take over the port. Egyptian troops took part in the first Arab-Israeli War of 1948/49, with King Farouk of Egypt overthrown in July 1952, and he escaped on a liner from the Port of Alexandria. Egypt became a Republic in 1953 with General Neguib as President, followed by Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser as Premier in 1954 and President from 1956. Nasser ruled Egypt with an iron fist until his death in 1970, with Mohammed Anwar El Sadat then becoming President.

The British era of influence and organisation of the Port of Alexandria took a long time to shake off, and the process of development, modernisation, and industrialisation and becoming ‘Egyptian’ again lasted throughout the Presidencies of Neguib, Nasser, Anwar Sadat (assassinated in 1981), and Hosni Mubarak as 4th President of Egypt from 14th October 1981 until 11th February 2011. All four Presidents took a keen interest in the Port of Alexandria as their most important port trading with the Middle East and the Western Democracies, with Hosni Mubarak forced to step down in February 2011 after 18 days of peaceful demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo and other Egyptian cities.

Mubarak and his two sons were arrested on 28th February 2011 to stand trial on charges of premeditated murder of peaceful protestors during the revolution in Tahrir square in Cairo, and also misuse of influence, deliberately wasting public funds and amassing great private financial gain and wealth from them, as well as running a secret police state to identify all those who spoke out against their tyranny. On 28th May 2011, the Cairo Court found Mubarrak and his two sons guilty of all charges and particularly of heavily damaging the Egyptian economy, as well as murder and the shutting down of all telephone and Internet services in the country to silence the protestors. The trial was broadcast on Egyptian television, with Mubarrak ordered to paid back most of the estimated $80 million that he and his family had illegally seized, with a fine of $33.6 million to be paid from their own personal assets. They all served periods of at least three years in prison, and after his release for health reasons, Mubarak died recently on 25th February 2020 at the age of 91 years, and he is buried in the family plot outside Cairo.

The Port of Alexandria had grown by leaps and bounds in the late 1950s, with a passenger terminal built as one berth of a ‘cross’ pattern of ten berths when viewed from an aerial perspective to accommodate passenger liners of up to 30,000 grt, and accessed by a wide road and rail system on the southern part of the harbour. The Suez Canal was closed for seven and one half years from 1967 to 1975, and the port was overwhelmed by trade and shipping by cargoes accessing Cairo and the rest of Egypt at this time. An oil refinery was built near the western end of the port with oil pipelines snaking out over the country to Cairo, and iron and steel plants were opened, with steel exported in Zone 1 of the eastern part of the harbour at berths 5 to 15, The long east to west harbour today is split into six zones starting from the eastern part as follows:-

ZONE 1 Berths 5 to 15 for Break Bulk and Ro-ro cargoes

ZONE 2 Berths 16 to 28 for containers, Ro-ro and Bulk cargo, as well as the recently opened Cruise Ship Terminal, accurately described as one of the most beautiful cruise ship terminals in the world.

ZONE 3 Berths 35 to 47 for General cargo, Bulk cargo and Containers

ZONE 4 Berths 49 to 68 for Containers, cement, coal, fertilisers and general cargo

ZONE 5 Berths 71 to 85 for imported Timber and Grain cargoes and exporting flour, also for general and containerised cargoes

ZONE 6 Oil Basin and Berths 86 and 87 with storage tanks and pipelines connected to the nearby refinery by a two kilometre connection. Crude oil, petroleum products, molasses, edible oils and vegetable oils are handled, with a nearby quay handling significant numbers of cattle and sheep livestock e.g. the livestock carrier BMS Piridorm brought in 5,007 head of cattle in February 2020, with the rate of discharge being 3,000 cattle per day.

PORT OF ALEXANDRIA – ORGANISATION

The total of imports and exports through the Port of Alexandria in 2019 was over 30.0 million tonnes, with the maximum capacity of the port being 37.9 million tonnes per year of break bulk, bulk, liquid and container traffic. In addition to sixty berths spread around the northern, eastern, western and southern shores of the harbour, there are many anchorage points in the middle of the harbour for ships to offload into barges or await a berth. The western and eastern harbours were formed when a land bridge of three quarters of a mile was linked to the offshore island of Faros, the original location of the famous Lighthouse of Alexandria, to form a ‘T’ shaped peninsula. The Alexandria Port Authority (APA) was formed in 1967, after 67 years of development from its first establishment in 1900, with Capt. Tariq Shaheen in overall charge of the port today as well as the Harbour Master for port operations. The Port Signal Station opened in 1968 on a circular tower of diameter five metres and a height of 42 metres and faces the entrance to the port, the old Port Signal Station having to be replaced due to the signals being blocked by high silos and high sided ships.

The winter rainy season has a north westerly wind of force 4 to 5 on the Beaufort Scale, while the summer winds are much lighter at only Force 2 to 3. The tidal range is minimal at only 0.46 metres between high and low neap tides. The average number of ships in the port at any one time is 85 to 90 ships with ongoing loading and discharging on 55 of these ships. The two breakwaters point towards each other with a port entrance width of 400 metres. The outer approach to the port is from three miles away and uses two main channels, the first is two thousand metres long and 220 metres wide and dredged to 14.0 metres, while the second channel is 1,600 metres long and 100 metres wide and is dredged to 9.0 metres. The harbour of the port is large at 600 hectares, with pilotage compulsory in the approach channels and harbour, with the use of tugs compulsory for all vessels over 2,000 grt. The Port of Alexandria owns no fewer than 68 working marine craft including tugs, pilot boats, launches and crane barges, as well as a large fleet of land based locomotives on a big network of rail lines.

The grain berths 84 and 85 in Zone 5 have silo capacities of both 50,000 tonnes and 100,000 tonnes, as they hold the strategic grain stocks for the whole country. Grain cargoes from bulk carriers alongside are discharged at the rate of 8,000 tonnes per day. The Oil Basin in Zone 6 handles crude oil, petroleum products, asphalt, diesel, fuel oil, naptha, molasses, edible oils and vegetable oils. The Al Nasr Company handles the operations for coal and coke discharge in Zone 4 for cargoes that arrive in Handysize bulkers of around 40,000 dwt at a berth of length 365.0 metres in length and alongside depth of 10.0 metres.

CONTAINER TERMINALS AT ALEXANDRIA and EL DEKHEILA ALEXANDRIA CONTAINER CARGO HANDLING COMPANY

This company was established in 1984 for container and general cargo handling, with two terminals, one at the Port of Alexandria and the other at the nearby Port of El Dekheila. The Alexandria terminal has a throughput of 0.5 MTEU with a special depot for stripping LCL (Less than container loads), and a special yard for the stuffing and destuffing of containers. The terminal area is 163,000 square metres on the east side of the Port of Alexandria, and with a storage yard of 15,500 TEU capacity and 1,000 reefer plug connections. The length of the quay is 531.0 metres with alongside water depth of 12.0 metres and a ro-ro quay of length 164.0 metres. There are three Panamax Gantry Cranes with an outreach of 17 containers width, and one Super Post Panamax Gantry Crane with an outreach of 19 containers width. The terminal has mobile cranes, 40 tractors, 18 top lift trucks, 9 empty handlers and 11 Rubber Tyred Gantries (RTGs).

The El Dekheila terminal has a throughput of 1.0 MTEU with a special depot for storing cargo received in LCL (Less than container loads) and for the handling of hazardous cargo containers. The terminal area is 406,000 square metres with a storage capacity of 27,000 TEU and 1,000 reefer plug connections. The container quay length is 1,040.0 metres with an alongside depth of between 12.0 and 14.0 metres, and ro-ro operations are also conducted at the end of the main container quay. There are five Post Panamax Gantry Cranes with an outreach of 17 containers width, and six Super Post Panamax Gantry Cranes with twin spreaders and an outreach of between 18 and 22 containers width. Terminal equipment consists of Mobile Cranes, 44 tractors, 17 top lift trucks, 7 empty handlers and 18 Rubber Tyred Gantries (RTGs).

ALEXANDRIA INTERNATIONAL CONTAINER TERMINALS (AICT)

In 2007, the new Alexandria and El Dekheila container handling facilities of the Alexandria International Container Terminals (AICT) began operations. Hutchison Ports is in charge of container operations at these container terminals, with the total area of the container storage yards of 175,000 square metres. The AICT terminal at the Port of Alexandria is on the extreme west side of the harbour, and the throughput of containers is around 1.5 million TEU per year, but this has been boosted by a new container terminal built at a cost of £750 million with additional investment to provide a new container storage yard of 420,000 TEU capacity near berths 71, 72 and 73. This investment was funded from China and the Chinese Hatchton Group.

PORT OF ALEXANDRIA SUMMARY

In summary, the water area of the Port of Alexandria is 22.8 square kilometres, while the land area of the port is 16.8 square kilometres, with all sixty berths of total length 7,605 metres having alongside depths in the range from 8.5 metres to 16.0 metres. The substantial working warehouses and storage areas of the port cover 1.65 square kilometres in area. There are six container berths of total length 914.4 metres with an alongside depth of 12.8 metres, and a total throughput of 1.5 million TEU of containers. There are many warehouses and transit sheds spread around all of the port, their total under cover area being 49,000 square metres.

Port operations are occasionally stopped at both the Port of Alexandria and the Port of El Dekheila due to very poor visibility from dust and climatic conditions. Modern suction dredging of the Port of Alexandria was performed between 1976 and 1985 at a cost of US$45 million for the removal of accumulated sand in the existing entrance channels and harbour. The new larger approach channel was then opened after this dredging made it possible to make ship traffic easier and safer to enter and leave the port. The port grab dredger of 650 tonnes capacity and built in 1979 presently maintains the alongside depths of the quays in the harbour together with two dump barges.

A new multi-purpose Terminal is planned for berths 55 to 62 in Zone 4, with the Egyptian Minister of Transport acting on the decisions of the executive personnel of the Port of Alexandria to have the terminal ready for operation in early 2022. The full engineering team of the construction project is in place, with the new terminal raising the classification of the port from ships of moderate size to the reception of very large ships in the range of 150,000 dwt. The construction period of two years will also go hand in hand with dredging of the harbour and the main approach channels to take the larger and deeper draft ships. The terminal will operate three large berths for container ships, one large berth for loading and discharging car and truck carriers, and one very long berth for break bulk, general and bulk cargoes.

The Port of El Dekheila is part of the Port of Alexandria and covers a huge surface area of 1.64 million square metres, with the total length of the nineteen berths being 4,660 metres with alongside depths of twenty metres. It is situated almost twenty kilometres to the west of the Port of Alexandria, and has a potential total annual cargo capacity of 27.1 million tonnes, and a container throughput at six berths of 1.5 million TEU capacity. The huge area of the port is critical for its future expansion, and the wharves are near to an iron and steel smelter, a large power station, and the Borg El Arab airport, with the port having its own Free Zone to give tax and other incentives to the creation of new businesses located in the outer port area. This new port is located at position 31°08′ North, 29°47′ East.

CRUISE SHIP CALLS AT ALEXANDRIA in 2020/21

Celestyal Cruises operated by Louis Cruise Line of Cyprus feature short three day cruises from Limassol to Haifa and Alexandria, and are marketed as the chance of a lifetime to see the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx at Cairo, and also describe the Port of Alexandria as ‘The Pearl of the Mediterranean’. The arrivals of the cruise ship Celestyal Crystal during March 2020 were delayed in the outer anchorage whilst a team from the Quarantine Department went onboard to examine all tourists and crew with heat seeking and testing equipment to ensure that were no suspected cases of Corona virus onboard. An equally serious reason was behind the call of the cruise ship Salamis Filoxenia, the former Gruziya of 16,331 gt built in 1975 for the Black Sea Shipping Company of Russia. She arrived on 19th October 2019 and stayed for two days with a full complement of 350 passengers onboard to foster the important role of the Tripartite partnership of Egypt, Cyprus and Greece, and the equally important bilateral partnership between Egypt and Greece. She was built by the Turku yard of Wartsila in Finland along with her sisterships Belorussiya, Kareliya, Azerbaydzhan and Kazakhstan. The cruise lines due to call at the port were as follows:-

Celestyal Cruises         30

TUI Cruises     8

Phoenix Seereisen       6

Azamara Cruises         3

Windstar Cruises         3

Regent Seven Seas Cruises     2

Royal Caribbean Cruises         1

MSC Cruises   1

Costa Cruises  1

Viking Cruises 1

Pullmantur Cruises      1

Marella Cruises           1

Fred. Olsen Cruises     1

Le Ponant Cruises       1

GRAND TOTAL       60

The magnificent new Port of Alexandria Cruise Terminal of 8,725 square metres in area was built in 2009, with the terminal building being two storeys high and has 8,000 square metres of public amenities and shops. Large cruise ships berth on either side of the head of the terminal that juts out at right angles from the shore, with magnificent green landscaping, lawns and gardens in between the two giant berths. The terminal building is built in the ‘Roman and Pharaonic’ style with pastel coloured interiors and plenty of space for 107 shops, five restaurants, and several smaller cafes. The new Port Cruise Terminal has rightly been described as the most beautiful of its kind anywhere in the world, with palm trees blowing in the breeze along both of the very long berths. The terminal is situated in Zone 2 to the west of Zone 1, with buses awaiting cruise passengers to whisk them away to attractive destinations nearby in the city of Alexandria, or as far away as the colossal Pyramids of the Pharaohs and the Sphinx near Cairo. The car and coach bus parking areas are huge and some passengers take taxis into central Alexandria to see the sights of the city as these are a few miles away.

The tourist sights of Alexandria include the magnificent new Bibliotheca Alexandrina at the east end of the Eastern Harbour, which is a major, large building and library housing eight million books with a further 500,000 books gifted from the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BnF) that detail the building of the Suez Canal by Ferdinand de Lesseps and his original plans for the construction. This gift made the new library into the sixth biggest Francophone library in the world, the hugely impressive building opened to the public on 16th October 2002. It commemorates the Ancient Library of Alexandria that was lost to the sea along with the Great Pharos of Alexandria. The new library complex also houses a Conference Centre, map library, multimedia facilities, four museums, four art galleries, fifteen permanent exhibitions, a planetarium, a manuscript restoration laboratory, and facilities for access by disabled, blind and visually impaired people.

The Roman Kom El Dekka amphitheatre in Alexandria is in very good condition with seating for 800 people in thirteen white marble terraces. This is a circular structure rather than the more typical Roman or Greek oval amphitheatres. The new, colourful Stanley Bridge with twin vertical stone supports at each end is near the private access Stanli Beach, and crosses a seawater inlet around five miles east of the Eastern harbour on the Corniche road. The bridge has a total length of 400 metres and was constructed in recent years by the Osman Ahmed Construction Company.

The Citadel of Qaitbay is a 15th century defensive fortress built in ochre coloured stone with castellated tops and completed in 1477 by Sultan Asraf Sayf Qaitbay. It is situated on the east side of the northern tip of Pharos Island, marking the seaward end of the peninsula that juts out to sea to separate the Western harbour from the Eastern harbour. This is the exact site of the legendary and extremely high Pharos of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, that fell gradually into the sea over a millennium due to earthquakes and a change in the sea level to seaward of Alexandria harbour. Sultan Asraf Sayf Qaitbay ruled for 29 years from 1468, and today the building, which has open parade grounds and landscaping and gardens, serves as the Alexandria Maritime Museum after Egyptian naval troops converted the building in 1952/53.

Cleopatra’s Needles lay undisturbed in the sands of Alexandria for over two thousand years, and are three in number with one located on the Victoria Embankment on the north bank of the Thames near the Golden Jubilee Bridges, and the others are in Paris and New York. The obelisks were originally erected in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis around 1,450 BC, and were then transported to Alexandria for safekeeping. The three obelisks are all of the same height and stand 91 feet in height, weigh around 225 tonnes and are inscribed all over by Egyptian hieroglyphs. The obelisk in London was dug out of the sand of Alexandria in 1877 and encased in a long, floatable iron cylinder of length 92 feet and diameter of 16 feet. The iron cylinder was then towed by the steamer Olga through the Mediterranean and out of the Straits of Gibraltar but was nearly lost in a terrible storm in the Bay of Biscay on 14th October 1877. The cylinder stayed afloat and was towed into El Ferrol in Galicia by the Glasgow tramp Fitzmaurice, owned by Burrell & Son. The paddle tug Anglia of William Watkins Ltd. of London then towed the obelisk to the Thames estuary and arrived on 21st January 1878. The obelisk was then erected vertically using wooden trestle cranes on each side on 12th September 1878. The Cleopatra’s Needle is flanked by two black painted Egyptian sphinxes designed by the English architect George John Vulliamy, with the whole monument being beautifully restored in 2005.

THE ALEXANDRIA DOCKYARD (ASY)

The Russian Government funded a contract in 1962 for the construction of a shipyard in the eastern part of the harbour beside an old graving dock of 10,000 dwt capacity. The training of skilled men and apprentices began a year later, and in 1964 a mechanical slipway comprising four slips became available served by a carriage having a lift capacity of 600 tonnes for repairing ships up to 1,500 dwt. In 1965, a new graving dock was built by a German contractor with a capacity of repairing ships of up to 85,000 dwt. In 1968, more space was gained by reclaiming land from the harbour and two inclined building berths were completed. The yard was almost ready in 1969 for the construction of ships under the Chairmanship of M. A. Hussein. The first of 35 merchant ships was launched as Alexandria in 1971 and completed at the new fitting out berth. These ships were built in classes powered by oil engines supplied by B & W of Copenhagen to give service speeds of between 12.0 and 17.5 knots as follows:-

A class of general cargo ships of 8,230 dwt with five holds, four in front of the navigating bridge and one aft with dimensions of length 130.0 metres, moulded beam of 17.8 metres and depth of 9.8 metres with a draft of 7.8 metres, and crane capacity up to 40 tonnes. The Egyptian Navigation Company took delivery of Alexandria, Ahmos, Alchatby, Ikhnaton, 15 May, Memphis, Nefertiti, Raseltin and Thutmose by 1982.

A class of general cargo ships of 12,800 dwt with four holds and hatches on dimensions of length 132.8 metres, moulded beam of 20.5 metres, and depth of 12.2 metres with a draft of 9.4 metres. The class was strengthened for heavy cargoes, and had a stern ro-ro ramp with crane capacity up to 25 tonnes, with the MISR Shipping Co. Ltd. of Alexandria taking Aburdees, Abu Zenima, Abu Egila, Al Minufiyah, Alexandria and Ebn al Waleed between 1983 and 1991.

A class of general cargo ships of between 6,000 and 6,900 dwt with three holds and container capacity of 260 TEU on dimensions of length 107.1 metres, moulded beam of 18.3 metres, depth of 8.0 metres and draft of 6.1 metres. Alexandria, Aida, Arabia, Mersa Alam, Ras Sedr, Sloman Challenger and Sloman Commander were completed between 1994 and 2000.

Two bulk carriers of 38,500 dwt were completed in 1985 on dimensions of length 200.0 metres, moulded beam of 26.5 metres, depth of 15.8 metres and draft of 11.0 metres as Al Sedik and Qena for the Egyptian Navigation Co. Ltd.

Two ro-ros were completed in 1989 as Al Qusayr and Nuwayba of 3,078 dwt for the Egyptian Navigation Co. Ltd. on dimensions of length 117.2 metres, moulded beam of 17.5 metres, depth of 12.0 metres and draft of 5.0 metres.

In Millennium year, the yard changed over to building warships, with the yard transferred to the Ministry of Defence under the Maritime Industries and Services Organisation (MIASCO), and the yard updated by a contract with a Chinese State owned yard between 2011 and 2014. Four ‘Gowind’ class corvettes were completed for the Egyptian Navy with the first built at Lorient and delivered to Egypt in September 2017, with the remaining trio built by the Alexandria Dockyard. The building dry docks are served by a gantry crane of 90 tonnes capacity, together with seven cranes of 30 tonnes capacity, three of 25 tonnes capacity, one of 16 tonnes capacity, and one of ten tonnes capacity. This impressive shipbuilding and repair yard has three outfitting quays of total length 1,200 metres, and GRP construction capability for warships of length 60.0 metres, beam of 24.0 metres, and depth of 14.0 metres.

A contract was signed in 2020 for the construction of ten bunkering vessels with the General Petroleum Authority of Egypt after a visit by the Chairman of the oil authority to the yard on 26th November 2019. Repairs were recently completed to the twin funnelled blue hulled offshore vessel PMS Mayo of 4,294 grt built in 1987 and owned by Petroget Marine Services of Egypt, and previously working in the North Sea oil industry as DSND Mayo of Norway until May 2004.

EGYPTIAN PORTS & LIGHTHOUSES ADMINISTRATION (EPLA)

This authority is based at Alexandria and was founded in 1830 when an assembly body was appointed to supervise the construction of the port to receive vessels through an opening in two breakwaters into the Port of Alexandria. It today operates from Alexandria as the Egyptian Authority for Maritime Safety (EAFMS) with an excellent website at www.mts,gov.eg. The authority has carried out harbour works, salvage work, lighthouse development, and installation, improvements and maintenance to navigation aids in the harbours and along the coasts of Egypt. It has owned several very interesting ships during this long period.

The three masted barque Cape Finisterre was built in 1874 by Thomas Wingate & Company of Glasgow with dimensions of length 198.5 feet, moulded beam of 33.3 feet, and moulded depth of 18.6 feet. She traded for Abram Lyle & Sons of Greenock in the sugar trades to the sugar refinery at Greenock for many years before she was purchased by the Egyptian Government in 1924. She was renamed El Kahira in 1924 and El Faroukieh a few years later, and finally Alexandria in 1959. She was used for lighthouse visits and was converted into a training ship at Alexandria and was still afloat in 1966 after 92 years of service.

The steam fishery research vessel Mabahiss of 317 grt was built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd. at their Neptune yard, being launched on 11th September 1930 and completed a month later. She had dimensions of length 138.2 feet, moulded beam of 23.7 feet, and moulded depth of 10.2 feet, and after her coastal duties were finished she was converted into a research vessel in 1963. The steam tug Sakr of 254 grt was completed as Empire Warlock in 1944 by Ferguson Brothers Ltd. at Port Glasgow and sold to the EPLA in 1947 and renamed Sakr. The large twin screw steam tug El Nasser of 658 grt was completed in February 1956 by the Zosensho yard at Kure in Japan, and three twin screw firefloats were completed by Schiffswerft Berlin, and six small tugs were completed during 1960/65. The early pilot boats serving Alexandria harbour were named El Taif, Nagd and the twin screw Thasos, with coastal fishery craft Thaar and Nour completed in 1967.

The handsome white hulled passenger and lighthouse tender El Amira Fawzia of 1,881 grt was launched by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd. on 8th July 1929 and completed a month later for the EPLA on dimensions of length 275.2 feet and moulded beam of 38.2 feet with twin quadruple steam engines driving twin screws. She was used as the passenger ship carrying all of the members of the EPLA on visits to lighthouses, and was renamed El Quseir in 1952. She was transferred to the Egyptian Army in 1967 as a transport vessel for 400 troops and 40 horses.

Aida is an Arab female name meaning ‘gift’ and is used to describe a very beautiful maiden. The first lighthouse tender named Aida was a wooden yacht owned by the Khedive and built around 1900. The second lighthouse tender named Aida in the service of the EPLA was launched by a French shipyard of 1,428 grt with an overall length of 75.0 metres. She was attacked on 8th October 1941 by a Heinkel III aircraft at Zafarana anchorage in the Gulf of Suez, which hit her mast and crashed into the sea nearby. Aida was also sunk, but as the damage was not great, she was soon refloated and repaired. She eventually sank in 1957 after hitting the rocks at the Big Brothers Lighthouse on an island in the Red Sea 59 kilometres east north east of Al Quseir. She had been tasked to change the military personnel on the lighthouse, but heavy storms had made the sea state too rough for the exchange. All 77 personnel on board including her Master were rescued by a tug, and she sank stern first on to a reef.

Aida II was replaced by the equally handsome white hulled Aida III of 2,733 grt with a yellow funnel ‘midships, and was built in 1962 by Zaanlandse Scheepsbouw Maats of Landsmeer in Holland. She had dimensions of length 287.0 feet, moulded beam of 45.0 feet, and moulded depth of 25.0 feet, and served the EPLA as a lighthouse tender and training ship, and was powered by twin 8-cyl Klockner Humboldt Deutz diesels of 2,000 bhp, and was broken up in Egypt in 1995.

She was replaced in turn by the handsome white hulled lighthouse tender and training ship Aida IV of 3,105 grt, whose keel was laid on 22nd September 1991 and she was completed and delivered to Alexandria on 22nd March 1992 by the Miho Shipyard at Shizuoka in Japan. She has dimensions of length 87.0 metres and moulded beam of 14.0 feet and a depth of 8.7 metres, and is powered by a MaK diesel engine of 2,207 kW to give a service speed of 16 knots.

Aida IV has a yellow funnel and two yellow masts and is still in service in her designed capacity of lighthouse supply and of providing onboard training for Merchant Navy cadets, and is manned by professional Deck and Engineer Officers and crew. She made a cruise in early August 2018 from Alexandria to Piraeus with a three day stopover in the Greek port to mark the 1st Anniversary of the Hellenic Arab Maritime Academy (HAMA). The EAFMS today operates in addition to Aida IV, two dozen tugs and firefloats.

EGYPTIAN PRESIDENTIAL YACHT

The very handsome former Egyptian royal yacht El Mahrousa (meaning ‘The Protected’) of 4,561 grt is still berthed at Alexandria after a long career of 155 years. She is built of iron and is 478.0 feet in length on the waterline, having been lengthened by fifteen metres in 1872 and again in 1905, with a moulded beam of 42.6 feet, and a draft of 17.5 feet.

She is now an Egyptian Navy training ship with a crew of 160, and is powered by steam turbines of 6,500 shp connected to triple screws to give a service speed of 16 knots.

She was designed by Oliver Lang in 1863 and launched two years later at the yard of the Samuda Brothers at Poplar on the Thames with great celebration, and after fitting out was delivered later that year to Alexandria and Khedive Ismail Pasha, Ruler of Egypt. She was originally fitted with paddle wheels, with the refit in 1905 including the replacement of its steam engine by more powerful steam engines and lengthening by five metres.

This refit was carried out by the Inglis yard on the Clyde, which built her new steam turbines under licence from the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company of Wallsend. She was also fitted with a Marconi telegraph and transmitter in 1912 to keep her passengers in contact with their Alexandria headquarters.

She carried three Egyptian rulers to their exile abroad, namely Khedive Ismail, Khedive Abbas II, and King Farouk after his overthrow in 1952.

The Presidential yacht was then renamed El Horreya (meaning ‘Freedom or Liberty’) in 1952 by President Nasser and transferred to the Egyptian Navy. The yacht continued to play an important role in the history of Egypt, taking President Nasser to several locations for talks, and it also sailed with President Anwar Sadat to Jaffa in Israel during the 1979 peace talks between Egypt and Israel. She sailed mostly in the Eastern Mediterranean, and today she sails from Alexandria three times per year as the Presidential yacht.

She also sailed to the U. S. A. to take part in the International Naval Review to commemorate the bicentennial of the founding in 1976.

She regained her original name in September 2000 of El Mahrousa after a visit by President Mubarak, and she had an important role on 6th August 2015, when she was the head of a column of ships that inaugurated the New Suez Canal with dual lanes in certain sections.

She is a real gem of a ship with a very long history that covers the entire period of modern Egypt after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. She is white hulled with a bowsprit, yellow funnel and two yellow masts.

There were also smaller Egyptian royal yachts in service on the Nile in the 19th century.

POSTSCRIPT

The most frequent cargo imported at Alexandria is wheat, with several bulk carriers carrying wheat discharged each week, with flour as the most frequent export cargo. Maersk Line container ships are the most frequent callers at the six container ship berths, but the port also receives container and general cargo ships owned by CMA CGM, MSC, Evergreen, Egyptian Navigation Co. Ltd., MISR Shipping Co. Ltd., Arkas Shipping Line, Borchard Lines, Hamburg Sud, Hapag-Lloyd, COSCO Shipping, APL, OOCL, PIL, Yang Ming, Tarros Shipping Line, Fairtrans Shipping Line, BMC Shipping Line, Middle East Shipping Line, Charles M. Willie Shipping Group, and Inchcape Shipping Services.

A very large arch forms the gateway to the Port of Alexandria with a very impressive new Cruise Ship Terminal, one of the most beautiful in the world, as well as the soon to be completed multi-purpose Terminal in Zone 4 of the port between berths 55 to 62 to receive larger capacity multi-purpose ships and bulk carriers. The city of Alexandria has a long Corniche and a coastal built up span of twenty miles, with the Port of Alexandria to the west of the city and stretching for a further seven kilometres along the coast. This is the main port of Egypt and it is thriving today after a very long history dating back to Cleopatra and Roman times.

The Port of Alexandria today operated fifteen modern tugs such as Alexandria 1, Alexandria 2 and Alexandria 3 of 354 grt and built in 1999, with the similar tugs Dekheila 3, Dekheila 4 and Dekheila 5 built in 1997 at the Port of El Dekheila. The powered crane vessel Younis of 700 grt was built in 1980 by the Timsah Shipbuilding Company at Ismailia on the Suez Canal, and is equipped with a 35 tonne crane and moves at 8 knots powered by twin M.A.N. oil engines of 840 bhp.

The Ministry of Oceanography and Fisheries operates two research vessels from the Port of Alexandria, Salsabil and Yarmouk.

Pilotage is compulsory for vessels arriving and departing the port. The approach area is 3nm away from the straight entrance, and its depth varies from 30-35m.

The versatile port e-commerce software and systems include an electronic management system for Alexandria and El Dekheila ports, with four logistical centres established to link to clients across the full length and width of the harbours, including terminal managers and masters of ships. The ports have a CCTV system with 160 fixed cameras and 44 mobile cameras and modern electronic gates connected to the port electronic management system.

I wish to sincerely thank the excellent website of the Port of Alexandria Authority at www.apa.gov.eg.