A vacuum-based ship mooring system for the first time has been deployed at northern China’s Port of Qingdao.
Reports say the autonomous technology, deployed in January, berthed a container ship in 30 seconds. It’s also safer, since workers aren’t required to secure mooring lines.
A total of 13 vacuum mooring units shorten the mooring process from a half-hour for a single ship.
Qingdao is the fifth-busiest port in the world, handling 32.89 million twenty foot equivalent units in 2025, an increase of more than 6% from the previous year.
Read more articles by Stuart Chirls here.
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