their customers -- and the delays are crippling small businesses.

The claim was made by one businessman who says that, this year, he has regularly had to wait for nearly three weeks for his stock to be unloaded after it has arrived at the docks.

And a Stevedoring insider also claimed that, because of a number of factors, deliveries of certain items were being held back.

"It's a nightmare. It's taking up to three weeks for them to strip a container,'' the businessman, a shop owner who does not wish to be named, said.

"There wasn't much of a problem last year. Usually the Oleander arrived on a Sunday and I would go down on the Wednesday or Thursday to pick up my goods.

But I would say that, since about May there seems to be a continual backlog.'' The businessman, who concentrates on festive gift wrappings and cards to boost his revenue, said there will be many Island entrepreneurs who will be affected by the delays.

Larger companies, he said, will not be hit, as they tend to fill containers and simply have them moved from the docks to their premises for unloading.

But small businesses, who do not order enough stock to fill a container, have their goods lumped together with other merchandise. They are then reliant on Stevedoring Services staff to "strip'' the container and retrieve their items.

Much of the businessman's stock comes from the UK and at present unloading is taking longer than the two weeks it takes to transport from the UK to New York and on to Bermuda.

Air freight is too expensive for many small operators to bear and in addition, airlines downsize their planes during the winter period -- allowing less space for freight.

"I have had a shop for 30 years and it's always taken about three or four days to get things off the dock,'' he said.

"But this year I'd say it's been about a 15 day wait. I had a consignment on the Oleander which arrived on September 12. I just got a call last Thursday to say that it would be ready to be picked up tomorrow.'' The businessman stressed that he did not blame Stevedoring Services for the hold-up, but it was nevertheless causing him, and other companies, major problems.

"I don't have a gripe with them -- I know the guys on the dock work hard,'' he said.

When The Royal Gazette contacted Stevedoring Services a source, who did not wish to be named, confirmed that some containers were taking longer to be unloaded this summer, for a number of reasons.

The source said the docks had had to handle a far heavier volume of cargo coming into the Island this year.

And although students had been taken on for the summer, the season's cruise liner timetable also meant that dockers were taken away from unloading duties for longer periods.

And the source said that customers waiting for deliveries were also partly to blame for the delay.

The source said that some customers did not collect unloaded goods for weeks at a time, which meant that valuable storage space was taken up -- stopping further unloading until space had been cleared.

"There are more delays this year but we don't like it any more than they do,'' the source said.

"But there's certainly no discrimination against smaller businesses.

"Handling cruise ships impacts on us by about a day-and-a-half a week, the volume of cargo coming in is far greater.

"And with strip goods, we unload into storage sheds but we can't fill them too much and people aren't collecting their goods in a timely fashion. We're damned if we do, damned if we don't.'' SHIPPING SHI