Sea lanes

40+ ocean trade lanes

Ocean freight is the backbone of European trade and it is also the leg where most shippers lose control of their cargo. CargoVault holds contracted space on more than forty scheduled lanes so your container is booked against a real allocation, not a hopeful waitlist, and every movement of that box is written into the same tracking record you read at home.

Start a shipment Track a shipment

Lanes under contract

40+

Typical port to port

18–38 days

Seal images per box

Free days after arrival

Space held, not hoped for

We buy allocation in advance with partner lines across the North Sea, Baltic, Mediterranean and transatlantic corridors. That means when a peak season squeezes capacity and spot rates triple overnight, your booking is already sitting on a manifest. Full container loads sail on their nominated vessel; part loads are consolidated in our own bonded units rather than handed to an unknown groupage agent, so we keep custody of your cartons from the moment they are collected.

The box is sealed and photographed

A numbered bolt seal goes on the doors in front of our loader, the number is photographed with the container number in frame, and both are attached to your consignment record before the box leaves the yard. If that seal number ever differs at the far end — during a customs inspection, a transhipment, a devanning — the change is logged with a reason and you are told the same day. Cargo theft almost always begins with a quiet swap nobody wrote down.

Transhipment is where we earn our fee

Most delays are not caused by the ocean crossing; they happen when a box misses its connection at a hub. We monitor berth windows and rolling risk at every transhipment port on your route and, if a connection looks tight, we rebook before the box is stranded rather than after. You see the reroute as a milestone in your timeline with the new estimated arrival attached.

From the people who do it

Sea lanes: what our crew says

Five of the team who run this part of CargoVault, on the work itself and on how far the company has come. Let it drift, or drag it yourself.

Lars Henriksen

Ocean lane manager, Rotterdam

“When I joined we had four lanes and one phone. Today I sit in front of a board of forty and I still know which box is where. What grew was not just the volume — it was the discipline behind it.”

9 years at CargoVault

Sofia Marchetti

Consolidation supervisor, Genoa

“We used to hand part loads to whoever had a trailer. Now every carton stays in our own unit until it is sealed. I have not lost a pallet in three years and that is the number I am proudest of.”

6 years at CargoVault

Piotr Nowicki

Vessel planner, Gdańsk

“The company backed me when I said we should buy allocation ahead of peak instead of chasing spot rates. Two seasons later our customers sailed on time while the market queued. That decision changed us.”

7 years at CargoVault

Elin Bergström

Seal compliance officer, Gothenburg

“My job is to argue about a number on a piece of metal. Nobody here has ever told me to let it go. That is why customers trust the record we hand them.”

5 years at CargoVault

Mathieu Perrin

Transhipment desk, Marseille

“We rebook a rolled container before the customer even knows it was at risk. Ten years ago that call took a week of emails. Now it takes eleven minutes and it lands in their timeline.”

8 years at CargoVault