Crowley Maritime Corporation is to try out a "lightering" operation tomorrow at Port au Prince, in order to bring aid containers directly into Haiti.

Working under contract with the US Transportation Command, it yesterday began unloading containerised Haiti-bound relief cargo in Rio Haina, Dominican Republic.

However, in an experimental lightering operation, 12 of the 68 containers on board the Macajama will be transported by water to Port-au-Prince to be offloaded onto another vessel and delivered to a nearby beach on Friday.

If successful, future shipments could be made directly to Port-au-Prince, Crowley said.

The Crowley plan calls for the Macajama to anchor offshore near the port??s damaged south pier and near the exposed beach.

Using a shipboard crane on the Macajama, the 12 remaining containers will be lowered onto a smaller vessel operated by G and G Shipping and unloaded onto the beach on wheels.

A team from Crowley's TIitan Salvage subsidiary surveyed the port area on Monday and determined that such an operation was possible, the company said.

They also found it would be possible to establish a temporary docking structure on the beach using a flat-deck barge that could be used for cargo discharge from around 2 February.