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The complaint about the ships all going to Long Beach/LA and not to other ports is a little bogus. Various shipping lines would be happy to send a ship to 2 or

by slyall 4y ago

The complaint about the ships all going to Long Beach/LA and not to other ports is a little bogus. Various shipping lines would be happy to send a ship to 2 or more US ports to spread out their deliveries and pickups. Except the US Jones Act specifically forbids this. So Container ships can only call at a single port, which naturally means the biggest one.

mojomark 4y ago
To split hairs, your comment is not true for all containerships, just for ships that are not U.S.-owned. I don't think it is a bogus argument, but am happy to be proven wrong. If other ports were able to accomodate the ships you're referring to, why wouldn't they simply make those other ports their single U.S. port of call and avoid the ship traffic delays?
- duskwuff 4y ago
  > To split hairs, your comment is not true for all containerships, just for ships that are not U.S.-owned. The Jones Act requires ships transporting goods between two US ports to be US-owned, and US-built, and US-crewed -- which, I'm pretty certain, excludes all container ships. Certainly all of the big ones.
  - mojomark 4y ago
    Well, there are a handful (1), but I do agree it's not enough to move the needle much. The point of this particular Jones Act comment is that if you had distributed/scalable transport vessels (like trains), vice monolithic transport vessels, then you open the container vessel construction market to say U.S. tier 3 shipyards (these yards build smaller vessels compared to a tier 1 yard that could build a containership - maybe not a megacontainership, I'm not sure). You could readily supply container vessels, just as a smaller manufacturer can build train cars. 1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/646259/us-flag-oceangoing-privately-owned-jones-act-fleet-by-type/#:~:text=As%20of%20December%2015%2C%202019,%2Downed%2C%20and%20%2Dregistered https://www.statista.com/statistics/646259/us-flag-oceangoin....
em-bee 4y ago
what does "only call at a single port" mean? could they not call at a another port instead of LA? why is that not happening? and do you mean to spread out load by dropping half the load in one port, and another half in another port? other than not overloading the port with containers, that doesn't really reduce congestion with number of ships trying to get into the port. so it doesn't seem like much of a benefit. but i also don't see how the jones act would prevent that, they would not be picking up cargo from one US port to deliver to another US port. or is the act written so badly that you can't even touch two ports even if you are only picking up or only delivering? (i suspect that is the case, but the first question remains. why not use another port instead of LA?)

by slyall 4y ago

mojomark 4y ago

To split hairs, your comment is not true for all containerships, just for ships that are not U.S.-owned. I don't think it is a bogus argument, but am happy to be proven wrong. If other ports were able to accomodate the ships you're referring to, why wouldn't they simply make those other ports their single U.S. port of call and avoid the ship traffic delays?

duskwuff 4y ago
> To split hairs, your comment is not true for all containerships, just for ships that are not U.S.-owned. The Jones Act requires ships transporting goods between two US ports to be US-owned, and US-built, and US-crewed -- which, I'm pretty certain, excludes all container ships. Certainly all of the big ones.
- mojomark 4y ago
  Well, there are a handful (1), but I do agree it's not enough to move the needle much. The point of this particular Jones Act comment is that if you had distributed/scalable transport vessels (like trains), vice monolithic transport vessels, then you open the container vessel construction market to say U.S. tier 3 shipyards (these yards build smaller vessels compared to a tier 1 yard that could build a containership - maybe not a megacontainership, I'm not sure). You could readily supply container vessels, just as a smaller manufacturer can build train cars. 1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/646259/us-flag-oceangoing-privately-owned-jones-act-fleet-by-type/#:~:text=As%20of%20December%2015%2C%202019,%2Downed%2C%20and%20%2Dregistered https://www.statista.com/statistics/646259/us-flag-oceangoin....

em-bee 4y ago

what does "only call at a single port" mean? could they not call at a another port instead of LA? why is that not happening? and do you mean to spread out load by dropping half the load in one port, and another half in another port? other than not overloading the port with containers, that doesn't really reduce congestion with number of ships trying to get into the port. so it doesn't seem like much of a benefit. but i also don't see how the jones act would prevent that, they would not be picking up cargo from one US port to deliver to another US port. or is the act written so badly that you can't even touch two ports even if you are only picking up or only delivering? (i suspect that is the case, but the first question remains. why not use another port instead of LA?)