Free Republic

A record 62 cargo ships are waiting to dock at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. California’s traffic jams are legendary, but this is one for the books. A record 62 cargo ships are waiting to dock at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and are stuck floating off the coast amid a serious supply chain crunch that could mean fewer toys under the Christmas tree this year. The problem reflects a combination of growing cargo volumes, a labor shortage and COVID-related safety measures that slow the handling of each ship. About one-third of all...

Record charter rate highlights extreme vessel shortage — a major negative for cargo shippersIn a sign of just how frenzied the container market has become, a freight forwarder is reportedly paying $135,000 per day for a short-term charter of the S Santiago, a 15-year-old container ship with a capacity of 5,060 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). “Charter rates for short employment … have gone out of control,” said Alphaliner in its new weekly report. “Depending on the sources, the ship would have obtained anything between $100,000 and $145,000 per day, an absolute historic high. The name of the charterer has not...

LOS ANGELES (NewsNation Now) - COVID-19 infections among dockworkers at ports in Southern California have lead to a massive slow down. It is another ripple effect of the pandemic and you can imagine the ripple effect on the retail economy, and the traffic jam is not expected to ease up anytime soon. But port officials say the situation is in check. Dozens of cargo ships are linked up, anchored and waiting to be offloaded outside the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The backup Thursday morning was at 50. “It’s not random, it’s not chaos, it’s not out of...

Zeppelins, the rigid airships most famously epitomized by the Hindenburg, now seem kind of retro, rather than the image of futurity they represented in the 1930s. But they could be about to make a comeback in a big way — courtesy of a new aluminum-shelled, solar-powered airship that’s being built by the U.K.-based company Varialift Airships. According to the company’s CEO Alan Handley, the airship will be capable of making a transatlantic flight from the United Kingdom to the United States, consuming just 8% of the fuel of a regular airplane. It will be powered by a pair of solar-powered...

The Toledo Lucas County Port Authority has confirmed that two people were killed when a cargo plane crashed just outside of the Toledo Express Airport early Wednesday morning. The Ohio State Highway Patrol identified the victims as Douglas R. Taylor, 72, and Donald C. Peterson Sr., 69, both of Laredo, Texas. According to crews on the scene, that plane was a Convair cargo plane flying from Millington, Tennessee which crashed on top of at least two semis at Bubba's Auto and Deisel near the airport just after 2:30 AM Wednesday morning. According to a release from the Ohio State Highway...

A cargo plane carrying at least three people crashed into a bay in the southeastern part of Texas on Saturday, officials said. The Federal Aviation Administration released a statement confirming that a twin-engine Boeing 767 cargo jetliner crashed into Trinity Bay near Anahuac, Texas about 12:45 p.m.

"A fire has been reported in a below-deck container on board the U.S.-flag containership Maersk Kensington in the eastern Gulf of Aden, the second such incident to hit a Maersk Line vessel in recent weeks. "

Boeing today unveiled a giant drone that’s capable of lifting a 500 pound payload. Calling it an “unmanned electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) cargo air vehicle (CAV) prototype,” the aerospace giant said it could serve as a precursor for future autonomous flying aircraft. The heavy-duty drone took Boeing’s engineers only three months to design and build, the company says. It successfully completed initial flight tests at Boeing’s research lab in Missouri. “This flying cargo air vehicle represents another major step in our Boeing eVTOL strategy,” said Boeing chief technology officer Greg Hyslop in a statement. “We have an opportunity to really change...

Full title: Mississippi River cargo shipping costs SOAR - Prices of goods go HIGH as mighty river goes LOW! Video at link. Vlogger documents unusually dry conditions in Mississippi and resulting increases in shipping costs, and resultant anticipated cost increases passed on to consumers. Expected to impact exports.

Thoughts?   Here is the video with an explanationhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_uAffr7I-c and the actual video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcdMej_agiA&t=0s

UAE Embassy: Gulftainer signs $100 million agreement with Port Canaveral UAE-based cargo company Gulftainer signed a 35-year, $100 million agreement to support a new container and cargo terminal at Florida’s Port Canaveral.

Russia's Roscosmos space corporation reported earlier on Thursday it had lost telemetry exchange with the Progress MS-04 space freighter some six minutes after the launch on board a Soyuz carrier rocket. The Roscosmos press service stressed that the loss of the cargo ship will not affect the routine operations of the ISS and the crew. A state commission currently analyzes the incident.

Today a big Korean shipping company called Hanjin declared bankruptcy. It may be far away, but that move is a testament to an industry in trouble. Volume is way down all over the world as trade remains sluggish. Add to that the fact that just as demand wanes, a whole load of new vessels come online, and there’s a problem. Shipping hit a crisis in 2008 as demand for goods plunged. It’s never fully returned. John Butler is CEO of the World Shipping Council. He said after the financial crisis, when oil prices were spiking, “There was an expectation that...

)—Five Iranian boats fired shots across the bow of a Singapore flagged cargo vessel in the Persian Gulf on Thursday in an attempt to potentially stop the ship, a U.S. official told CNN. For the first time, the incident brought another Persian Gulf nation into the recent rising maritime tensions in the region. It is not yet clear if any of the rounds hit the Alpine Eternity. There were no U.S. citizens or cargo on board. The Pentagon is still gathering information about the incident.

LOS ANGELES — Employers could lock out West Coast dockworkers in as few as five days if the two sides do not reach a new contract. That warning came Wednesday from the head of a maritime association who is negotiating a new deal with a union representing longshoremen at 29 ports that handle about $1 trillion in trade annually. Pacific Maritime Association CEO James McKenna said he wanted to avoid a coast-wide port shutdown, but employers wouldn't keep paying workers who aren't moving cargo at their normal rate if the ports become much more gridlocked. He said that could come...

Called the "Vindskip," the Norwegian design uses the high sides of its container ships as sails, turning the whole vessel into a wind-assisted airfoil. Designed by Lade AS, the Oslo-based company says the hybrid merchant ship -- which would still have a liquefied natural gas-powered engine -- could achieve fuel savings of 60% and reduce emissions by 80%. It's the brainchild of Terje Lade, who used his skills as a speed sailor to develop his aerodynamic design. He says the futuristic container ship works more like an airplane than a conventional sailing ship. .... The ship would be able to...

A Russian container ship carrying hundreds of tons of fuel was drifting without power in rough seas off British Columbia's northern coast Friday, a scenario a nearby First Nation community described as its "worst fear." The Canadian Forces' joint rescue coordination center in Victoria said the Russian carrier Simushir lost power late Thursday night off Haida Gwaii, also known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, as it was making its way from Washington state to Russia. Canadian Navy Lt. Paul Penderghast said the ship was drifting nine nautical miles from shore, though he said it was largely maintaining that position. "It...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - An Israeli-owned container ship that was blocked from unloading its cargo at the Port of Oakland by pro-Palestinian protesters over the weekend was headed to Los Angeles on Monday, according to a ship-tracking website. The Zim Shanghai left Oakland with its cargo still onboard on Sunday evening, according to the website marinetraffic.com. It was expected to arrive in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Some 200 people angry over Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas rocket salvoes staged a protest of the Zim Shanghai at the Port of Oakland on Saturday morning and again...

A pro-Russian separatist fighting in eastern Ukraine has admitted rebel forces shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, it has been claimed. The militant, who has not been identified, reportedly said fighters blasted the Boeing 777 out of the sky - killing all 298 people on board - after mistaking it for a Ukrainian government cargo plane. He said the rebels only realised their mistake when they began searching the crash site for the parachutes of military crew who may have bailed out the aircraft, only to find the bodies of children. The rebel - who worked locally as a miner...