May 2022 – Page 2 – Pacific Maritime Magazine

USDA, Seaport Alliance Partnering on Agricultural Exports

In an effort to help agricultural and refrigerated exports flow through the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Northwest Seaport Alliance are teaming up to expand access to a 49-acre “pop up” yard in Seattle that could temporarily store dry agricultural or refrigerated containers, the USDA announced in mid-March. The partnership calls for the Farm Service Agency to pay agricultural companies and cooperatives $200 per dry container and $400 per refrigerated to use the pop-up site to pre-position containers with American-grown agricultural goods, according to the Seaport Alliance, which is a port authority comprising the…

Everett Ship Repair Operations Grow

Washington-based Everett Ship Repair has expanded its operations with the addition of a new dry dock, the Emerald Lifter. The dry dock, which has a lifting capacity of 2,000 tons and working deck area of 220 feet by 62 feet, has been positioned at Everett Ship Repair’s Port of Everett facility. The repair facility is also adding a 150-ton capacity floating crane to service both of the yard’s dry docks. Currently, ESR operates the Faithful Servant, a 430-foot by-110-foot dry dock with 8,000-ton capacity; with the new acquisition, the company said, it will be able to offer services to a…

Shaver Transportation Joins Green Marine Program

Portland, Oregon-based inland water freight company Shaver Transportation has become the first tug and barge operator on the U.S. West Coast to participate in Green Marine, the leading voluntary environmental certification program for North America’s maritime industry. Shaver announced the news in late March. “We want to be proactive and believe that Green Marine will be able to guide us toward continual improvement in the environmental performance of each of our vessels through the program’s detailed framework,” Shaver Transportation President Steve Shaver said. “It is important to us that our fleet operates in the most safe and sustainable manner possible.”…

Singapore-based Keppel O&M Completes Autonomous Vessel Development

Singapore-based Keppel Offshore & Marine announced in April that it has achieved several industry ‘firsts’ with the successful completion of its maiden autonomous vessel project. Capable of autonomous vessel navigation as well as collision detection and avoidance, the Maju 510 tug, owned and operated by Keppel Smit Towage, is the first vessel in the world to receive the Autonomous Notation from ABS classification society, according to Keppel O&M. “The tug is the first in South Asia that can be remotely operated by joystick control,” Keppel said in a statement. “It can be controlled from the shore command center with a…

Captain’s Corner: Off to Sea

Off to Sea Considering the limited pool of qualified and experienced U.S. mariners to fill job vacancies as of late, I felt there would be no better time than the present to write this piece. The result of this shortage has given way to some incredible employment opportunities for brand new, entry-level sailors. With that being noted, recently I have encountered some very basic, yet valid questions by these “greenhorns,” and it made me think back to my very first trip to sea. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or what to expect, what to do once…

West Coast Labor Talks: An Update

In an era marked by tariffs, a pandemic and a war in Ukraine, those in the maritime industry are bracing for a new disruption to an already strained supply chain: upcoming contract negotiations between West Coast longshore workers and their employers. During a March 1 session at the TPM22 Conference, GSC Logistics Inc. President David Arsenault and Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy for the National Retail Federation, pondered what hot-button topics could be discussed at the upcoming talks between the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) and the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), and how shippers…

Cargo Handling Equipment

Cargo handling bridges the divide between tradition and technological innovation as aging equipment is updated and new options are being added. Much of the time, the focus of maritime industry headlines is ships, which can leave equipment and logistics as an afterthought. Yet these machines and the technology used within them make up a vital part of the maritime shipping process—container-handling equipment or cargo-handling equipment (CHE). CHE generally consists of the equipment used to move, load, and unload cargo and containers between ships and the dock. As described in the reference Ship Construction (7th Edition), this equipment went largely unchanged…

Bay Area Report 2022: Pandemic Rebound

Two years after COVID-19 swept the world, the Bay Area, like many maritime regions, continues to feel the effects of the pandemic. During this time, the Bay Area’s maritime industry has been working to rebound from the impacts while investing in its future, whether it is seaports finding ways to ease the bottlenecks stemming from pandemic-driven cargo records or a transportation agency working to maintain services as ferry riders slowly return. Here’s a look at what’s happening in the region: PORT OF OAKLAND For the past several months, the Port of Oakland has been working to solve a major shipping…

Hockema Group: 25 Years and Going Strong

In 1997, after 18 years working as a naval architect and planner at shipyards and for a naval architecture firm, Hal Hockema founded his own naval architecture firm, Seattle-based Hal Hockema & Associates. And over the past 25 years, Hockema Group as the company is now known, has become a full service independent naval architecture firm primarily involved in commercial and government projects in various sectors of the marine industry. It provides naval architecture and marine engineering services for tugs, barges, commercial fishing vessels, dredgers, cargo vessels, workboats and passenger vessels, as well as government/military service vessels. The company’s work…

Hydrogen One: A Maritime Milestone?

Hydrogen One is on track to be the world’s first methanol-run hydrogen fuel cell working towboat. The world’s first methanol-fueled hydrogen towboat M/V Hydrogen One is on schedule for its 2023 splash. A non-disclosed builder has been chosen and initial steel cutting was on schedule for summer 2022. The prototype vessel features a shallow draft design suited for extended trips along its planned base of operations—the ditch between Houston and New Orleans with inland water capabilities. “The idea is to build it (Hydrogen One), get it fully operational, and put it through its paces before it goes to a customer…