ExiledInIllinois Posted June 30, 2013 Author Posted June 30, 2013 And the cool thing is I have a great view of the San Francisco Bay from my house and I'm above the port of Oakland. I can use that site to figure out which ships I can see from my house. It's neat watching the cargo ships go under the Bay Bridge from my place. From the angle it looks as if they'll never make it. Unfortunately I can't see the America's Cup boats from my place. The race is around the corner off North Beach. And holy **** dude, China is a !@#$ing zoo. Looks like the 405 at 5:00pm on a Friday. Exactly! Way freaking cool... It never gets old exploring the globe's oceans/rivers/what not, whoever is online! Sounds like you have an awesome view... Register, build a fleet of your favorite vessels and they will email you (you always just delete the many emails on the fly) when they are close to you! By registering, you can take pictures and upload the picture to the vessel (or land site)... Google Earth Pro is awesome for landmark sites. @ MarineTraffic AiS, click on the vessel to see its information... Way cool... Looks like there is a whole boat spotting industry out there... I am gonna do some ice pics on the river if I ever get my lazy ass to do it during the winter! ;-)
ExiledInIllinois Posted June 30, 2013 Author Posted June 30, 2013 I actually sat on a jury for a civil trial with a shipping company. I don't remember the details but they were just getting into shipping in Eastern Europe. The Black Sea I think. It was a very cool trial seeing there was a lot of "you want to explore shipping there? Are you nucking futz??" And a lot of ancient shipping terms and rules that are still used/followed today. Unfortunately they settled before it went to us. LoL! Kinda like my Plimsoll line I use for my avatar... Started by the British insurance companies because they were losing (accident and on purpose) too many ships. Shippers would overload (for obvious reasons and not so obvious reasons) under varying sea conditions (fresh/salt/winter/tropical salt/tropical fresh/North Atlantic)... Insurance companies were losing their shirts! Check out the Gulf of Mexico... No walk in the park either... Then check out BFLO, eastern basin of Lake Erie... It is like the repelling poles on a magnet! LoL... Boats get close... Then bam go right away! LoL... Like I said, Radiator Springs, shipping just bypasses BFLO... :-(
drinkTHEkoolaid Posted June 30, 2013 Posted June 30, 2013 One of the ports I am keeping an eye on are the LNG port terminals in Louisiana and Texas. The cheneire energy sabine pass is interesting to me. I'm curious to see what type of LNG expot volumes they get in the next few years. I think in the next decade the intermodal ports will continue to see increased growth and volumes as well and the intermodal container ships especially from china which link up on the west coast to the UP and BNSF railroads will see more volume. Buffalos days of being a major port are over. About the only thing I see is the American mariner dropping off grain to make cheerios and an occasional bulk shipment of some sand
ExiledInIllinois Posted June 30, 2013 Author Posted June 30, 2013 (edited) One of the ports I am keeping an eye on are the LNG port terminals in Louisiana and Texas. The cheneire energy sabine pass is interesting to me. I'm curious to see what type of LNG expot volumes they get in the next few years. I think in the next decade the intermodal ports will continue to see increased growth and volumes as well and the intermodal container ships especially from china which link up on the west coast to the UP and BNSF railroads will see more volume. Buffalos days of being a major port are over. About the only thing I see is the American mariner dropping off grain to make cheerios and an occasional bulk shipment of some sand Port Arthur, TX is #24 in the country. We are already seeing more and more containers on the inland waterways... Being floated... Probably a reason states like Michigan are crapping their pants... And want to use invasive species as a smokescreen. We stay open year round. Intermodal facilities are springing up... One barge can hold about 30 containers. Figure, average tow on the main line will float 15 barges... Others, like here average 6-8... But we can fit more! Logistics are still a problem between empty and loaded... The empty containers tend to be just as high as loads... Problems w/low bridges and what not. Tow boats in these areas have retractable pilot houses. Normal situations they can load down, slide under the bridge while dropping their pilot house to duck. If the mt containers are still there... The will have to carry less or figure a way to ballast the barges down. Just a matter of time before they figure out a new barge design... BUT, it saves money if they can utilize a standard open hopper barge. Edited June 30, 2013 by ExiledInIllinois
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