A look at what we know about this year’s Rose Festival Fleet, and also, a big cruise ship in Portland

A look at what we know about this year’s Rose Festival Fleet, and also, a big cruise ship in Portland

Two things today: first, a look at preliminary info about this year’s Rose Festival Fleet of visiting military ships due here in June on the river. And, why was there a big ocean-going cruise ship heading upriver recently?

We’ll talk about all of that, and a look at marine weather and ship traffic for today.

Self loading ships, a special breed

Self loading ships, a special breed

Today we have an unusual cargo ship on the river: a self loader called the CSL Tecumseh. She’s bringing Gypsum to Rainier. What makes her unusual is she has all the gear she needs to load and unload her own cargo at the dock. We’ll talk about why that’s important.

Image courtesy Canadian Steamship Lines.

A closer look at the Columbia’s new ship anchorage, and a bit about anchoring on the river

A closer look at the Columbia’s new ship anchorage, and a bit about anchoring on the river

Earlier this month, I made a passing reference to there being a new ship anchorage on the Columbia River near Skamakowa.

Today we’ll look at that in more depth, and talk about the complicated affair of anchoring a gigantic ship on a swift, powerful and capricious river.