Jul 21, 2026 | Home Slider, Ship Report Podcasts
This week I’m taking a little much needed time off, so we’ll be hearing a bit from the Ship Report archives, a really interesting interview i did with Columbia River Bar Pilot Captain Robert Johnson, sometime in the early 2000s, all about the often-seen bulk carrier, the most common type of ship we see on the Columbia. There’s a great deal to know, and we talk about a lot of it. Enjoy! Today is Part 2.
The Ship Report will return with new content, ship schedules and marine weather, on Monday, July 27.
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Jul 20, 2026 | Home Slider, Ship Report Podcasts
This week I’m taking a little much needed time off, so we’ll be hearing a bit from the Ship Report archives, a really interesting interview i did with Columbia River Bar Pilot Captain Robert Johnson, sometime in the early 2000s, all about the often-seen bulk carrier, the most common type of ship we see on the Columbia. There’s a great deal to know, and we talk about a lot of it. Enjoy! Today is Part 1.
The Ship Report will return with new content on Monday, July 27.
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Jul 16, 2026 | Home Slider, Ship Report Podcasts
In our region’s maritime history, the Columbia River Bar has long been known as the Graveyard of the Pacific, because of all the vessels lost there, at the mouth of the river. Nowadays, even with all our high tech modern gear and resources, it’s still considered one of the most dangerous river entrances in the world. Today we’ll talk about some of the reasons why.
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Jul 15, 2026 | Home Slider, Ship Report Podcasts
The historic fireboat David Campbell found a permanent place in history yesterday, after being placed on land at Astoria’s Columbia River Maritime Museum. A big crowd turned out to watch the proceedings, which involved lifting the 244,00 lb. boat off a barge and carefully placing her on land as an outdoor exhibit, soon to be open to the public. The boat has a long. honored history of service in the Portland area.
Today we’ll talk about her new role educating the public, and about fireboats and what they do.
Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons. The David Campbell in past years welcoming the Rose Festival Fleet to Portland, Oregon.
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Jul 14, 2026 | Home Slider, Ship Report Podcasts
Today we’ll talk about economies of scale in the maritime industry, which means that the more you can ship at once in a single vessel, the more money you save in transportation costs. Sounds pretty dull, right?
Well, when you start looking at the numbers, it’s really kind of mind boggling. The amount of cargo a single barge can carry compared to say, a train of freight cars, or a fleet of semis, is pretty incredible. We’ll learn why they say barges are the cheapest mode of transport in the US. And when it comes to ships, the numbers go even higher.
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Jul 13, 2026 | Home Slider, Ship Report Podcasts
Today we’ll look at some of the ordinary things that add up to an interesting day in the region, in terms of maritime things.
Winds should die down later this week, and a look at some details about ships on today’s schedule.
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