The Most Recent Ship Report Podcast:

More weather on the way

Another storm is heading out way, with the potential to disrupt the flow of ship traffic on the river. This is pretty normal and happens in the winter time. Safety is essential for ships and the people on them.

Archive Podcasts:

More about general average liability for cargo owners – potentially daunting…

Apr 19, 2024

Today I’ll revisit a concept I talked about on Monday’s show.. General Average – an ancient maritime principle that governs how losses in a ship disaster are shared between stakeholders. I was talking about the containership Dali and what sort of liability cargo owners on that ship could face. Turns out quite a bit. Disasters are a reason why most companies shipping cargo have insurance against this sort of event. If they don’t, it could be devastating.

Port of Woodland to add marine terminal on the Columbia River

Apr 18, 2024

Continuing our discussion about changes in ports and cargo service on the Columbia, today we’ll talk about the decision by the Port of Woodland to buiild a marine terminal and being serving cargo ships for the first time. The port has a partnership with a cement company that will help make it happen.

We’ll talk about what an official port district is, compared to a private port, and also about the ebb and flow of cargo services on the river.

Could Astoria take over container service here on the Columbia? Unlikely.

Apr 17, 2024

Today we’ll talk about a listener comment regarding the Port of Portland’s decision to suspend container service this fall out of its Terminal 6 facilities. A person suggested that containers be shipped out of Astoria instead. We’ll talk about why that is highly unlikely. Mostly, it’s a matter of highly expensive infrastructure. Equipment costs are huge, and such a change would profoundly alter the character of Astoria.

Port of Portland announces end of containership service to Terminal 6

Apr 16, 2024

The big maritime news locally this week is the announcement by the Port of Portland that they will end container ship service to the Port’s Terminal 6 as of October 1. The decision will mean the Columbia River will no longer have container service, since Portland is the only port with the infrastructure and equipment to handle containers. Carships and bulk carriers will continue to call on the Port.

Portland has gained and lost container service over the past two decades. The most recent round of container service began during the pandemic, when the Port of Portland served as a overflow port for overcrowded ports on the West Coast. The service has continued with several container ships per week transiting the river.

According to this week’s news reports, that service will cease at the end of September. The hope is that this will only be temporary.

Photo: Port of Portland’s Terminal 6 container cranes. Credit: M.O. Stevens, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The expensive law of “general average” and how it applies to cargo ship disasters

Apr 15, 2024

There’s an ancient tenet of maritime law that is cropping up in reports about the catastrophe in Baltimore harbor with the containership Dali. It’s called “general average,” and it has to do with who pays when a ship runs into expensive trouble during a voyage.

This law can force those customers whose cargo is on the ship to help pay for the cost of the disaster. Mostly it ends up being a complex negotiation between many insurance companies, but it could be an expensive caveat for small businesses who may not have insured their cargo sufficiently.

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