How big retailers like Amazon try to get around the cargo mess

Money talks in the business world, and in the recent global cargo snarl, some businesses are more equal than others. Take Amazon, whose massive resources make it possible for the company to hire its own container ships to bring just its cargo to market. Good news for Amazon customers, but small businesses must fend for themselves in a backed up shipping scenario that is affecting the globe.

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Thanksgiving at sea

A look at how the Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated (if indeed it is) on board ships at sea.

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A look at the USCGC Healy, one of two U.S. icebreakers

We’ve talked on the Ship Report about the Polar Star, a heavy US icebreaker that each year charts a path through the ice to Antarctica so ships can get through with supplies to McMurdo Station at the South Pole. But there’s another US icebreaker, the Healy, who tends to roam Arctic waters. Today, a look at the Healy and what’s she’s up to.

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Dungeness crab season opens on time for the first time in years

Thanks to robust crab meat in sampled crabs, the 2021-2022 Dungeness crab season will start on time this year on Dec. 1, something that hasn’t happened in about six years.

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A sweet story for hard times: the story of how sailors saved Beluga whales

We’ve all had just about enough bad news for a lifetime since the pandemic started. So here’s a story to warm your soul: the true story about how some sailors in the Artic saved the lives of beluga whales trapped in the ice. Slight spoiler: it involves music and lots of icebreaking.

Photo credit: Creative Commons, photograher Patrick Kelley.

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Containers get a makeover that could help unsnarl cargo issues

The humble shipping container has remained relatively unchanged in basic design since it was first invented in the 1950s. Now a relatively new take on containers could become more popular. The collapsible container – a more flexible version of the original could take up less space on board and help unsnarl the world’s cargo issues in the pandemic.

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Wind power equipment a big economic driver for Port of Vancouver, USA

The Port of Vancouver, Wash., has been doing steady business during the pandemic, even though it’s not a container port. Part of the reason is the importing of wind energy equipment for wind farms inland. The port is uniquely equipped to import the huge components, and that’s made it a prime destination for such equipment on the West Coast.

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BC endures catastrophic flooding as big storm just misses OR and WA

Locals here in Northwest Oregon and Southwest Washington held their collective breath as a huge atmospheric river weather event slid by our area and barreled into British Columbia to the north. Even we got lots of rain here. But the storm left B.C. communities swamped and residents stranded.

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A personal look at the Edmund Fitzgerald tragegy

Even though it happened more than 40 years ago, the tragedy of the Edmund Fitzgeral ore carrier still hits home, especially people who were living in the area and working in the maritime industry at the time the wreck happened in 1975.

Reid Johnson was in the USCG stationed on a cutter in Lake Huron when the Mighty Fitz sank. He still remembers how the wreck haunted all of them on board, because the ship was so familiar to everyone in the region.

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