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North America - no go for ro-ro?
Despite the growing interest in
short sea shipping in North
America as a means of relieving
highway congestion, in practice
the concept is making little headway.
Ro-ro loading and discharge,
the simplest way to make short sea
shipping work, is finding only limited
appeal in the region, outside
established ferry operations.
Matson Navigation is planning
to convert one of its diesel-powered
C-9 container ships, probably
the MOKIHANA, into a combination
container/ro-ro vessel but the
US$45M project is aimed at providing
more car-carrying space on
the Hawaiian run rather than any
short sea employment.
Matson gave the short sea concept
its biggest test in North
America several years back when
it operated a West Coast feeder run
between Vancouver, BC and Los
Angeles that refused to make
money. No one else has stepped
forward to try that type of operation.
Instead, the focus is on highly
congested regional areas, such as
San Francisco Bay and Puget
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BRIDGING
Sound, where an efficient water
service might provide a short cut
around restricted freeways.
New Bay ferries?
The San Francisco Bay Area Water
Transit Authority has its sights
set on opening eight new ferry
routes and adding 44 ferries to
various San Francisco Bay runs by
2015, but progress has been slow
to date.
Most of those ferries - if they
are built - will be for commuters
and tourists rather than trucks.
Nevertheless, a potential service
for heavy cargo on the Bay is being
studied by the ports of
Oakland and Sacramento.
The Port of Oakland has taken
over operations at the Port of
Sacramento and formed a new
company, Maritime Management
Services, in an effort to keep the
smaller, river port financially solvent
while gaining additional
cargo-handling and storage space
for the larger port.Although both
ports are linked by road and rail
the idea of a regularly scheduled
barge service, for containers as well
as breakbulk, is under study.
Ro-ro or lo-lo cargo handling
has yet to be decided upon but
barge capacity would be about
150 FEU, with two round trips
made daily. Funding will be a
problem but state and federal
“clean air” money could be
brought into play if supporters can
show the barge operation will remove
trucks from the freeways.
Puget Sound, where there are
a large number of vehicle carrying
ferries courtesy of the Washington
state ferry system, has yet
to see a boat placed in competition
with the I-5 freeway corridor
that runs north-south between
Canada and Mexico.
Sound idea?
Environmentalists have suggested
a dedicated freight ferry service
between the northern Puget
Sound community of Everett and
the southern Puget Sound city of
Olympia be started to help remove
heavy trucks from the congested
Seattle-Tacoma stretch but it is not
Lots of Ro-Ro transport and no jetty available?
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known whether truck drivers
would take advantage of it.
This question is paramount to
the establishment of any successful
short sea shipping service along
the North American seaboards.To
date, truckers, many of whom are
independent owner-operators,
have shown little interest in leaving
land. One major exception is
the long haul to Alaska from the
lower 48, where the truck drive
amounts to days rather than hours,
and customs must be passed
through twice - entering Canada
and re-entering the US.
Totem Ocean Trailer Express’
investment in two new Americanbuilt
ro-ro ships for this trade several
years ago underlines the sea
route’s strength.Although the warbuilt
Alcan Highway is mostly
paved, the 2313-mile drive between
Seattle and Fairbanks is one
most commercial drivers try to
avoid, either by using the TOTE
ships or, for getting to Alaska Panhandle
communities, the Alaska
Marine Highway System.
If a short sea ro-ro service
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along the US West Coast were
considered financially viable it
would probably be TOTE that
would try it - and they haven’t.
Timber!
However,Westwood Shipping, the
maritime division of lumber giant
Weyerhauser, expects to launch
a new coastal service between
British Columbia and Long Beach
in May using the 10,200 gt sto-ro
vessel WESTWOOD POMONA.
The ship, built in 1985 as the
KENT LOYALIST, was acquired from
Finland’s Birka Group and will
be used mainly for Weyerhauser’s
own forest products, giving it a
strong base cargo, but will also be
available for third-party freight
when space allows, including
breakbulk and containers.
Although fitted with a stern
ramp WESTWOOD POMONa is not
expected to handle third party
truck trailers in the manner of the
TOTE ships, but will make use of
side ports to allow faster discharge
of unitised lumber shipments.
ROLL-ON/ROLL-OFF
The City of Rochester, NY has pulled the plug on its fast but costly high-speed
ro-ro service across Lake Ontario using the Australian-built SPIRIT OF ONTARIO
Not a success
Although ro-ro services are progressing
between Mexico’s Baja
California peninsula and the
mainland (last month’s WorldCargo
News, pXX), Mexico’s Gulf coast
ro-ro operations have not fared as
well. Just over a year ago the Texas
port of Corpus Christi signed a
letter of intent with Sophlex Ship
Management to offer a ro-ro ferry
service to Veracruz, Mexico.
Little became of the venture,
spearheaded by US-based Marine
Growth Ventures. It centered on
the acquisition of a 12,000 gt
cruise ferry capable of handling
autos and commercial traffic as
well as 1000 passengers.
Prior to the Sophlex venture,
ro-ro ferry operations had been
tried between Veracruz and
Brownsville and between Progreso
and Tampa, but the traffic was not
available to sustain either operation
and both folded.
Similar ventures involving roro
railcar movements between the
US and Mexico have come and
gone although one, CG Railway,
a subsidiary of International
Shipholding Corporation, has
managed to hang on for six years.
Ironically, the line decided to
shift its US base of operations from
Mobile, Alabama to New Orleans,
Louisiana just before hurricane
Katrina struck. Severe flooding
of its rail yard south of New
Orleans closed down service for
several months but the line was
up and running by November
using its two 20-year-old ro-ro
ships BALI SEA and BANDA SEA.
These 14-knot Singapore-registered
vessels, each recently given
second decks to expand their rail
car capacity from 56 to 124 units,
have proven adequate for the limited
rail traffic moving between
southern Mexico and the US/
Canadian mainline system.
Short sea services for containers
and breakbulk along the US
Gulf coast have also not materialised
to any great extent, despite
the tremendous amount of dry
and liquid bulks being moved by
barge along the sheltered
Intercoastal Waterway daily.
Houston-based Osprey Line
has successfully introduced a regularly
scheduled, lo-lo containeron-barge
service between Houston
and New Orleans, and up the
Mississippi River to Baton Rouge
and Memphis.
Osprey can handle ro-ro traffic
if demand arises. Once it
moved 850 military vehicles on 49
barges pushed by just one tug. For
the time being ro-ro cargo moving
on the Gulf Coast is limited
to international freight to Caribbean
and Central American destinations,
and the Puerto Rico
cabotage trade.
Quick comeback
Crowley Maritime has remained
the main US provider of ro-ro
tonnage on the Gulf, and was able
to place its devastated Gulfport roro
operation back in business
within weeks of Katrina.
Crowley has been using a single
ro-ro berth at the head of the
man-made harbour, and two roro
ships, the similar-sized GOTHICA
and SENATOR, to serve ports in
Guatemala and Honduras.
Crowley is also the main roro
operator to Puerto Rico, using
triple-deck barges, but this service,
like Matson’s Hawaii operation,
along with a similar Puerto
Rico service operated by Trailer
Bridge, is not competing with any
possible land link.
Along the East Coast, Columbia
Coastal Transport has been
operating a lo-lo container feeder
barge service similar, but on a
larger scale, to Osprey’s Gulf Coast
operation. Columbia Coastal has
also been operating a regular,
scheduled container-on-barge
service along the Hudson River,
between New York and Albany, as
part of the PortAuthority of New
York and New Jersey’s Port Inland
Distribution Network
launched in 2002.
Enter Bridgeport
Traffic on this latter route has been
less than anticipated. Without its
government and port subsidy it
would not be commercially viable.
A similar container-on-barge
feeder service is now being put
together from the Port of New
York to Rhode Island’s Port of
Bridgeport using a US$1.5M
State of Connecticut grant.
Bridgeport PortAuthority has
appointed Bridgeport Barge Service,
a joint venture of Pace Motor
Lines and David D’Addario & Associates,
to operate the barge terminal
although a barge operator
is still to be selected.
To be operated with a barge
fitted with ro-ro ramps, the operation
is expected to remove
more than 70,000 trucks from the
heavily congested I-95 corridor
each year.With this in mind, the
State of Connecticut has offered
to pay another US$5.5M for
dredging and bulkhead construction
and the port plans to add a
0.5M ft 2 storage facility.
Lakes’ services
The North American Great Lakes
have also been targeted for more
short sea shipping, with two fast
vehicle-carrying ro-ro ferries introduced
to the region over the
past few years. However, one of
these, operating across Lake Ontario
between Rochester, New
York and Toronto, Ontario, was
April 2006