Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Thoughts Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Allaway and I'm Joe. Joe. Do you remember
Speaker 1: that time I tried to ship a Teddy Bear in
Speaker 1: a single container from Hong Kong to New York or
Speaker 1: was it l a well to the US? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: it basically the story is like, it's just so operationally
Speaker 1: complex and paperwork and there was no space so much
Speaker 1: and it didn't make it in the end, right, No,
Speaker 1: I couldn't. Basically I couldn't get on a ship. I
Speaker 1: kept getting bumped um and bumped and bumped, and finally
Speaker 1: it seemed like it was going to be six months
Speaker 1: until I could even get space, and so it didn't
Speaker 1: seem morph it. And now now that I've moved to
Speaker 1: New York, I got to repeat this entire experiment, um,
Speaker 1: you know, in reality, and I got to put all
Speaker 1: my apartment belongings into a container, put them on a ship,
Speaker 1: and actually ship them from Hong Kong to New York.
Speaker 1: Except it turns out I still can't actually ship anything
Speaker 1: from Hong Kong to New York. I love how like
Speaker 1: no one has more experience with the physical realities of
Speaker 1: our commodity and infrastructure system than you between the teddy bear,
Speaker 1: between the barrel of oil that you bought and kept
Speaker 1: under your desk for a while, and now this. You
Speaker 1: seem to have a knack for experiencing firsthand what the
Speaker 1: rest of us just see is lines on the chart.
Speaker 1: I think I have a knack for failed logistics. But
Speaker 1: for our listeners, those who haven't been keeping abreast of
Speaker 1: all the shipping news, there is another ship that is stuck.
Speaker 1: This time it's stuck in the Chesapeake Bay, just outside
Speaker 1: the port of Baltimore, and um you know, ironically, I
Speaker 1: guess that irony isn't the right word here, but it
Speaker 1: happens to be owned by the same company that owned
Speaker 1: UM the Ever Given, the boat that got stuck in
Speaker 1: the Suez Canal. Uh. This time the container ship is
Speaker 1: called the ever Forward, only of course it's not going forward.
Speaker 1: It's stuck in the mud with all my belongings in it.
Speaker 1: So they Ever Given got a lot of attention, obviously
Speaker 1: in part because it blocked all the traffic of the
Speaker 1: Suis Canal, which everyone knows. I take it the ever Forward.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem to be blocking as much, I think,
Speaker 1: but it has all your stuff on it that is correct.
Speaker 1: So there were some some news reports around this, but
Speaker 1: definitely not as much attention as the Ever Given, given
Speaker 1: that that thing was blocking an actual percentage of global trade.
Speaker 1: Who can no longer go through the canal? Um the
Speaker 1: Chesapeake Bay remains open. But it's interesting to me personally
Speaker 1: for obvious reasons. But it also the fact that this
Speaker 1: has happened again feeds into a number of the themes
Speaker 1: that we were discussing all throughout last year. And I
Speaker 1: know we've been talking about a lot of other stuff recently,
Speaker 1: but I think we have to dive into this one.
Speaker 1: We owe it to odd lots listeners and ourselves. So
Speaker 1: we are going to be speaking with sal Mercogliano. He
Speaker 1: is a maritime historian and day history professor at Campbell University.
Speaker 1: He also runs an excellent YouTube channel which has been
Speaker 1: going in depth on what's actually happening with the ship
Speaker 1: The Ever Forward. Sal thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: on the show. Well, thank you for having me. Why
Speaker 1: don't we start with the basics, because you know, I
Speaker 1: read the news articles. This thing has been stuck for
Speaker 1: just over a week. Now, What exactly do we think
Speaker 1: happened here? How can a massive container ship have this
Speaker 1: kind of incident for a second time, sure, so Ever
Speaker 1: Forward was on a routine voyage. She had come through
Speaker 1: the Panama Canal and was stopping at four East Coast
Speaker 1: US ports, had stopped already at Savannah and offloaded. It
Speaker 1: had gone up to Baltimore and offloaded part of its cargo,
Speaker 1: and it departed on the evening of March thirteenth and
Speaker 1: was heading down to Norfolk and then eventually to New York.
Speaker 1: So the ship departed routinely, came off the birth late
Speaker 1: late in the evening early morning, and she seemed to
Speaker 1: be allowing all the rules. I mean, everything seemed to
Speaker 1: be fine. They were maneuvering. There seemed to be no
Speaker 1: incidents with her. And she's part of this new class
Speaker 1: of what's called the neo Panamax vessel. These are vessels
Speaker 1: that can use the new lane of the Panama Canal
Speaker 1: that was opened in so these East Coast ports have
Speaker 1: been dredging and building to accommodate vessels like this. And
Speaker 1: Ever Forward was heading southbound through the what's called the
Speaker 1: Craig Hill Channel. This is the channel out of Baltimore
Speaker 1: down to the Bay Bridge at Annapolis, and the ship
Speaker 1: was following the track that it normally does in the
Speaker 1: Dredge Channel, which is well lit, well charted. She had
Speaker 1: a chess Peak bay pilot on board in addition to
Speaker 1: her normal crew and master, and the vessel went through
Speaker 1: the buoy's at the top of the channel, but proceeded
Speaker 1: to keep going out of the channel. Didn't appear to
Speaker 1: make the change at all to the course to head southbound,
Speaker 1: and what she wound up doing was plowing into the
Speaker 1: mud on the east side of the channel. She draws
Speaker 1: about forty two ft of water in the condition she
Speaker 1: was when she left Baltimore. She is now sitting in
Speaker 1: anywhere between eighteen to twenty four ft of water about
Speaker 1: an entire ship lengths off the channel. She's over a
Speaker 1: thousand feet long. So what is what's being done right now?
Speaker 1: And you mentioned the ship has been stuck for a
Speaker 1: little over a week. What's been tried and what is
Speaker 1: this sort of basic idea of what people are trying
Speaker 1: to do to get the ship moving again. Sure, so
Speaker 1: again we're not exactly sure what causes incident. Let me
Speaker 1: go back that for a second. So you know there's
Speaker 1: either a mechanical issue which is you know, she couldn't steer,
Speaker 1: or it is a human error. Was there a miscommunication
Speaker 1: between the pilot and the crew. Was there an issue
Speaker 1: regarding uh the proper helm water? Did they lose their
Speaker 1: situational awareness? I find the ladder the least likely because
Speaker 1: this is a well lit channel. It's like a landing
Speaker 1: zone for an airplane, well lit with the Booey's heading
Speaker 1: to the bay bridge there. So we're probably looking at
Speaker 1: a mechanic goal or communications error in regards to the
Speaker 1: salvage of the vessel. So we're a week into this
Speaker 1: at this point, and again, ever given took just six
Speaker 1: days to get free, and now we're over a week
Speaker 1: into this, and what they've begun to do is start
Speaker 1: dredging in two areas, one off the stern of the
Speaker 1: vessel and one off the forward bow of the vessel,
Speaker 1: off the right side of the vessel. And what they're
Speaker 1: trying to do is remove the mud and spoil from
Speaker 1: around the propeller and runner of the vessel and also
Speaker 1: trying to clear the forward bow an attempt to pull
Speaker 1: the chan of the ship into the channel. The problem
Speaker 1: is the amount of spoil that is there. This is
Speaker 1: the material that had actually been removed from the channel,
Speaker 1: and the method they're doing with the dredges they have
Speaker 1: there are big for the United States, but they're not
Speaker 1: like the vacuum dredges you see in the Suez Canal.
Speaker 1: Give you an idea. The biggest dredge on seen here
Speaker 1: can move about sixty cubic yards of material in each
Speaker 1: of its moves with its big clams l The massuit,
Speaker 1: which was the dredge used in the Suez Canal, could
Speaker 1: move seventy thousand cubic yards of material in an hour
Speaker 1: with its vacuum suction. Wait was that the was that
Speaker 1: the little one that turned into a meme? Or was
Speaker 1: that something else that was the big dredge? So was bright?
Speaker 1: It wasn't the little digger, although I've seen a lot.
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of memes right now with a
Speaker 1: little with the little digger on the way to the
Speaker 1: United States. Can you just say those two numbers again,
Speaker 1: how much could the Suez dredger do verse the one
Speaker 1: that we have operating right now. Sure, so there's two
Speaker 1: dredges right now and operating. The one off the bow
Speaker 1: of the vessel can move about a fifteen cubic yards
Speaker 1: in each move. The one off the stern, the Dale
Speaker 1: Pilot Piet can move about sixty cubic yards. The Masure,
Speaker 1: which is the big dredge that was used on every
Speaker 1: given can move seventy thousand cubic yards an hour. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's my question, why don't we have a bigger drudger? Well,
Speaker 1: and that's a big issue, I would argue. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that we've been talking about with
Speaker 1: port infrastructure is the focus I mentioned the expand nine
Speaker 1: the Suez Canal. So we've been dredging channels, we've been
Speaker 1: bringing in these large ship to shore cranes. But one
Speaker 1: of the things that has really lagged is our dredging capacity.
Speaker 1: And we've seen recently through the Infrastructure Bill, money being
Speaker 1: contributed or being allocated to build new drudges, and we're
Speaker 1: seeing new dredges build. It is a priority that really
Speaker 1: needs to be done. We we do not have sufficient
Speaker 1: dredging capacity in the US, and there's a law that
Speaker 1: requires there's the Dredging Act of nineteen o six that
Speaker 1: requires dredges within the United States to be US owned,
Speaker 1: US built, US crewed, very similar to the Jones Act.
Speaker 1: Of and this is because we want dredges within the
Speaker 1: United States. The problem is we just haven't a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of money to it, and there really
Speaker 1: hasn't been the impetus to fund this, and I think
Speaker 1: this incident is really highlighting that danger. I can't believe, Tracy,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to now do an episode an hour
Speaker 1: just talking about America's systematic under estament in dredging capacity.
Speaker 1: But at some point we're gonna have to do this.
Speaker 1: But also why haven't we, I mean, why, like why
Speaker 1: has there been this sort of underappreciation. I mean, I understand,
Speaker 1: like dredging isn't just about getting ships unstuck, So why
Speaker 1: this sort of systemic under investment. Well, it has to
Speaker 1: do with the way we handle ports in the United States.
Speaker 1: So you've you had Jean Saroka on Jean, what is
Speaker 1: the CEO of the of the Port of Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Ports in the United States are owned by the states
Speaker 1: and municipalities, so they are a local entity. Yet the
Speaker 1: waters that connect those ports to the ocean are federal,
Speaker 1: and so they fall under the Army Corps of Engineers specifically,
Speaker 1: and so the Army Corps of Engineers has been tasked
Speaker 1: to basically maintain the dredging, and they do it either
Speaker 1: with their own fleet of dredgers or they contract out
Speaker 1: with that. And you know, this comes back to everything
Speaker 1: from Hurricane Katrina and and and the dikes and all
Speaker 1: the waterways maintenance, and we just have under invested in this.
Speaker 1: It's not a very sexy topic. No one likes to
Speaker 1: talk about it, No one likes to pay money for
Speaker 1: a dredge. It's you know, it's just not not not
Speaker 1: as sexy as an aircraft carrier or something, you know,
Speaker 1: more nautical. But it's absolutely essential. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that we've seen happen again over the past decade
Speaker 1: is these East Coast and Gulf Coast ports have been
Speaker 1: using what dredges are available to get those channels down
Speaker 1: to accommodate these larger vessels, these ultra large container vessels.
Speaker 1: And while ever Forward is not an ultra large container vessels,
Speaker 1: she's actually substantially smaller than ever given by about four
Speaker 1: hundred feet and eight thousand boxes. She is still a
Speaker 1: mammoth vessel when you look at her compared to the
Speaker 1: vessels that have previously come into US ports. So we
Speaker 1: build these massive container ships. And you know, Joe and
Speaker 1: I have had a number of guests on at this
Speaker 1: point talking about how the ships get bigger and bigger
Speaker 1: and the reasons why that happens. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like, again, we've made sufficient investment in
Speaker 1: the infrastructure, if you include dredging in the category of infrastructure,
Speaker 1: to actually make the whole system work efficiently, right And
Speaker 1: I think that's that's a key element right there, because
Speaker 1: one of the things we're watching is Okay, how can
Speaker 1: we better improve it? And we've talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: improving throughput in the ports everything from road, rail, dra
Speaker 1: edge trucks, you name it. But again, the maintenance of
Speaker 1: the ports are really essential and and be able to
Speaker 1: flow the cargo. And in particularly one of the things
Speaker 1: you're seeing right now is because of the backlogs on
Speaker 1: the West coast that have been going on now for
Speaker 1: over a year, you're seeing shippers, those who want to
Speaker 1: move cargo are shifting over to the East coast. You know,
Speaker 1: the ports of New York, of Charleston, Savannah, Baltimore, Norfolk,
Speaker 1: Houston are actively seeking this this cargo and it's it's successful.
Speaker 1: They're getting it you're seeing this matter fact, you're seeing
Speaker 1: where you had seen backlogs off the Port of Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: which they were over a hundred ships. Now they're down
Speaker 1: to forty. Now we're seeing them off Charleston, we're seeing
Speaker 1: them off Norfolk, we're seeing them off in New York,
Speaker 1: and and we're kind of moving the issue. And Port
Speaker 1: of Baltimore in particularly is a very interesting port because
Speaker 1: it does not just containers, it does bulk cargo coal
Speaker 1: in particularly, a lot of vehicles moved through. It's an
Speaker 1: active moving port, and so moving ships in and out
Speaker 1: as expeditiously as you can becomes a priority. And there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a question about was ever Forward going too
Speaker 1: fast for the channel she was in, because the faster
Speaker 1: you go, And it's literally the same thing with ever
Speaker 1: Given too. If every Given hadn't going been going as
Speaker 1: fast thirteen knots and ever Forward was doing thirteen knots too,
Speaker 1: had they been going slower, the salvage and the damage
Speaker 1: and the ability to get the vessels off would have
Speaker 1: been minimized. Is that faster than they should be going
Speaker 1: in either in either the Suez or the chest Peak. Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny you said that because I had Traffic, which
Speaker 1: is an A I S tracking app which does all
Speaker 1: the kind of monitoring. Ever, Forward came through this same
Speaker 1: area in December, and when she came through in December,
Speaker 1: she did roughly the same speed, so it was roughly
Speaker 1: about twelve thirteen knots she was using coming in. So
Speaker 1: I was able to see her her her departure and
Speaker 1: it seemed to be the same exact Now she may
Speaker 1: speed it up just a little bit prematurely before turning
Speaker 1: into the channel, and that's something that's going to have
Speaker 1: to be investigated. So I want to ask a question
Speaker 1: which is very important to me personally, but what are
Speaker 1: what are the chances that something really bad happens in
Speaker 1: the situation and my entire apartments belongings is just like
Speaker 1: jettisoned into the ocean, or I don't know, if the
Speaker 1: ship cracks up and I lose everything. Is that is
Speaker 1: that an above zero percent chance? Uh? I would say,
Speaker 1: You're not without some worries, Tracy. I think I think
Speaker 1: one of the reasons we're seeing this this salvage taking
Speaker 1: time again. I think the coast Guards announcement that she'll
Speaker 1: be free this week is very premature. Bill Doyle, who's
Speaker 1: the CEO of the Port of Baltimore headed the Dredger
Speaker 1: Association of the United States. I mean he he knows stredging,
Speaker 1: and he says this is gonna take several weeks. UH.
Speaker 1: Since the vessel is fully aground, meaning its bottom is
Speaker 1: touching again, she draws water. She's an eighteen to twenty
Speaker 1: four ft of water. She's literally up higher than she
Speaker 1: normally is sitting on mud. They have to be concerned
Speaker 1: about several issues. Number One, this vessel cracking UH. She
Speaker 1: ships are designed is a ship that brand new. UH
Speaker 1: ships are not designed to touch anything. They're designed to
Speaker 1: be buoyant, and the hulls are very thin in certain areas,
Speaker 1: I'm talking millimeters thick. And you know what you have
Speaker 1: to worry about is the vessel shifting, moving and cracking.
Speaker 1: This could necessitate an oil spill, for example, or fuel spill,
Speaker 1: so they want to move her very carefully. The other
Speaker 1: thing is, since she's there's no buoyancy acting on her,
Speaker 1: there's nothing pushing her up to keep her afloat. Everything
Speaker 1: is pushing down. And what you have to worry about
Speaker 1: is if you pull her back into the channel, she's
Speaker 1: she went out to the channel to the east side,
Speaker 1: so you have to pull her to the west. You
Speaker 1: don't want the vessel to roll, and that's the worst
Speaker 1: case scenario, in which case your apartment goods would then
Speaker 1: be wet in the ocean or in the bay. This
Speaker 1: leads to my next question. I guess it's there's it's
Speaker 1: the two potential A. If Tracy's entire apartment good to
Speaker 1: go into the ocean, who pays her for that? But
Speaker 1: be who is paying right now? Assuming Tracy does get
Speaker 1: her stuff? But how are the sort of costs of
Speaker 1: delay allocated? Right? We all we all remember the law
Speaker 1: of general averages from previous episodes. So I'm also worried
Speaker 1: about my liability and whether or not I end up
Speaker 1: paying for the contents of this entire ship. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: glad you mentioned Tracey, because that's what I was gonna lose. Tom.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping you have insurance on this because right now,
Speaker 1: this this entire salvage is being done by Evergreen, the
Speaker 1: company associated with this, and they have not yet declared
Speaker 1: general average, in which case the cargo would have to
Speaker 1: bear a portion of the salvage. Right now, it's under
Speaker 1: the protection and indemnity club that ensures the vessel. So
Speaker 1: they're paying for the salvage right now. And you know
Speaker 1: they contracted with Don John SMIT, which is actually a
Speaker 1: combined company doing the salvage. SMIT had done the salvage
Speaker 1: on ever given in the Suez, and so now Don
Speaker 1: John Smit are doing this. And again there are certain
Speaker 1: liabilities they're gonna have to be looked at. Number One,
Speaker 1: cargo delay. Uh, this cargo is not going to be
Speaker 1: delivered on time, so there may be liabilities against that.
Speaker 1: But again, if the vessel has a catastrophic issue, then
Speaker 1: that may be something that has to be done. And
Speaker 1: under shipping agreements, the cargo bears part of the responsibility.
Speaker 1: If they declare general average, then the question becomes does
Speaker 1: the cargo pay. This is why whenever you ship anything
Speaker 1: you need to get insurance on it because if not,
Speaker 1: you open yourself up to huge liability. They may have
Speaker 1: to start taking containers off this vessel if they really
Speaker 1: if they think they can't move it safely. She didn't
Speaker 1: have that much ballast on her because the ship has
Speaker 1: offloaded cargo. Ships tend not to take ballast in what
Speaker 1: they call brown water. They like to do it out
Speaker 1: in the ocean and blue water, because they have to
Speaker 1: run that ballast water through a system to clean it,
Speaker 1: to purify it. And that's expensive because you have to
Speaker 1: pump off that material at the end. So this ship
Speaker 1: probably didn't have very much ballast on board. They were
Speaker 1: probably gonna ballast after they left New York. So that
Speaker 1: means taking fuel off. And if that's not enough, the
Speaker 1: problem with that is it raises the center of gravity
Speaker 1: of the vessel. That means you're gonna start taking those
Speaker 1: loaded containers at the very top off and that is
Speaker 1: a complicated problem. You need huge cranes to come out
Speaker 1: to do it. It's a very slow process, but that
Speaker 1: may be necessary. While we're here and look at reading
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the Foreign Dredge Act of
Speaker 1: suddenly really that you know, I know, sometimes like you
Speaker 1: talk about, oh, can the President suspend or pause the
Speaker 1: Jones Act? And sometimes you hear about that during emergencies,
Speaker 1: can the president do anything that could we get a
Speaker 1: bigger dredge from another country just temporarily you can waive
Speaker 1: the Dredge Act and bring it in the problem you have,
Speaker 1: of course, is whatever foreign dredge exist is not here,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a delay to get it over here.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons that this Dredge Act was
Speaker 1: enacted was to ensure that we had dredges in the
Speaker 1: United States that could do this, so that in case
Speaker 1: of an emergency, in case of an accident like this
Speaker 1: where a ship runs aground. Unfortunately, ever Forward went out
Speaker 1: of the channel. She hasn't blocked Baltimore, so you know,
Speaker 1: we still see the free movement. However, when they do
Speaker 1: salvage her, she's going to temporarily block the channel to
Speaker 1: bring it out. But I think this again goes to
Speaker 1: that idea of infrastructure. You know, one of the things
Speaker 1: we're not talking about two is the size of tugs.
Speaker 1: You know, it was estimated that this ship grounded and
Speaker 1: there's a grounding force. The amount of poll you would
Speaker 1: need to pull her off, according to naval architects. I've
Speaker 1: talked to the marine industry uh AXCUME ME, the Marine
Speaker 1: Innovation Safety Lab. They've estimated it's going to take anywhere
Speaker 1: from twenty to two thousand metric tons of pull to
Speaker 1: get her off. A normal tug pulls about sixty tons,
Speaker 1: So it gives you the idea of of what you need.
Speaker 1: And again we're not investing a lot in our tug boats,
Speaker 1: which sounds very small. I know it's not a very
Speaker 1: sexy topic, but in truth, as these vessels get bigger,
Speaker 1: they're much bigger than the tugs that were designed to
Speaker 1: handle vessels ten twenty thirty years ago. You know, we've
Speaker 1: seen okay, at least two of these incidents at this
Speaker 1: point involving large ships getting stuck somewhere and then all
Speaker 1: the efforts to actually move them. What are the chances that,
Speaker 1: instead of building out the infrastructure, so getting bigger dredgers,
Speaker 1: getting bigger to boats, widening channels and things like that,
Speaker 1: that we settled for smaller container ships. Is that realistic
Speaker 1: or desirable at all? Well, I would say two things
Speaker 1: on that trace. Number one, we will continue to get
Speaker 1: vessels bigger and larger than even this, because insurance companies
Speaker 1: will keep ensuring them, and ports will keep accepting them,
Speaker 1: and operators will keep getting them. I should say that
Speaker 1: right now, right in the midst of this grounding, Evergreen,
Speaker 1: the parent company, just ordered three ultra large container vessels,
Speaker 1: twenty four thousand box vessels. They did the same thing,
Speaker 1: by the way, when ever given had run Ashore. Literally
Speaker 1: a day or two after ever Given ran Ashore, they
Speaker 1: placed a huge order for these vessels. They love these
Speaker 1: vessels because their economy of scale. Again, you know, the longer, wider,
Speaker 1: bigger makeum, the more efficient it is for them. There
Speaker 1: are things that can be done to do this. The
Speaker 1: problem is it shifts cost onto transportation, which in turn
Speaker 1: in turn gets passed on to the consumer. If you
Speaker 1: slow down these vessels, if if you you know, require
Speaker 1: tug escorts and things like that, you're going to make
Speaker 1: it more expensive. And if you go for smaller vessels,
Speaker 1: that becomes even more expensive. We can talk for hours
Speaker 1: about this. I found this conversation to be riveting. But
Speaker 1: you know, just my last question is basically we had
Speaker 1: the ever Given, now the ever forward a. How like
Speaker 1: rare is this? I mean, like, you know, normally I
Speaker 1: don't think ships running aground, particularly if they don't either
Speaker 1: in the US or if they don't block the Swiss
Speaker 1: Canal probably get much news attention. How rare is it
Speaker 1: to have these sort of two big incidents within the
Speaker 1: span of I guess, I guess a year. But then also,
Speaker 1: how much generally is are these attributable to the overall
Speaker 1: shipping conditions, which we talked about being extremely tight. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about, Okay, they are going maybe a little faster
Speaker 1: than they should be, or going to ports that they
Speaker 1: might not otherwise be going to do to redistribution of
Speaker 1: port capacity. So how much how unusual is this? But
Speaker 1: how much can we sort of tie these in it
Speaker 1: into the tight global shipping market. Well, I think in
Speaker 1: terms of the size of the vessels, that's that's the
Speaker 1: big issue we're seeing right now. So ships du ground
Speaker 1: fairly commonly. It was just a mare ship that grounded
Speaker 1: on the approaches into Germany, for example, but they were
Speaker 1: able to free her fairly quickly. The problem with big
Speaker 1: vessels like ever Given, like ever Forward, is that when
Speaker 1: an incident happens with them, they magnify the level of
Speaker 1: of salvage needed because there's so much bigger than we're
Speaker 1: talking about. Again, ever Forward is smaller than ever Given,
Speaker 1: but she still were a thousand feet long. She's is
Speaker 1: longer than the largest aircraft carrier we have. So they're
Speaker 1: tremendous vessels that we're talking about, and any incident involving
Speaker 1: them requires a lot more resources than we've had in
Speaker 1: the past. So I think you have that element about it.
Speaker 1: And again, this fuels the world economy because we're able
Speaker 1: to move goods seamlessly at very low transportation costs. And
Speaker 1: particularly again you know, ever forward is a good indication
Speaker 1: of that movement of cargo from the West coast to
Speaker 1: the East coast. I think on the other aspect there
Speaker 1: that you were kind of alluding to, I think we
Speaker 1: also have issues we have to remember during COVID, This
Speaker 1: has been going on now for two years, and one
Speaker 1: of the stories that doesn't get a lot of attention, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: is the one point eight million mariners who crew these
Speaker 1: vessels and issues with everything from being able to get
Speaker 1: them off for normal crew rotations. Uh. You know, as
Speaker 1: the ships get bigger and larger, the crews get smaller,
Speaker 1: and and you know now with with cruise, because most
Speaker 1: of this is done by feign crews top five you
Speaker 1: know crewing nations in the world. You know Indonesia, India, China,
Speaker 1: Philippines and Russia. You know, those crews can't get off
Speaker 1: in Baltimore typically and fly home for a crew rotation,
Speaker 1: and some ports during COVID wouldn't let the cruise even
Speaker 1: step on the dock. And so where you would have
Speaker 1: crews on board for two, four or six months there
Speaker 1: over a year on board, and so you know, I
Speaker 1: think I think crew rotation, crew fatigue, and you know
Speaker 1: what we expect of these marriage. Plus we're we're shopping
Speaker 1: around for the cheapest mariners out there too, so you
Speaker 1: know we're looking. You know, hey, you're getting too expensive.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to go to this country next and
Speaker 1: and go get them. And unfortunately, you know, mariners don't
Speaker 1: really register very well. Look at the you know, nearly
Speaker 1: dozen dozens of ships stuck in Ukraine right now that
Speaker 1: you know the mariners are trying to get off, and
Speaker 1: and not a lot of stories about those unfortunate Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had COVID and people stuck because of those restrictions,
Speaker 1: and now the situation in Ukraine as well, it just
Speaker 1: seems never ending. We're going to have to leave it
Speaker 1: there because we are rushing this out as a bonus episode,
Speaker 1: so we're a bit limited on time, but really appreciate
Speaker 1: you coming on, and I have a feeling we might
Speaker 1: end up speaking about this again. We've got to have
Speaker 1: Sale back. I could talk to Sale. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much coming on. Thank you for having me guys. So
Speaker 1: that was a sal Murcogliano. I should just say his
Speaker 1: YouTube channel is called what is going On with Shipping,
Speaker 1: and he's providing really detailed updates of what's going on
Speaker 1: with the ever forward, So if you're interested, you should
Speaker 1: definitely check those out. So, Joe, I just have to
Speaker 1: clarify one thing because our producer actually messaged me while
Speaker 1: we were discussing, um, what's going on in the intro,
Speaker 1: and he asked me if I'm joking about my stuff
Speaker 1: being stuck on the ship. For total clarity, I am
Speaker 1: not joking. There's a lot of nervous laughter here because
Speaker 1: it is quite stressful to think that everything that I
Speaker 1: have might be stuck on a ship that's you know,
Speaker 1: there's a question mark over whether it's going to be
Speaker 1: able to get off of its mud bank. But yes,
Speaker 1: my stuff is actually on that ship. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: so crazy and so wild, and I'm like, I just
Speaker 1: want to say, I'm thinking about making my entire identity
Speaker 1: be one of repealing the Foreign Dredge Act of I
Speaker 1: think that could be like a new like I might
Speaker 1: make that my thing. It is like a really like
Speaker 1: to learn, like we have a shortage of dredge capacity.
Speaker 1: We have a shortage of tugboat capacity in the US.
Speaker 1: So many interesting things I learned in that short period
Speaker 1: of time. And I'm very sad that you don't have
Speaker 1: your stuff from Hong Kong, but I'm selfishly happy that
Speaker 1: this turned into such a illuminating discussion we get to
Speaker 1: talk more about it. I would just say, you know,
Speaker 1: I am now the face of structural under investment in
Speaker 1: our ports and our tugboats and our dredges, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's inconvenient not being able to sit on the couch
Speaker 1: for over two months now. Um, I would like to
Speaker 1: have a couch at some point. But I did also
Speaker 1: think that Sala's point about what's going on with seafarers
Speaker 1: is an important one because that has been two years
Speaker 1: of a regulatory and logistical nightmare for people who are
Speaker 1: actually working on ships, and especially in Asia. We heard
Speaker 1: stories of people, you know, who had been stuck on
Speaker 1: board and couldn't get home for months, if not more
Speaker 1: than a year at a time. So definitely worth mentioning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we talked about the physical infrastructure a lot, but the
Speaker 1: toll on the people actually keeping it going it is
Speaker 1: obviously met. Yeah, all right, well, it looks like we
Speaker 1: have a lot more to discuss on the shipping front,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure we'll have some future episodes on this topic,
Speaker 1: but for now, shall we leave it there? Let's leave
Speaker 1: it there? All right? This has been another episode of
Speaker 1: the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe Why
Speaker 1: Isn't All? You can follow me on Twitter at the Stalwart.
Speaker 1: Follow our guest Sam Rcagliano. He's at marcagliano s. Also
Speaker 1: definitely check out his YouTube's big thanks for our producers,
Speaker 1: Magnus Hendrickson and Colin Tipton. Follow the Bloomberg head of podcast,
Speaker 1: Francesca Levi at Francesca Today, and check out all of
Speaker 1: our podcasts in Bloomberg under the handle at podcasts. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.