They won’t do it for a long term effort either. They don’t mind having cruise terminals built for them, they don’t mind depositing American checks in their tax haven offshore accounts either.
Screw 'em.
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I would favor reserving Alaska for US flag cruise ships, to be phased in over a period of years. I’d allow reflagging and foreign building since no US yards have recent cruise ship building experience.
I’d like to see more small cruise ships in Alaska like the National Geographic ships, and fewer of the huge ships.
The market for ship building is worldwide, but to compete you have to be competitive on building costs and quality, as well as delivery time and financing.
In the 1960s and 70s US yards build ships, boats and rigs for the world market and European yards lead the market for large ships, Something “went wrong” and they lost their competitive edge. What that “something” was can be discussed, but it was not only “the rice machines in Asia that work for low wages” as is popular to believe.
Today no US or North European shipyard can compete on cost for the construction of large ships like VLCCs, VLOCs, VLGCs Mega Container ships or Capesize bulkers etc.
For construction of smaller specialised vessels and large Cruise ships. where quality of design, equipment and workmanship count as much as costs, some European yards are competitive. (For now)
But the hulls are either totally constructed at yards in Eastern Europe and towed to NW Europe for outfitting, or hull sections are transported on barges or Deck Cargo Carriers for assembly at the NW European yards.
Even S.Korean yards get hull sections built in China and transported to the yards by HLVs:
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Easily done between Mexico and the U.S. Gulf states. Don’t even need to alter the Jones Act. Just have two lines added to U.S. Code:
- “For the purposes of the Jones Act, a vessel made from modular sections built in foreign countries and assembled in America is an American vessel.”
- “For the purposes of the Jones Act, the provision for the amount of American steel used in the construction of a hull pertains to only that part assembled in the United States.”
Works for cars. Works for planes.
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I think you all are forgetting a major part here, for the vessels to be Jones Act, they must be owned by U.S. companies that are controlled by U.S. citizens with at least 75 percent U.S. percent ownership. Good luck with that.
Are you saying that American companies won’t buy vessels made in the USA, with foreign modular parts, if the price is right?
I think another problem in this ongoing discussion is the painfully obvious issue of subsidies. Asian yards have it and we don’t. It’s NOT about quality or ability.
It’s entirely about cost. Obviously. The anti-Jones Act crowd states the cost issue correctly, but ignore the reasons and cause.
Do something to decrease costs to US yards, expenses, taxes, fees, regulations in general … and you’re part way there to solving the problem. The secondary issue is, subsidization of the shipbuilding industry. We once supported it with the CDS subsidies and also the ODS subsidies. But they took that away years ago.
I’m not entirely in support of subsidizing our industry but certainly willing to discuss aspects of legislatively changing the rules to make it more competitive. When China and South Korea are both shoveling billions of dollars annually upon their shipyards, NOBODY can compete, even the Europeans!? NOTHING will change that scenario unless we meet them dollar for dollar.
Further … do we subsidize the industry to support only Jones Act Trade shipping? Or as some people seem to be confused about, do we also want to build US Flag ships competing in international trade to and from US ports?
Anti-Jones Act comments always drag in the total world tonnage statistic that we have, relative to everything else. Thats not intellectually honest. It confuses the issue between coastwise trade and international trade. And non-mariners (and politicians) easily buy into that conversation.
There are only so many ships needed in dedicated Jones Act Trade lanes and they are only going to carry a limited amount of cargo between US ports. I see that every day in Honolulu Harbor. If we waived a magic wand and had 20 more 3000 TEU modern box ships ready to go to work, in addition to those ships operating today, our industry wouldn’t know what to do with them.
You could press them into service to compete against FOC flag vessels operating Transpac or TransAtlantic I suppose. But there you would have the operating cost differential, regardless of the building costs.
The issue is complicated. And all the money (costs) aside, we have to understand the nuances of global trade and just how much our nation wants to be a part of that …OUTSIDE of our own self-serving trade lanes. China and South Korea build ships that trade all over the world, not just to/from their respective countries. thats’ great for their own shipyards. Does the USA want to get involved in that competition? Realistically, I don’t think so. But we do want to build as many ships as our transportation needs demand and do it efficiently and cost effective.
Our US Navy shipbuilding program today, is a perfect model of what NOT to do. How embarrassing.
None of those suggestions, as good as they may be, adequately address the problem that is looming literally a few weeks away. A suitable solution to the 2021 Alaska Cruise ship season needs to be found today.
No,it doesn’t. The world is a better place without cruise ships.
Alaska won’t melt away if no cruise ships foul the waterways and fill the streets with low budget tourists. The state survives quite well on its outsized share of federal welfare.
Perhaps you live in the State of Alaska. If so, you certainly are entitled to your opinion.
But from what I know based on conversations with people up there, those connected to the tourism industry, in the maritime industry, etc., there are many who desire to see the return of the tourism industry as it is connected to the visiting cruise ships. Their opinion is dramatically different than yours. Neither is right or wrong, but clearly they are different.
If you are not an Alaska citizen, I believe you should let them determine what’s best for them. That would be true for any other state, with any other issue pertinent to them.
Numerous cruise lines are now stating that all crew and passengers must be vaccinated to operate. So, you are looking at August/September now for probably some larger vessels going back to work. By then, Canada may have backpedaled on the no sail order, which they can do at any time.
You may be in the minority with that sentiment.
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Probably but that doesn’t change the fact that cruise ships foul the air, the water, and the streets with their effluent.
Add Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan to the list.
Let’s just keep all tourism shut down then? Lets pummel this economy back into the stone age!
…or we could make an effort to make things more environmentally friendly. It would be better to do that then to brazenly wipe out an industry.
Who said anything about shutting down all tourism? Tourism is a net positive for many reasons.
Cruise ship tourism is a disease It infects the air and water and seriously harms the culture and infrastructure of the locations that are its hosts.
Take Key West for example, the charming little town, more a village given the area seen by tourists, is swarmed by thousands of people every time a cruise ship docks. It becomes nothing more than a crowded shopping mall where no one really buys anything. The lice that jump ship contribute less than 10 percent of tourism income but nearly shut the town down for legitimate tourists.
There is a bigger picture here. Cruise ships generate a lot of business for vendors. From bunker barges to food services to the guys that dispose of their trash when they hit the dock.
For every person that agrees with you on the negative impact of a cruise ships footprint, there are five that disagree. The small community of avalon on catalina island would be some of the many people that have been starving…i’m sure there are plenty of other places that their economies relied heavily on cruise ships stopping by.
The electrical industry accrued great benefits from using PCB infused insulating oils, the automotive brake industry among others made a killing (literally) from the benefits of asbestos. The agricultural industry did very well by using more now banned pesticides than I have time list. Monsanto made a fortune selling dicamba as a great way to sell GMO seeds.
The cruise industry is no different. A few people make some short term gains by destroying people, ecosystems, cultures, landscapes and towns. The bears and seagull populations rise when a dump is opened, does that mean we should be grateful for garbage bears and clouds of shithawks?
Cruise ships in SE Alaska are like garbage bears and shithawks, scavengers and an invasive species.
Okay. So if a tourist wants to go to SE alaska, fly and/or go fishing at a lodge only? I get your argument, just saying it seems a bit extreme to say ‘never again…’ or are you saying only alaska?
‘A few people’ making a short term gain is an understatement, which is why I mentioned all the vendors that support the cruise industry in my previous post.
Tourists can fly, drive, or take the ferry from Bellingham. I could care less how they get to Alaska and what they do when they get there. I just want the cruise ships to go the way of DDT fogger trucks.
The cruise industry is the equivalent of the sherpas who carry “climbers” on their backs to the top of Everest. They couldn’t do it on their own, too weak, too fat, too lame but rich enough to buy the experience and claim it as some kind of personal trophy.
Many of those folks had a business before the cruise ships and still have a business. The one who went belly up (the folks who used to have the office and shop next to me) folded because they depended solely on the cruise ship market … bad decision but it was their decision. They did well for a while but the cruise industry could care less if they survived or not. If your business is based on a single customer that is what can happen. When a bear smells garbage it feeds but if the dump is closed the bear either starves or gets shot. Such is life in scavenger world.
Shall we discuss the “vendors” that are owned by the cruise lines? They exist solely to suck more cash from the passengers and leave little or nothing for the locals.