That WUE sounds like a good program. Those out of state residents who qualify only pay $8,614 a year instead of $17,622 a year for the out of state residents who don’t.
https://www.collegecalc.org/colleges/california/california-maritime-academy/
Once at an open forum town hall meeting with my US Congressman I started my statement off as such, “Thank you very much. I like the job you are doing & have always voted for you. But I think we can outsource your job to a person with a MBA from India who could do it just as well for a fifth of your salary. We could save all kinds of money. The same with my kids school teachers & the firemen across the street. But then what are we going to do when no one has any jobs? We have laws to protect your job, to protect the school teachers & firefighters jobs & the law that protects my job is the Jones Act.”. I then went into a short spill about the Jones Act.
I like my Congressman & he vaguely remembered me because I meet him a couple of times before when he was County Mayor & there’s not many mariners where I live. He was on board for protecting the Jones Act & was familiar with it. But the point is, that is the offensive stance we need to take when discussing Cabotag Laws/Jones Act. If someone tells you they want to get rid of your job tell them you want to outsource their’s too because we’ll need all the savings we can get when we are unemployed & homeless.
Yessir, it is.
I agree completely about the need for cabotage. But I don’t know how the Jones Act is going to continue to protect jobs if every year there are fewer and fewer left in the Jones Act fleet. Something’s got to change.
There are few deep draft ships in the Jones Act fleet, but so what?
There are over 10,000 tugs and workboats in the Jones Act fleet. Then there are all the small passenger vessels, and commercial fishing vessels. Probably at least 10,000 of those. This is where the jobs are and it’s what we really need to protect.
No, there aren’t. According to the US Army Corps of Engineers, there were 3,359 pushboats and 2,461 tugs as of Dec. 31, 2018. Add in OSVs and you get another 1,693. See here (page 9): IWR Libraries
What about the workboats? You left those out.
I’ve seen the 10,000 tugs and workboats figure reported somewhere in a maritime magazine.
In any event the number of Jones Act deep draft ships is something approaching 100.
Of course that does not count the under 26’ , 600ho, rule beater tugs, crew boats, dive boats, dredges, and misc. workboats.
Does that explain why the dredge that pulled in to my marina has what looks like a 24 foot or so “tug” with twin 300 HP Yamahas? Seems a small boat to move a big dredge around.
Could be. There are lots of “truckable” rule beater little “tugs” that are exempt from regulation and don’t require licensed operators.
There are lots of workboats that move construction barges around.