Designing, developing, building and certifying an airliner is also magnitudes more complicated than a modern ship. Check out the cost of engines alone. You’re not going to do that with cheap labor in Asia.
Airbus aircraft (at list price anyways) are, in most cases, more expensive than the nearly-equivalent Boeing model. They also build a quality product.
The constant comparison to aviation on this forum continually fails to acknowledge how much tighter regulations and engineering are in that sector, particularly in jet airline service. It’s not an apples to apples situation.
The comparison may be apples and oranges in some respects, but in others it’s spot on.
There is a cabotage law (Jones Act analog) for air transport. Foreign airlines can NOT fly passengers and freight between US airports.
A key difference is that there is no US built requirement. The why is obvious.
At the time the air cabotage law was passed American airplane builders like Boeing and McDonald Douglas dominated world aircraft manufacture. No one believed that they would ever have any serious foreign competition.
Airbus would never have gotten off the ground if it were not owned and sponsored by European governments.
this is the slippery slope argument - It is taken as gospel by many - but I am not sure I have ever heard a solid argument to objectively support that belief.
There are cabotage fleets in many parts of the world that maintain their crew requirements - without a build requirement - not sure why so many are so sure we can’t do it here.
No it’s not. Although I happen to agree with the slippery slope argument, that is a different conversation.
What I said was allowing foreign hulls would immediately kill domestic deep sea ship BUILDING due to the current cost differential.
Closing that currently large gap is a worthy goal but would take planning and funding during the transition to competitiveness. Planning and funding long term projects aren’t the strong suits of the US Congress.
Because of the US Congress’s track record of selling out the American worker at any available opportunity. Cracking open the Jones Act would be just such an opportunity.
Believe would still be some ship building for government ( navy/C Guard/Marad) vessels.
I would not object to some type of direct shipyard subsidy - to level the playing field. Not 100% sure what it would look like and what do you identify as the competition - is it China/Korea, or is it Fincantieri ? Is it plain vanilla tankers/bulkers or more specialized vessels.
Asia (including China) design and build airplanes. Brazil designs and builds airplanes. Canada designs and builds airplanes. Russia designs and builds airplanes.
Deep sea ship building in the USA is already dead, as proven by the first post in this thread. Ever been aboard one of the many Veteran Class tankers built by Philly Shipyward? “Assembled in USA of foreign [mostly Korean] parts”…
Most ships delivered from shipyards in NW Europe are designed locally.
They get the hulls built in lower cost countries and towed or transported to their yards for outfitting.
The machinery and equipment installed are (mostly) made domestically, or in the region.
The completed ships are delivered to Owners from all over the world for worldwide use.
Most deep sea ships built by US shipyard are from foreign designs
Their hulls are built locally from (mostly) local steel, by high cost labour.
The hulls are outfitted with foreign machinery and (mostly) foreign equipment.
The ships are delivered to US Owners for use domestically (mostly)
Just curious; when was the last deep sea ship built at a US yard for a foreign owner?
(Even OSV or Offshore drilling rig for that matter)
A significant part of the higher prices paid for US Build ships is due to lack of competition. The do loop for commercial US Shipbuilding starts with a protected cargo flow - without easy substitution ( something like historic ANS crude ) - these protected cargoes need transportation that has to be built in US yards - and the yard has significant negotiating leverage - they are bidding more against how much they can extract from the cargo trade than they are against competing yards. This do loop has limited building, in general, to the absolute minimum tonnage needed to transport protected cargoes.
If this were true, wouldn’t the yard(s) be showing crazy profits? In fact, aren’t the yards barely getting by? (as discussed earlier in this thread)
Particularly in Matson’s case where they have very recent history of having ships built in both Philly and NASSCO I wouldn’t think they’d tolerate a non competitive bid from either yard.
Alabama Shipyard built a series of small product tankers in the early 2000’s. One was built for foreign interest but is sailing under Canadian flag now. Others will know more, but the Double Eagle class of product tankers from Newport News Shipyard were built for Greek owners in the late 1990’s, though all have been under US flag since delivery (I believe, do not quote me on this).
Think the answer is just a timing difference. There has not been many large commercial contracts in a few years, leaving the yards to depend on Navy work and repairs. Don’t know much about the dry side. But on tankers, the reduction of ANS, the shut down of the Hess St. Croix refinery, and the ability to sell clean bbls out of the USG and import into the USAC, has left the major cargo flow to be clean products from the USG - West Coast Fl, south of hatteras. And due to the short voyage this can be handled by ATB’s.
So the case I was giving you was more historic - and the low shipyard profits are current - and getting back to my do loop - at least on the tanker side - the protected cargo flows have dried up.
I meant US built ships that was actually “exported”, not US built foreign owned ships under US flag.
PS> The Veteran class tankers, built at Aker Philadelphia Shipyard (now Philly Shipyard) between 2007-2011, are all owned by American Tanker Inc., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of American Shipping Company ASA, Oslo: Fleet » AMSC ASA
They are all US-flagged and on bareboat charter to OSG for operation in the Jones Act trade.
Oh don’t be so secretive. Please tell which two of the 10 Veteran class tankers AMSC claims to own is actually owned by OSG?
OSG is pretty secretive too. They do not appear to publish a fleet list indicating which tankers are owned and which are on Bareboat Charter.
The nearest I could find was in a Splash 24/7 article from Dec. 2021:
PS> Looks like they have since extended these BB contracts. (Several are due to expire in 2023 though)