Well I don’t want to misspeak about what he said since I didn’t take notes, so I will leave it for him to address or I believe that they webinar will be available at some time for streaming and you can just skip to the part where he was addressing the audience (which I think was about 90 minutes into the entire thing).
Here is a list of countries with Second (or International) Registers (2004):
Source: :States, Ships and Secondary Registers - -ORCA
https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk ›
This may not be relevant for a future USVI registry, but help to understand why it may be attractive:
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That would mean even less money to fund ships and mariners. Close KP and use the money for legitimate maritime uses. KP adds absolutely nothing to the USMM that is not already available elsewhere and would be available to more mariners if the money wasn’t wasted on military wannabes.
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The video was just posted for anyone who is interested:
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It’s also what the Governor of USVI is calling it.
Like everything else known to mankind … simply stating it in a gCaptain thread does not, on its own, make it real.
I do find it kind of humorous that one of the worst offenders in this thread for speaking definitively about the ALLEGED USVI Flag is now the one saying to stop doing so.
He can call it raspberry sherbet if he wants but that does not change the FACT that the authority to issue Certificates of Documentation for any vessel flying a US flag rests only with the USCG who does so based on the statutes passed by the US Congress and signed by the President himself. No governor of a territory or state of the USA has the legal authority to issue anything pertaining to a vessel other than a title and registration and when it comes to commercial vessels engaged it trade, that is only restricted to those vessels under 5 net tons (which might go for a 30’er).
Both Dawicki and Bryan purport that they have scored some great coup here which is going to revolutionize everything (at the same time bringing them each buckets of money) but they are either charletans selling us snake oil believing we are all too stoopid to know better or they are too obtuse to know how to read published laws concerning legal authority over this matter. Either way, they are a pair I would hope you would be ashamed to associate with but apparently you aren’t.
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Well Norway does have one but I seriously wonder when offshore turned south in 2015 if those Norske mariners who were put out of work were able to claim positions on NIS ships being filled by foreign mariners or if their generous welfare state just shovelled money to them so they had no reason to?
And how is that going to help anything then? You have some mega container hub in St. Croix but you still need ships to bring them into the nation proper. In case you haven’t noticed, there are no highways or railroad connections from the East Coast to the Virgin Islands.
That is were Feeder vessels comes into the plan.
Not a very novel idea, it is common practise all over the world.
USVI is exempt from JA requirement, so JA exempt USVI registered feeder vessel can bring container to/from US ports and a US hub port in USVI.
PS> Of course foreign flag vessel could be used, but using USVI registered vessel would “look better” to the average American. (Who are uninformed about and disinterested in anything maritime anyway)
Any what is your point? Feeder ships congest ports just like line haul ships do. And when those feeder vessels bring in their containers, they still must be hauled out of the ports on congested highways.
The basic reality the USA has suddenly discovered is we don’t have big enough ports or wide enough freeways for importing all the Chinese made plastic crap we clamour for so much at Walmart.
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I am sure you have heard that old saying “tell a lie enough times and eventually the gullible believe it”…
How is the USVI, which is a free port outside US Customs, an import export advantage?
Any goods coming from the US mainland would still need to clear customs. And be handled for a second time into the USVI, then handled again to be sent onward. Similar with imports.
What could the USVI do, that the much closer Bahamas could not do better?
What about Canada and Mexico? Halifax is a developed port just off the route from New York to Europe. It’s much closer to the US than the USVI.
What ever happened to that Chinese plan to build s big port in Mazatlan with direct double stack train route to Houston?
This quote comes from very early in this thread and it is now Wednesday and we all know no tough questions were asked yesterday by anybody (especially gCaptain) at the big event so today we have no answers at all from this bunch.
Did you think that maybe you should have asked these tough questions John? I have been hitting you repeatedly with my pointed stick for the past couple of hours and you are silent yet you were there and know there are men here who want to know you are on our side. Do you not believe it is appropriate for you to make a statement of some sort about yesterday or do you believe hiding from us works better for you?
So I finally watched the video. It answered approximately zero questions, tough or otherwise. The silence during question periods was deafening.
The most pertinent information I gleaned is that it sounds like Dawicki has the capacity to attract sufficient private funding for the private investment portions of the plan.
While the group may understand Congressional support/action will be required, what that “support” is was not discussed. The only time this came up that I noted was this statement from Dawicki, including in the middle what appears to be a thinly veiled swipe at what I can only assume are the maritime unions:
"We are going to need some form of support Congressionally if not direct support for this new flag for the instruments of ensuring that the United States participates in the oversight of this flag in a more clean and cogent way than exists today.
Ive played a little shy and a little aloof with folks but you know, we’ve put the litmus test out there to really some pretty relevant people and I have to tell you I’m a pleasantly surprised that we’ve had little to no no pushback.
We have one entity that’s pushing back that feels like we’re going to be tampering with their rice bowl and you know they need to stop thinking that way. I think we add to their rice bowl. And their way of thinking is archaic and I feel bad that they can’t intellectually grasp that this is going to actually improve their opportunities in lieu of taking away.
I think this project here just may be, just may be, the one project in the United States that gets bipartisan support. You know we have Democrats and Republicans alike in this room currently and I couldn’t be more pleased that we can take an agnostic approach to policy and stop thinking about politics and really make this work…"
That rice bowl comment might be a bit archaic…
Outside of the video, the only other comment I see is this quote in an article in the St. Thomas Source:
Any change in the Virgin Islands’ flag status would need Congressional approval, Dawicki said. He claimed both Republican and Democrat members have responded positively to the idea.
So in the end, I am still left with no information. But I am intrigued.
Hopefully not.
Geared Container Feeders can call at smaller ports without STS gantry cranes, or other facilities. Depending on their capacity and draft, they may also call at shallow ports that is not available for the Mainline ships, but closer to the consumers, consignees and exporters: ::
Building a deep water Hub Port that can handle several Megaships and Feeders simultaneously is not done over night. Therefore the USVI project isn’t based on what is available and possible today, but on what can be done in the future, say end of this decade and beyond.
PS> Yes I know the argument about the Longshoremen. (Maybe you need a Margaret Thatcher??)
Here is a prospect for a larger geared feeder that could serve bigger mainland ports without the need to occupy space at a Container Terminal of the future:
Shallow draft sea/river ships that can carry containers directly from the Hub Port to inland terminals is already in use in Europe. Here is one for sale (Blt. 1992)
https://shiptrade.nl/for-sale/container-vessels/2003120-sea-river-container-ship-for-sale
Here is a modern designs for the future:
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Which USVI flag will ships in a future (alleged) USVI Ships Register be flying?
Apparently there are several to choose from. The Governor’s Mansion fly three:
If not the Stars and Stripes, then maybe any of these:
Here is the official USVI State Flag:
Or maybe this one from the time is was a Danish possession?:
That may get Maersk interested.
Or a compromise?:
So the vessel has a BVI /US flag, so the flag state rules are USCG, so how do they choose which ones not to apply?
What happens when it docks in a US port and gets a port/flag state inspection?
OOPS edit USVI
@powerabout I presume you mean USVI (allegedly) and not BVI.
No one knows the answer to those questions because no laws or regulations have yet been changed/written or proposed. There is more than one way to skin that cat and hopefully those questions would be part of the lobbying effort that is about to happen.
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