Plenty of those same owners have reflagged some of their PCCs and PCTCs American already under the MSP.
We need more…many more!
That’s already a law.
Charter for what use? DoD doesn’t need a significant amount of extra tonnage.
Would they be able to charter them for commercial use at an acceptably low rate? Highly doubtful.
First the DoD breaks the law regularly and ships plenty of its cargoes in foreign ships.
Second, the concept of build and charter worked with the Mariner class of ships in the 50s and there is no reason it couldn’t work again today
But the law is already there.
Maybe it could, but I don’t see why we couldn’t do that AND a second register to have more senior officer billets out there. (Master, CM, CE, and 1AE at a minimum.)
And why would I want to bring my Marshall Islands flag grain carrier to the 2nd US registry if I have to spend more on my top 4 officers than the whole of the rest of the crew? I’d need some pretty major inventive or a subsidy…still gonna cost the Treasury some major coin!
Next plan pls
Sounds good in theory but wouldn’t a foreign build ship be all metric? How would an American crew even get a ship like that underway?
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You mean like a lot of the vessels in the ready reserve fleet?
Use a military crew? 
one klick is 1 km which is 1000 meters
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Knew that, but the moderator would never go off topic would he? 
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Maybe it would be cheaper than to pay for a fleet of useless old ships in layup and a bunch of seafarers sitting in the MSC offices and Union Halls waiting for a job??
Alternatively: pay US Owners with FOC flag ships to hire US mariners by paying the difference between ITF and US pay scales. Still cheaper than what you are doing now I believe.
MARAD has what’s called the ODS, Operating Differential Subsidy. Makes up the difference for U.S. flag operating costs.
So you have all the tools and laws in place. What’s the problem?
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Fucking Norwegians.
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Off TOPIC!!!
Don’t know, politics. MARAD has the MSP, Marine Security Program, ships that are considered "militarily useful get so-called “slots” which entitles them to the ODS payments.
Companies control the slots, if a ship with a slot is flagged out another approved ship has to be flagged in.
Military likes the PCTCs. I’ve been sailing them for 20+ years.
To me it sounds like the people that decides has everything exactly as they like it.
I’m not sure what c.captain is after but it’s not realistic. To have a fleet you need to keep it trading, I’m working on a ship out of layup right now, it was 2 years inactive and we have used rediculus long time bringing it back to the standard it kept before layup. A cold stacked or semi cold stacked fleet of vessels is just wasting money.
USA must use a shitload of money preparing for WW3 when the rest of us are just wondering what the hell is happening.
I’m not really in the loop, I figure “they” must know how to work a spreadsheet.
I get sent a schedule and I run it.
Two of my favorite topics are how to avoid typhoons and drawing Great Circle tracks with a steel ruler.
Looks to me like the majority of ships in the MSP are foreign built, owned and operated by US subsidiaries of foreign companies: (pdf MSP Participants 7-1-2017)
https://www.marad.dot.gov/ships-and-shipping/strategic-sealift/maritime-security-program-msp/
It must be attractive terms offered for this service??
Don’t know, companies claim it’s too low, government claims it’s too high.
With regard to the plugging a tell-tale you’ve got a good point there but a well trained and involved unlicensed guy is worth his/her weight in platinum.
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