Why?

My family has just had the privilege to move into a brand new condo building in Tacoma, Washington and as a result, we have enjoyed watching the ship building hangers across the waterway just outside our windows. It is interesting to watch Martinac Shipbuilding Co. build tug boats just as fast as they can (takes about 6 months from start to finish). If we’re lucky, we get to watch them launch the boats for their first jaunt around the harbor. Not being “ship” people, we have no idea what sort of special boats these are:
“I think that’s an icebreaker. See how it comes to a point there?”
“I thought that was the back.”
“I don’t think so. I think that’s an icebreaker.”
“There isn’t any ice around here.”
“Yeah…I dunno.”

So it was no surprise that as I was talking to my father he happened to mention that one of the summer’s boats was finished and that it looked like it might be a firefighting one. But here’s the part that caught my attention: “It has ‘New York, New York’ painted on it.”
“New York City?” I asked just to be sure.
“Yep.”
“How are they gonna ship a ship from Puget Sound in Washington State all the way to New York City Harbor. Through Panama?”
“I guess so. Why not?” He asked.

Why not indeed? I did a little research into the Martinac Shipbuilding Company and discovered they are a bigger name than I imagined in the custom shipbuilding world. They specialize in tug boats (we were right!), yachts, trawlers, and something called a ‘tuna seiner’, and are proud of the fact that they’re ships are working hard in the Alaska Waterway, New York City, and Honolulu. I even happened across a website talking about how Martinac worked with some of “our guys” in Florida to make the electronics better and more efficient.

A cursory google-map search for the words ‘U.S.A east coast shipbuilding’ shows at least eight very large shipbuilding companies and countless smaller ones. In New York City alone there is at least nine shipbuilding related companies that appear to be adequate for any ship building needs New York Harbor might need

A ship must go roughly 6500 miles (or about 5648 nautical miles) from Washington State through the Panama Canal (stopping at Cuba, Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico) and all the way up to New York State. Or, the ship can be loaded onto a trailer and travel approximately 2600 miles across the continental United States. A preliminary search finds semi-truck drivers to get about 6.0-7.0 miles per gallon with an 80,000 lb load (give or take).

Because these numbers are so inexact, it is hard to say exactly which way would be the most cost efficient. But I think we can agree, it is a waste of time and energy to transport a tug boat made on the west coast all the way to the east coast whether it is shipped by land or by sea.

This is my “knock on the side of the head” moment. Why doesn’t New York just commission boats from New Jersey or Massachusetts? And we (Washington) can send our boats to California.

Note to Mr. Davis: This is meant to be my long blog 1 of 2