The San Francisco Bar Pilots christened their new pilot boat the Golden Gate hailing it as the next generation of low emission vessel technology for the San Francisco Bay.

The Bar Pilots said that the Golden Gate, which replaces a vessel under the same name, “is a state-of-the-art pilot vessel that advances the organization’s sustainability goals and whose funding was made possible through last year’s Assembly Bill 2056 legislation authored by California Assembly Member Timothy Grayson (D-Concord).”

On October 12th, Captain David McCloy, S.F. Bar Pilots, told an audience at the christening ceremony that took place at Pier 9 in San Francisco: “I am pretty sure we’re still the first Tier 4  (low emission) compliant pilot boat in the United States right now …It was quite a big deal … to put a vessel like this in service (during the) pandemic and supply chain issues.”

According to Diesel.net: “On May 11, 2004, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) signed a final rule introducing Tier 4 emission standards, which were phased-in over the period of 2008-2015. The Tier 4 standards require that emissions of PM and NOx be further reduced by about 90%. These emission reductions have been achieved through the use of advanced exhaust gas aftertreatment (sic) technologies, with most Tier 4 engine families using urea-SCR catalysts for NOx control.”

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Crowley Wind Services/Humboldt Bay Briefs California Maritime Cadets & Propeller Club of Northern California on August 19, 2023

U.S. House and Senate leaders are discussing a proposed ‘Ships Act’ to dramatically upgrade U.S. naval and commercial shipbuilding along the lines of the $52 billion CHIPS Act supporting U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, according to Luke Lorenz, Director of Legislative Affairs, Navy League of the United States.

Lorenz was the keynote speaker at the Propeller Club of Northern California Maritime Day webinar on May 23rd.

Lorenz outlined the Ships Act concept to the Propeller Club audience: “The potential for something … would be called the Ships Act. Again, I say ‘potential’ because this is still very much … in the brainstorming phase, but this discussion is happening among a number of important offices that we’ve been speaking with in the Senate and the House … that carry a lot of weight … a bill that would somewhat mirror the CHIPS Act, which of course was intended to bring back production of microchip manufacturing to the United States … that had a number of provisions to bolster that industrial base and produce at … various facilities … microchips. There’s an interest in doing something similar for the shipbuilding industrial base with a significant investment in our public shipyards …a number of different incentive programs for private and smaller shipyards (with) emphasis on workforce development.”

Lorenz explained that shipbuilding is now a top national security priority as China ramps up its naval and commercial shipbuilding: “Expanding shipbuilding has impacts far beyond just our shipyards. It also impacts a number of other … tangential industries as well … We don’t necessarily need to be on a one-for-one basis with China. China has expansive shipbuilding capacity, but let’s bear in mind that we still make a more capable, more advanced ship. So, we don’t need to necessarily be on that one-for-one basis with China. However, we do need a certain number of ships in our fleet to be able to counter a larger maritime force coming from the Chinese if such a conflict were to occur. And so, this type of shipbuilding program … is absolutely imperative”

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AGTC’s Friedmann says lack of ILWU-PMA contract could be “dangerous, permanent.”

Agriculture Transportation Coalition (AGTC) Executive Director Peter Friedmann has again warned that the lack of a West Coast labor contract between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) could be “dangerous” and “permanent.”

Friedmann provided AJOT with an update sent to AGTC members on the dangers created by the lack of an ILWU-PMA contract: “Currently, too many West Coast marine terminals are operating on reduced schedules, some are open only four days a week, creating massive disruption and trucking, storage expense for agriculture exporters. Terminals are closing because they lack sufficient volume of import containers to justify hiring the longshore labor to keep them open. So, both the terminal operators and the longshore labor are losers.”

On the trend of cargo being shifted from the West Coast ports to East Coast ports, Friedmann explained why cargo losses could be permanent:

“The uncertainty that accompanies marine terminal operations without a labor contract, creates a disincentive to invest in additional facilities through which cargo will transit West Coast gateway ports. For example, transload facilities that might have been built to serve a West Coast gateway are being built to serve cargo through East Coast gateways. The same for warehouses, cold storage facilities, etc. Once those are built, the millions of dollars spent will not be abandoned – the cargo will continue to move through those facilities for years, even decades, to come. This makes it even more challenging for the West Coast gateways to claw back lost import container market share.”

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