One additional factor that might be in play for the 17 day wait is this Maersk vessel was waiting for a berth specifically at APM Terminals, which is also owned by the Maersk parent company. There are significant cost savings there for the shipping line. Source: I used to work for Maersk.
I'd guess that once a ship's scheduled for a specific berth at a specific terminal that's where truck or rail carriers are scheduled to pick up the cargo for the next leg. Also where any cargo to be loaded is already in place. Just because another port or terminal has space doesn't necessarily make things more efficient in terms of getting specific containers to specific destinations.
@Wendover Productions I was on the Maersk Essex in 2021, an interesting piece of information for you, about Los Angeles: We were at anchor for 19 days in May, just like you describe in the video for November - the interesting part was, that we sailed at maximum load (~21kn) over the Pacific. The Captain and I had fun calculating just how many $s fuel we had 'wasted' - as opposed to slow-steaming and coming alongside on arrival. We calculated that we wasted approx. 130k$ worth of fuel, about 260 metric tons. This is due to how the slots are set up in LA: First come, first serve. Insane waste of fuel because of bureaucracy. Thanks for the video!
Thank you for highlighting this. Whereas factually correct, this vid just didn't understand everything about the I industry. I have a whole thesis written about VA. Let's hope this system starts making sense some day.
@@NatalieJ22 yup. global warming is mainly a corporation problem. But also if everyone decided to give up on their personal carbon footprint, the situation would also be terrible
6:20 As a sailor I can say that port calls are always busy for the crew, especially in the container trade (24/7/365). Loading and discharging needs to be supervised (at a minimum). Other cargo jobs are (de)ballasting, opening and closing of hatches, moving lashing equipment, sometimes operating the vessels cargo gear plus (un-)lashing cargo, gangway watch, etc. Other tasks are maintenance, bunkering fuel, taking on stores, discharging garbage, dealing with local authorities, etc. With Covid-19 regulations going ashore is all but prohibited, except for crew change. A important reason for making a ship bigger is fuel economy. A bigger ship needs less engine power per ton of cargo. Extra bonus is that they don't need a bigger crew.
did you become reacher sailor more than x4 times as far as freight cost blasts to the sky? im think not. Service is badder but profits of vessel line is dramatically higher. covid only cover up for this operation.
@@serjturischev9557 Off course you don't get more money. Only more problems with signing on end off in foreign ports due to Covid-19. Last year some companies refused to relieve crews with Covid-19 as excuss. Ships have been detained worlwide by port state control due to this. I had to change employer because I was sitting at home without income.
shore leave for seafarers is very hard to come by. the video is very misleading saying crew can get off for sightseeing. Never happens in today's world. you can consider yourself lucky if you can get off and make a Walmart run or a quiet beer at the port Flying Angel or other seafarers mission. the issue of shore leave has been made even more difficult by the pandemic.
I want to thank you for your work making the world-wide shipping possible! International trade has a few negative aspects but it provide millions of people with goods they need and it prevents countries from starting wars.
@@o_0imad0_o55 It's usually less work for officers and more maintenance for ratings, but generally a better time for all onboard (throw a BBQ party here and there if you know an ETA).
@@kosmique There are computer maintenance programs that require you to perform a specific maintenance task in a specific day (or few days interval). Those tasks are logged and signed for and are (mostly) the responsibility of Chief Officer for deck stuff and Chief Engineer + Second Engineer for engine stuff. Also there are repetitive tasks (daily , weekly, monthly) that are vital for the safety of the crew, vessel and it's cargo. And all that lie under the responsibility of the Master (AKA the Captain of the ship). Time is a commodity that crew rarely can afford...
Let me get this straight: You comment something that is unrelated to the fact that I have two HEAVENLY HANDSOME girlfriends? Considering that I am the unprettiest TH-camr ever, having two handsome girlfriends is really incredible. Yet you did not mention that at all. I am quite disappointed, dear wly
I live in Yantian (yen tyen) district of Shenzhen and see cargo ships coming and going all the time from my apartment window. I was impressed that your footage at that moment of the video really was from the Yantian shipping yard and not some random place. In the background of one of those shots, Wutong Mountain can be seen. It's a favorite hiking spot of mine. Nice attention to detail.
As a seafarer I’m pleased that you’ve briefly touched on the hardships associated with the current pandemic situation. We are the silent navy that keeps the world turning that many forget
I'm a navy sailor who was deployed during the height of the pandemic. 8 months without touching dry land. I can only imagine the pain that the sailors in the shipping industry feel
@@unclejoeoakland it is exactly why WW2 was won by the allied powers a d not the Axis. Hitler knew he needed the oil fields and manufacturing production facilities in the Callouses. Had to hold Lybia, Egypt, and Western Saudi/Yemen in order to fuel his war machine and manufacture war supplies in the East to push on into Russia. If he lost any one of these he could not win his planned world domination. He lost all of them. The US had most all the resources needed for war production within it's boarders. Plus was so far from the front lines that our ports provided safe docking for ships transporting oil, rubber, teak wood and other items needed we did not have or did not have enough of. If the logistics of that war had not naturally been on the side of the US and against the Axis states things would be far different today.
Kudos for the video - also for the great info found in the comment section. It's great to see an industry you work in into the spotlight - I worked for a big ShipCo for several years and was on-board MV/CV/MT vessels for the most part of the year. It took the prolonged effects of the epidemic to slow everything to a standstill and effectively delete thousands of jobs... Anyway, what should we always remind ourselves is that the heroes of these times are the mariners: the unseen, unsung and often deceived workforce that has to endure extraordinairily bad conditions and severe weather, accept unlawful contract extensions for many months, be away from family and loved ones, unable to get on shore, and pray that no disease or accident happens while underway. Please, keep that in mind the next time you buy anything produced on another country and/or continent.
So a Bicycle manufacture here in Seattle could not wait in the slowdown for bikes to be delivered. They stepped out of the box, or rather had the boxes put some place else. Instead of having his six 40ft shipping containers put on a container ship, he hired a shallow draft bulk goods ship out of Vietnam. Normally the ship would have carried goodd to someplace like Argentina or Namibia, smaller port clo countries with no deep water ports. He had that ship load up with nothing but his bikes and come to Seattle. The ship was so small they did not have to wait off shore. They came right into Fisherman's Cove and had a Foss Enginering Tugg with a 25ft tall crain lift the containers off and set them down on a truck sitting next to the dock. Even the process of customs was faster with the small ship. The overall cost of shipping was higher but now he was able to turn 4 shipments of 6 containers year instead of just 3 or 4 that the slowdown caused. More bikes sold at a reduced gross profit was better than fewer bikes at a lower cost. To try and reduce the cost of having the ship charge him for bring containers and going home empty, the bike company found a handful of companies that made goods here that they needed them shipped to Asia. That way the bulk ship left loaded down with containers and crates to China. Sometimes to solve your timeline problem you need to think small. The company is Rad Power Bikes of Seattle, Wa. I read about this in a few articles about them and how they have become the worlds largest E Bike spacofic manufacture.
Even large companies, such as IKEA, are doing this, mostly because it's now an economically viable alternative. Not only to avoid the loss (or opportunity loss) from low or missing stock, but also because prices for shipping a container are about 10 times higher than they are in a "normal" year.
It's a totally unnecessary, unsustainable, and environmentally destructive method of production. A method that only exists because it consolidates power and control over production into the hands of the owners of capital. As opposed to the rabble, workers, or governments.
@@Praisethesunson globalisation has done more than anything else to spread economic growth across the world, while bringing us all richer and more comfortable material lives
This is a bit misleading bc the cost of shipping is a flat rate per container. Depends on how small or large the goods are inside, the per package cost can vary greatly. Pretty much a 40’ container would cost around 2,000-4,000 to ship from Asia to U.S west coast. It’s still dirt cheap atm but just wait a few months for inflation to really kick in… rip to your purchasing power :((
@@Praisethesunson Less than 2 percent of transport emissions are caused by all shipping conbined, with the mega-ships being some of the most efficent per ton transportion available. The entire transportation supply chain, from truck, to train, to ship, and back again looks like peanuts (and suprisingly sustainable in scale) even before looking at future emission reductions likely to be implemented. In terms of the manufacturing effects increased direct polution and emissions do not seem to be driving forces behing offshoring and offshoring caused direct increases don’t look that massive in the first place. So mostly a problem in local comunities offshored to, and mitigateble (even if mitigation should be happening faster). The worst emitions is definately worse local power mix used by industry due to offshoring, but this is fixed by the same acceleration of power mix improvement needed anyways. So whatever else it is globalization is not enviromentaly unsustainable by any stretch of the imagination and does not really look like a primary of even major contributor to enviromental harm…
Seafaring is such a profitable venture here in the Philippines that landing on a job on a ship brings more money compared to local engineers and doctors in the country.
I do advisory work in the sector: this is a superb, easily digestible introduction to how an extraordinarily complex industry works. Beneath each of these elements, thousands of issues ranging from labor laws, weather forecasts and manifest accuracy to customs inspections, ownership change of goods in transit and contract negotiations all impact when your Nikes actually reach you. Incredibly efficient...yet has proven far less robust than we ever imagined.
I agree. I’m in intermodal logistics in Canada and we have been been hampered by wild fires, then floods. These have caused rail delays and therefore not getting containers to port (or back out). This was a well made video for the average person to understand
I worked in the import-export department of a factory and dreading with the customs side is a whole world. It's nice to see the overall picture. I've always wanted to work on a cargo ship so now I have a better understanding of the whole thing.
And remember, we're talking about non-perishable manufactured products only. It's even trickier when it involves stuff like food. My father was a farmer before I was born (before he switched careers), and I've always thought how difficult it must be to transport American grain or corn to another continent. It can't just sit and wait around like boxes of shoes can.
@@thunderbird1921 While I do agree with your point, grains are not a factor. They have an extremely long shelf life. If you keep them under conditions with not much humidity they can just lie around for years and years and years, without their quality suffering too much. They will even still be able to germinate. Oats is the one grain perishing the fastest and that can still be stored up to 4 years, wheat has the longest shelf life with up to 20 years. Corn on the other hand is already a completely different story.
That makes for a really complicated optimization problem. But as long as you formulate it right, every algorithm out there will be able to solve it. That's the wonderful thing.
And it didn't even account for things that aren't allowed to be loaded in vertically separated compartments, the stuff that is not allowed to be loaded in the hull and stuff that requires easy access. IMDG is a ton of fun.
As someone working in container shipping industry, I can safely say that this is a very accurate, and detailed explanation of shipping process. Kudos to the researchers.
I'm a Southern Californian, and whenever I go down to the beaches here in LA, you can just see massive amounts of cargo ships just sitting there off the coast. It's amazing how many of them there are, and the size of them even from so far away is staggering. Great job on the video and the issues and benefits of the system we're using.
I wonder if similar is true for the Atlantic ports (which he didn't really talk about in the video). Here in Virginia and other eastern states, we actually get a surprising amount of stuff from Britain (even frozen fish in some grocery stores), among other countries.
@@thunderbird1921 well the difference is in good places for harbours. You can't put a port just anywhere, you need a place where the waters are deep and wide enough for ships to maneuver, the space for the infrastructure development to handle the loading, unloading, storage and maintenance work needing to be done there, be somewhat protected from bad weather causing bad waves on sea etc. Now look at a map of the east coast and you see a lot of those areas like the chesapeak bay(and many of its tributaries), the new York upper bay, Boston, savannah river, the delaware river and you have the relatively easy option to go around Florida for shipments into the gulf of Mexico and up the Mississippi River system or down the saint lawrance river to the great lakes. On the east coast, you have options. On the west coast you only have the area around Seattle, the bay area, Long Beach and Vancouver if you are charitable. That's it. And Seattle and Vancouver are very limited in where you can easily go on from there. So most imports go through long beach/ los Angeles port (the first and second largest container ports in the USA in some years) and for any other port of size you need to go through the Panama canal or around the southern tip of Chile. Both take a lot of time and expenses.
I did an internship at Fenix Marine Services during the summer of 2021 right when all the "congestion" happened. It was baffling to me to see so many vessels anchored off the coast waiting for an open berth. Fantastic work on the video! Amazing as always.
The system has so much efficiency that it is very easy to loose some of that. Even if you half its speed its still an incredible achievement. Its just sad if you know how much better it could be.
Our entire global economy is about as robust as a house of cards in the wind. We're basically just waiting for one big Oopsie to happen and then we're all going back to the middle ages. It's going to be the bronze age collapse all over again, except world wide this time.
@@WannaComment2 The good thing about our economy is that even if something bad were to happen we would maybe go back 70 years but its almost impossible to loose enough so that it would be like the middle ages.
@@Currywurst4444 70 years ago the was only 2.5 billion people on the planet. That's what we were able to maintain with a functioning 1950 society. But we wouldn't return to a 'functioning' 1950s society. Just saying.
Part of the problem with Los Angeles/Long Beach is that while the different terminal operators mutually benefit from the rail and highway infrastructure in the area, they are still separate. Which means that if the operator with whom the shipping company has contracted with doesn't have an available berth, the ship waits. This is contrasted with the Port of Virginia, which is entirely owned and operated by the Virginia Port Authority, an autonomous agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia. So if there are no available berths at the Norfolk International Terminal and there are availabilities at Portsmouth Marine Terminal, it is a trivial matter to reroute the cargo and bring it ashore sooner.
I work with shipping/logistics. So, the .30 price for the shoes is WAY higher than you can pay. It's actually CHEAPER if you get the right prices on the container. Remember that some companies charge the price by the number of containers they have 'on route'. This was an amazing video. I wish people would know more about how this works. It could even make the whole deal more sustainable (I did a lot of research on sustainability on this business)
@seeni gzty Texas sees a lot of traffic, Port Huston sees the 2nd most in the USA, Port of Beaumont the 4th, and Port of Corpus Christi the 5th in total tonnage. Once a ship has unloaded cargo in Texas, it can be most anywhere in the USA within 72 hours.
@seeni gzty a lot of European trips make it down the eastern seaboard and finish in Houston. They either head home after they’re done here or they turn around and go back up the coast to reload for stuff they may be headed back to Europe. For example, a Maersk port of call list will go something like Bremerhaven, GR, Rotterdam, NL, Le Havre, FR, Boston, US, NYC, US, Norfolk, US, Charleston, US, Savannah, US, Mobile, US, New Orleans, US, Houston, US and then either home or back up to each of those ports.
I am working in that industry too and the current main issue should - aside from working conditions for laborers - to legally encourage the shipping of empties. Many European terminals were absolutely bottlenecked because it was more economically viable to send the unloaded ship back to Asia than to wait for the empty containers to be loaded. On top of the obvious benefit, it would also long term decrease the congestion of waiting ships. And last but not least, a legal issue of ocean shipping companies in Europe enjoying a lower tax bracket compared to forwarding agencies, now attempting to 'hijack' road shipping using said advantage.
Hi I love your channel and I was so excited to see you cover this topic. I'm a truck driver and move containers from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles as well as the rail yards on a daily basis. The video was great but I think it's worth noting a huge issue for us truckers is the shortage of chassis (the wheels on which the containers are placed for road travel). Pool chassis which are shared and maintained by the ports/rail yards are usually made available to truckers to pull loads have been withheld constantly by the ports, often for higher ticket incoming loads that are to be off-loaded and placed directly on a chassis instead of being stacked up. Even with chassis available, it is common for drivers to wait 4-6 hours before they get a chassis to pull a load out. Another issue is the inefficiencies of how the terminals are operated. Most empty containers require an appointment be made to return which in itself can be difficult to secure. On top of that many terminals require that a load be pulled out as well during the empty in transaction. Storage yards and warehouses have been overflowing with empty containers to the point they are just left on the streets. Another issue is the labor ordered by the terminals. This week it took me 3 hours to return an empty container to APM because they were so short staffed. These are just a few of the issues us drivers deal with daily at the ports. There are more than enough drivers but the long turn around times in/out terminals are hardly worth the wait. Personally I feel a huge help to clear the backup would be allocating more space for container storage (like Pier S), increasing chassis production and availability, and terminals ordering an adequate amount of labor to handle the workload.
Now this is fascinating! (though ¶ breaks would help) I've been in disbelief over the claims that there aren't enough drivers/trucks. However, not enough staff at the terminals, lack of container chassis, prioritizing certain loads, and terminal-company shenanigans makes way more sense. They are in a position to squeeze anyone who needs something shipped and blame others, why not?
5125 loved your comment seems all to familiar for those of us on the east coast. but a quick question, is it mandatory at LA LB ports to be a unionized driver and are o/o not allowed in port. That came out earlier in the comments and didn't seem right to me. m. for those of you not familiar with the term O/O owner operator sorry m
@@mikec1651 I have only been running the ports for about a year now, but I have several friends who are owner operators that do as well. I've seen that claim a lot but I haven't found the reason why
As someone who used to work at the shipyard where Maersk Essex was built, Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea, I'd like to compliment Wendover productions on its efforts into making such an informative and well-documented, accurate video of the worldwide supply chain disruption featuring a ship that I personally contributed in securing a contract with AP Moller Maersk
I happened to be on a trip to LA in October and saw the Maersk ship coming into port on 23rd but I didn’t know the importance of that until watching this video. Honestly never would have probably thought about those ships off the coast of LA ever again. Worlds small…
As a freight forwarder - thank you for making this video. I can tell you actually spoke to people in the industry by using the term "shipper" instead of "exporter".
The part mentioned about complex computer programs used for the logistics of storage may be a stretch or maybe more utilized in the Asia countries. You would be surprised on how manual and inefficient the planning process is especially at the US ports. A whole lot of manual inputs/updates and planning at a local level. Automation is slow and on the back burner at the US ports mainly because of the local unions. Another thing to mention is that container ships cant just dock anywhere, there are specific terminals they have contracts with and have to wait at the specific port. There are also factors with US customs and paperwork where cargo cant just on the fly be diverted etc etc etc.
which planning you referring to ? yard planning . The loading plan is normally automatic and married to the yard plan . Exceptions will handled manually .
I was born in Vung Tau, Viet Nam and has been away from my country for a while now. Vung Tau a small city that not lots of ppl know of, so it's a pretty surreal exp when my Vung Tau got mentioned. I was hesitant at first because the name sounded weird (good try btw, it's a hard one) and only confirm after seeing the footage highlighting Vung Tau. Thanks for the video guys.
Ehh, he probably just misread the name - there are way harder names for a foreigner/Anglophone (even without taking the tones into account). Btw where do you live rn
I work on ships. And I've been to Vung Tau many times, we load wood chips (raw materials for paper) to be unloaded to Japan. I had a really great port stay there.
The strategic stacking of containers on ships seem to be magnitudes more efficient than the stacking of containers on land. It feels like everything is still being done on land exactly the way it was done when ships were 1000 TEU. No improvements made.
People have talked about hyperloop freight which would be much faster and more efficient, but there's a lot of political pushback, skepticism, and infrastructure would be incredibly expensive to build.
@@TheTeddyIsALiar It's not. Having a single motor on a train pull dozens or hundreds of containers is efficient. Having one motor per container isn't. And that's just one of literally dozens of problems with the idea.
I don't know what you means specifically but commonly stacking containers often has limits set by local administration. This is to discourage and limit storage on site and impact on landscape.
@@TheTeddyIsALiar lol no, have you seen the hyperloop friegth design it's hilariously low capacity. Assuming it works as design you can't carry much in each pod, to say nothing of the fact it has sooooooooooooooo many weak points which would causes all kinds of delays if something were to damage said weak points.
@@TheTeddyIsALiar Building rail and shipping by rail is vastly cheaper than hyperloop can even theoretically deliver, and I doubt it will deliver anything at all.
While ports have dredged for deeper drafts and have installed the cranes for the largest ships, you still have to have the rail lines, highways and chassis to move the containers into and out of the port. A single 20,000 teu ship will have 10,000 40 foot containers, which would require 40 trains (125 double stack cars). A train has to be loaded and leave the port so you need rail lines to be available. If a train can leave every 15 minutes, you have a maximum of 96 trains per day so that would be 2.5 20,000 teu ships unloading. This is just the outbound trains, you have to get the trains into the ports and unloaded with either outbound loaded or empty containers. Trucks add a whole other dimension as each 40 foot container needs a chassis and that chassis will leave the port and return in a day or a week. Even if each truck driver can pick up and deliver 2 chassis per day, you need 5,000 trucks with 10,000 chassis to clear that one 20,000 teu container ship. In Southern California, that is a lot of truck traffic into and out of the port and trying to drive an already congested highway system. Now the horror comes into play when 8 ships a day are unloading and trying to load, you need the space for not only loaded containers, but empty containers, chassis for the trucks and rail yards and lines to support the volume.
i think it's worth mentioning that the truckers who are waiting in line for days make money by the load, not the hour. they're sitting there for nothing.
If the company is worth anything, the driver will get some compensation for sitting there when its obviously not the drivers fault. Source: me, an ex trucker
Yeah it's brutal, because that reinforces the problem, since less truckers are motivated to actually come to port to get a contract there. So there's less truckers, less cargo moving out, it's a rough cycle to break through because ramping up scale is very difficult.
Truck Drivers and Freight Train operators are the backbone of the American Economy. And now I know why we have so much traffic in Los Angeles, it's because it doesn't have more Rail-tracks for the 40% of Goods that come through the LA and LB ports. If more Rail-tracks are built, then all those Trucks would be off the LA Freeways, and the traffic would decrease significantly.
@@Benhutchie22386 I mean honestly, did you learn anything new that couldn't have been explained in a ninety second news clip? The latest 60 Minutes episode did a much better job of explaining why the ocean shipping is a mess right now.
Not mentioned in the video: Labor shortages which compound the demand spike *even further* by not having as many hands to unload containers as they would have, even if the system weren't 25% overburdened. To borrow the highway example in the video, it's like suddenly the highway needs to handle rush-hour traffic, while also shutting down half the lanes for roadwork.
1970s: We have Concorde - supersonic passenger flight and missions to the Moon 2020s: A container ship going slow is hailed as a revolutionary business practice Watches video to the end - oh...I see...
@@zeroone8800 Because we all know that engineers know nothing. I mean... They just sit at a computer all day. They cant be that smart... That's sarcasm by the way
@@zeroone8800 it kinda makes sense if you think about it, these ships have looooooooooads of torque and torque is most apparent at low speeds. So they were like maaaaaaaybe the torque will be too much if we do it too often, didn't turn out that way but you can see the logic.
@@ANTSEMUT1 I would guess it would be a lubrication concern. slower engine, less oil pressure, less lube. On second thought aren't most massive container ship engines two stroke?
Sorry to nitpick, but the data labelled as "bearing" on screen around 2:40 should be labelled as "heading" A bearing is the compass azimuth at which an object is observed. A heading is the direction a vessel is facing
@@Doofenshmirtz1088 as I understand it, it's the bearing relative to a "current" bearing. Best example would be if someone says that they see something at 3 o'clock (meaning halfway between their front and right side). They are giving a bearing relative to their current bearing, which is an azimuth.
Economies of scale is quite amazing regarding shipping. It costs cents to ship stuff across the world but 10+ euros to deliver something from one city to the next.
I work for a company that still has goods sitting in the port of LA since the beginning of October... They're telling us they likely will not be unloaded until December. Also, our cost for containers from China to Cali has increased exponentially. It's insane
This is why we had to cancel the couch we ordered. Ordered it in August, said it might take a few weeks. Beginning of November, they said it might be December. Meanwhile, we're sitting on a loveseat. Finally bought one somewhere else that was in stock. Got it the next day.
You summarized it pretty good! I work in the port of LA/LB. No room for containers means everything moves slower. Though ships have been piling up since covid started, it’s just recently received a lot of news coverage. I don’t see us clearing out these ships anytime soon. We keep working, the ships keep coming.
6:15 Not exactly. Usually there are 2 shifts during cargo watch, usually the shift of the 3rd officer and 2nd officer, and their respective ratings, doing 6 hours each around the clock, and most big container terminals are 24/7, and on those shifts they control the loading/unloading of the bays, controlling position of IMDG cargo, plugging/unplugging reefer containers, ballast management, check mooring lines, gangway, etc. Its alot of things to keep watch over and do. So, yes, you have 6 hours of "rest" time, but if you dont use that time to sleep and go ashore, you will be very tired for the next shift. For engineers (engine folk) its a bit diferent because they mostly have a fixed work schedule so they have more free time.
The externality is the unpaid truckers. If truckers were paid by hour of work, including wait times, shipping prices would go up, decreasing demand for shipped goods (either decreasing the demand for the goods overall or increasing the incentive to manufacture it locally), stabilizing the flow of containers. Long term, we should exponentially increase rail capacity.
@@KnuckleheadStuey my understanding is truck drivers are so they get nothing sat around waiting to be loaded. So only specialist companies really deal with port unloading.
@@KnuckleheadStuey they still get paid by the load though. If you're a trucker, your pay per hour will be higher if you can go pick up a trailer right now that pays less vs. a container that you have to wait (for free) for a couple days for that pays more. It's the same thing as Lyft/Uber. An airport fare might pay $70-100 but you might have to wait in line for 3 hours to pick someone up. Or, you can spend that three hour period doing several small trips that pay $50 in total and make up the difference in the 30-60 minutes that you would have had the airport fare. The way they were talking about optimizing Long Beach was to use a rail shuttle to get containers to several different cities for distribution, which spreads out the choke point to several different places at the cost of having to wait on a train to shuttle containers to those cities.
Slow steaming is not even close to be a new invention. It's been used for decades and indeed when I first went to sea in 1986 it was already common. I'd also like to add that it's been a long time since seafarers have been allowed ashore. And in port it when you are the busiest not on down time. Maintenance has to be done and the deck officers are doing the cargo and ballast operations.
A navigator here. Slow speeds are practiced when you're ahead of schedule / waiting for your respective terminal slot / adverse weather. You'd get bombarded with emails and calls from the company if you're going too slow. so trust me, the optimum speed is still above 20 knots for containers.
@Rishi Varman Incorrect. Slow steaming is the normal now and has been for about a decade. New container ships are designed for efficiency at low speeds (15kn). Since you're a navigator, you'd know that the fuel savings are enormous from 20 knots to 15 knots, and time wise it only adds a couple of days to the journey. Ex-3rd engineer from Maersk (and also navigator).
@@CurseUppl yes I agree you save a ton of fuel when you're steaming slow. But not when you have other factors taken into place such as port delays, weather etc. And don't forget, the company is always right 😂 (Ex APL 3rd officer)
After speaking for 1 hour with a friend about shipping overseas on the phone, this video was recommended to me 20 after the call. Thanks TH-cam, thanks NSA, thanks microphone who listens to my problems everyday. And now I will watch the video anyway...
Hi Wendover, I just finished kayaking from the headwaters of the Mississippi River down to the Gulf of Mexico and I found the lock and dam system along with the massive tow boats and barges to be super interesting. Do you think you'll ever do a video on that? Thanks.
@@GIPvideos I believe (based on a quick search) that one barge carries an equivalent of 58 semi trailers. So, on the Mississippi River north of St Louis where towboats are limited to 15 barges at once, that would be 870 semi trailers worth of material. South of St Louis, I saw (with my poor eyesight so I might be wrong) a 7 long, 7 wide barge configuration which would be the equivalent of 2842 semi trailers worth of material.
Many of those locks are operated by the corps of engineers. Many of them have been in desperate need of repair or replacement … 50 years ago. Broken equipment can cause barges to back up for miles making river shipping less efficient, which is a shame because it’s way more energy efficient then trucking. Hopefully the Infrastructure bill will finally fix those locks.
I drive by the Seattle port every day. 5 years ago there would be 1 maybe 2 boats at the port. Now its 3 to 4, every day. Which is more than the spike in panic shipping when Trump started tariffs against China. They've started stacking containers in an area of the port that was effectively dead and they had been planning in converting into a cruise ship terminal.
Hi, allow me to make a comment on your video: First of all, well done to the general audience. But there is soooooo much more to shipping than this. Shipping logistics are extremely complex and nothing is left to chance here. As a navigator, the orientation in which a vessel travels is called "heading". A "bearing" is what you aim to from the vessel to fix a position (e.g. a lighthouse or a star). One remark is to be made about vessel capacity: Although the "Ever Ace" is the biggest at this moment, she will never carry all her capacity at once. On her departure from Yantian (China) to Rotterdam she carried "only" 21.270 TEU, which counts as arecord today. All of the supersized vessels are limited by additional factors, such as stack weights and forces onto the lasing systems. Stability is also not a rough system, but finely calculated to only use minimum ballast water, to keep the vessel perfectly upright and have safe movement characteristics while being underway. Finally slow-steaming is beneficial by modern vessels, built with this principle in mind. Buth the "Maersk Essex" and her sisters were designed in the "FULL AHEAD" era. Their main engines were adapted to the new regulations, but the effect is similar to driving a Ferrari for your daily commute across town. You`ll hurt the engine by never using the full potential. Imagine the feeling of moving an 8750 TEU vessel fully laden (displacing 100.000 tons of water) with 23 knots across the ocean. On hombound voyages the regular travel times were 21 days from Singapore to Hamburg. And for the most part, we made it even earlier.....
Good stuff, thanks for posting! This is the best summary of the supply chain crises I've seen outside of logistics trade publications like FreightWaves, American Shipper, etc. One point I'd add to close the snake eating it's own tail that is global supply chain: Due to all of the delays caused by port+rail congestion and trucking shortages, buyers are increasing order sizes to stock up, leading to higher demand, which makes it harder for the inland transit systems to catch up...leading to more congestion and delays. Source: Almost a decade of experience in international and domestic logistics. Currently working in ocean procurement at an international freight forwarder.
Funnily enough, even though shipping companies tend to find the Philippines to be the best source of labor due to us accepting low-paying salaries, some of the people that I've known, cousins, friends, and Uncles are pretty much living a luxurious and high spending lifestyle. It's just depressing that some of them don't much have the time to spend with their families.
It's not just that Filipinos accept lower salaries, they're also more often than not incredibly diligent workers and very friendly and polite. Most nationalties of crew have their negative stereotypes, but nobody really has a bad word to say about Filipinos.
I work in another international company and my colleagues from different countries pronounce the company name differently. I expect that may be the case for Maersk too.
We had a Maersk container at our port that had the 'E' and 'A' reversed. I don't know if it was intentional or not. Now a coworker and I will sometimes pronounce it "Me Arsk" just to get odd looks from others.
Haha, that's brilliant. I hope it was intentional to mess with people. In regards to his pronunciation, it's actually spot on albeit with an American "R", if we consider the Danish pronunciation the "correct" one, as it is the Danish surname of the founding family. That said, while the company is Danish, it is so international that I doubt you can consider a single pronunciation the "correct one".
The downside to "Just In Time" is when stuff doesn't get there "Just In Time". The flow is disrupted, and that "lack of flow" spills forward throughout the JIT-web.
Not being able to leave the ship when it's at port must be pretty rough. Given how long they are isolated at sea, the risk are much lower (if anything the workers are more likely to get infected than they are of spreading it).
I was thinking that exact thing. On the open ocean, with a job to do, I'd be fine. Work, sleep, eat, when relaxing you can stare at a MOVING ocean. But camped out for 17 days, STANDING STILL, in sight of land, that would drive me insane. I would get sick of my crew mates fairly quickly.
The risk is a new virus or strain traveling huge distances to infect a new area with low resistance. That makes the spread incredibly dangerous if not handled well. Remember that covid spread all around the globe by mostly plane travel.
It is. I am lucky to have moved on from being a seafarer before these hard times began, but many others could not and cannot, now and in the future. In my opinion, it was already... difficult before. Having maybe 2-4 hours ashore once a month is probably the average on most container lines even w/o a pandemic - with some people on contract for 12 months and still without good means of communication, but a family at home... Yeah. It must change.
Oh it is man, it is. but that's life. I'm currently on my third month of my sea contract and still no shore leave (that's what we call leaving the ship at port). hell we have people on board here who are on their 7th month who had made no contact with land whatsoever after joining. Of course it's not perfect, but there's very little we can do atm, our only hope is that the as the global restrictions will ease, so will the maritime ones :)
As someone currently working for a global freight forwarding company in a non-operational role (IT Security) this is incredibly fascinating to watch. Don't really keep up with the ins and outs of the business itself. Edit: I do know about consolidations though! "Consols" are one of the first things I learned about here.
I need to commend this channel on this video. As someone who works in stowage planning, this video is very accurate. The most accurate video I have seen on any social media platform. Thank you for mentioning the seafarers that work on the vessels and the lives they live to keep the world turning. The overload capacity is a logistical nightmare to say the least lol.
Thank you for producing this fine video. Very professional and quite informative. I work for Amazon and almost daily see what major headaches supply chain disruption causes us in our 650,000 sq ft distribution hub in Florence, NJ. Somedays, we get overloaded with too many trucks pulling up to Inbound to be unloaded. While others, we find ourselves a significant shortage of empty trailers in Outbound to be loaded and hauled away. So we basically get screwed coming and going frequently - making Peak Season a hellscape.
I worked extensively on the JIT suppl chain model. Through all of it I was aware of the increased fragility we were building. The answer is simple - stop worrying about the carrying capacity of excess inventories in the chain. Only perishables suffer from long storage - so localize all perishables. Simple.
Wow...what a remarkable production. As usual, you take a subject i've never really cared about, never looked into and never had any reason to change, take a 20 minute timeslot in my day to tell me the story why i should be doing the exact opposite. Such a complex system, so many variables, and yet, I totally understand everything and see how big the lack of media to get somewhat of the same message across is a miserable attempt of achieving this level of quality.
This video really summed up everything i have worked in a Containership our route was China, South Korea, Japan, Canada, and US most of the cargo would he offloaded in Canada and US. Long Beach and Oakland are very big and busy ports, it would take 3 days for loading and unloading of 2k containers in the West Coast but when we leave the west coast for china it would take only less than 2 weeks most Chinese ports are very fast, loading and unloading containers the same amount we unload and load in the us would take only 24hrs in china and i’m a filipino working on the container ship. I’ve been in long beach and Los Angeles terminals shipping companies are sometimes annoyed in US ports because of the slow movement of cargo in and out of the ships and our ship could carry a maximum of 13,000 TEU with a crew of 24 people. I used to work for Maersk.
I said this before: I really appreciate how you manage your Nebula and TH-cam content. I subscribe to Nebula to support you and the other creators on the platform. Without the additional content, if something happened that made me question the expense it would be easier to step away. As you are adding value beyond my desire to help support you, it would stave off that question and weigh the decision in your favor. Please share your strategy with your Nebula peers. Thanks again and great content.
Holy crap I worked as a container ship mate for 4 years and those lengths in port sound forking heavenly. Admittedly, I worked on much smaller ships than the Essex, which isn't even a big ship anymore, but damn... most of the port visits when I was shipping out were in the range of 8-12 hours long. If you had a stop longer than say 15 hours it was pretty long. 24 hours was about the longest we used to routinely do, and that was usually 1 time per trip. The longest port stay I ever had was about 35 hours. The ships i was working on were quite lot smaller though. IIRC the Maersk Kentucky was something like 7,200 TEU, maybe a bit bigger. I think the APL Agate was about 8,600 and the Maersk K Class ships were somewhere in the 9,200-9,500 range. Honestly I forget. When I was on Maersk Memphis, her sister ship K Class ships were the largest US flagged box boats out there. One day, while we were at the dock in Algeciras with the Memphis, I watched the MSC Oscar come in and dock directly astern of us. At the time, MSC Oscar was the largest container ship in the world. I think she took the crown from the CSCL Globe. It was changing like every few months back then. Anyway, Oscar tied up directly astern of us and her bow was damned near as high as the Nav bridge on the Memphis. It was insane. I literally cannot understand a 17 day wait at anchor. Like my brain cannot comprehend that. I spent 3 days on the hook once waiting for storms at the suez canal to clear and that's the most time I've spent anchored on a box boat. Like... container ships have to run on schedule. If the choice is to be on time or open a portal to hell and summon the devil directly into our bodies, every containership sailor knows that the company will instantly choose to preserve the schedule, and thus we prepare to meet Satan...
This was very thorough and thought out as usual Sam. There is one part you briefly mentioned which would be good to dive deeper into - the Panama Canal and what is stopping smaller ships taking good from the west coast to the east coast as a way to alleviate congestion and the pros and cons of that.
Each container should be dropped straight onto rail, moved 20-500 miles inland for more room to process and distribute. crazy to pack all that into 1st mile of shoreline.
building the rail line would shut down an already busy port terminal for the time construction takes, so it"s a case of the sunk cost preventing an eventually superior solution, along with it being profitable for the ports if every port is busy to the point of congestion, meaning it"s uncertain if the difference is ever made up compared to what they can get with a congested system
@@AnarchistMetalhead so too hard to fix it soo... let's do nothing... a rail takes up maybe 20 yards of room... would only need one rail could be at the end of the existing property if you like to roll it from tanker to rail instead of straight from ship to rail. Boomer thinking...
@@RCRitterFPV the rail itself doesn"t take up much room, however one rail line would be an as bad or worse a bottleneck than trucks, so you"d need multiple side by side. Also it has to be direct loading, with in between steps you are again creating a worse bottleneck than you already have. What is the issue though is that for the construction time the terminal has to be shut down, which is highly costly if terminals are in such demand, and if the rebuild does work it"s unclear if it can ever be made up again as the higher capacity removes the priority payments they can get with a congested terminal.
@@AnarchistMetalhead Sounds like you were part of a feasibility study... Musty of thought of everything, Which engineering firm do you work for? Man I wish I thought to ask you before I spoke... My MUST a rail bottleneck if the rail is straight and has no stops for 30 miles then branches into a 1000 acre sorting Customs lot whatever.. you already solved all the worlds problems. Good on you.
Your comment is just on point! As I see it, from an electrical engineer perspective, ports are substations and trains and trucks are powerlines. Trucks, as lower voltage powerlines, should be used to distribute cargo near by. Trains, on the other hand, as higher voltage powerlines, should be used for the long distance trips I don't know how much time each loading-unloading operation adds, but the more containers you can move out of the way at once (hence by trains), the better
Excellent video. I worked in supply chain and ocean shipment. Super good summary which explains enough why we are where we are wihtout confusing people with more details. Awesome job.
Cool.. So 20 cents in material.. 30 cents in labor and 35 cents to ship it. yet Nike's are still $100.. Sounds like someone is getting robbed along the way.
@@calholli Not so much robbed, just the target economy is different from the source. The brand and thus the product has its demand and value concentrated in a particularly wealthy country where the scale of price is vastly different, affected also by wages, costs of living, and value of currency.
And with those cents they were still able to pay rent, food & toys for a whole family.... Sorry but the whole "they earn 1$ a day" has to die, it means nothing. I'm sure you could find someplace where having a whole dollar is equivalent to being rich compared to the rest of the population.
I don’t know if it interests you, but the port of Coos Bay, Oregon has plans to open up a small container port. It would have nowhere near the capacity of other pacific ports, but its location is roughly halfway between Oakland and Seattle.
It will still be constrained by lack of rail and truck capacity going east. The northern USA rail mainline is single track with very limited capacity. I90/I94 is the only truck route that parallels the rail mainline from that area and it is very constrained by weather during the winter. Basically all ports on the USA west coast are constrained by low capacity rail and truck services.
@@jimpad5608 there is an existing rail line that connects coos bay to three other rail networks in Eugene. The infrastructure is already there to take advantage of. It won’t be a big deal for the rest of the country, but it will be for the region.
I would like to thank all the people who work in all the phases of this industry as they are making a great contribution to society at great risk and hardship. May you all find success and happiness for a job well done.
If a deep water port was constructed at Point Mackenzie Alaska and the Alaska Railroad extended to connect to Canadian railways, you could relieve some of the pressure and cargo would get to the East Coast faster and cheaper than using California ports.
The issue is still the scale of ships. A 14,000 ft (4,267 m) train which is about the longest you'll currently find in the US/Canada would only be approximately 200 container wells which if all double stacked makes the train the equivalent of an 800 TEU land ship. A 20,000 TEU ship is approximately 25 trains worth of containers. So even if you're unloading 25% of a ship, you still need just over 7 trains per ship. This is also ignoring other issues such as the fact that you aren't going to run trains that long in colder weather due to the way train brakes work, you would need to construct new rail lines through some very rough terrain, and you're now utilizing more expensive labor for a longer stretch of the journey. Even if it was to just relieve pressure most companies would rather just wait and save money.
I was going to mention this as well. Alaska seems like a good place to put a deep water port, even if it's a bit far. Also, IIRC a lot of planes pass through Alaska. So with Oil a declining industry, maybe Alaska can shift its focus to transportation & cargo. Also semi-related, Russia at one point had plans to build a railway connecting with Alaska, would be cool to see that happen, then maybe some cargo could come by train (although that might be more expensive considering how much siberian territory the train would need to pass through to get to a population/cargo center).
Problem is nobody lives in Alaska, and shipping by rail is more expensive than by Sea. It would not make economic sense to invest significant capital in developing Alaskan railroads when you can invest those funds in CONUS ports with more efficient results. Not to mention, labor. You need to hire sufficient labor to accommodate the increased shipping activity which Alaska may or may not have.
@@taoliu3949 I partially agree, population isn't that much of a problem, the port would likely be in South East Alaska, where there's a few hundred thousand people. But as you mentioned the problem is capital for infrastructure development, which they aren't likely to get when more cost-effective projects exist elsewhere.
The majority of the freight entering the port of LA/Long Beach is destined for somewhere else. Typically BNSF and UP trains load up a bunch of freight and take it away. In fact, the railroads are currently caught up and waiting on the terminals, so they can pull out the cargo! ICTF, a massive set of holding tracks, nearby the port, is nearly empty. The port JUST started storing containers inside the LAXT loop. A massive block of containers. Tons of trucks bringing containers from the terminals, to the loop, to clear up space for more containers off ships. I heard a lot of stuff about a lot of things people claim are "the problem". Several terminals that weren't 24/7 are switching to 24/7. That should help. I heard the longshoremen are causing problem, maybe in protest of the automation, which is slowing things, but idk if that's true. Another big issue is out of business companies. When a company decides it can't pay the fees associated with a container, eventually it is surrendered and gets sold off. Those containers are just taking up space and nothing can be done with them until they're sold, following whatever kind of rules and timeframes go with that. Soooo many companies went out of business during covid, that it makes a lot of sense we'd have to clean up after them.
I watched the behind the scenes on Nebula. Great job! I could say so much more but great job from top to bottom, from start to finish, it’s all amazing!
I gotta be honest with you "How a Wendover Productions Video Is Made (And Why I Make Them)" would be a literally perfect video and fit for this channel, so it is kind of disappointing not to have it here.
Good reason to promote manufacturing in Central and South America. Put a tariff on incoming shipments to do so. #1 Ports are not as congested. #2 More employment there helps keep people in their countries (where I'm sure they would rather stay) instead of illegally entering ours out of desperation.
I work for APM in the gulf, and the issue we've been having is that the trucks aren't coming and picking up the containers. We've tried extended hours weekday and weekend, and our port is still stuffed to the brim with containers.
Wendover Productions: Infrastructure (and airplanes!) Real Life Lore: Toyota Corolla PolyMatter: China Neo: Perfect graphics and explanations of current events
I came across this basic idea while looking in my refrigerator. We had butter from France in there. My wife likes to shop at Trader Joe's, who has a lot of stuff like this. Now the thing is, we live in California, which recently passed Wisconsin as the biggest dairy state in the USA. So let's say there is not a lack of butter here. Further, I have been to France, they like products of California, they are all over the stores there. Thus I don't think it is a stretch to imagine that our French butter headed for California passed another ship with California butter headed for France. Thus, everything is going everywhere on our little planet. And that's why the ports are all stuck up.
Yeah, it's one of the gross inefficiencies of modern capitalism. Why trade products when we can just trade recipes/techniques? Sometimes a crisis is needed to force people into efficient and creative solutions.
@@ryerye9019 yeah, let’s build a lot of redundant factories, mow down forests to ensure the work of new supply chains in order to replace every niche imported product in every part of the world instead of shipping them in a fraction of the carbon footprint, that sure will be much more efficient and won’t harm the environment in any way 🤠👍
@@ryerye9019 Because a lot of the time the goods in question are significantly different and so can't just be substituted. For example bourbon and Scotch whisky are similar but someone who loves a particular single malt won't be satisfied with a cheep bourbon.
Okay, I haven't seen every video you've made, but I've seen enough to hopefully reliably rank this video as your number 1 greatest video. Amazing work!!
The main problem is the shortage of truck drivers willing to work in California. This is because in most of the country, truck drivers want to be independent contractors but AB5 forces them to be employees of a trucking company if either the starting point or end point of their journey is in California. This is a case of California imposing stupid laws on the rest of the country and truck drivers don't want to drive in California. Another problem is the California state income tax. California forces truck drivers to pay income tax on all of their income even if they are residents of other states because California considers them to be residents for tax purposes if they work a small amount in California. This makes truck drivers avoid California to avoid being dinged on taxes and thus we have a shortage of truck drivers.
This is really interesting as somebody from near Seattle. While I know its not quite as backlogged as California its still got backups. The last time I was in the city I saw containers parked in areas around the industrial area I had never seen them before( I assume they were empty and just being stored since they cant take the time or space to load up empties to send back). As well my company has shipments to Asia and while we were able to get one container filled it did sit at the dock a long time due to the boat it was scheduled for being delayed(obviously) but we have shipments for two more containers and just physically can not get any empty container set up to be delivered and loaded for shipment due to ship schedules, truck schedules, etc.... so are having to hold it in our warehouse. Its so much cheaper to just hold it and wait though and ship it on a boat then shipping as air cargo.
I can tell you that as a Freight Forwarder - the "average" cost on the TPT lanes have been sky rocketing since May of this year. Rates went from about 3500-4000USD - to now more than 16000-20000USD it's scary for the consumer. Companies don't just eat this exorbitant cost of logistics, we (the consumer) will bear this burden in the end.
Imagine all the stuff {Containers} these ships over the years are leaving by mistake; Containers that fall overboard in bad weather (or balance issues) all become time capsules. Hundreds of years from now future divers will find 20FT Containers full of Kroc's shoes and wonder if that was the sign our civilization was doomed...
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
One additional factor that might be in play for the 17 day wait is this Maersk vessel was waiting for a berth specifically at APM Terminals, which is also owned by the Maersk parent company. There are significant cost savings there for the shipping line.
Source: I used to work for Maersk.
What does APM stand for? Thanks!
Arnold Peter Møller
@@Tiger_Li Actions Per Minute
Source: im in ur port shipping ur c00ntainerz
@@Theodoric99 You require additional supply depots. No really. Like actual supply depots. In real life.
I'd guess that once a ship's scheduled for a specific berth at a specific terminal that's where truck or rail carriers are scheduled to pick up the cargo for the next leg. Also where any cargo to be loaded is already in place. Just because another port or terminal has space doesn't necessarily make things more efficient in terms of getting specific containers to specific destinations.
@Wendover Productions
I was on the Maersk Essex in 2021, an interesting piece of information for you, about Los Angeles:
We were at anchor for 19 days in May, just like you describe in the video for November - the interesting part was, that we sailed at maximum load (~21kn) over the Pacific.
The Captain and I had fun calculating just how many $s fuel we had 'wasted' - as opposed to slow-steaming and coming alongside on arrival.
We calculated that we wasted approx. 130k$ worth of fuel, about 260 metric tons.
This is due to how the slots are set up in LA: First come, first serve.
Insane waste of fuel because of bureaucracy.
Thanks for the video!
Would you say the situation got better or worse by now?
😱 that's awful. Thanks for your work though.
And yet we put the pressure on individuals to solve global warming 🥴🙃
Thank you for highlighting this. Whereas factually correct, this vid just didn't understand everything about the I industry. I have a whole thesis written about VA. Let's hope this system starts making sense some day.
@@NatalieJ22 yup. global warming is mainly a corporation problem. But also if everyone decided to give up on their personal carbon footprint, the situation would also be terrible
6:20 As a sailor I can say that port calls are always busy for the crew, especially in the container trade (24/7/365). Loading and discharging needs to be supervised (at a minimum). Other cargo jobs are (de)ballasting, opening and closing of hatches, moving lashing equipment, sometimes operating the vessels cargo gear plus (un-)lashing cargo, gangway watch, etc. Other tasks are maintenance, bunkering fuel, taking on stores, discharging garbage, dealing with local authorities, etc. With Covid-19 regulations going ashore is all but prohibited, except for crew change.
A important reason for making a ship bigger is fuel economy. A bigger ship needs less engine power per ton of cargo. Extra bonus is that they don't need a bigger crew.
Same thing with hgvs. More stress and strain for drivers and crew, more profit for the company.
did you become reacher sailor more than x4 times as far as freight cost blasts to the sky? im think not. Service is badder but profits of vessel line is dramatically higher. covid only cover up for this operation.
@@serjturischev9557 Off course you don't get more money. Only more problems with signing on end off in foreign ports due to Covid-19. Last year some companies refused to relieve crews with Covid-19 as excuss. Ships have been detained worlwide by port state control due to this. I had to change employer because I was sitting at home without income.
shore leave for seafarers is very hard to come by. the video is very misleading saying crew can get off for sightseeing. Never happens in today's world. you can consider yourself lucky if you can get off and make a Walmart run or a quiet beer at the port Flying Angel or other seafarers mission. the issue of shore leave has been made even more difficult by the pandemic.
Are there any welding jobs in this industry?
As someone who works and basically lives on the Maersk Santana ship, this video is surprisingly very accurate.
I want to thank you for your work making the world-wide shipping possible! International trade has a few negative aspects but it provide millions of people with goods they need and it prevents countries from starting wars.
Woah! Very cool. What do you do when you're waiting around to dock?
Yeah.. Except for his “registered in Panama” line.. Most, if not all of Maersk’s container ships are registered in Denmark..
@@o_0imad0_o55 It's usually less work for officers and more maintenance for ratings, but generally a better time for all onboard (throw a BBQ party here and there if you know an ETA).
@@kosmique There are computer maintenance programs that require you to perform a specific maintenance task in a specific day (or few days interval). Those tasks are logged and signed for and are (mostly) the responsibility of Chief Officer for deck stuff and Chief Engineer + Second Engineer for engine stuff. Also there are repetitive tasks (daily , weekly, monthly) that are vital for the safety of the crew, vessel and it's cargo. And all that lie under the responsibility of the Master (AKA the Captain of the ship). Time is a commodity that crew rarely can afford...
I have literally always been looked at as weird for being super fascinated by Logistics and you guys validate my fascination lol. Thanks!
Let me get this straight: You comment something that is unrelated to the fact that I have two HEAVENLY HANDSOME girlfriends? Considering that I am the unprettiest TH-camr ever, having two handsome girlfriends is really incredible. Yet you did not mention that at all. I am quite disappointed, dear wly
@@AxxLAfriku what
Plenty of jobs there
Business degrees in
Operations Management
@@AxxLAfriku We get it, your hands look amazing.
I live in Yantian (yen tyen) district of Shenzhen and see cargo ships coming and going all the time from my apartment window. I was impressed that your footage at that moment of the video really was from the Yantian shipping yard and not some random place. In the background of one of those shots, Wutong Mountain can be seen. It's a favorite hiking spot of mine. Nice attention to detail.
Always loved receiving packages from ocean shipping, it’s like opening a mystery box because I’ve forgotten what I’ve bought 5month ago.
lol
this comment wins lol!
Package in my doorstep!? What could it be!!?
@@dylansoutdooradventures Hopefully not a package from Ted Kazinsky
@@kova1577 under rated comment
As a seafarer I’m pleased that you’ve briefly touched on the hardships associated with the current pandemic situation. We are the silent navy that keeps the world turning that many forget
I see what you did there 🤓
Thank you for keeping us supplied with food, cell phones, blue jeans, miro chips for Teslas and more.
Keeps going back to that one comment from a Marines General- amateurs study tactics. Professionals study logistics.
I'm a navy sailor who was deployed during the height of the pandemic. 8 months without touching dry land.
I can only imagine the pain that the sailors in the shipping industry feel
@@unclejoeoakland it is exactly why WW2 was won by the allied powers a d not the Axis. Hitler knew he needed the oil fields and manufacturing production facilities in the Callouses. Had to hold Lybia, Egypt, and Western Saudi/Yemen in order to fuel his war machine and manufacture war supplies in the East to push on into Russia. If he lost any one of these he could not win his planned world domination. He lost all of them. The US had most all the resources needed for war production within it's boarders. Plus was so far from the front lines that our ports provided safe docking for ships transporting oil, rubber, teak wood and other items needed we did not have or did not have enough of. If the logistics of that war had not naturally been on the side of the US and against the Axis states things would be far different today.
Kudos for the video - also for the great info found in the comment section. It's great to see an industry you work in into the spotlight - I worked for a big ShipCo for several years and was on-board MV/CV/MT vessels for the most part of the year. It took the prolonged effects of the epidemic to slow everything to a standstill and effectively delete thousands of jobs...
Anyway, what should we always remind ourselves is that the heroes of these times are the mariners: the unseen, unsung and often deceived workforce that has to endure extraordinairily bad conditions and severe weather, accept unlawful contract extensions for many months, be away from family and loved ones, unable to get on shore, and pray that no disease or accident happens while underway. Please, keep that in mind the next time you buy anything produced on another country and/or continent.
So a Bicycle manufacture here in Seattle could not wait in the slowdown for bikes to be delivered. They stepped out of the box, or rather had the boxes put some place else. Instead of having his six 40ft shipping containers put on a container ship, he hired a shallow draft bulk goods ship out of Vietnam. Normally the ship would have carried goodd to someplace like Argentina or Namibia, smaller port clo countries with no deep water ports. He had that ship load up with nothing but his bikes and come to Seattle. The ship was so small they did not have to wait off shore. They came right into Fisherman's Cove and had a Foss Enginering Tugg with a 25ft tall crain lift the containers off and set them down on a truck sitting next to the dock. Even the process of customs was faster with the small ship. The overall cost of shipping was higher but now he was able to turn 4 shipments of 6 containers year instead of just 3 or 4 that the slowdown caused. More bikes sold at a reduced gross profit was better than fewer bikes at a lower cost. To try and reduce the cost of having the ship charge him for bring containers and going home empty, the bike company found a handful of companies that made goods here that they needed them shipped to Asia. That way the bulk ship left loaded down with containers and crates to China. Sometimes to solve your timeline problem you need to think small. The company is Rad Power Bikes of Seattle, Wa. I read about this in a few articles about them and how they have become the worlds largest E Bike spacofic manufacture.
Remember they had to visit the original Starbucks.
Even large companies, such as IKEA, are doing this, mostly because it's now an economically viable alternative. Not only to avoid the loss (or opportunity loss) from low or missing stock, but also because prices for shipping a container are about 10 times higher than they are in a "normal" year.
Market rewarding some hard work and ingenuity. Clever.
Expect more of these workarounds with a trend towards oligopoly in the maritime shipping industry.
This story is awesome!
That whole thing about an 8000 mile journey for a box of shoes costing less than a chicken nugget is unintentionally hilarious.
It's a totally unnecessary, unsustainable, and environmentally destructive method of production. A method that only exists because it consolidates power and control over production into the hands of the owners of capital. As opposed to the rabble, workers, or governments.
@@Praisethesunson globalisation has done more than anything else to spread economic growth across the world, while bringing us all richer and more comfortable material lives
@@Praisethesunson money talks man, it's a common interest most people have.
This is a bit misleading bc the cost of shipping is a flat rate per container. Depends on how small or large the goods are inside, the per package cost can vary greatly. Pretty much a 40’ container would cost around 2,000-4,000 to ship from Asia to U.S west coast. It’s still dirt cheap atm but just wait a few months for inflation to really kick in… rip to your purchasing power :((
@@Praisethesunson Less than 2 percent of transport emissions are caused by all shipping conbined, with the mega-ships being some of the most efficent per ton transportion available. The entire transportation supply chain, from truck, to train, to ship, and back again looks like peanuts (and suprisingly sustainable in scale) even before looking at future emission reductions likely to be implemented. In terms of the manufacturing effects increased direct polution and emissions do not seem to be driving forces behing offshoring and offshoring caused direct increases don’t look that massive in the first place. So mostly a problem in local comunities offshored to, and mitigateble (even if mitigation should be happening faster). The worst emitions is definately worse local power mix used by industry due to offshoring, but this is fixed by the same acceleration of power mix improvement needed anyways. So whatever else it is globalization is not enviromentaly unsustainable by any stretch of the imagination and does not really look like a primary of even major contributor to enviromental harm…
Seafaring is such a profitable venture here in the Philippines that landing on a job on a ship brings more money compared to local engineers and doctors in the country.
Holy fuck
... and (in some cases) the daily wage of an engineer/doctor working abroad can be the equivalent of what they worked for a month in the Philippines
@@craggleshenanigans so working 30 days a year and still living comfortably. That's dream life for many
I do advisory work in the sector: this is a superb, easily digestible introduction to how an extraordinarily complex industry works. Beneath each of these elements, thousands of issues ranging from labor laws, weather forecasts and manifest accuracy to customs inspections, ownership change of goods in transit and contract negotiations all impact when your Nikes actually reach you. Incredibly efficient...yet has proven far less robust than we ever imagined.
I agree. I’m in intermodal logistics in Canada and we have been been hampered by wild fires, then floods. These have caused rail delays and therefore not getting containers to port (or back out).
This was a well made video for the average person to understand
I worked in the import-export department of a factory and dreading with the customs side is a whole world. It's nice to see the overall picture. I've always wanted to work on a cargo ship so now I have a better understanding of the whole thing.
And remember, we're talking about non-perishable manufactured products only. It's even trickier when it involves stuff like food. My father was a farmer before I was born (before he switched careers), and I've always thought how difficult it must be to transport American grain or corn to another continent. It can't just sit and wait around like boxes of shoes can.
@@thunderbird1921 While I do agree with your point, grains are not a factor. They have an extremely long shelf life. If you keep them under conditions with not much humidity they can just lie around for years and years and years, without their quality suffering too much. They will even still be able to germinate. Oats is the one grain perishing the fastest and that can still be stored up to 4 years, wheat has the longest shelf life with up to 20 years.
Corn on the other hand is already a completely different story.
That grid explaining what needs to be stored far away from what or not next to what, just made my head explode.
It straight up looks like a board game I'd play. Mind-numbingly complicated and tedious.
That makes for a really complicated optimization problem. But as long as you formulate it right, every algorithm out there will be able to solve it. That's the wonderful thing.
And it didn't even account for things that aren't allowed to be loaded in vertically separated compartments, the stuff that is not allowed to be loaded in the hull and stuff that requires easy access. IMDG is a ton of fun.
As someone working in container shipping industry, I can safely say that this is a very accurate, and detailed explanation of shipping process. Kudos to the researchers.
I'm a Southern Californian, and whenever I go down to the beaches here in LA, you can just see massive amounts of cargo ships just sitting there off the coast. It's amazing how many of them there are, and the size of them even from so far away is staggering. Great job on the video and the issues and benefits of the system we're using.
I wonder if similar is true for the Atlantic ports (which he didn't really talk about in the video). Here in Virginia and other eastern states, we actually get a surprising amount of stuff from Britain (even frozen fish in some grocery stores), among other countries.
I went to LA a week ago from the UK and saw the port as I was driving past. I was stunned. I didn't know ports that size existed.
What would suck even more is if there’s an American or a Californian on the ship that is being taunted by the city
@@thunderbird1921 well the difference is in good places for harbours. You can't put a port just anywhere, you need a place where the waters are deep and wide enough for ships to maneuver, the space for the infrastructure development to handle the loading, unloading, storage and maintenance work needing to be done there, be somewhat protected from bad weather causing bad waves on sea etc.
Now look at a map of the east coast and you see a lot of those areas like the chesapeak bay(and many of its tributaries), the new York upper bay, Boston, savannah river, the delaware river and you have the relatively easy option to go around Florida for shipments into the gulf of Mexico and up the Mississippi River system or down the saint lawrance river to the great lakes. On the east coast, you have options.
On the west coast you only have the area around Seattle, the bay area, Long Beach and Vancouver if you are charitable. That's it.
And Seattle and Vancouver are very limited in where you can easily go on from there. So most imports go through long beach/ los Angeles port (the first and second largest container ports in the USA in some years) and for any other port of size you need to go through the Panama canal or around the southern tip of Chile. Both take a lot of time and expenses.
Bitch please I'm Singaporean.
“Ships are more efficient at lower speeds”
I’m not lazy I’m just efficient 👌
So, you're a ship?
@@lonestarr1490 I might be.
Lol I should add that to my LinkedIn profile. Right besides being a TH-camr
Airplanes are flying slower today, than they did 40 years ago…..
Don’t confuse lower speed with stopping all movement.
I did an internship at Fenix Marine Services during the summer of 2021 right when all the "congestion" happened. It was baffling to me to see so many vessels anchored off the coast waiting for an open berth. Fantastic work on the video! Amazing as always.
It’s mindblowing how strong, and yet incredibly fragile the current system of things is. Mindblowing all that goes on behind the scenes
The system has so much efficiency that it is very easy to loose some of that.
Even if you half its speed its still an incredible achievement. Its just sad if you know how much better it could be.
Our entire global economy is about as robust as a house of cards in the wind. We're basically just waiting for one big Oopsie to happen and then we're all going back to the middle ages. It's going to be the bronze age collapse all over again, except world wide this time.
@@WannaComment2 The good thing about our economy is that even if something bad were to happen we would maybe go back 70 years but its almost impossible to loose enough so that it would be like the middle ages.
@@Currywurst4444 70 years ago the was only 2.5 billion people on the planet. That's what we were able to maintain with a functioning 1950 society. But we wouldn't return to a 'functioning' 1950s society. Just saying.
Yeah. And no one is responsible! The (allegedly) invisible hand of the market dictates the whole process
I'm more impressed by the ships ability to change its size.
It's actually flying into space, so it just appears much closer to the outside observer.
That's how it squeezes through the canals.
That's how it's able to fit into my laptop screen.
That's how it can float by reducing its density
And when large the ship isn't hampered by being partly on land.
Part of the problem with Los Angeles/Long Beach is that while the different terminal operators mutually benefit from the rail and highway infrastructure in the area, they are still separate. Which means that if the operator with whom the shipping company has contracted with doesn't have an available berth, the ship waits. This is contrasted with the Port of Virginia, which is entirely owned and operated by the Virginia Port Authority, an autonomous agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia. So if there are no available berths at the Norfolk International Terminal and there are availabilities at Portsmouth Marine Terminal, it is a trivial matter to reroute the cargo and bring it ashore sooner.
I work with shipping/logistics. So, the .30 price for the shoes is WAY higher than you can pay. It's actually CHEAPER if you get the right prices on the container. Remember that some companies charge the price by the number of containers they have 'on route'.
This was an amazing video. I wish people would know more about how this works. It could even make the whole deal more sustainable (I did a lot of research on sustainability on this business)
@seeni gzty Texas sees a lot of traffic, Port Huston sees the 2nd most in the USA, Port of Beaumont the 4th, and Port of Corpus Christi the 5th in total tonnage. Once a ship has unloaded cargo in Texas, it can be most anywhere in the USA within 72 hours.
@seeni gzty a lot of European trips make it down the eastern seaboard and finish in Houston. They either head home after they’re done here or they turn around and go back up the coast to reload for stuff they may be headed back to Europe. For example, a Maersk port of call list will go something like Bremerhaven, GR, Rotterdam, NL, Le Havre, FR, Boston, US, NYC, US, Norfolk, US, Charleston, US, Savannah, US, Mobile, US, New Orleans, US, Houston, US and then either home or back up to each of those ports.
I am working in that industry too and the current main issue should - aside from working conditions for laborers - to legally encourage the shipping of empties. Many European terminals were absolutely bottlenecked because it was more economically viable to send the unloaded ship back to Asia than to wait for the empty containers to be loaded.
On top of the obvious benefit, it would also long term decrease the congestion of waiting ships.
And last but not least, a legal issue of ocean shipping companies in Europe enjoying a lower tax bracket compared to forwarding agencies, now attempting to 'hijack' road shipping using said advantage.
How would you make such an industry more sustainable?
Hi Gabriel...I am curious. Are Maersk and others really moving to sail power?
Hi I love your channel and I was so excited to see you cover this topic. I'm a truck driver and move containers from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles as well as the rail yards on a daily basis. The video was great but I think it's worth noting a huge issue for us truckers is the shortage of chassis (the wheels on which the containers are placed for road travel). Pool chassis which are shared and maintained by the ports/rail yards are usually made available to truckers to pull loads have been withheld constantly by the ports, often for higher ticket incoming loads that are to be off-loaded and placed directly on a chassis instead of being stacked up. Even with chassis available, it is common for drivers to wait 4-6 hours before they get a chassis to pull a load out. Another issue is the inefficiencies of how the terminals are operated. Most empty containers require an appointment be made to return which in itself can be difficult to secure. On top of that many terminals require that a load be pulled out as well during the empty in transaction. Storage yards and warehouses have been overflowing with empty containers to the point they are just left on the streets. Another issue is the labor ordered by the terminals. This week it took me 3 hours to return an empty container to APM because they were so short staffed. These are just a few of the issues us drivers deal with daily at the ports. There are more than enough drivers but the long turn around times in/out terminals are hardly worth the wait. Personally I feel a huge help to clear the backup would be allocating more space for container storage (like Pier S), increasing chassis production and availability, and terminals ordering an adequate amount of labor to handle the workload.
Now this is fascinating! (though ¶ breaks would help)
I've been in disbelief over the claims that there aren't enough drivers/trucks. However, not enough staff at the terminals, lack of container chassis, prioritizing certain loads, and terminal-company shenanigans makes way more sense. They are in a position to squeeze anyone who needs something shipped and blame others, why not?
5125 loved your comment seems all to familiar for those of us on the east coast. but a quick question, is it mandatory at LA LB ports to be a unionized driver and are o/o not allowed in port. That came out earlier in the comments and didn't seem right to me. m. for those of you not familiar with the term O/O owner operator sorry m
And when the govt keeps paying people not to work for years at a time........
Thanks for contributing
@@mikec1651 I have only been running the ports for about a year now, but I have several friends who are owner operators that do as well. I've seen that claim a lot but I haven't found the reason why
As someone who used to work at the shipyard where Maersk Essex was built, Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea, I'd like to compliment Wendover productions on its efforts into making such an informative and well-documented, accurate video of the worldwide supply chain disruption featuring a ship that I personally contributed in securing a contract with AP Moller Maersk
오지훈씨
I happened to be on a trip to LA in October and saw the Maersk ship coming into port on 23rd but I didn’t know the importance of that until watching this video. Honestly never would have probably thought about those ships off the coast of LA ever again. Worlds small…
If you zoom in really close in this video, you can see you right next to the ship.
Weren't there probably multiple Maersk ships around though?
@@rkaytkt It's the largest shipping company in the world, operating over 700 container vessels.
As a freight forwarder - thank you for making this video.
I can tell you actually spoke to people in the industry by using the term "shipper" instead of "exporter".
Zoe
Same!!!
The part mentioned about complex computer programs used for the logistics of storage may be a stretch or maybe more utilized in the Asia countries. You would be surprised on how manual and inefficient the planning process is especially at the US ports. A whole lot of manual inputs/updates and planning at a local level. Automation is slow and on the back burner at the US ports mainly because of the local unions. Another thing to mention is that container ships cant just dock anywhere, there are specific terminals they have contracts with and have to wait at the specific port. There are also factors with US customs and paperwork where cargo cant just on the fly be diverted etc etc etc.
which planning you referring to ? yard planning . The loading plan is normally automatic and married to the yard plan . Exceptions will handled manually .
I was born in Vung Tau, Viet Nam and has been away from my country for a while now. Vung Tau a small city that not lots of ppl know of, so it's a pretty surreal exp when my Vung Tau got mentioned. I was hesitant at first because the name sounded weird (good try btw, it's a hard one) and only confirm after seeing the footage highlighting Vung Tau. Thanks for the video guys.
Ehh, he probably just misread the name - there are way harder names for a foreigner/Anglophone (even without taking the tones into account). Btw where do you live rn
Yes it is small city but when you talk about gdp percapital vũng tàu is no1 in gdp percapital in vn (20000 usd/per year...)..
I work on ships. And I've been to Vung Tau many times, we load wood chips (raw materials for paper) to be unloaded to Japan. I had a really great port stay there.
BOSS
Pretty sure people who work in maritime know Vung Tau…there are many foreign experts there
The strategic stacking of containers on ships seem to be magnitudes more efficient than the stacking of containers on land. It feels like everything is still being done on land exactly the way it was done when ships were 1000 TEU. No improvements made.
People have talked about hyperloop freight which would be much faster and more efficient, but there's a lot of political pushback, skepticism, and infrastructure would be incredibly expensive to build.
@@TheTeddyIsALiar It's not.
Having a single motor on a train pull dozens or hundreds of containers is efficient. Having one motor per container isn't. And that's just one of literally dozens of problems with the idea.
I don't know what you means specifically but commonly stacking containers often has limits set by local administration. This is to discourage and limit storage on site and impact on landscape.
@@TheTeddyIsALiar lol no, have you seen the hyperloop friegth design it's hilariously low capacity. Assuming it works as design you can't carry much in each pod, to say nothing of the fact it has sooooooooooooooo many weak points which would causes all kinds of delays if something were to damage said weak points.
@@TheTeddyIsALiar Building rail and shipping by rail is vastly cheaper than hyperloop can even theoretically deliver, and I doubt it will deliver anything at all.
While ports have dredged for deeper drafts and have installed the cranes for the largest ships, you still have to have the rail lines, highways and chassis to move the containers into and out of the port.
A single 20,000 teu ship will have 10,000 40 foot containers, which would require 40 trains (125 double stack cars).
A train has to be loaded and leave the port so you need rail lines to be available. If a train can leave every 15 minutes, you have a maximum of 96 trains per day so that would be 2.5 20,000 teu ships unloading.
This is just the outbound trains, you have to get the trains into the ports and unloaded with either outbound loaded or empty containers.
Trucks add a whole other dimension as each 40 foot container needs a chassis and that chassis will leave the port and return in a day or a week. Even if each truck driver can pick up and deliver 2 chassis per day, you need 5,000 trucks with 10,000 chassis to clear that one 20,000 teu container ship. In Southern California, that is a lot of truck traffic into and out of the port and trying to drive an already congested highway system.
Now the horror comes into play when 8 ships a day are unloading and trying to load, you need the space for not only loaded containers, but empty containers, chassis for the trucks and rail yards and lines to support the volume.
i think it's worth mentioning that the truckers who are waiting in line for days make money by the load, not the hour.
they're sitting there for nothing.
If the company is worth anything, the driver will get some compensation for sitting there when its obviously not the drivers fault.
Source: me, an ex trucker
They're not sitting there for nothing. They're not making money while sitting there is what you mean.
Yeah it's brutal, because that reinforces the problem, since less truckers are motivated to actually come to port to get a contract there. So there's less truckers, less cargo moving out, it's a rough cycle to break through because ramping up scale is very difficult.
Thank God this is not how it works in the UK. Here you get paid by the hour.
@@francikaa1 At any decent company in the U.S., you also get paid by the hour. I think the comment was about those that own their own truck.
I live in Long Beach and i see all those ships sitting in the water every day. It's amazing how big the journey is for them.
Truck Drivers and Freight Train operators are the backbone of the American Economy. And now I know why we have so much traffic in Los Angeles, it's because it doesn't have more Rail-tracks for the 40% of Goods that come through the LA and LB ports. If more Rail-tracks are built, then all those Trucks would be off the LA Freeways, and the traffic would decrease significantly.
As always, incredible
Not really. He explained the itinerary of the container ship for two-thirds of the video and did very little to add detail to HOW it all works. 👎👎👎
@@DoctorSkillz shush
@@Benhutchie22386 I mean honestly, did you learn anything new that couldn't have been explained in a ninety second news clip? The latest 60 Minutes episode did a much better job of explaining why the ocean shipping is a mess right now.
@@DoctorSkillz compare 1930s Nazi Germany Vs 2020s Communist Chinazi IN YOUR NEXT VIDEO Project before it's too late
@@matpk No. This isn't my full-time job.
Not mentioned in the video: Labor shortages which compound the demand spike *even further* by not having as many hands to unload containers as they would have, even if the system weren't 25% overburdened. To borrow the highway example in the video, it's like suddenly the highway needs to handle rush-hour traffic, while also shutting down half the lanes for roadwork.
The dialogue and delivery is top notch I can only imagine the effort put into this keep up the great work !
1970s: We have Concorde - supersonic passenger flight and missions to the Moon
2020s: A container ship going slow is hailed as a revolutionary business practice
Watches video to the end - oh...I see...
Shipping companies think that under running engines will wear them. No one asks the engine manufacturers.
@@zeroone8800 Because we all know that engineers know nothing. I mean... They just sit at a computer all day. They cant be that smart...
That's sarcasm by the way
@@zeroone8800 it kinda makes sense if you think about it, these ships have looooooooooads of torque and torque is most apparent at low speeds. So they were like maaaaaaaybe the torque will be too much if we do it too often, didn't turn out that way but you can see the logic.
@@ANTSEMUT1 I would guess it would be a lubrication concern. slower engine, less oil pressure, less lube. On second thought aren't most massive container ship engines two stroke?
@@mike.1390 🤔
The amount of information in your videos is incredible - respect!
These are amazingly well produced for how quickly you get them published. Amazing work man as always!
30 people working behind the scenes…
It’s a production farm - it’s a business. No different than a TV station. Like many TH-cam videos.
60 min just a piece on this on Sunday
Sorry to nitpick, but the data labelled as "bearing" on screen around 2:40 should be labelled as "heading"
A bearing is the compass azimuth at which an object is observed.
A heading is the direction a vessel is facing
Am I the only one who has to look up the word azimuth every time I see it?
@@DanKaschel what does it mean?
@@Doofenshmirtz1088 as I understand it, it's the bearing relative to a "current" bearing. Best example would be if someone says that they see something at 3 o'clock (meaning halfway between their front and right side). They are giving a bearing relative to their current bearing, which is an azimuth.
Economies of scale is quite amazing regarding shipping. It costs cents to ship stuff across the world but 10+ euros to deliver something from one city to the next.
And then the Ships arrive just outside of The Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, CA where they wait silently to be awaken once again.
Until the ancient rituals are performed
Until an anchor snags an oil pipeline and rips a big section open spilling oil everywhere. At least it wasn’t named Valdez
apr I think you could have worked in the phrase "slumbering giants" without to much trouble m
I work for a company that still has goods sitting in the port of LA since the beginning of October... They're telling us they likely will not be unloaded until December. Also, our cost for containers from China to Cali has increased exponentially. It's insane
Update: still anchored.
@@jakeriff95 thank you for the update. That's insane
This is why we had to cancel the couch we ordered. Ordered it in August, said it might take a few weeks. Beginning of November, they said it might be December. Meanwhile, we're sitting on a loveseat.
Finally bought one somewhere else that was in stock. Got it the next day.
Joking, not joking.. I've been wondering if there are any logistics specific support groups out there
The terminals can not handle the loads of containers anymore, we have the same here in Europe.
You summarized it pretty good! I work in the port of LA/LB. No room for containers means everything moves slower. Though ships have been piling up since covid started, it’s just recently received a lot of news coverage. I don’t see us clearing out these ships anytime soon.
We keep working, the ships keep coming.
6:15 Not exactly.
Usually there are 2 shifts during cargo watch, usually the shift of the 3rd officer and 2nd officer, and their respective ratings, doing 6 hours each around the clock, and most big container terminals are 24/7, and on those shifts they control the loading/unloading of the bays, controlling position of IMDG cargo, plugging/unplugging reefer containers, ballast management, check mooring lines, gangway, etc. Its alot of things to keep watch over and do.
So, yes, you have 6 hours of "rest" time, but if you dont use that time to sleep and go ashore, you will be very tired for the next shift.
For engineers (engine folk) its a bit diferent because they mostly have a fixed work schedule so they have more free time.
The externality is the unpaid truckers. If truckers were paid by hour of work, including wait times, shipping prices would go up, decreasing demand for shipped goods (either decreasing the demand for the goods overall or increasing the incentive to manufacture it locally), stabilizing the flow of containers.
Long term, we should exponentially increase rail capacity.
All the truck drivers I know make really good money. Of course EVERYONE wants to make more.
Shipping prices have already gone up. You are now paying more than 15000 USD to get your container moved from China to North America
@@KnuckleheadStuey my understanding is truck drivers are so they get nothing sat around waiting to be loaded. So only specialist companies really deal with port unloading.
@@KnuckleheadStuey they still get paid by the load though. If you're a trucker, your pay per hour will be higher if you can go pick up a trailer right now that pays less vs. a container that you have to wait (for free) for a couple days for that pays more. It's the same thing as Lyft/Uber. An airport fare might pay $70-100 but you might have to wait in line for 3 hours to pick someone up. Or, you can spend that three hour period doing several small trips that pay $50 in total and make up the difference in the 30-60 minutes that you would have had the airport fare.
The way they were talking about optimizing Long Beach was to use a rail shuttle to get containers to several different cities for distribution, which spreads out the choke point to several different places at the cost of having to wait on a train to shuttle containers to those cities.
And this is why the dutch (rotterdam port) has build an extra rail line in to the hinterland.
"Systems reliant on perfection are most vulnerable to disruption" Im in a similar industry, and can truer words couldn't have been said.
A very apposite comment similar to 'the more complex a system is the more likely it will fail at some point'
Slow steaming is not even close to be a new invention. It's been used for decades and indeed when I first went to sea in 1986 it was already common. I'd also like to add that it's been a long time since seafarers have been allowed ashore. And in port it when you are the busiest not on down time. Maintenance has to be done and the deck officers are doing the cargo and ballast operations.
A navigator here.
Slow speeds are practiced when you're ahead of schedule / waiting for your respective terminal slot / adverse weather. You'd get bombarded with emails and calls from the company if you're going too slow. so trust me, the optimum speed is still above 20 knots for containers.
Is it the same company that pays the fuel costs?
@Rishi Varman Incorrect. Slow steaming is the normal now and has been for about a decade. New container ships are designed for efficiency at low speeds (15kn). Since you're a navigator, you'd know that the fuel savings are enormous from 20 knots to 15 knots, and time wise it only adds a couple of days to the journey.
Ex-3rd engineer from Maersk (and also navigator).
@@CurseUppl Damn, you definitely just navigatored that dude.
@@ryerye9019 the charterer pays for the fuel mostly.
@@CurseUppl yes I agree you save a ton of fuel when you're steaming slow. But not when you have other factors taken into place such as port delays, weather etc. And don't forget, the company is always right 😂
(Ex APL 3rd officer)
After speaking for 1 hour with a friend about shipping overseas on the phone, this video was recommended to me 20 after the call. Thanks TH-cam, thanks NSA, thanks microphone who listens to my problems everyday.
And now I will watch the video anyway...
Hi Wendover, I just finished kayaking from the headwaters of the Mississippi River down to the Gulf of Mexico and I found the lock and dam system along with the massive tow boats and barges to be super interesting. Do you think you'll ever do a video on that? Thanks.
Great suggestion!
Yeah those are insane! They ship stuff by barge and each barge is worth like 1000 trucks on the road. Super cool stuff
@@GIPvideos I believe (based on a quick search) that one barge carries an equivalent of 58 semi trailers. So, on the Mississippi River north of St Louis where towboats are limited to 15 barges at once, that would be 870 semi trailers worth of material. South of St Louis, I saw (with my poor eyesight so I might be wrong) a 7 long, 7 wide barge configuration which would be the equivalent of 2842 semi trailers worth of material.
Many of those locks are operated by the corps of engineers. Many of them have been in desperate need of repair or replacement … 50 years ago. Broken equipment can cause barges to back up for miles making river shipping less efficient, which is a shame because it’s way more energy efficient then trucking. Hopefully the Infrastructure bill will finally fix those locks.
@@monev - FYI - a standard 53 foot semi-trailer = 2.65 TEU. A TEU is a standard container which is 8' x 8' x 20'.
I drive by the Seattle port every day. 5 years ago there would be 1 maybe 2 boats at the port. Now its 3 to 4, every day. Which is more than the spike in panic shipping when Trump started tariffs against China. They've started stacking containers in an area of the port that was effectively dead and they had been planning in converting into a cruise ship terminal.
Covid sunk that cruise ship plan.
@@Praisethesunson Not really. They all came back this summer.
The issue is out of control tyrannical governments and everyone being afraid of their own shadow or the flu...this is all by design.
@@Praisethesunson compare 1930s Nazi Germany Vs 2020s Communist Chinazi IN YOUR NEXT VIDEO Project before it's too late
Video mentioned twice that Seattle is among the five international ports on USA's west coast, but the map shown only showed Tacoma and not Seattle.
Hi, allow me to make a comment on your video:
First of all, well done to the general audience. But there is soooooo much more to shipping than this.
Shipping logistics are extremely complex and nothing is left to chance here. As a navigator, the orientation in which a vessel travels is called "heading". A "bearing" is what you aim to from the vessel to fix a position (e.g. a lighthouse or a star).
One remark is to be made about vessel capacity: Although the "Ever Ace" is the biggest at this moment, she will never carry all her capacity at once. On her departure from Yantian (China) to Rotterdam she carried "only" 21.270 TEU, which counts as arecord today. All of the supersized vessels are limited by additional factors, such as stack weights and forces onto the lasing systems. Stability is also not a rough system, but finely calculated to only use minimum ballast water, to keep the vessel perfectly upright and have safe movement characteristics while being underway.
Finally slow-steaming is beneficial by modern vessels, built with this principle in mind. Buth the "Maersk Essex" and her sisters were designed in the "FULL AHEAD" era. Their main engines were adapted to the new regulations, but the effect is similar to driving a Ferrari for your daily commute across town. You`ll hurt the engine by never using the full potential.
Imagine the feeling of moving an 8750 TEU vessel fully laden (displacing 100.000 tons of water) with 23 knots across the ocean. On hombound voyages the regular travel times were 21 days from Singapore to Hamburg. And for the most part, we made it even earlier.....
He's just salty that ships can move more things around at once than an aeroplane
Ships are salty from ocean water
lmao
Well said my man.
Hilarious
To be fair modern shipping vessels are shit. They have nothing on the complexity of historic ocean liners or modern airplanes
Good stuff, thanks for posting! This is the best summary of the supply chain crises I've seen outside of logistics trade publications like FreightWaves, American Shipper, etc. One point I'd add to close the snake eating it's own tail that is global supply chain: Due to all of the delays caused by port+rail congestion and trucking shortages, buyers are increasing order sizes to stock up, leading to higher demand, which makes it harder for the inland transit systems to catch up...leading to more congestion and delays.
Source: Almost a decade of experience in international and domestic logistics. Currently working in ocean procurement at an international freight forwarder.
Funnily enough, even though shipping companies tend to find the Philippines to be the best source of labor due to us accepting low-paying salaries, some of the people that I've known, cousins, friends, and Uncles are pretty much living a luxurious and high spending lifestyle. It's just depressing that some of them don't much have the time to spend with their families.
It's not just that Filipinos accept lower salaries, they're also more often than not incredibly diligent workers and very friendly and polite. Most nationalties of crew have their negative stereotypes, but nobody really has a bad word to say about Filipinos.
Wish there's a comment section on Nebula, only reason I prefer youtube more for same vids is the community.
So true, it doesnt even need to be forever comments.
I would guess moderation is too expensive.
@GreasySax I mean, imagine what a dumpster fire their comments would be without moderation.
@@Praisethesunson yeah like youtubes comment section
It’s comments from paying folks. Probably less bad then one would think.
You can pronounce Maersk as just "Mersk"
I work there that's how we pronounce it :)
I work in another international company and my colleagues from different countries pronounce the company name differently. I expect that may be the case for Maersk too.
@@richardbloemenkamp8532 yea pretty much XDD. I called it MAErsk when I started and I had people looking at me weird
We had a Maersk container at our port that had the 'E' and 'A' reversed. I don't know if it was intentional or not. Now a coworker and I will sometimes pronounce it "Me Arsk" just to get odd looks from others.
Haha, that's brilliant. I hope it was intentional to mess with people. In regards to his pronunciation, it's actually spot on albeit with an American "R", if we consider the Danish pronunciation the "correct" one, as it is the Danish surname of the founding family. That said, while the company is Danish, it is so international that I doubt you can consider a single pronunciation the "correct one".
The downside to "Just In Time" is when stuff doesn't get there "Just In Time". The flow is disrupted, and that "lack of flow" spills forward throughout the JIT-web.
Not being able to leave the ship when it's at port must be pretty rough. Given how long they are isolated at sea, the risk are much lower (if anything the workers are more likely to get infected than they are of spreading it).
I was thinking that exact thing. On the open ocean, with a job to do, I'd be fine. Work, sleep, eat, when relaxing you can stare at a MOVING ocean. But camped out for 17 days, STANDING STILL, in sight of land, that would drive me insane. I would get sick of my crew mates fairly quickly.
The risk balance depends on where they go & from where
The risk is a new virus or strain traveling huge distances to infect a new area with low resistance. That makes the spread incredibly dangerous if not handled well. Remember that covid spread all around the globe by mostly plane travel.
It is. I am lucky to have moved on from being a seafarer before these hard times began, but many others could not and cannot, now and in the future. In my opinion, it was already... difficult before. Having maybe 2-4 hours ashore once a month is probably the average on most container lines even w/o a pandemic - with some people on contract for 12 months and still without good means of communication, but a family at home... Yeah. It must change.
Oh it is man, it is. but that's life. I'm currently on my third month of my sea contract and still no shore leave (that's what we call leaving the ship at port). hell we have people on board here who are on their 7th month who had made no contact with land whatsoever after joining. Of course it's not perfect, but there's very little we can do atm, our only hope is that the as the global restrictions will ease, so will the maritime ones :)
As someone currently working for a global freight forwarding company in a non-operational role (IT Security) this is incredibly fascinating to watch.
Don't really keep up with the ins and outs of the business itself.
Edit: I do know about consolidations though! "Consols" are one of the first things I learned about here.
I need to commend this channel on this video. As someone who works in stowage planning, this video is very accurate. The most accurate video I have seen on any social media platform. Thank you for mentioning the seafarers that work on the vessels and the lives they live to keep the world turning.
The overload capacity is a logistical nightmare to say the least lol.
The essex is chilling around the southern tip of japan according to marine trafic
How do you check for marine traffic?
Thank you for producing this fine video. Very professional and quite informative. I work for Amazon and almost daily see what major headaches supply chain disruption causes us in our 650,000 sq ft distribution hub in Florence, NJ. Somedays, we get overloaded with too many trucks pulling up to Inbound to be unloaded. While others, we find ourselves a significant shortage of empty trailers in Outbound to be loaded and hauled away. So we basically get screwed coming and going frequently - making Peak Season a hellscape.
I worked extensively on the JIT suppl chain model.
Through all of it I was aware of the increased fragility we were building.
The answer is simple - stop worrying about the carrying capacity of excess inventories in the chain. Only perishables suffer from long storage - so localize all perishables.
Simple.
Wow...what a remarkable production. As usual, you take a subject i've never really cared about, never looked into and never had any reason to change, take a 20 minute timeslot in my day to tell me the story why i should be doing the exact opposite. Such a complex system, so many variables, and yet, I totally understand everything and see how big the lack of media to get somewhat of the same message across is a miserable attempt of achieving this level of quality.
+
I completely agree. Broadcast TV is left in the dust by channels like this. Bye TV forever and I stopped watching TV regularly around 2005.
This video really summed up everything i have worked in a Containership our route was China, South Korea, Japan, Canada, and US most of the cargo would he offloaded in Canada and US. Long Beach and Oakland are very big and busy ports, it would take 3 days for loading and unloading of 2k containers in the West Coast but when we leave the west coast for china it would take only less than 2 weeks most Chinese ports are very fast, loading and unloading containers the same amount we unload and load in the us would take only 24hrs in china and i’m a filipino working on the container ship. I’ve been in long beach and Los Angeles terminals shipping companies are sometimes annoyed in US ports because of the slow movement of cargo in and out of the ships and our ship could carry a maximum of 13,000 TEU with a crew of 24 people. I used to work for Maersk.
absolutely brilliant. so well put together and written
I said this before: I really appreciate how you manage your Nebula and TH-cam content.
I subscribe to Nebula to support you and the other creators on the platform. Without the additional content, if something happened that made me question the expense it would be easier to step away. As you are adding value beyond my desire to help support you, it would stave off that question and weigh the decision in your favor.
Please share your strategy with your Nebula peers.
Thanks again and great content.
shut up dude is cashing up on this bs sterile content.
How do you pronounce the X in your name?
@@carultch Jason McSorley, the 'zack-uh-ri-uh' is silent 😜
Holy crap I worked as a container ship mate for 4 years and those lengths in port sound forking heavenly. Admittedly, I worked on much smaller ships than the Essex, which isn't even a big ship anymore, but damn... most of the port visits when I was shipping out were in the range of 8-12 hours long. If you had a stop longer than say 15 hours it was pretty long. 24 hours was about the longest we used to routinely do, and that was usually 1 time per trip. The longest port stay I ever had was about 35 hours. The ships i was working on were quite lot smaller though. IIRC the Maersk Kentucky was something like 7,200 TEU, maybe a bit bigger. I think the APL Agate was about 8,600 and the Maersk K Class ships were somewhere in the 9,200-9,500 range. Honestly I forget. When I was on Maersk Memphis, her sister ship K Class ships were the largest US flagged box boats out there. One day, while we were at the dock in Algeciras with the Memphis, I watched the MSC Oscar come in and dock directly astern of us. At the time, MSC Oscar was the largest container ship in the world. I think she took the crown from the CSCL Globe. It was changing like every few months back then. Anyway, Oscar tied up directly astern of us and her bow was damned near as high as the Nav bridge on the Memphis. It was insane. I literally cannot understand a 17 day wait at anchor. Like my brain cannot comprehend that. I spent 3 days on the hook once waiting for storms at the suez canal to clear and that's the most time I've spent anchored on a box boat. Like... container ships have to run on schedule. If the choice is to be on time or open a portal to hell and summon the devil directly into our bodies, every containership sailor knows that the company will instantly choose to preserve the schedule, and thus we prepare to meet Satan...
This was very thorough and thought out as usual Sam. There is one part you briefly mentioned which would be good to dive deeper into - the Panama Canal and what is stopping smaller ships taking good from the west coast to the east coast as a way to alleviate congestion and the pros and cons of that.
Each container should be dropped straight onto rail,
moved 20-500 miles inland for more room to process and distribute.
crazy to pack all that into 1st mile of shoreline.
building the rail line would shut down an already busy port terminal for the time construction takes, so it"s a case of the sunk cost preventing an eventually superior solution, along with it being profitable for the ports if every port is busy to the point of congestion, meaning it"s uncertain if the difference is ever made up compared to what they can get with a congested system
@@AnarchistMetalhead so too hard to fix it soo... let's do nothing...
a rail takes up maybe 20 yards of room...
would only need one rail could be at the end of the existing property if you like to roll it from tanker to rail instead of straight from ship to rail.
Boomer thinking...
@@RCRitterFPV the rail itself doesn"t take up much room, however one rail line would be an as bad or worse a bottleneck than trucks, so you"d need multiple side by side.
Also it has to be direct loading, with in between steps you are again creating a worse bottleneck than you already have.
What is the issue though is that for the construction time the terminal has to be shut down, which is highly costly if terminals are in such demand, and if the rebuild does work it"s unclear if it can ever be made up again as the higher capacity removes the priority payments they can get with a congested terminal.
@@AnarchistMetalhead Sounds like you were part of a feasibility study... Musty of thought of everything, Which engineering firm do you work for?
Man I wish I thought to ask you before I spoke...
My MUST a rail bottleneck if the rail is straight and has no stops for 30 miles then branches into a 1000 acre sorting Customs lot
whatever.. you already solved all the worlds problems.
Good on you.
Your comment is just on point! As I see it, from an electrical engineer perspective, ports are substations and trains and trucks are powerlines. Trucks, as lower voltage powerlines, should be used to distribute cargo near by. Trains, on the other hand, as higher voltage powerlines, should be used for the long distance trips
I don't know how much time each loading-unloading operation adds, but the more containers you can move out of the way at once (hence by trains), the better
Listening to this it's hard not to imagine one of these ships in the center of the ocean being a really good setting for a horror story
Excellent video. I worked in supply chain and ocean shipment. Super good summary which explains enough why we are where we are wihtout confusing people with more details. Awesome job.
The 35 cents per unit cost to ship from Vietnam to the US just about matches the rate paid to the Vietnamese factory worker
Cool.. So 20 cents in material.. 30 cents in labor and 35 cents to ship it. yet Nike's are still $100.. Sounds like someone is getting robbed along the way.
@@calholli Not so much robbed, just the target economy is different from the source. The brand and thus the product has its demand and value concentrated in a particularly wealthy country where the scale of price is vastly different, affected also by wages, costs of living, and value of currency.
And with those cents they were still able to pay rent, food & toys for a whole family....
Sorry but the whole "they earn 1$ a day" has to die, it means nothing. I'm sure you could find someplace where having a whole dollar is equivalent to being rich compared to the rest of the population.
@@calholli - Imagine how many trees could be saved without individual boxes...plus space in the container...
@@TheYah00netstar have you seen the shoes at walmart lately?
Hanging on a hook.
I don’t know if it interests you, but the port of Coos Bay, Oregon has plans to open up a small container port. It would have nowhere near the capacity of other pacific ports, but its location is roughly halfway between Oakland and Seattle.
It will still be constrained by lack of rail and truck capacity going east. The northern USA rail mainline is single track with very limited capacity. I90/I94 is the only truck route that parallels the rail mainline from that area and it is very constrained by weather during the winter. Basically all ports on the USA west coast are constrained by low capacity rail and truck services.
@@jimpad5608 there is an existing rail line that connects coos bay to three other rail networks in Eugene. The infrastructure is already there to take advantage of. It won’t be a big deal for the rest of the country, but it will be for the region.
I would like to thank all the people who work in all the phases of this industry as they are making a great contribution to society at great risk and hardship. May you all find success and happiness for a job well done.
If a deep water port was constructed at Point Mackenzie Alaska and the Alaska Railroad extended to connect to Canadian railways, you could relieve some of the pressure and cargo would get to the East Coast faster and cheaper than using California ports.
Thanks for your comment. Took a look at the port and railroad, so close but yet so far.
The issue is still the scale of ships. A 14,000 ft (4,267 m) train which is about the longest you'll currently find in the US/Canada would only be approximately 200 container wells which if all double stacked makes the train the equivalent of an 800 TEU land ship. A 20,000 TEU ship is approximately 25 trains worth of containers. So even if you're unloading 25% of a ship, you still need just over 7 trains per ship. This is also ignoring other issues such as the fact that you aren't going to run trains that long in colder weather due to the way train brakes work, you would need to construct new rail lines through some very rough terrain, and you're now utilizing more expensive labor for a longer stretch of the journey. Even if it was to just relieve pressure most companies would rather just wait and save money.
I was going to mention this as well. Alaska seems like a good place to put a deep water port, even if it's a bit far. Also, IIRC a lot of planes pass through Alaska. So with Oil a declining industry, maybe Alaska can shift its focus to transportation & cargo. Also semi-related, Russia at one point had plans to build a railway connecting with Alaska, would be cool to see that happen, then maybe some cargo could come by train (although that might be more expensive considering how much siberian territory the train would need to pass through to get to a population/cargo center).
Problem is nobody lives in Alaska, and shipping by rail is more expensive than by Sea. It would not make economic sense to invest significant capital in developing Alaskan railroads when you can invest those funds in CONUS ports with more efficient results. Not to mention, labor. You need to hire sufficient labor to accommodate the increased shipping activity which Alaska may or may not have.
@@taoliu3949 I partially agree, population isn't that much of a problem, the port would likely be in South East Alaska, where there's a few hundred thousand people. But as you mentioned the problem is capital for infrastructure development, which they aren't likely to get when more cost-effective projects exist elsewhere.
The majority of the freight entering the port of LA/Long Beach is destined for somewhere else. Typically BNSF and UP trains load up a bunch of freight and take it away. In fact, the railroads are currently caught up and waiting on the terminals, so they can pull out the cargo! ICTF, a massive set of holding tracks, nearby the port, is nearly empty. The port JUST started storing containers inside the LAXT loop. A massive block of containers. Tons of trucks bringing containers from the terminals, to the loop, to clear up space for more containers off ships. I heard a lot of stuff about a lot of things people claim are "the problem". Several terminals that weren't 24/7 are switching to 24/7. That should help. I heard the longshoremen are causing problem, maybe in protest of the automation, which is slowing things, but idk if that's true. Another big issue is out of business companies. When a company decides it can't pay the fees associated with a container, eventually it is surrendered and gets sold off. Those containers are just taking up space and nothing can be done with them until they're sold, following whatever kind of rules and timeframes go with that. Soooo many companies went out of business during covid, that it makes a lot of sense we'd have to clean up after them.
I watched the behind the scenes on Nebula. Great job! I could say so much more but great job from top to bottom, from start to finish, it’s all amazing!
This was a great video essay Wendover, your works keep getting better each time you put out a video. Keep it going
I gotta be honest with you "How a Wendover Productions Video Is Made (And Why I Make Them)" would be a literally perfect video and fit for this channel, so it is kind of disappointing not to have it here.
Good reason to promote manufacturing in Central and South America. Put a tariff on incoming shipments to do so.
#1 Ports are not as congested.
#2 More employment there helps keep people in their countries (where I'm sure they would rather stay) instead of illegally entering ours out of desperation.
Job interview: “What is your experience with international shipping?”
Me: “Wendover Productions”
You're hired!
I work for APM in the gulf, and the issue we've been having is that the trucks aren't coming and picking up the containers. We've tried extended hours weekday and weekend, and our port is still stuffed to the brim with containers.
Good.
Really fascinating explanation of how it works and why we're having issues. Good work and thank you for sharing.
@Wendover, stowage plans in Maersk are done by people not computers, computers only validates the plans in regards to IMDG and vessel stability
Wendover Productions: Infrastructure (and airplanes!)
Real Life Lore: Toyota Corolla
PolyMatter: China
Neo: Perfect graphics and explanations of current events
what is neo?
Real engineering: 👁️👄👁️👍🏼
You just gave me a ton of content to watch. Thanks düd 👍
Obf and caspian report. Quality!
I love these trade logistics videos. Please make more.
I learn more from you than I ever have done from any other media outlet. The explanations are perfect, thank you. 👏🏻
I came across this basic idea while looking in my refrigerator. We had butter from France in there. My wife likes to shop at Trader Joe's, who has a lot of stuff like this. Now the thing is, we live in California, which recently passed Wisconsin as the biggest dairy state in the USA. So let's say there is not a lack of butter here. Further, I have been to France, they like products of California, they are all over the stores there.
Thus I don't think it is a stretch to imagine that our French butter headed for California passed another ship with California butter headed for France. Thus, everything is going everywhere on our little planet. And that's why the ports are all stuck up.
Yeah, it's one of the gross inefficiencies of modern capitalism. Why trade products when we can just trade recipes/techniques? Sometimes a crisis is needed to force people into efficient and creative solutions.
@@ryerye9019 yeah, let’s build a lot of redundant factories, mow down forests to ensure the work of new supply chains in order to replace every niche imported product in every part of the world instead of shipping them in a fraction of the carbon footprint, that sure will be much more efficient and won’t harm the environment in any way 🤠👍
@@ryerye9019 Because a lot of the time the goods in question are significantly different and so can't just be substituted. For example bourbon and Scotch whisky are similar but someone who loves a particular single malt won't be satisfied with a cheep bourbon.
Okay, I haven't seen every video you've made, but I've seen enough to hopefully reliably rank this video as your number 1 greatest video. Amazing work!!
The main problem is the shortage of truck drivers willing to work in California. This is because in most of the country, truck drivers want to be independent contractors but AB5 forces them to be employees of a trucking company if either the starting point or end point of their journey is in California. This is a case of California imposing stupid laws on the rest of the country and truck drivers don't want to drive in California. Another problem is the California state income tax. California forces truck drivers to pay income tax on all of their income even if they are residents of other states because California considers them to be residents for tax purposes if they work a small amount in California. This makes truck drivers avoid California to avoid being dinged on taxes and thus we have a shortage of truck drivers.
This is really interesting as somebody from near Seattle. While I know its not quite as backlogged as California its still got backups.
The last time I was in the city I saw containers parked in areas around the industrial area I had never seen them before( I assume they were empty and just being stored since they cant take the time or space to load up empties to send back).
As well my company has shipments to Asia and while we were able to get one container filled it did sit at the dock a long time due to the boat it was scheduled for being delayed(obviously) but we have shipments for two more containers and just physically can not get any empty container set up to be delivered and loaded for shipment due to ship schedules, truck schedules, etc.... so are having to hold it in our warehouse. Its so much cheaper to just hold it and wait though and ship it on a boat then shipping as air cargo.
You guys should make a video about train intermodal yards.
8:00 we need to start using single mcdonald's chicken nuggets as currency
Replace the gold standard with the McStandard.
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 I'm lovin' it !
I can tell you that as a Freight Forwarder - the "average" cost on the TPT lanes have been sky rocketing since May of this year. Rates went from about 3500-4000USD - to now more than 16000-20000USD it's scary for the consumer. Companies don't just eat this exorbitant cost of logistics, we (the consumer) will bear this burden in the end.
This was really interesting, i work in air freight, so i don't know a whole lot about ocean freight! This was really informative, thank you :)
Imagine all the stuff {Containers} these ships over the years are leaving by mistake; Containers that fall overboard in bad weather (or balance issues) all become time capsules. Hundreds of years from now future divers will find 20FT Containers full of Kroc's shoes and wonder if that was the sign our civilization was doomed...
I recommend reading a book called "the box", it's all about shipping containers