Features
A pair of students work on the mooring line of the Oyster Bay barge.
PHOTO BY Ken Woisard
A Call From The Bridge

Alums weigh in on seagoing fleet and mariner shortages—and MMA efforts to right the ship

The story is in the numbers, and the numbers don’t look good.

At the turn of the century, the nation’s seagoing fleet of privately owned merchant vessels comprised 282 vessels: 81 containerships, 11 dry bulk carriers, 22 general cargo ships, 39 ro-ro vessels, 12 integrated tug/barge combinations, and 117 tankers.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, today’s fleet is drastically smaller. As of January 2022, the nation’s seagoing fleet of privately owned merchant vessels comprised just 178 ships, 104 fewer than two decades earlier. That’s a decline in fleet size of 37 percent.

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