The Box - Marc Levinson [22]
The total cost of moving the goods carried by the Warrior came to $237,577, not counting the cost of the vessel’s return to New York or interest on the inventory while in transit. Of that amount, the sea voyage itself accounted for only 11.5 percent. Cargo handling at both ends of the voyage accounted for 36.8 percent of the outlay. This was less than the 50 percent or more often cited by shipping executives—but only because Germany’s “economic miracle” had yet to drive up longshore wages; the authors noted that port costs would have been much higher were it not for the fact that German longshoremen earned less than one-fifth the wages of U.S. longshoremen. Their conclusion was that reducing the costs of receiving, storing, and loading the outbound cargo in the U.S. port offered the best method of reducing the total cost of shipping. The authors went beyond the normal admonitions to improve longshoremen’s productivity and eliminate inefficient work rules, and urged a fundamental rethinking of the entire process. “[P]erhaps the remedy lies in discovering ways of packaging, moving and stowing cargo in such a manner that breakbulk is avoided,” they wrote.29
Interest in such a remedy was widespread. Shippers wanted cheaper transport, less pilferage, less damage, and lower insurance rates. Shipowners wanted to build bigger vessels, but only if they could spend more time at sea, earning revenue, and less time in port. Truckers wanted to be able to deliver to and pick up from the docks without hour upon hour of waiting. Business interests in port cities were praying for almost anything that would boost traffic through their harbors. Yet despite all the demands for change, and despite much experimentation, most of the industry’s efforts to improve productivity centered on such timeworn ideas as making drafts heavier so that longshoremen would have to work harder. No one had found a better way to ease the gridlock on the docks. The solution came from an outsider who had no experience with ships.30
* “Bulk” cargo usually refers to commodities such as coal or grain, which can be loaded on a ship in a continuous process without packaging or sorting. “Breakbulk” cargo, by contrast, consists of discrete items that must be handled individually.
**A nautical mile is equal to approximately 6,080 feet, 1.15 statute miles, and 1.85 kilometers. A speed of 11 knots, or nautical miles per hour, is equivalent to 12.7 statute miles per hour, or 20.7 kilometers per hour.
Chapter 3
The Trucker
The U.S. economy boomed in the years just after World War II. The maritime industry did not. The entire merchant fleet had been commandeered by the government when the United States entered the war, and many ships did not revert to private control until July 1947, almost two years after the war ended. Coastal shipping had been all but closed down after German submarines sank several ships, and after 1945 coastwise traffic remained well below prewar levels. Trucks grabbed market share in domestic transportation, but the need to spend days painstakingly handling cargo each time a ship steamed into port kept the maritime industry from reducing costs enough to compete. “Until cargo handling costs can be reduced, there is little hope for coastwise revival,” warned a California State Senate committee in 1951.1
Yet while the larger American ship lines were not particularly profitable, they were relatively sheltered. Foreign lines were barred from coastal service and routes to island territories, and a new American-owned competitor could not enter a domestic route without proving to the ICC that its entry would