Interesting even if it is a pipe dream. Hopefully it is a useful development, though I tend to be skeptical that something so obvious would have been ignored by shipping companies for decades. My initial quibble is, what dockage and yard space is being used by a ship with very small capacity and undoubtedly slow offload capability? In shipping port time and container transfer efficiency is a huge deal in terms of freight pricing.
Good point about port time, but the article does claim they can reduce port time since they can offload themselves while the big container ships often have to wait in line for days before unloading. I'm not surprised at your skepticism, and it sounds like you know a lot more about shipping than I do. Many more new business startups fail than succeed, but I hope they make it.
A ship in full sail is a beautiful sight. Thanks for making us aware of the new/old method of shipping.
Interesting even if it is a pipe dream. Hopefully it is a useful development, though I tend to be skeptical that something so obvious would have been ignored by shipping companies for decades. My initial quibble is, what dockage and yard space is being used by a ship with very small capacity and undoubtedly slow offload capability? In shipping port time and container transfer efficiency is a huge deal in terms of freight pricing.
Good point about port time, but the article does claim they can reduce port time since they can offload themselves while the big container ships often have to wait in line for days before unloading. I'm not surprised at your skepticism, and it sounds like you know a lot more about shipping than I do. Many more new business startups fail than succeed, but I hope they make it.
This was a fun interesting and intriguing article to read!
Thanks, Karen. It was fun to write it too.