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Comment by atlasunshrugged | Hacker News Reader

Questions for the maritime folks in the group: What would it take to re-start the shipbuilding industry in the U.S.? In a world of potentially more contested waters, is there a need for smaller more nimble cargo ships or will the unit economics of large ones always outcompete them? Any innovations you're surprised don't exist in the industry yet?

Yes, I am fishing for ideas!

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My feeling is that would need to get rid of the Jones Act. The protection of shipbuilding and shipping industry have captured both of them and turned them into shadows. Without protection, they would have to compete. They might be destroyed or might survive, but better than limbo.

For example, there is market for shipping containers along the West Coast. Most of the inter-US shipping goes by rail but sea would make sense for some of it. Small container ships would be perfect and locally built would make sense.

A large Great Lakes cargo vessel was recently completed by Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Mark_W._Barker). Great Lakes vessels need to be built in the US due to the Jones Act, but they also tend to last a very long time in the fresh water in which they operate, so this is the first lake freighter built in many decades.

Ships for the US Navy (including the Military Sealift Command) are also built in the US. So, shipbuilding hasn't stopped, but the US's comparative advantage is not really in shipbuilding.

Cool! Fair enough RE competitive advantages but it does seem like having the manufacturing base to rapidly build a huge amount of shipping capacity (whether for trade or military use) could be critical for the U.S. in case of something like a conflict with China. But maybe that just means that we end up needing a 'Chips Act' for shipbuilding or something to incentivize local development.

The ship building industry is alive and well here in the PNW. I think the biggest threat is the work force. Many people are retiring and we're not doing enough to back fill what we're losing. Add that the Jones Act keeps international companies from being part of the process and we're going to run into a wall very soon.

Innovation is coming, but the labor unions are apprehensive. We have literally heard them say that they don't fear automation and innovation, but "put a steering wheel on it." That's such a short sided perspective and if it doesn't change soon, we're going to see a very crippled industry being outsourced by international companies.

Interesting, definitely hear a lot about the Jones Act and I've heard horror stories RE labor unions (including on the port side of things with a lot of hesitation to bring in new tech that could streamline/automate processes)

Probably not the idea you were fishing for but

https://www.realclearscience.com/quick_and_clear_science/201...

Still awesome, I've thought about this actually, especially for transporting high value goods inland from difficult environments to ports (I'm thinking deep in the DRC or in West Africa during the rainy season when the roads are basically unusable) but hadn't considered the overall replacement of cargo ships with them.

I thought this was a fun article: https://www.elidourado.com/p/cargo-airships

A practical collapsible container still has not been made. If you could stack 3 collapsed containers in one slot, that could be a game changer for repositioning.

> A practical collapsible container still has not been made.

That's yet another idea that people often think of when people wonder about improvements for container shipping. The container shipping company I worked for studied it every few years. There's various reason why it hasn't been done. It's not just the container or the container vessel. It would be good to reach out to the right people and see what the problems were that prevented this from being used. It wasn't about making a container collapsible, it was stuff surrounding that.

There are sometimes some really nice cost saving projects that were pretty innovative. Plus maybe also easy if someone thought of it. But often it required a bit more knowledge to think of than "add sails" or "collapsible container".

One fun thing what a few shipping companies many years ago is to take existing vessels and make them bigger. So really cutting various parts of the steel and adding more (e.g. height). An random Google example (use retrofit as search term): https://gcaptain.com/upgrades-to-famous-maersk-e-class-to-bo...

Interesting! Doing a little research I see there is a startup in the space so hopefully there'll be some movement there

https://www.businessinsider.com/foldable-shipping-containers...

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