Today, an answer to a listener question about the Vigorous dry dock at the Swan Island shipyard in Portland. It’s an engineering marvel, and the largest floating drydock in North America. We’ll take a closer look.

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A bit about today’s ships: berths, cargo, anchorages – among the reasons ships come here to the Columbia River

The post Who’s on the river today? appeared first on The Ship Report.

Two things today: first, a look at preliminary info about this year’s Rose Festival Fleet of visiting military ships due here in June on the river. And, why was there a big ocean-going cruise ship heading upriver recently?

We’ll talk about all of that, and a look at marine weather and ship traffic for today.

The post A look at what we know about this year’s Rose Festival Fleet, and also, a big cruise ship in Portland appeared first on The Ship Report.

Today we have an unusual cargo ship on the river: a self loader called the CSL Tecumseh. She’s bringing Gypsum to Rainier. What makes her unusual is she has all the gear she needs to load and unload her own cargo at the dock. We’ll talk about why that’s important.

Image courtesy Canadian Steamship Lines.

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Earlier this month, I made a passing reference to there being a new ship anchorage on the Columbia River near Skamakowa.

Today we’ll look at that in more depth, and talk about the complicated affair of anchoring a gigantic ship on a swift, powerful and capricious river.

The post A closer look at the Columbia’s new ship anchorage, and a bit about anchoring on the river appeared first on The Ship Report.

The final segment of our week-long series about car ships.

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Part 4 of our series this week on carships.

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Part 2 of our series on car carriers, featuring now retired Columbia River Bar Pilot, Capt. Robert Johnson.

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Today we begin a special archive interview series on car carriers, featuring a local expert who was a frequent guest on the show in past years: Columbia River Pilot Robert Johnson.

This week on the show, while I’m away, you’ll hear a lot of great info about these important vessels that are specially designed for one type of cargo: vehicles.

The post Special archive interview series: Carships, Part 1 appeared first on The Ship Report.

Today we’ll talk about a little bit of everything: a new anchorage on the river, today’s ship traffic, and why I’ll be taking a little time away from the show next week (you’ll hear a great archive interview series) to tend to some medical needs.

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