Ports go deep to dock bigger ships

Lifting anchor in New York, the Dahe will steam toward Boston Harbor Wednesday night. While almost three football fields long and capable of holding 3,800 20-foot metal containers, this 12-year-old Chinese container ship is relatively small compared with today's high-tech transports. But Boston's port can't receive those bigger boats, so the Dahe will have to suffice.

As export economies continue to expand in the Far East to supply hungry American consumers, shipping companies are shifting to vessels three times larger than the Dahe. These new behemoth freighters are forcing many US ports to decide whether to spend millions on improvements - like deeper harbors and new terminals - or watch the next generation of ships pass them by.

"In a lot of ways, smaller ports have already dried up," says Marc Levinson, a New York economist who has written a book on the 50-year history of container shipping. "The fact is: Many small US ports are simply not equipped to handle [the largest ships in] today's fleet. Shipping companies want the fastest, cheapest route. And they'll go to Canada or Mexico to find it."

To compete with other Eastern cities, the Massachusetts Port Authority wants to dredge five to 10 feet of rock and clay from the bottom of the harbor to allow larger, deeper-floating ships to enter safely. The estimated cost: $100 million.

"In order to be competitive in the global marketplace, we need a 45- [to] 50-foot harbor, one that can serve these new vessels," says Boston port director Michael Leone.

While Boston waits for a green light from the US Army Corps of Engineers and Congress for the project, ports from Sacramento, Calif., to New Orleans are scrambling to find funds for their own plans to dredge and deepen.

The Virginia Port Authority finished a three-year, $37 million project last April, turning Norfolk into the deepest port on the East Coast, at 50 feet. The Port of New York/New Jersey hopes to join the 50-foot club by 2009, as part of a multibillion-dollar harbor renovation.

Tired of losing major manufacturing contracts to neighboring states with stronger infrastructures, North Carolina recently approved construction of a new billion-dollar port on Cape Fear, designed for 21st-century container ships.

"The American container market is going to double by 2012 [or] 2015, and we want to be a part of that," says Thomas Eagar, CEO of the North Carolina State Port Authority. [Editor's note: The original version misspelled Thomas Eagar's name.]

True, only a small percentage of container vessels have outgrown big commercial ports like Boston. But the shipping industry runs off economies of scale.

"The more containers they can pack into a single boat, the bigger their profit," says Brian Cudahy, author of "Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed the World." "Shipowners and operators want to go as big as they can, and unless ports turn around and say 'no,' they're only getting bigger."

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