Glut of container ships expected to keep arriving on West Coast

It’s looking like the uptick in large container ships paying a visit to Bellingham Bay is going to continue for a while.

The shipping website Freightwaves reported last week that around 80 container ships were waiting to pull into U.S. ports. In the Pacific Northwest there were 16 container ships waiting to go into ports including Seattle and Tacoma.

Bellingham Bay has seen its share of ships this summer that are waiting to go into the Seattle and Tacoma ports. In recent days the container ship Tianping has been in Bellingham Bay, waiting its turn. Managed by the China shipping company Cosco, the ship is more than 1,000 feet in length and has a capacity to carry more than 8,200 20-foot containers, according to the website MarineTraffic.com. Built in 2006, it flies a Liberian flag.

This surge in container ships is happening as the U.S. economy gets going again with the restrictions being lifted from the COVID-19 pandemic. The peak season for ships arriving at U.S. ports is usually in August, before the holiday shopping season.

“Expect the West Coast to be slammed the entire month of August. We are entering gridlock plus,” Logistics consultant Jon Monroe said in the Freightwaves article, posted on Friday, July 30.

To drop anchor in Bellingham Bay, container ships must register with the U.S. Coast Guard and meet all U.S. standards when it comes to safety, said Chris Clark, Port of Bellingham’s Marine Terminals Business Development Manager. Before going into port, the ships, no matter what flag they are under, are boarded and inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard.

The port itself does not play a role in where the container ships park in the bay and the length of stay, Clark said.