CSX Consumer arrives; more cargo ships to follow
By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
Rarely has a boxy, weathered cargo ship been greeted with as much relief as the CSX Consumer was yesterday, after sailing into Honolulu Harbor with the first shipment of goods to the Islands from the West Coast in more than a week.
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The 750 containers were loaded with everything from fresh meat and paper products to beverages.
The container vessel CSX Consumer arrived yesterday morning at Honolulu Harbor, bringing with it the first goods to the Islands from the West Coast in more than a week.
"A lot of the cargo will go out today," Jeff Brennan, Hawai'i port manager for CSX Lines, said yesterday. "It could be in the stores today."
The shipment came as many shippers and businesses started to feel the squeeze of the West Coast dock shutdown that had stopped the flow of goods to the Islands. And it will be followed quickly from now on by other ships loaded with long-delayed goods.
CSX has another container ship arriving Sunday — the 925-foot-long CSX Navigator — with a company record load of 940 containers.
Matson Navigation Co. will have ships arriving today, tomorrow and Tuesday.
Yesterday, crews began almost immediately unloading the 721-foot Consumer when it arrived about 9 a.m. with containers stacked five high and 10 wide in places. The ship will sail back to the West Coast at noon tomorrow.
Some of yesterday's cargo is destined for the Neighbor Islands, with barges scheduled to arrive on Maui and the Big Island by Monday and on Kaua'i by Tuesday, Brennan said.
The shipments come none to soon for Island retailers.
"We're happy to get it," said Bryan Wall, store manager of the Mililani Wal-Mart, where inventory has been getting thin.
Wal-Mart normally gets two shipments a week and, like many other retailers, had stockpiled goods in anticipation of the labor problems.
"But you can't stock up on everything," Wall said yesterday.
The Consumer was only partially loaded when the second of two West Coast lockouts began Sept. 29. Brennan said CSX decided not to sail it "light" and it sat in the harbor at Los Angeles until an exemption granted to Hawai'i allowed it to get loaded and under way Monday.
"We just put it in high gear," he said.
But customers were getting anxious. Brennan said many called to say they were just about running out of goods.
"We're excited," he said. "For our company, we always want to have cargo coming. But for our customers, they want the cargo, too. And our longshoremen have not been working for two weeks. It's great for everybody."
Matson's Kauai arrives this morning, followed by the Matsonia and Ewa tomorrow and the Chief Gadao on Tuesday.
Matson normally has four ship arrivals per week. But with 29 West Coast ports jammed with ships and tons of rotting produce, it's impossible to pinpoint an arrival schedule, said Matson spokesman Jeff Hull.
"We still have four ships arriving," he said, "it's just not a fixed day-of-the-week service that we have."
Brian Taylor, vice president and general manager for CSX Lines, said he hopes the shipping line's schedule comes closer to normal after two to 2 1/2 weeks.
"It's just going to take that long to get through the backlog," he said.
Ships returning from Hawai'i will have to take their places in line with all the others waiting to get loaded and unloaded along the West Coast, he said, particularly in Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif.
