Fort Lauderdale Real Estate | Port Everglades Traffic
Port Everglades is South Florida’s most diverse seaport and 10th busiest seaport in the United States. Port Everglades is the gateway for international trade and cruise vacations on the southeast coast of the Florida peninsula with over four million passengers a year. Port Everglades is one of the top three cruise ports in the world, is among the most active containerized cargo ports in the United States and South Florida’s main seaport for petroleum products such as gasoline and jet fuel.
With so many enormous ships trafficking to and fro you would think it would be total chaos, it is anything but. Everything at the port is controlled by Chief Harbormaster Conrad Strong, who compares his job with that of an air traffic controller. “Our ships are bigger (than airplanes) and slower,” he says. Still the precision with which the ships are monitored is similar.
It’s not just cruise ships that harbormasters need to concern themselves with in this fast paced port, it’s the cargo and container ships. The freighters bring in more than 8 million tons of cargo of all types and petroleum tankers bringing 4.7 billion gallons of fuel to the port each year. Tugboats are not needed for cruise ships unless the wind is more than 30 knots. However container and cargo ships do need them; they don’t have the high-tech equipment like bow thrusters and Azipods that can move the ships sideways away from the dock.
Private yachts over 90 feet, there are hundreds of them, also must contact the harbormaster for clearance and instructions. Cargo and container ships await dockage.
“Seven days later,” says Morrissey from his ninth-floor observation tower,” we do it all over again . For more information on Port Everglades and the full story click here: Fort Lauderdale Magazine
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