Busy Times in Port of Mobile

When we came up Mobile Bay last week we realized that it’s been four years since we first brought Lauren Grace up from the Gulf on our first cruise with her. A lot has changed in those years, not the least of which was the increase in activity that we observed in the Port of Mobile. There is a huge new cruise ship that was put into service last fall; unfortunately she was not in port the day we transited so I couldn’t include a photo of her. I did get these shots of container ships being loaded. I hope that you can see the crane setting the blue container (looks like a boxcar) in its place on the stack in this photo

In this shot the huge tugboat is applying pressure to keep the ship tight against the wharf during the loading process. Partly this is necessary because of the wakes caused by the activity in the area and partly due to the effect that the tide has on the current and thus the movement of the ship

This shot is of a “dry-dock”. In other words a ship is pushed into this docking device, the water is pumped out and the dock with the ship is raised to the surface in order to provide a dry platform from which to work on the ship. The tarp is probably not hiding any trade secrets; rather it is being used to contain the dust & material sanded from the ship’s hull.

Industry in Mobile is doing better than in many places during this downturn. The shipbuilding firm Austal, working in some sort of partnership with General Dynamics just completed one of the Navy’s new littoral combat ships – LCS2 now known as the U.S.S. Independence. We were lucky enough to actually get to see the new LCS as she was moored in the shipyard when we came down to Mobile last fall. They are claiming that the tri-maran can move its weapons around faster than any other ship in the Navy.  The top photo below shows the Mobile skyline in the background as she is underway and the bottom photo is how we saw her last fall.  Disregard the date stamp on the bottom picture, I got this from another source because we were a little too busy dodging debris to take any photos last fall.

Do yourself a favor and follow the links above to learn more about the newest ship in our Navy’s line.  By the way littoral means “close to shore”, and that's where these ships will operate. They're tailor-made for launching helicopters and armored vehicles, sweeping mines and firing all manner of torpedoes, missiles and machine guns.

Austal also built the gigantic and controversial Hawaiian “super ferry”.

This cool picture is of the LCS2 sitting in the ways at the Austal Yard.  Larry thinks this shot is awesome.

A short distance up the Mobile River from the actual Port work is progressing on the huge new ThyssenKrupp Steel and Stainless USA  mill that will be one of the world’s most sophisticated carbon and stainless steel processing facilities. I read somewhere that the project is currently the largest private industrial investments in the U.S.  It is a welcome case of job in-sourcing in the U.S. at a time when many companies are moving jobs overseas. The project will create an estimated 2,700 permanent jobs domestically when it becomes fully operational in 2010.

I’m guessing that means that traffic will continue to increase on this stretch of water.

Here you can see the work being done at the loading docks for the steel mill