On Sat, 29 Feb 2020 13:58:49 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 22:12:28 on Fri, 28 Feb
2020, John Levine remarked:

Why do you think shipping by sea to Chicago is difficult?

Apart from it being 1,500 miles from the Atlantic? What's the biggest
container ship you can get that far.

The limit is 225m long, 23.8m wide, draft 8 m, height above water
35.5m, capacity up to 30,000 tonnes. Why do you ask?

Because the most efficient way to ship stuff by sea (even in smallish
consignments that might otherwise fit inside a plane) is to bung it onto
a large container vessel (inside a container, obviously). Sounds like
transhipping it onto a much smaller boat to do the final 1,500miles is
going to be a pain, compared to air-freighting it end to end.

It will still be far cheaper to send it by sea, even if the containers
have to be trans-shipped. The huge container vessels unload (very
efficiently) at a large port, then the containers continue by smaller
ship/barge, train or truck.

Air freight is generally only used for items with a short shelf-life
or needed quickly. For example, Scotch whisky by sea, Scottish salmon
by air. Cars by sea, urgently needed car spares by air.

PS: A lot of container ships are not currently being loaded in China,
so there's now a shortage of containers! And in a couple of months,
there will be gaps on our shelves.