Keeping Close Tabs at the Harbor

From atop Point Fermin, with a commanding view of the nation’s busiest harbor, Capt. Manny Aschemeyer is the maritime equivalent of an airborne traffic reporter.

Aschemeyer, 64, is executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, a nonprofit organization that provides frequent shipping reports to customers around the world who need to know where their cargo is and when it will arrive at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

His office, which he shares with the Coast Guard, resembles the bridge of a ship. A clock rings off the time in ship’s bells, one for every half-hour of each four-hour watch.

Upstairs, the main control room is dominated by five radar screens showing the positions of ships in and near the twin ports. The system can track as many as 1,000 vessels at a time.

Often, the ships are so numerous, Aschemeyer said, they look like “a cloud on the radar.”

Last year, the Marine Exchange in San Pedro tracked the arrivals and departures of 11,500 tankers, containerships and cruise liners at the port complex.

Part of the Marine Exchange’s duties is to police ship traffic outside the harbor in a radius of 25 nautical miles, enforce a 12-knot speed limit and ensure that there is a quarter-mile distance between containerships along the 2-mile-wide coastal shipping lane.

Once a ship reaches the harbor, tugboats and a harbor pilot take over from the ship’s captain, guiding it along the final few miles to the dock.

The ship’s berth location is determined by the shipping line and terminal operator.

Perhaps the most important job of the Marine Exchange is to keep up its steady stream of traffic reports. The exchange has a $2.4-million annual budget -- Aschemeyer supervises 20 employees -- that is funded by fees paid for the shipping updates.

Aschemeyer sends out additional information in e-mail “Manny-grams.” In them, he tracks industry developments, ship arrivals, the number of vessels in port, daily departure information and data on tugboats.

All told, the exchange has 300 subscribers, including cargo brokers and shipping companies.

A licensed ship’s officer, Aschemeyer had a lengthy sailing career before taking the top job at the Marine Exchange 12 years ago.

During his tenure, traffic at the ports has grown dramatically. Freight imports from China have fueled a nearly 40% increase in traffic at the harbor since 2000.

The Los Angeles and Long Beach ports went through the maritime version of a SigAlert last year as a traffic jam kept as many as 94 ships offshore, waiting for a week to unload their goods at the ports.

In the midst of this, the Marine Exchange was a crucial source of information. Its twice-daily reports updated the status of ships and gave the availability of dockworkers.

It was invaluable to international shipping lines, importers and other port customers who were trying to work around unexpected product delivery days.

“They do for us what they do for everyone else. They help us plan,” said Ghalib Tikari, general manager of Marian Shipping Ltd. in Long Beach, an ocean freight and domestic transport logistics provider.

The information also is vital to tugboat operators and harbor pilots.

“We can see where our ships will be five days out into the future. We can get a heads-up on whether things will be busy or slow,” said Thomas Jacobsen, who runs Jacobsen Pilot Service in Long Beach.

Aschemeyer knows something about the demands of international cargo shipments.

He was an honors graduate from the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo before working his way up from third mate to captain on cruise liners and cargo ships, among others.

Later, he worked as a vice president for the Southern California region of Stevedoring Services of America, now known as SSA Marine, one of the world’s largest seaport terminal operators.

Today, Aschemeyer views his work at the Marine Exchange as something like a dream job at the end of a long career.

“When I was a ship’s captain, I couldn’t go home. Now, I have the best job in the world. I get to play with ships all day and I get to go home at night to my wife,” he said.

“The sea hasn’t left me, and I haven’t left it.”