New State-of-the-Art Ship to Dock at Noon in Redwood City

The final in a series of five Canada Steamship Lines’ (CSL) state-of-the-art, new Trillium Class self-unloading Panamax vessels, the 228-meter long CSL Tacoma, embarked on her maiden voyage from the Chengxi Shipyard in Jiangyin, China on Oct. 12, and is making her maiden cargo voyage to San Francisco Bay.  

She is scheduled to arrive at the Port of Redwood City at noon on Wednesday, November 6, with sand and gravel construction materials from an Eagle Rock Aggregates quarry in British Columbia.

With the South Bay and Peninsula building boom resulting in skyrocketing demand for construction materials, imports of these materials by ship to the Port of Redwood City are expected to double to two million tons over the next 18 months, reports Port Executive Director Michael J. Giari.   In fact, the Tacoma’s maiden call will be one of three ships arriving at the Port of Redwood City this week with construction materials, with a combined total of 100,000 tons.             

The Port will hold a “maiden voyage” welcome for the ship at Wharf 1 at the Port Wednesday at 2 p.m., with Port Chair Lorianna Kastrop and representatives from CSL, Cemex, and Eagle Rock Aggregates expected to be at the welcoming.

The materials are being brought into the Port by Cemex Aggregates which handles and distributes the aggregate materials to readi-mix plants throughout the South Bay. Millions of tons of construction material are needed in the South SF Bay for the new Apple headquarters, housing, hotels, entertainment complexes near the new Levi Stadium, office campuses for Google and other Silicon Valley companies, and more, including the residential construction boom in Redwood City.  

The logistics chain for this material consists of the Orca Quarry on northern Vancouver Island with a large modern, high speed ship loader; newly built state-of-the-art, self unloading CSL ships; the Port of Redwood City’s new Wharf One facility that is scheduled to open in December; and new Cemex ready mix concrete plants at or near construction project sites in Silicon Valley.  

Private companies and the Port of Redwood City have invested millions of dollars in infrastructure, ships, and equipment to make the movement of this material as efficient as possible.

According to CSL Americas West Coast Director Garth Mitcham, the Tacoma “represents the latest in environmental technologies utilization and IMO Tier II propulsion among many other design achievements shared with her sister ships: Rt. Hon. Paul E. Martin, CSL Tecumseh, Balto and Balchen.  Each of these vessels has performed their maiden voyages into the SF Bay area serving the State of California’s infrastructure needs.” The CSL Tecumseh is scheduled to call on the Port this Friday; the Rt. Hon. Paul E. Martin made its maiden cargo voyage to the Port of Redwood City in 2012.

For more information on the ship: http://www.cslships.com/en/csl-americas/fleet/vessels-and-specs/csl-tacoma

(Editor's Note: This information was submitted to Patch by the Port of Redwood City.)