Paul 'Chip' Jaenichen Comments on Dr. John Cartner's Suggestion of Second U.S. Registry

US Acting Maritime Administrator Paul 'Chip' Jaenichen recently spoke with Maritime TV regarding industry policies, including an idea for a bareboat charter registry suggested by maritime law specialist John A.C. Cartner as one of "Ten Points to Restart the US Maritime Industry." Jaenichen's response to that proposal is featured in the following video. 

There’s a number of ideas out there and all of them have merit, but they need to be evaluated. I think the strategy itself is going to be the easy part of putting together the maritime strategy. The harder part is going to be what I call the implementation plan, which implements the strategy and gives it the impetus to really do what the strategy says we want it to do. I see this thought and his proposal as something that needs to be looked at.

I would push back on it and say, one, how does it improve cargo? At the end of the day, if you don’t have cargo, there is no need for a ship whether it’s in a bareboat registry or any other registry. So we need to identify opportunities on how we can get additional cargo. Can we provide better service, can we provide incentives? Are there ways to get cargo on US flag vessels? At the end of the day, that’s what we’re going to have to do and those are the things that we’re going to be focused on. The strategy needs to be one that the government supports, the industry supports, labor supports, and more importantly, the shippers support because they’re the ones that are going to be putting cargo on the vessels.

Jaenichen's comments echo those of Connecticut Maritime Association Editor Don Frost, who wrote, "Functionally shipping has always been a service to the cargo interest (exporter) and not the other way around. If there is no sale there is no need for a ship."