The bottleneck started with five ships on Oct. 15, 2020, then pushed past 40 in February 2021 as Americans snapped up merchandise for their Covid confinement. The line dipped to nine in June 2021, then swelled above 60 this time last year before peaking at 109 in January. But like many benchmarks of supply-chain pressure lately, this one is dwindling. Just eight ships were on the arrival manifest as of late last week.
Few observers have had a better perch to watch the pandemic slowly clog — and now free up — one of the biggest arteries of global trade than Captain J. Kipling “Kip” Louttit.
Two years ago this week, as fully loaded container ships congregated off the coast of Southern California, Louttit’s team of marine traffic managers for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach started keeping daily records on a spreadsheet that today measures 736 lines and 13 columns. Their mission: organize a queuing system to ensure that vessels as long as the Empire State Building is tall navigated San Pedro Bay in a safe and orderly way.
