[Alberta's Child]

A lot of the focus here has been on the capacity of the Panama Canal and the toll for a container ship to make a transit through the canal. What is being overlooked here is that the biggest constraint for secondary ports like Jacksonville is usually the landside infrastructure and/or the channel limitations.

The Port of Jacksonville currently has a posted channel depth of 40 feet. I’m not sure if that’s the minimum depth at low tide or the maximum depth at high tide, but it either case it’s not deep enough to handle the Post-Panamax or “New Panamax” vessels used by the major ocean carriers for their trans-Pacific service. These vessels couldn’t make port calls at Jacksonville even if the Panama Canal was 10 miles wide and the toll was $0.

[srmanuel]

Over the last several years the Jacksonville Port Authority has spent millions dredging the St John’s River to depth capable of handling the largest of container ships, the idea is to also allow a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the John F Kennedy was based here at one time