alarabie

How long does it take from Japan to the US west coast?

Any pictures of one of those car carrying ships?

JSG

I found this link
http://www.eclamericas.com/shipping/default.htm

If you click on schedule it looks like a boat leaving on 17 April from Osaka would get to Long Beach, CA, on 12th May. So these boats seem quite quick.

But then you have loading and unloading times. Plus, I think it'll be a while before there are enough LHD RX8's to fill a boat.

Lensman

Here's a picture of a car carrying ship, in this case BMWs, Volvos and Saabs: LINK

Let's hope we're luckier!

RX-Nut

ouch that's gotta hurt...

DTECH-RX

They're not RX-8s (whew!) but what a waste of some nice cars!

Both the shipping company and their insurance company are definitely going to be hurting on that one! Not to mention there are going to be some pissed off customers that are going to have to wait for their "status symbols". Can't imagine the car manufacturers are too happy either!

jdj1971

I'm betting they don't wait till they have a ship full of RX-8s. They'll probably have a mixed load of stuff on there. There's alot of logistics to keep those boats moving. So it would make sense to load up what ever is available and get it on it's way. That's how they make money.

Lensman

The funniest (if you have a dark sense of it) thing is that despite radar buoys, 24 hour radio alerts, a French (ahem) warship and international publicity, three other ships have managed to hit the submerged wreck of the Tricolor! It's still there months after the sinking, in the busiest shipping lane in the world and still full of slowly rusting cars.

DTECH-RX

You would think someone would try and salvage the damn thing to get it out of the way and recycle all the dead steel and other materials. How deep is the water where it went down? Must not be too deep if other ships keep running into it.

Lensman

Yep, I don't think it'll be easy though as this indicates. It's in 25 metres of water so the side of the ship is just below the water line. Incidentally, that article states that work would begin in March but it plainly hasn't.

DTECH-RX

That's what I get for not reading the captions (I was in a hurry when I clicked on the link earlier).....LOL

Lensman

You criticise yourself too easily. There are now three separate links to three separate articles, the latter two being in response to your questions. The BBC have been running this story all year.

Lensman

For those of you following this story, the salvage job has finally begun: link.

Lensman

The latest sorry update.

matt

The shipped used to carry cars are specific built and according to the Laws in Japan, they cannot carry anything else but cars and automotice parts. Toyota and Hyundi are the only manufactures to have their own ships. Mazda, Honda etc. share ships so our 8's are riding with accords and nissans along with our replacement engines and ecu's.

my .02 yen

Stephan

Lensman what do you have against French ships ?

Stephan