Interesting. But the eta still shows 11/27, and that first 11/24 entry has a timestamp of 00:00. I suspect that this is just some normal pre-arrival papwerwork-related stuff.

 

When in doubt "reach out and touch someone"... so I called the harbormasters office this morning... No, it didn't come in yesterday... still scheduled for Friday.

While on their website I found this interesting bit of information... I'm not sure how 'zactly to read it but it appears from the manifest schedule that they gonna be offloading a LOT of cars in Port Hueneme before they move on (BTW the specs on the Tomar say that it can hold over 6,500 cars)

 

Here's some video of a car carrier like the Tomar being loaded...

http://www.eukor.com/homepage/manage/cargo.wmv

 

Thanks... that was interesting. I guess that's the only way to do it, but it does seem to be "labor intensive"... I can picture every valet parking attendant in L.A. going up to Port Hueneme twice a month to unload cars... B-)

It would be interesting to know how many "drivers" they actually use, and how long it takes to load/unload a few thousand cars or so...

The Port website did mention that they give port tours... might be a nice drive some weekend just to watch 'em do it.

 

bilseg,

If you do take a tour, how about taking a video and posting it here? If the tour doesn't include a walk-thru of the ship maybe you can make a few phone calls and arrange something.

 

IF you've got nothing better to do this Thanksgiving day... you can track the Tomar to Port Hueneme.

It recently showed up (south of Ensenada) heading 336° at 18.1 knots

http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/def...spx?level0=100

 

Probably won't affect us...much. I hope the Tomar isn't the first BMW/MINI ship of November... But I came across the following article.

http://www.bimmerfile.com/2009/09/28...ce-oxnard-vpc/

The management of the west coast’s Oxnard Vehcile Preparation Center at Port Hueneme will be outsourced to Amports beginning on November 1, 2009.