A record number of cargo ships off the California coast shows a crack in the supply chain

By Gregory Schmidt

Container ships were lined up this week off the coast of Southern California, waiting to deliver cargo at the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach. The backup offered another sign of the supply chain woes bedeviling businesses across the globe.

Sixty-one vessels were anchored offshore on Thursday waiting to unload cargo, down from a record 73 on Sunday, said Capt. J. Kipling Louttit, the executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, a nonprofit that works in partnership with the Coast Guard to provide data on maritime commerce.

In addition to the anchored ships, 29 were adrift up to 20 miles offshore, meaning they were so far from the coast that their anchors could not reach the ocean floor. That’s down from a record of 37 set on Monday, Captain Louttit said, but the traffic is not abating.

A record number of vessels were anchored off the coast of Southern California, waiting to unload cargo. The backlog came amid a surge in demand for imported goods and supply-chain disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.CreditCredit…Mario Tama/Getty Images

“We are in our 11th month of managing this record-breaking traffic,” he said. “We’ve never had a problem like this before.”

The delay in getting the container ships to port comes as the easing of pandemic restrictions and an increase in consumer spending have ramped up demand. As a result, manufacturers are struggling to keep pace, and shortages of some products, like semiconductors, have caused slowdowns in production. The problem has been exacerbated by the rise of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, which is causing labor shortages as workers are quarantined.GLOBAL DELAYSPandemic-related shortages were supposed to be resolved by now. Instead, the world has gained a lesson in the ripple effects of disruption.