garygid said:
Do they unload on weekends?
Let's hope so, Gary! From my limited and dated experience, I am going to take a SWAG and say "Yes." My reasoning is as follows:
In my youth, I worked for a spell as a deckhand on a 100' offshore tugboat out of Long Beach, hauling an oil barge to the SB Channel off Ventura and filling it w/ crude from the oil fields up there, then transporting it back to the refineries in Long Beach. It paid well, but was the hardest dollars I have ever earned, and probably the most dangerous. The boat operated 24 hrs. per day, 7 days a week, and my shift was 14 days on and 14 days off. Large pieces of machinery like that are expensive to operate, and owners of them strive to keep them earning money and avoiding downtime to the greatest extent possible. This tug was a $4000/day operation, and it was tiny compared to a ship like the one transporting our cars. To minimize overhead, I'm sure every effort is made to expedite their movements. If the space is available on the docks for the cargo, and the labor agreements allow it, I'm sure that even the cost of overtime to unload would be "chump change" in comparison to what the boat could earn by getting on with the next delivery voyage.
My $0.02, usual disclaimers apply,
TT
