CLEVELAND, Ohio--When the Dutch ship Fortunagracht steams into Cleveland Harbor on Friday night or early Saturday, having sailed nearly 4,000 miles from Antwerp, Belgium, and threaded an icy Saint Lawrence Seaway, it will find a motley assortment of cargo waiting at the docks.
A yellow school bus. Road-building equipment. Red steel containers resembling giant shoeboxes and stuffed with car parts, machine parts, chemicals, hydraulic pumps and nuts and bolts and fasteners.
This is the freight Cleveland plans to ship back across the Atlantic to complete the maiden sail of the Cleveland-Europe Express, Ohio's newest export route to Europe.
The so-called liner service, which will bring seldom-seen container ships to the lakefront, offers far more than spectacle. Suddenly, a Great Lakes city is offering the options of an East Coast seaport: containerized shipping direct to foreign harbors.
The Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, which is pioneering the service with a Dutch shipping giant, hopes to net a lucrative slice of Ohio's export market. That means convincing tradition-minded Midwest shippers and manufacturers to try something new.
As the cargo piled on the dock attests, many are willing to come aboard--at least to test the waters.
"I booked our first container last month, as soon as I heard it was coming," said Rick Gareau, president of Midwest Transatlantic Lines in Berea. "And then I filled six more."
Gareau is what's known in the business as a freight forwarder. Manufacturers, distributors, importers and exporters hire him to find the most efficient way to ship their freight to market.
From the Midwest, typically, exporting means first shipping by truck or rail to an East Coast port, where the freight may sit awhile before being loaded onto an ocean freighter.