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Florida Ports

Port Canaveral

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Florida

Port Canaveral is a major cruise and cargo port located in Brevard County, Florida. Seaport, a painting by Claude Lorrain, 1638 The Port of Wellington at night. ... Brevard County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida, along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. ...

Port Canaveral is the second busiest cruise port in the world with 4.6 million cruise passengers passing through during 2004. Carnival, Disney, Royal Caribbean International, Holland America, and Norwegian Cruise Line are some of the cruise lines which regularly dock at one of the six cruise terminals. The port also bears operations for the casino ships of SunCruz Casinos and Sterling Casinos. Carnival Cruise Lines is a cruise line operating a large number of cruise ships. ... The Disney Cruise Line is a cruise line owned by the Walt Disney Company. ... U.S. headquarters in Miami, Florida. ... HAL logo Holland America Line, headquartered in Seattle, Washington, is a cruise ship line, originally an operator of passenger and cargo ships. ... Norwegian Dawn passes Lower Manhattan on the way to Bermuda and the Bahamas. ... SunCruz Casinos is one of many cruise lines that offer cruises to nowhere, taking passengers into international waters out of reach of the federal and state gambling laws. ...

A world-class deep water port, Port Canaveral also has a high volume of cargo traffic. Over three million tons of bulk cargo moves through Port Canaveral each year. Commonly shipped carge includes cement, petroleum and aggregate. The port is equipped with conveyors and hoppers for loading products directly into trucks, and facilities for bulk cargo containers.

There is 750,000 square feet of covered freight storage capacity. It handled 4 million tons of cargo in 2004. The port exports fresh citrus; bulk frozen citrus juice stored in one of the largest freezer warehouses in the state; cement and building materials. The port receives lumber, salt for water softening, automobiles, and steel sheet and plate. It transships items for land, sea, air and space. Having the shortest direct entry on Florida's East Coast, Port Canaveral offers 45-minute transit time from the first sea buoy to docking. Port Canaveral's Foreign Trade Zone is among the largest general purpose FTZs in the nation - over 5 square miles. The port boosts Brevard's economy by 1/2 billion dollars annually.

In April 2007, shipping was off 25.6% for the previous six months compared to the previous year, down to 295,965 tons per months.^[1]

Governing Authority

Port commissioners are elected from the surrounding area by popular vote. They run non-partisan.
District 1 - Ray Sharkey
District 2 - Joe D. Matheny
District 3 - Tom Goodson
District 4 - Ralph Kennedy
District 5 - Rodney S. Ketcham

Salary is $10,083.72 annually.

Chief Executive Officer (appointed) - J. Stanley Payne

Concept and early development

Port Canaveral welcome sign. Note the anchor and Space shuttle logo.

The idea of developing a port at this location was first conceived in the 1880s. Dedication occurred November 4, 1953, with the navy destroyer escort USS McClelland (DE-750) participating. Colonel Noah Butt, a former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, was the first Chairman of the Canaveral Port Authority. The first port manager, George King, was announced in 1954. Commercial fishing had already begun at the port, and in the next year commercial shipping began, with a load of bagged cement delivered by the SS Morman Spruce. In 1955, the Tropicana Corporation began building a refrigerated warehouse for the purpose of storing orange juice, a significant local agricultural product, prior to shipping. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 290 pixelsFull resolution (1039 × 377 pixel, file size: 163 KB, MIME type: image/png) Image taken by KillerChihuahua at Port Canaveral. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 290 pixelsFull resolution (1039 × 377 pixel, file size: 163 KB, MIME type: image/png) Image taken by KillerChihuahua at Port Canaveral. ... NASAs Space Shuttle, officially called Space Transportation System (STS), is the United States governments current manned launch vehicle. ... The USS McClelland (DE-750) was a Cannon class destroyer escort of the United States Navy. ... Tropicana Orange Juice Tropicana Products is an American company based in Bradenton, Florida, USA, which is one of the worlds largest producers and marketers of orange juice. ...

Cruise traffic first appeared at the port in 1964, with the SS Yarmouth Castle, recently purchased by Yarmouth Cruise Lines from the Chadade Steamship Company. The ship was American owned, with registration from Panama. The ship burned at sea between Miami and Nassau in 1965, and cruise traffic was limited until the 1980s. The Yarmouth Castle sailing under her original name, Evangeline SS Yarmouth Castle was a steamship whose loss in a disastrous fire in 1965 prompted new laws regarding safety at sea. ... This article is about the city in Florida. ... For other uses of Nassau, see Nassau (disambiguation). ...

In 1965, a lock was dedicated at the port. The Canaveral Lock is still in operation, and is maintained by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The focus of the port throughout the 1960s and 1970s remained commercial fishing and shipping, with three 400-foot cargo piers built on the north side of the Port in 1976, and a succession of warehouses built in the port area. The USACE gold castle insignia, worn by officers of the Corps The United States Army Corps of Engineers, or USACE, is made up of some 34,600 civilian and 650 military men and women. ...

Port Canaveral has played an important role in support of NASA projects out of nearby John F. Kennedy Space Center. Specifically, the Space Shuttle's external tanks are floated into Port Canaveral for each mission from their fabrication facility in Mississippi, and the solid rocket boosters are towed back through Port Canaveral after being fished out of the Atlantic Ocean after each launch. This article is about the American space agency. ... Merritt Island and Kennedy Space Center (shown in white). ... NASAs Space Shuttle, officially called Space Transportation System (STS), is the United States governments current manned launch vehicle. ... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

Cruise traffic

Cruise ships docked at Port Canaveral. From left to right: Carnival, Disney, and Royal Caribbean ships.

In the early 1980s, a new port director, Charles Rowland, shifted the focus towards developing the port to a Cruise port. In 1982, a 20,000 square feet warehouse on the north side of the port was converted into Cruise Terminal 1. The SS Scandinavian Sea, a 10,427 ton ship, was the first cruise ship to homeport at Port Canaveral. Early cruises were simple day cruises out into the ocean and back. This ship, like the first to dock at Canaveral, was to meet with disaster. In March of 1984, a fire broke out on ship while at sea, 9 miles southeast of Port Canaveral. No lives were lost. A later fire was much worse. The April 7, 1990 fire on the Scandinavian Sea claimed the lives of 158 people due to the spread of fire and smoke. As a result of this disaster, the International Maritime Organization issued the Chapter II SOLAS 74 amendments in 1992. These new safety rules are intended to prevent such an occurrence from happening again. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 263 pixelsFull resolution (949 × 312 pixel, file size: 462 KB, MIME type: image/png) Image taken by KillerChihuahua at Port Canaveral. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 263 pixelsFull resolution (949 × 312 pixel, file size: 462 KB, MIME type: image/png) Image taken by KillerChihuahua at Port Canaveral. ... Carnival Cruise Lines is a cruise line operating a large number of cruise ships. ... Disney Cruise Line is owned by The Walt Disney Company and headquartered in Celebration, Florida. ... Royal Caribbean cruise ships Ultra-Voyager class, includes Freedom of the Seas, currently in construction with a scheduled delivery of May 2006. ... Headquarters of the International Maritime Organisation in Lambeth, adjacent to the east end of Lambeth Bridge Headquarters building taken from the west side of the Thames Headquartered in London, U.K., the International Maritime Organization (IMO) promotes cooperation among governments and the shipping industry to improve maritime safety and to...

Expanding the Cruise capability of the port begun in 1982, two more warehouses were converted to cruise terminals in 1983. The following year the SS Royale of Premier Cruise Line was homeported at Port Canaveral. The first year round 3- and 4-day cruises to the Bahamas had begun. A fourth cruise terminal was opened in 1986. A family ready to embark on The Big Red Boat Premier Cruise Line was a cruise line that operated from 1983 to 2000. ...

SeaFest

The SeaFest annual seafood festival was first held in 1983. The celebration occurred over three days in early spring, and was co-hosted by the Cocoa Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and the Canaveral Port Authority. A local attraction with live music, local artists, and of course seafood. In 2005, the final year of the festival, 5,000 pounds of freshly caught fish, including flounder, Florida rock shrimp, blue crab claws and 100 gallons of seafood chowder were consumed at the festival. The chowder was prepared according to the winning recipe of a chowder "cook-off" competition. As of 2006, the SeaFest has been relocated to the Space Coast Stadium in Viera, Florida and renamed SpringFest. The move was caused by the site used for the event needing to be available for cargo and for increased security concerns. Cocoa Beach sunrise. ... Summary Space Coast Stadium was completed in 1994 as part of the development project at Viera, Florida, and as part of a deal to bring spring training for the (then new) Florida Marlins to the area. ... Viera is located in Brevard County and is currently home to most of the Brevard County Government offices. ...

Future plans

The Canaveral Port Authority announced in 2006 several plans for the future

• a fuel-tank depot with a pipeline to Orlando International Airport
• attracting a mega-cruise ship. (One of Royal Caribbean International's Freedom class ships may move to Port Canaveral)
• widening of the port's channel
• enlarging the western turning basin
• construction of an additional cruise terminal

The rocket booster recovery ship Freedom Star with a spent solid rocket booster (SRB) from the STS-114 launch in tow as it makes it way through Port Canaveral.

“MCO” redirects here. ... U.S. headquarters in Miami, Florida. ... Freedom Class is a class of cruise ships for Royal Caribbean International. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (3008x2000, 769 KB) STS-114 booster recovery (July 27, 2005) original description: Photographers capture the solid rocket booster recovery ship Freedom Star with a spent solid rocket booster (SRB) from the STS-114 launch on July 26 in tow as it... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (3008x2000, 769 KB) STS-114 booster recovery (July 27, 2005) original description: Photographers capture the solid rocket booster recovery ship Freedom Star with a spent solid rocket booster (SRB) from the STS-114 launch on July 26 in tow as it...

Footnotes

External links

• Canaveral Port Authority
• Port Canaveral History
• Port Canaveral Timeline (In pdf format)
• Port Canaveral Cruises
• Canaveral Lock
• Coast Guard Casualties

• Maps and aerial photos Coordinates: 28.410351° -80.608063°
  • Satellite image from WikiMapia, Google Maps or Windows Live Local
  • Street map from MapQuest or Google Maps
  • Topographic map from TopoZone
  • Aerial image from TerraServer-USA