Kunkel, Robert
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10 May 2026
Rescued by the Welderâs Whip and Anchored by the Painterâs Spray Gun
As a vessel construction manager with extended building experience in both the U.S. and South Korea, more than several opportunities have landed on our desks as Private Equity and Venture Capital analyze tanker tonnage and construction in the domestic trades. With the understanding these requests are based upon the current Persian Gulf and Venezuela issues driving that market we should also pay attentionâŠ
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17 Feb 2026
Op/Ed: Arctic Ice is a U.S Shipbuilding Thermostat â Letâs Turn Up the Heat
In December of 2025, the U.S. Coast Guard announced the award of two contracts to build up to six Arctic Security Cutter (ASC) icebreakers. The announcement declaring the vessels would be built between the United States and Finland in a major step forward for Americaâs national security in the Arctic region. The decision process encompassed more than the security of the Arctic passage. It announces a major shift in the U.S. Shipbuilding process.
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07 Jan 2026
U.S. Shipbuilding: Tactical Strategy or Ready to Cut Steel in 2026?
Maritime 2026 opened with a bang between the announcement of Battleships, Venezuela, shadow fleets and yes, U.S. shipbuilding. The commercial building issue may come down to strategic patience or the adaptability to evolve through new technology while ignoring historic, old tactics. The subject requires another year of debate as the line separating the success or failure of Naval and Commercial shipbuilding in the U.S. is slowly becoming a blur.
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11 Nov 2025
Domestic Shipbuilding Creates US Port Efficiency and Growth
On October 28, 2025 U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportationâs Subcommittee on Coast Guard, Maritime, and Fisheries, convened the Senate hearing âSea Change: Reviving Commercial Shipbuildingâ. This hearing examined how to modernize and accelerate U.S. commercial shipbuilding while strengthening a larger maritime industrial base.SenatorâŠ
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03 Nov 2025
How Life Extension and Conversion Redefines âBorn Againâ in U.S. Ship Repair
We are well into the discussions advising shipbuilders and operators how the U.S. will create a renaissance of the maritime industry. Federal Legislation, Executive Orders, and new foreign partnerships driving the promise of commercial competitiveness with the leading global shipbuilders. Most of the shipbuilding rhetoric indicates the domestic markets will be left to survive on their own. This despiteâŠ
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26 Aug 2025
Maritime Dominance Begins with U.S. Ship Repair and Conversion
Dating back to the year 1786, Thomas Jefferson wrote to a member of the Continental Congress on the importance of free press keeping government in check. He was quoted as saying if he had a choice between âa government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to choose the latter.âThe basis of the statement being that the government is the opinion of the people. It is not in the current U.S.
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16 Jul 2025
U.S. Shipbuilding, Maritime Dominance Requires a New Ecosystem
With all the Legislative fanfare, Executive Orders, Committee meetings, lobbying efforts and media announcements concerning American Shipbuilding, Naval Warfare and Maritime Dominance, it is no surprise that the result of the uproar is shear confusion within the maritime industrial base (MIB). The April 9, 2025 Executive Order Restoring Americaâs Maritime Dominance lists more than several reports to the President due within 90 days.
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28 May 2025
Opinion: The U.S. Ships for America Act ⊠In a Corked Bottle
As a result of a major White House office wake-up call or Executive Order 14269 determining it is time to start building ships again, Washington DC announced Americaâs maritime industry has been âdangerously decliningâ and with that decline we have allowed China to become the dominant force in global shipbuilding. Hard to believe that for nearly 65 years we have overlooked how Japan first got ahead of us or the fact that Korea took the lead not soon after Japan.
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17 Apr 2025
Maritimeâs Search for the Holy Grail of Alternative Energy
The maritime industry has worked with a single fuel source for over a century and with the rush to meet emission standards in both domestic and foreign markets, adapting to the current list of alternative fuels is going to present significant problems. Each market has its issues whether bluewater, brownwater, coastal, foreign or domestic.Chose any of the larger global shipbuilding yards and the basicâŠ
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26 Mar 2025
OPINION: Hold the Bricks, Start the Discussion on the Future of Domestic Shipbuilding
With your first steps as a cadet onto the Maritime Academy campus, your first union dues payment or first line thrown ashore from the tug, you are lectured on the importance of the âJones Actâ. A constant reminder throughout a US Seafarerâs career of commitment, loyalty and support for the legislation. All in the name of National Security, US Job protection and the advancement of the US Flag Merchant Marine. It is a massive and expensive lobbying effort witnessed throughout generations at sea.
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26 Dec 2024
Maritime Propulsion Choices Begin with Fuel, End with Politics
The maritime industryâs elusive quest to achieve so-called âzeroâ emissions continues. Where it ends is not a one-size-fits-all discussion.The year-end maritime industry discussions tend to move away from global influence and back drift to national and domestic debates. As this happens, a positioning of a relatively small group of American owners and operators prepare for the upcoming business year and markets.
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05 Dec 2024
Has U.S. Shipbuilding Reached an âAtlas Shruggedâ Moment?
Each year, as we prepare for the largest U.S. based maritime industry conference in New Orleans, we tend to look back on the state of the industry and initiatives that were announced from the conference that took place the year before. 2023 provided us with plenty to talk about. In September of 2023, while the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the global shipbuilding industry were fixated on âemissionsâ and alternative fuels, U.S.
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12 Aug 2024
The Transition to Zero â Spin the Wheel of Fortune
Current shipping discussions at both foreign and domestic venues are overflowing with the single subject of emissions while a growing number of companies make their reach for a net zero target. As the International Maritime Organization (IMO) tightens regulations to advance that reach, efforts to address climate change are coupled with a new understanding of the challenge at hand. Net zero will require a transition away from fossil fuelsâŠ
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29 Jan 2024
Designing Ships Around Emissions: The Right Path or a Fork in the Road?
When discussing ship design, the maritime industry has been tossing around a number of new terms and definitions. Sustainability, alternative fuel âreadyâ, digitization and lifecycle are a few of the terms becoming more commonplace amid the industryâs search for zero emissions solutions. As IMO MEPC 80 meetings push emissions reduction to meet âwell to wakeâ requirements, we will learn much of the challenge is tied to energy and infrastructure ashore.
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13 Nov 2023
Will the Effort to Reach Zero Emissions Go Nuclear?
On December 8, 1953 President Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed the 470th Plenary Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. The speech he delivered is often recognized as his effort to introduce âAtoms for Peaceâ, a program to move nuclear fission and technology away from weapons development and into clean energy.As a result of that effort and program, the NS Savannah was built and delivered as the first nuclear-powered merchant ship.
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21 Aug 2023
Labor Shortages, Climate Change & Technology: Theyâre All Related
Many problems in our âNew Worldâ can be solved more quickly than ever due to the speed at which information now travels. Gone are the countless long days of research, because often our questions can be answered instantaneously at a computer terminal or on a handheld mobile device. Traditional investment, research, science and industry have all attempted to reconfigure their business practices to accept that information speed.
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23 Feb 2023
Propulsion Decisions or Smoke on The Water?
In no uncertain terms, the goal of âfuture capableâ shipâs propulsion is confusing. We have been pressed into a regulatory environment that asks us to reduce emissions, and in the same breath deliver power sufficient to meet commercial schedules and allow the vessel to weather a storm and be safe at sea. To reach that end, owners are presented with a basket of new alternative fuels to achieve the latest January 1, 2023 Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) regulations.
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23 Nov 2022
Sail Freight: Fair Winds or Grassroot Sustainability?
Climate change advocates and seafarers recently gathered for a small conference at the Hudson Valley Maritime Museum in Kingston, N.Y., to discuss the shipping industryâs struggle to achieve sustainability and environmental compliance.The setting, the hamlet of Rondout, N.Y. (within Kingston), holds significance as it was, ironically, a Hudson River port once considered the largest coal port in the world (yes, the world).
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27 Jul 2021
Moving Forward with Emissions - Is it Tiers, Tears or Fears?
As International Maritime Organization (IMO) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emissions requirements continue throughout the IMO Emission Control Areas (ECA), they are also forcing postponement of many new construction decisions as vessel owners and operators continue to tread cautiously along the path forward. The Marpol Annex VI program looked to correct emissions requirements while working with petroleum fuels.
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14 Nov 2022
Fortunes Return to the Sea as the Wind Blows Offshore
The results of fortunes and failures are often described as a âperfect stormâ. The COVID pandemic, domestic inflation, labor issues and current geopolitical events have brought that description to a peak. A promise of a ânew normalâ emerged post pandemic, with a vision of alternative energy, alternative fuels and alternative supply chain logistics to help toward solving some of the problems, heralding a world of change with reduced emissionsâŠ
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