Transportation in Puerto Rico includes a system of roads, highways, freeways, airports, ports and harbors, and railway systems, serving a population of approximately 4 million year-round. It is funded primarily with both local and federal government funds.
Freedom of the seas is a principle in the law of the sea. It stresses freedom to navigate the oceans. It also disapproves of war fought in water. The freedom is to be breached only in a necessary international agreement.
Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), also known in short as Norwegian, is an American cruise line founded in Norway in 1966, incorporated in Bermuda and headquartered in Miami. It is the third-largest cruise line in the world by passengers, controlling about 8.6% of the total worldwide share of the cruise market by passengers as of 2021. It is wholly owned by parent company Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings.
The United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM) was an independent executive agency of the U.S. federal government that was created by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, which was passed by Congress on June 29, 1936, and was abolished on May 24, 1950. The commission replaced the United States Shipping Board which had existed since World War I. It was intended to formulate a merchant shipbuilding program to design and build five hundred modern merchant cargo ships to replace the World War I vintage vessels that comprised the bulk of the United States Merchant Marine, and to administer a subsidy system authorized by the Act to offset the cost differential between building in the U.S. and operating ships under the American flag. It also formed the United States Maritime Service for the training of seagoing ship's officers to man the new fleet.
The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 is a United States federal statute that provides for the promotion and maintenance of the American merchant marine. Among other purposes, the law regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between U.S. ports. Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act is known as the Jones Act and deals with cabotage. It requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried on ships that have been constructed in the United States and that fly the U.S. flag, are owned by U.S. citizens, and are crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents. The act was introduced by Senator Wesley Jones. The law also defines certain seaman's rights.
Norwegian Spirit is a Leo-class cruise ship operated by Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL). She was built in 1998 for Star Cruises as SuperStar Leo by the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany. In 2004 she was transferred to NCL and renamed Norwegian Spirit.
Cabotage is the transport of goods or passengers between two places in the same country. It originally applied to shipping along coastal routes, port to port, but now applies to aviation, railways, and road transport as well.
The modern terms short-sea shipping, marine highway and motorways of the sea, as well as the more historical terms coastal trade, coastal shipping, coasting trade and coastwise trade, all encompass the movement of cargo and passengers mainly by sea along a coast, without crossing an ocean.
Norwegian Star is a Dawn-class cruise ship operated by Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL). Ordered by and intended for Star Cruises, it was originally named SuperStar Libra before being transferred to NCL. Norwegian Star is a Panamax cruise ship; its 294-meter-length (965 ft) and 32.2-meter-beam (105.6 ft) nears the limit for ships transiting the Panama Canal through the original set of locks.
Norwegian Sky is a Sun-class cruise ship owned and operated by Norwegian Cruise Line. She was originally ordered by Costa Cruises as Costa Olympia from the Bremer Vulkan shipyard in Germany, but she was completed in 1999 by the Lloyd Werft shipyard in Bremerhaven, Germany for the Norwegian Cruise Line under the name Norwegian Sky. Between 2004 and 2008, she sailed as Pride of Aloha for NCL America.
Norwegian Sun is a Sun class cruise ship operated by Norwegian Cruise Line. She entered service in 2001 in a dual christening ceremony at the Port of Miami with Norwegian Star. She was constructed at the Lloyd Werft shipyard in Bremerhaven, Germany.
Norwegian Jewel is a cruise ship operated by Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL). She is the lead vessel of NCL's Jewel-class cruise ships and entered service in 2005. The vessel sails primarily in the western Pacific Ocean.
MS Pride of America is a cruise ship operated by NCL America, a division of Norwegian Cruise Lines, to sail itineraries in the Hawaiian Islands. Construction of the ship began in 2000 in the United States as part of a plan for a US-built and US-flagged cruise ship under Project America, but the project failed and she was eventually purchased by Norwegian Cruise Lines and completed in Germany. She was inaugurated in 2005, and was the first new U.S. flagged, deep water cruise ship in nearly fifty years since the SS Argentina of 1958.
Norwegian Jade is a cruise ship for Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), originally built as Pride of Hawaii for their NCL America division. She was christened in a ceremony at the San Pedro Pier in Los Angeles, California on 22 May 2006. The vessel is a Panamax form-factor ship that was built at Meyer Werft Shipyard, in Papenburg, Germany, and registers at just over 93,500 gross tons.
SS Independence was an American built passenger liner, which entered service in February 1951 for American Export Lines. Originally, she plied a New York-Mediterranean route, specializing in a high-end clientele, sailing one way while her sister ship, SS Constitution, plied the route the opposite. Starting in 1980 she sailed as a cruise ship. She was shortly joined by her similarly graceful counter sterned sibling, the pair sharing the Hawaiian islands together for the better part of two decades until their retirements.
Project America was the designation for a contract between American Classic Voyages and the Litton Ingalls Shipyard of Pascagoula, Mississippi. The contract was to build two cruise ships, with a gross tonnage of 72,000 each, with an option for a third vessel. The contract had the initial potential value of $1.4 billion U.S. dollars. The first ordered ship would go on to be completed as the Pride of America.
Cruise ships carrying several thousand passengers and crew have been compared to “floating cities,” and the volume of wastes that they produce is comparably large, consisting of sewage; wastewater from sinks, showers, and galleys (graywater); hazardous wastes; solid waste; oily bilge water; ballast water; and air pollution. The waste streams generated by cruise ships are governed by a number of international protocols and U.S. domestic laws, regulations, and standards, but there is no single law or rule. Some cruise ship waste streams appear to be well regulated, such as solid wastes and bilge water. But there is overlap of some areas, and there are gaps in others.
In the United States, several federal agencies and laws have some jurisdiction over pollution from ships in U.S. waters. States and local government agencies also have responsibilities for ship-related pollution in some situations.
The Jewel class is a class of cruise ships operated by the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) and was built by Meyer Werft of Germany. The Jewel class became NCL's largest ships, until the construction of Norwegian Epic, at 153,000 GT, in 2009 at STX Europe in St. Nazaire, which is also owned by NCL. The lead ship, Norwegian Jewel was delivered in August 2005 and the last vessel, Norwegian Gem was delivered in October 2007; however, the second ship of the class Norwegian Jade was originally intended for NCL America. After sailing for the line in two years (2006–2008), Pride of Hawaii proved to be unsuccessful as the intra-Hawaiian market could not profitably accommodate more than one cruise ship. In 2008, NCL decided to transfer Pride of Hawaii to their fleet, leaving Pride of America as the sole vessel sailing the intra-Hawaii market. After receiving her current NCL livery, Pride of Hawaii was rechristened as Norwegian Jade and sailed for NCL in 2008.
Pacific Far East Line, also called PFEL in short, was a passenger and cargo shipping line founded in 1943 by Thomas E. Cuffe, in San Francisco, California. At the beginning he started by chartering foreign ships to run the lines in tramp trade. Later scheduled cargo services were added to the line. During World War II the South Atlantic steamship line was active with charter shipping with the Maritime Commission and War Shipping Administration.
