North Carolina port schedules go on-line

The weekly sailing schedules for the ports of Morehead City and Wilmington are the latest addition to the North Carolina Ports World Wide Web or Internet home page.

The sailing schedule provides a service to importers, exporters, customs house brokers, freight forwarders, stevedores and others in the maritime field by giving a projected data of arrival for ships calling at the United States ports. Other information includes trade routes, cargo types and agents.

Having the North Carolina sailing schedule on-line will benefit customers, according to customs house brokers and freight forwarders serving the state ports.

It will provide them with updated information and give them advance notice of vessel arrivals and routes and supply them with options for cargo booking.

The North Carolina State Ports Authority went on-line in January last year with a home page which includes news releases, general terminal information for the ports of Morehead City and Wilmington and the intermodal terminals at Charlotte and Greensboro. Also available are listings of port staff and liner services. Future plans include adding port tariffs, terminal maps and statistics.

'Adding port sailing schedules to our Internet home page is the latest step in our long-term plans to use the World Wide Web as an increasingly important communications tool. With simple Internet access, customers will be able to conduct business from virtually anywhere in the world,' said North Carolina State Ports Authority information systems director Chris Mowrey.