The Seaport (1962)

[Music] w [Music] Michael Phelps is an able-bodied Seaman he's on his way down to the port looking for a job the banana comes from Guatemala it wouldn't be in that lunch paale if it weren't for seaports goodbye hun this man is a long shoreman his name is John Manning he works in the sea [Music] port this tea comes from Hong Kong it wouldn't be here if there were no se ports Andrew Clark is a US Customs officer he works in the port the man in a hurry is Henry kochek he's a truck driver and he works in the port the foreign car he drives wouldn't be here if there were no sea ports this is the steam ship President Cleveland carrying passengers and Freight from the ports of the Orient morning sir morning McAn not much fog should burn off before we make Port yes [Music] sir this is the Seaman's hiring Hall Sailors come here when they're looking for a job let me have a B for the Alaska bear let me have a day man for a Santa Maria [Music] [Music] to make a harbor you have to have calm water if I were to Signal the engine room to stop engines now while we're on the Open Sea the movement of the water would rock the ship if the sea were rough the ship would move violently you can't dock a ship in rough water the movement of the water would smash the ship against the dock a harbor is a place where the water is protected in some way so that it's usually calm you can see that this is a good Harbor the land protects the water around the docks from the waves and storms of the Open Sea you have to have calm War water to make a good Harbor but of course you have to have many other things as [Music] [Music] well the tug boat will help bring the President Cleveland safely into [Music] dock the tugboat guides the large ship by pushing against it [Music] [Music] as soon as the ship reaches the dock the hatch covers are removed and long shoreman climb down into the ship's hole the Wich is lowered down into the [Applause] hold and the two iron bars are fitted under the edges of the wooden platform on which the bags are piled we're long shoreman our job is to load and unload ship as quickly and as safely as possible the less time a ship has to stay in Port the better ships make money when they're moving cargo from one place to another not when they're standing in Port [Applause] this building is called a Transit shed cargo waiting to be loaded aboard the ship is stored here [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the vehicle is a forklift truck at some ports they call them [Applause] [Music] [Applause] jitneys these bags are filled with coconut from the Philippine Islands now we in the United States Custom Service must inspect all Goods that are brought in the United States from other countries and frequently we collect a federal tax called customs duty on these Goods practically all nations of the world have Customs taxes for example if you were to send a load of dows or baseballs to Japan then you would have to pay the Japanese government Customs taxes many times cargo is unloaded right from the ship into trucks as soon as I have a full load and it's all past Customs I'll deliver it directly to the customer that ordered it from the Philippines the customer may be right in town or it may go to a city hundreds of miles Inland in the simplest terms a SE Port is a place where cargo can easily be moved back and forth between ships and the different forms of land transportation such as trucks and railroads there are railroad tracks leading out onto every [Music] Pier if we follow the tracks by helicopter we will find that they lead to a switchyard where the port railroad connects to InterContinental railroads that can carry cargo back and forth all the way across the country that's how the seap port gets connected up with all the other cities that aren't on the [Music] ocean the President Cleveland is carrying what's called a general cargo that means all different kinds of things lots of bags and boxes of this and that [Music] this ship on the other hand is carrying a bulk cargo that means the entire ship is loaded with one kind of cargo in this case bananas the port has specially equipped docks for handling different kinds of bulk cargo this elaborate conveyor system is used only for unloading [Applause] bananas the bananas are shipped green they'll ripen in stores or in your home [Applause] at the banana Warf the stems of bananas travel on conveyors all the way from the hold of the ship to waiting Freight cars the petroleum docks are separated from the rest of the port for safety this super tanker is one of the largest chips [Music] afloat it's unloading a BK cargo of crude oil over 15 million gallons of it the crude oil is pumped directly from the ship into underground tanks this ship is loading a bulk cargo of wheat from the elevators at the port's Grain Terminal this is scrap iron [Music] electromagnetic cranes are used to load bulk caros of scrap iron at this [Music] stock while the President Cleveland is in Port most of the crew have time off a welcome change after a long voyage after 2 Days in Port the Cleveland's cargo has been unloaded and a new cargo is being loaded aboard this cargo will be all loaded by tomorrow morning we'll leave port shortly after but of course while we're still in Port there are many things to be done for instance Provisions for our next [Applause] Voyage this Wholesale grocery specializes in supplying ships with Fresh Foods of all kinds we have to have enough food aboard to feed the crew and passengers until we reach Port again sometimes a ship comes into Port needing repairs this is a floating Dry Dock it can be lowered and then raised to lift large ships up out of the water it's much easier to work on the hull of a ship when the hull is out of the water [Applause] I needed several new crew members for the voyage out many have me one CER one c m one Joiner two quarter Masters one stockkeeper three APS for the President Cleveland it took only a few minutes to find qualified men to fill all the vacancies on my crew you can see that a port is much more than just a place where there's calm water a modern Port has all sorts of special facilities and trained men to take care of the ships that come in but I suppose the most important thing about a port is the goods the cargo that moves through it products and raw materials from all over this country are brought to this port to be shipped all over the world and goods from the other ports of the world come here to be sold and used by US ports help bring together the people and the products of the world [Music] [Applause] [Music] less than 4 days after her arrival in Port the President Cleveland with a new cargo aboard is outbound once more for the ports of the Orient [Music] a [Music]