Savannah-Central America service launched

Seaboard Marine also will launch additional services in June linking Savannah to South America, Central America and the Caribbean.

   The Port of Savannah welcomed its first Seaboard Marine vessel, Atlantic, on Wednesday as part of a new service to Central America.
   Seaboard Marine’s first service to Savannah also includes calls in Santo Tomas, Guatemala; Puerto Cortes, Honduras; Managua, Nicaragua; and San Salvador, El Salvador. Georgia exports will focus on frozen poultry and imports largely will be composed of perishables and apparel, according to a statement.
   The port’s Garden City Terminal handles 40% of all frozen poultry exported out of the U.S., the Georgia Ports Authority said. The weekly service, which features two vessels in a direct, all-water route, is expected to increase the terminal’s total vessel inventory by 20,000 TEUs per year, the statement said.
   “In addition to serving Georgia’s poultry growers, Seaboard is tapping into an expanding market for fresh produce imports via Garden City Terminal,” Georgia Ports Authority Executive Director Griff Lynch said in a statement.  
   Seaboard Marine also will begin additional services in June throughout Latin America and the Caribbean with the Port of Savannah. The weekly services include northbound and southbound cargoes between the port and South America (Colombia, Ecuador and Peru), South Central America (Costa Rica and Panama) and the Caribbean (Antigua, Aruba, Barbados, Bonaire, Curacao, the Dominican Republic, Grand Cayman, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Maarten, St. Kitts, Suriname and Trinidad).
   The southbound trade also will be focused on frozen poultry exports, with chilled produce imports northbound. 
   The new services will bring the port’s weekly vessel calls to 37, which ties the Port of New York and New Jersey as the most on the East Coast, according to the statement.