precision · 2018 → 2024 (65,921 terminal calls) · verdict: CONFIRMED — SHARPER THAN REGISTERED
The post-2016 big-ship cascade split US gateways: LA/LB, Oakland and post-Bayonne NY-NJ upsize materially (median calling vessel +20m or more), while Savannah, Charleston and Seattle-Tacoma do not (±10m); nationally, calls by ships of 300m+ rise from ~30% toward ~50%. Registered 2026-08-07, before the confirmatory run.
The divide is real, and sharper than registered. The median container ship calling at LA–Long Beach grew 39 metres (294 → 333 m) and Oakland 34 m — both now host a 333 m median, ULCV territory. New York–New Jersey grew 22 m, the Bayonne Bridge raise made visible from orbit, and Houston matched it. Meanwhile Norfolk moved zero metres, Seattle–Tacoma one, Savannah −11 — and Charleston went the other way entirely, −22 m, beyond our registered band: as the biggest hulls consolidated on fewer deep-water calls, its median ship got smaller. Nationally, 300 m+ ships were 30% of calls in 2018 and 46% in 2024, peaking at 50% in 2022. Big ships are not coming to American ports evenly — they are sorting the port system into two tiers.
A "no-upsize" gateway at +20m, or LA/Oakland under +15m, would have broken the divide; neither occurred. 2022 per-call figures carry berth-shuffle weighting and are excluded from the headline.
This study is a frozen artifact: the ruling and its exhibits do not change when new data lands. If the verdict is ever revised, the revision is printed here with its reason, and the original stays on the record.
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