newbie2quattro

Anyone on this forum expecting a port arrival for their car later this week - this post is for you. Hoegh Trooper (inbound for Galveston: Hoegh Autoliners) and the Dionysos Leader (inbound for Houston: NYK Line) are now in the Gulf of Mexico. My car is scheduled to roll of onto U.S. terra firma on Thursday (this week), however, I'm perplexed as to why the Hoegh is headed for Galveston when I thought VW/Audi cars entered through the Port of Houston. I'm assuming our cars are on the Hoegh, because it's a European auto shipping company. NYK Line is a Japanese auto shipping company, and my thoughts are that most likely that ship is carrying Japanese automaker cars - but that's only a hunch. After the jump to the website below, you can do a vessel search by clicking the vessel tab at the top of the page and entering the names above. It'll be interesting to track these guys for the next few days. We have definitely entered the final stretch.

www.marinetraffic.com

dag40

I think that your ship may be the Undine, arriving Galveston 23October. Left Bremerhaven 01October, left Halifax 17October.

newbie2quattro

Thanks for the info, but I'd believe you if it weren't for the fact that my car was ship loaded on October 6th.

elocutionist

I'd guess your car might be aboard the Cosmos Venture, since it is expected in Houston on October 28th (a little later than Thursday) and is listed as "VWA" line in the Port of Houston manifest. It was in Emden a couple of weeks ago.
I've been passing the time checking out these marine tracking sites too while I wait for my A4 Avant to get here...

newbie2quattro

Well, all I can say is that my salesperson originally told me my car would arrive on Oct. 26th - this was back in mid-September. The dealer ETA in my signature is Audi's conservative estimate from when my car was pulled for production. I spoke with my salesperson again about a week and half ago and was pleasantly surprised as she told me my car would be arriving in port 4 days sooner on Oct. 22nd (this Thursday). That was the last status update I was given. With that in mind coupled with what I uncovered today on the marine traffic website, it looks like it's on one those two boats. Hoping I get THE CALL sometime middle of next week at the latest.

hooligan011

Would I be able to tell if any of those ships are heading to
California? My car supposedly loaded 9 October, dealer said should arrive early November.

JT

mikeinaustin

i don't get it, when i look at ports, i can't see houston or galveston, i see corpus christi though.

iflywoe

when my car was comming my girlfriend thought i was crazy for tracking the ship , hope you get your car soon

jakko

How are all of you able to find out which ship your car is on? I originally thought mine was on the grand legacy which is supposed to dock tomorrow but after speaking with the dealer today, I was told the ship won't arrive till next week. He was unable to get the ship name. What's the best resource for finding out the ship name?

newbie2quattro

My salesperson wouldn't disclose the ship name to me either. Primarily for reasons of safety - I guess we are such car fanatics that they assume we would somehow hi-jack and commandeer a 50-ton cargo vessel until they handed the crew handed over our cars - go figure.

Well, the only way I was able to determine (and it's still anybody's guess so far as the ship that has our cars and the day it berths at a Houston or Galveston wharf) was by guess-stimating that it probably takes a ship 2 to 2 1/2 days to sail across the Gulf from the southern tip of Florida to reach Galveston Bay/the intercoastal waterway. So on Tuesday morning, just before work, I did my own dragnet on marinetraffic.com around the southern tip of Florida. I kept clicking all the green-colored boats (cargo vessels) until I uncovered a RO-RO cargo ship. The first was the Hoegh Trooper and according to the vessel's details - it's a RO-RO cargo ship and is scheduled to make port tomorrow the 22nd. Same was true for the Dionysos Leader. The AIS signal (which sends radar track info every couple minutes) seems to not be reliable on the above website when a ship gets into deep open water. Only when a ship is near a coast-line does it seem to relay position information.