By Drew Dixon From Jacksonville.com

While the search continues for potential survivors of the Jacksonville-based El Faro cargo ship, the tragedy at sea highlights just how entrenched business ties are between the First Coast and Puerto Rico.
The El Faro was en route to San Juan, Puerto Rico, when it got caught in heavy seas generated by Hurricane Joaquin on Thursday and sank, officials say. The ship and 33-person crew aboard the vessel owned by TOTE Maritime was on its way to deliver a shipment to the U.S. territorial island.

The trip was one of several per week between Puerto Rico and Jacksonville among many different shipping companies.

While shipping interests have diversified in Jacksonville in recent years, Jerry Mallot, president of the industrial development organization known as JAXUSA Partnership, said Puerto Rico has remained a key player in the Jacksonville shipping economy.

“Puerto Rico has long been the single largest area of shipping activity from JaxPort to and from Puerto Rico,” Mallot said. “It’s very important to us and it’s important for us to maintain our lead in that marketplace.”

The association between Jacksonville and Puerto Rico is so strong that former Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton declared San Juan a sister city in October 2009. At that time, Puerto Rico was Jacksonville’s largest trading partner with about 75 percent of the goods going to and coming from Puerto Rico moving through Jacksonville, creating an estimated economic impact of $1 billion, a JaxPort report stated (http://www.jaxport.com/newsroom/news/jacksonville-and-san-juan-become-si…).

TOTE’s website offers an entire section (www.totemaritime.com/puerto-rico/puerto-rico-trade) dedicated to Puerto Rican trade and promotes the fact that the company is one of the leading logistical firms handling transport to Puerto Rico.

Crowley Maritime Inc., also based in Jacksonville, has a similar section on its website (www.crowley.com/Where-We-Work/Puerto-Rico) where it touts “60 years committed to Puerto Rico.”

Crowley clearly sees trade with Puerto Rico as an essential element to the company’s success.

“We have proudly served the shipping needs of Puerto Rico, transporting more than 3 million units between the commonwealth and the U.S. mainland since 1954,” the Crowley website said.

Jacksonville’s Trailer Bridge Inc. also highlights its service to Puerto Rico.

Another aspect of the shipping ties between Jacksonville and Puerto Rico is the diversity of products being shipped.

The El Faro voyage last week illustrated that as it was scheduled to deliver cars, grocery products and a wide range of retail merchandise.

Mallot said there’s every reason to see Puerto Rico as one of the brightest gems of trade in the Caribbean for Jacksonville.

“Geography plays a big role in that we [Jacksonville] are probably the most efficient location to serve the Puerto Rican marketplace in the United States,” Mallot said in a phone interview Monday. “It’s an incredibly wide variety of products from the continental United States to Puerto Rico. It serves just about every market.”

Trade between Jacksonville and Puerto Rico is so coveted, at times it did not end well for some companies.

The former Sea Star Line, which eventually was absorbed into TOTE as part of a merger, was entangled in a price-fixing conspiracy. The former president of that company, Frank Peake, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2013 and ordered to pay a $25,000 fine after the U.S. District Court of Puerto Rico in San Juan found him guilty of conspiring to fix rates and surcharges for shipping to Puerto Rico.

Sea Star was fined $14.2 million in fines in connection with the case, a U.S. Department of Justice news release said.

Five other people convicted in the case were sent to prison for their roles in the conspiracy.

IMAGE: Times-Union file photo

For more on this story go to: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2015-10-05/story/missing-ship-caribbean-demonstrates-long-strong-history-trade-between