The Connecticut Maritime Association (CMA) has become the first shipping organisation to postpone its annual conference twice over the coronavirus outbreak.
After an initial delay from its dates in late March, the CMA had hoped to run the 35th annual conference and exhibition from 29 June to 1 July in Stamford.
But TradeWinds reported on 22 April that those dates were increasingly in doubt, and the CMA confirmed the second postponement in an announcement on Wednesday.
The CMA now hopes to open at the Stamford Hilton on 14 October and close with the traditional commodore’s dinner — honouring International Seaways chief executive Lois Zabrocky — on 16 October.
“The health and safety of attendees is of paramount importance to the CMA and, as a safe environment cannot be in June, the summer edition will not run,” the CMA’s outgoing president Joseph Gross said.
The event attracts about 2,500 delegates each year.
The CMA said it is joining with SHIPPINGInsight, a group dedicated to fleet optimisation and innovation, to stage a conference week, dubbed North American Shipping Week.
SHIPPINGInsight will host its own conference on 12 October to 14 October at the Hyatt Regency in Greenwich, Connecticut.
One shipping event after another has either been postponed, cancelled or moved online as the coronavirus impact persists.
Marine Money cancelled
Earlier this month, the largest ship-finance event in the US — Marine Money Week New York — decided to cancel for 2020.
Marine Money originally had been scheduled at the Pierre Hotel in midtown Manhattan from 15 to 17 June — only a couple of weeks before the first postponement of the CMA conference.
TradeWinds reported Marine Money’s original intention to postpone the conference on 27 March.
This year’s largest shipping conference, Posidonia in Greece, has elected to postpone from early June to launch on 26 October.
In addition, the mammoth Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston has chosen to cancel rather than postpone its planned dates from 4 to 7 May.
