U.S. Shipbuilding Activity Since 2000
The table below summarizes U.S. commercial shipbuilding deliveries over the past eight years, as reported in the U.S. Coast Guard's PSIX database. The figures have been edited a little, to remove duplications and foreign-built vessels, and to correct a few misclassifications. Note that crew boats are categorized as passenger vessels, not as offshore service vessels. The "passenger vessels" category also includes very large numbers of very small boats. The "all other vessels" category includes a wide variety of odds and ends, some of which may not be self-propelled.
The numbers that are given as >500 reflect the limitation placed on users by the structure of the Coast Guard's data base, which does not allow the downloading of more than 500 vessels of a single type, year of build and flag of registry. The data base instructions say that a user can download all the vessels in such a group the names of which start with, for example, an A. If this were so, it would be possible to extract a whole group in 36 downloads, tedious though that would be. In practice, however, this routine doesn't function: if you specify an initial A, you actually get all the vessels with an A somewhere in their name, which doesn't exactly solve the problem. Maybe the Coast Guard could fix this some time.
| Vessel Type | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 9-Year Totals | Average per Year |
| Oceangoing Tankers and Cargo Ships | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 24 | 3 |
| Offshore Drilling Rigs | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 20 | 2 |
| Offshore Service Vessels | 26 | 29 | 42 | 36 | 39 | 27 | 26 | 51 | 51 | 327 | 36 |
| Tugs and Towboats | 72 | 63 | 73 | 60 | 73 | 70 | 94 | 121 | 165 | 791 | 88 |
| Passenger Vessels | 359 | 338 | 283 | 328 | 268 | 270 | 253 | 206 | 181 | 2,486 | 274 |
| Fishing Vessels | >500 | >500 | 421 | 336 | 258 | 233 | 173 | 132 | 85 | >2,638 | >292 |
| All Other Vessels | 89 | 84 | 69 | 96 | 82 | 45 | 43 | 73 | 69 | 650 | 72 |
| Tank Barges >5000 GT | 0 | 1 | 11 | 11 | 9 | 6 | 10 | 15 | 15 | 78 | 9 |
| Dry Cargo Barges >5000 GT | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 20 | 2 |
| Sub-Totals | >1,050 | >1,020 | 905 | 872 | 740 | 657 | 607 | 586 | 577 | >7,014 | >779 |
| Tank Barges <5000 GT | 95 | 118 | 87 | 94 | 128 | 177 | 123 | 236 | 263 | 1,321 | 147 |
| Inland Dry Cargo Barges | 775 | 609 | 672 | 217 | 427 | 219 | 672 | 846 | 4,427 | 553 | |
| Totals | >1,920 | >1,747 | 1,664 | 1,183 | 1,295 | 1,053 | 1,402 | 1,668 | >11,922 | >1,490 |