(dramatic music)
- Being in a shipyard in general sucks
without any of the COVID stuff.
- [Narrator] Madeleine Wolczko works
on an American container ship
that got stuck in a Shanghai shipyard
during the city's COVID lockdown
and she documented her two-months-long experience.
- Once the lockdown happened,
it was just kind of one thing after the next.
- [Narrator] She and the crew had to rely
on local authorities for supplies.
- [Madeleine] We have a delivery here of food and water.
- [Narrator] Took regular COVID tests
all while living on a semi-dismantled ship.
- The rainforest is back.
We're just trying to keep busy just to stay sane.
- [Narrator] Their struggle shows just how hard it was
for shipyards, as well as companies in the region
to keep working through Shanghai's COVID restrictions.
In February, the President Wilson docked
at a shipyard just north of the city's port
for repairs that were originally meant
to take a little over a month.
- The ship works 24/7.
We don't stop.
- [Narrator] Wolczko is the ship's second officer
and is from Washington State.
She gave The Wall Street Journal permission
to use her footage.
The plan was to finish the maintenance,
then pick up containers at the port.
Wolczko says when the works started,
some days about 500 shipyard workers
would come aboard.
But about a month into their stay,
Shanghai entered a lockdown.
Wolczko says the workers stopped coming
and most of the repair work ground to a halt.
- We're kind of already used to being onboard,
the difference being that we're not moving,
there's no work progressing.
- [Narrator] Restricted to the ship by local authorities,
the crew was stuck on a vessel
that was midway through repairs.
- [Madeleine] It's starting to get flooded already in here.
- [Narrator] Unable to stock up
on their regular food supplies,
they relied on government deliveries.
- At the beginning of the lockdown,
we had about a month's meat left.
It was a little terrifying.
- [Narrator] The crew also had to undergo
regular COVID testing,
following a schedule set by the shipyard authorities.
- The PCR test shall be done
on the first, second, fourth, seventh, 10th,
14th, 17th and 21st days.
- [Narrator] Wolczko says all of this took a toll
on the mental health of the crew.
- It's difficult when there's no set date,
no set plan.
Everyone's up and down all the time.
- [Narrator] The company CMA CGM Group,
which owns the President Wilson
said they were in daily contact with the crew
to ensure their health and safety,
and worked with local authorities
to organize food and other necessities.
About a month after things came to a halt,
the shipyard implemented a system
that would allow workers to return to the vessel,
despite the city's COVID restrictions.
It's called a closed loop.
- Basically, the workers are locked down
in a confined area
and they're not allowed to leave
but they can still work.
- [Narrator] This closed off environment wasn't only used
at the shipyard but it's also been implemented
by factories and financial companies
where employees lived and slept at work.
Some even setting up tents for privacy.
It's a way for officials
to balance two competing goals:
curb the spread of COVID,
and keep production going to limit economic damage
and global supply chain fallout.
Companies like Tesla
and China's largest state-owned automaker SAIC
all implemented closed loops
during Shanghai's lockdown.
But this system isn't always running at 100% capacity
compared to normal times.
- Closed loop does not mean perfect,
it doesn't mean perfect loop.
- [Narrator] Jarrod Ward is the chairman
of the supply chain committee
at the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.
He also works for Yusen Logistics,
a company that organizes and manages the transport
of goods at the port for suppliers and retailers.
- You're basically concentrating the labor
without allowing them to go home.
I mean, there's a human toll to that,
as well as just the general lack of efficiency
of having enough people.
- [Narrator] Many of the city's shipyards
also faced reduced capacity.
According to the President Wilson's crew,
only a fraction of the original workforce returned
to the ship when work resumed.
- And it was just a trickle,
like it was 10 people,
and then it was 20 people,
and then it was 50 to 60 people.
- [Narrator] Along with fewer people,
there were not enough materials coming
into shipyards in Shanghai for repairs.
That's because the lockdown created a logistics headache.
Truck drivers coming into the city
had to take COVID tests or quarantine,
slowing down deliveries to factories and the port.
- Even though you may have the closed loop labor on site,
you still don't have your components
flowing into the manufacturing site.
- [Narrator] So with fewer people and materials,
the ship's repairs dragged on for months,
and the President Wilson's crew simply had to wait.
- We're never gonna get out of here.
- [Narrator] The Port of Shanghai
and the company that owns the shipyard,
COSCO SHIPPING Heavy Industry,
didn't respond to requests for comment.
The city's government lifted COVID restrictions
on June 1st, and about a week later,
(drilling sounds)
the President Wilson completed its repairs
and set out to pick up cargo at the port.
- We are finally on our way down the Yangtze River.
- [Narrator] But there's still uncertainty for companies
that rely on shipping and manufacturing
in the region.
- The biggest concern is this COVID situation
we went through in Shanghai
easily could come back next month
or it could come back in another location.
And how is your supply chain designed?
Is it flexible enough to actually deal with that?
- [Narrator] Shipping analysts say
as trucking and activity at the port return to normal,
they expect the resumption of export shipments
to have a ripple effect,
creating congestion at other major ports around the world,
especially as the back to school
and holiday shopping seasons start to kick in.
Companies operating in China
could become increasingly wary
of more disruptions caused by strict COVID strategies.
- That's why we see people deciding
about alternative supply points,
whether they're still inside of China or outside.
So this is where the impact
will be felt for I think many, certainly months,
but many years to come.
- [Narrator] The President Wilson
is finding its way back into the global supply chain
with its final destination
at the US's busiest container port complex
at Los Angeles and Long Beach.
- People don't really think about the humans involved
and that we have limits.
Just go, go, go all the time.
Think about the cargo, and think about the money,
and think about the ship.
When you're already fatigued,
sleep deprived, it's excruciating at times.