Ship agency services for every port in Maine.
We’ve been ship agents on the Portland waterfront since the days when most arrivals were schooners. Today we cover every commercial port in Maine, from South Portland north all the way up to Eastport. Calling in a couple weeks? Email us. Calling in a couple days? Email us anyway—we work that timeline routinely. The reason it’s worth mentioning: some operators trust the schedule enough that we already have ships on the calendar four and five years out. Same desk handles both.
Documentation
Notice of arrival filings, customs documentation, USCG documentation, port state control prep, immigration paperwork for crew change.
Customs & CBP liaison
Coordination with U.S. Customs and Border Protection for cargo, crew, and vessel documentation. We’re known to the Portland CBP team and we know how they like things filed.
Pilot & tug coordination
Booking compulsory pilots through the Portland Pilots and Penobscot Bay & River Pilots, scheduling tug assists, line-handler coordination at the dock.
Crew change
Hotel arrangements, ground transport (PWM, BGR, BHB), immigration support, on-signing/off-signing logistics, crew supplies, medical referrals.
Stores & supply
Provisioning, technical stores, fuel coordination, sourcing for the unusual things vessels need on short notice. A 172-year network of Maine suppliers behind us.
Repair & survey coordination
If a vessel needs work in port, we line up the surveyor, the yard, the diver, the welder—whoever fits the job. We don’t take a kickback. We just want the vessel to leave on schedule.
The same work, five generations back.
Chase, Leavitt & Co. has been meeting ships in Portland since the age of sail. These 1918 waterfront passes list William and Ralph A. Leavitt’s occupation simply as “Steamship Agent.”
Licensed mariners on every port call.
Our agency staff hold active U.S. Coast Guard licenses and have served as officers aboard merchant vessels, so we see each port call from the ship’s side.
The agency is led by Capt. Shawn Moody, a Maine Maritime Academy graduate who has held USCG licenses throughout his career and has provided 24-hour, 365-days-a-year service the whole way.
Every one of our port agents carries a TWIC (Transportation Worker Identification Credential) card.
Maine’s cruise port agents.
Over our history we’ve represented more than 100,000 merchant vessels, most of them cruise ship port calls.
In the early 1960s we led Maine’s effort to bring cruise ships to Bar Harbor, and we’ve encouraged coastal communities to welcome cruise lines ever since. Today we represent the majority of cruise vessels calling at Maine ports.
We work closely with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CruiseMaine, the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), and local port authorities, and we attend the town council and committee meetings that affect cruise calls.
Every commercial port in Maine
We cover the entire Maine coast for ship agency work. From South Portland’s oil terminals north through every commercial waterfront, all the way to Eastport on the Canadian border. That’s the Maine answer when an operator says, “we don’t know where we’ll be calling next year.”
Southern Maine
- Portland (International Marine Terminal & downtown piers)
- South Portland (oil terminals)
- Casco Bay anchorages
- Yarmouth / Cousins Island
- Brunswick / Bath area
- Boothbay Harbor
Mid-coast Maine
- Rockland
- Camden / Rockport
- Belfast
- Searsport / Mack Point
- Stockton Harbor
- Bucksport (paper terminal)
Down East Maine
- Bar Harbor (cruise tender ops)
- Northeast Harbor
- Southwest Harbor
- Bass Harbor
- Jonesport / Machiasport
- Eastport (deepwater, Canadian border)
Also working New Hampshire on a case basis—Portsmouth especially.
Days out, weeks out, years out — same email, same desk.
Send your ETA, vessel particulars, and what you need handled. We’ll come back with a scope and a quote. First-time callers always welcome.