Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you, sir. (Operator instructions) And our first question comes from the line of Fred Buonocore with CJS Securities. Please go ahead.
Fred Buonocore – CJS Securities
Yes. Good morning, gentlemen. Outstanding quarter, congratulations.
Laurence Levy
Thank you, Fred.
Fred Buonocore – CJS Securities
Just wanted to sail into the efficiencies and improved utilization that saw you drive your vessel margins up so significantly during the quarter. Can you elaborate a little bit more on just what you’re seeing within the fleet; get a little bit granular about how these vessels are operating more efficiently and where you see room for upside going forward there?
Laurence Levy
Scott, could you address that please.
Scott Bravener
Yes, Fred. The main drivers in efficiency this year, number one drivers definitely the increase in fleet size has enhanced our scheduling flexibility and the ability to better schedule the vessels which certainly drives revenues.
We’ve also seen vast improvements in port time turnarounds with the unloading speeds of the vessels and loading speeds turning them around in port, so the turnaround times have been much better, particularly on the three vessels that we acquire from WMS last year.
We’ve seen a drastic reduction in downtime, which can be attributable to some of the capital investment that we’ve made in the vessels over the past couple of seasons to increase reliability and we’ve seen the benefits of that over the past year, and we’ve seen the benefits of the increased water levels this year, which certainly falls to the bottom line.
Fred Buonocore – CJS Securities
Excellent. Thank you, that’s very helpful. So you talked about being booked out for the remainder of this sailing season and likely next sailing season. Do you have any contracts that are coming up for renewal or any potential new contracts that you would be adding that would be contributing to being booked next year, so I’m just kind of trying to determine the breakout of your contracts?
Scott Bravener
We have a minimal amount of the business that’s falling off this year. Fred, as you may recall we had a significant number of renewals in the past season.
Fred Buonocore – CJS Securities
Right.
Scott Bravener
So, most of our renewals have been dealt with, there is a couple of smaller ones that we’re in the process of renewing right now and expect to renew, and we continue to look at new business but its on a smaller end, because we have been historically fully booked.
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