For over fifty years, the ocean-freight industry worked to make ocean freighters faster and to lower their fuel consumption. Despite considerable success, the economics of the industry grew worse, until the industry was almost dead. What was wrong was an incongruity between assumptions and realities. The real costs came, not from time spent at sea, but from time spent in port during loading and unloading.

Which of the following actions would be most likely to lead to a solution of the problem faced by the ocean-freight industry, as it is analyzed in the passage?


(A) Developing a ship’s engine that runs on a cheaper type of fuel than that traditionally used by ocean freighters

(B) Developing a ship with accessible cargo compartments that can be mechanically loaded and unloaded very rapidly

(C) Developing a ship whose freight capacity relative to the ship’s total volume is much larger than that of any existing ship

(D) Implementing a system to ensure that ocean freighters are loaded to capacity whenever they leave a port

(E) Implementing a marketing plan that focuses on routes that are known to be least threatened by unfavorable weather, thus permitting rapid trips and reliable arrival times
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