Maritime News Thread

neris

Was on howth yacht clubs web cam a minute ago and looks like theres a ship between irelands eye and portmarnock beach. On ais there is only one ship in the area a 100 meter cargo ship called the ulrike g but ais has its position slightly further north. Says it draws 3.5 meters but over the last few years the sands have shifted there and has become very shallow in parts

goldie fish

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/navy-and-coastguard-secure-safety-of-13-crew-aboard-stricken-bulk-carrier-253898.html

A slow process last night. This morning the job of getting it tied to a quay begins.

Red Nissan

goldie fish wrote: »

A slow process last night. This morning the job of getting it tied to a quay begins.

I was figuring they would not attempt a tow into the harbour last night. If one watches the tracks seemingly Abul Lion was anchored and the Celtic Isle Tug steamed up and down the coastline.

roundymac

I was in Myrtleville about an hour or so ago. The two tugs Alex and Celtic Isle were standing off the Abuk Lion, weather conditions were very bad, squalls and driving rain, sometimes hail. I had hoped to take a picture of them but the visability was very poor.

Tabnabs

Hard times in Stena and worse for any new entrants.

http://gcaptain.com/stena-line-strategic-plan-ambrose/

Jambo

Scary Stuff

Cmdr. Martin Arriola, left the pilothouse to attend to other matters.

Meanwhile, the destroyer was on a course to dart through tankers headed in the opposite direction.

Arriola returned to the bridge. He and his watchstanders saw a ship ahead that seemed to show the international signal warning other ships to stay clear. Porter turned to port, an unusual move, and crossed ahead of it. Then they spotted something a mariner never wants to see: the bow of another ship, which had been hidden behind the other vessel.

The officer of the deck recommended turning right immediately, the standard maneuver. Cmdr Arriola disagreed...........

Taken from Navy Times


Its worth listening /reading though and following some of the other links below Taken from gCaptain

The pilothouse recording above begins immediately after Porter turned left to pass ahead of a ship going the opposite direction. The destroyer, with another warship following, had been headed southwest on course 230 at 20 knots.
The officer of the deck wanted to steer right to come back to this base course. This aggravated Porter’s commanding officer, Cmdr. Martin Arriola, who was focused on shipping traffic headed the opposite way and converging on the channel back through the Strait of Hormuz. Arriola and the OOD are the most prominent voices in the recording. Others relayed course and speed changes to the amphibious dock landing ship Gunston Hall, which was following Porter.
After clearing the vessel, the OOD spotted another ship later determined to be a supertanker, behind it and realized Porter was in danger. Arriola decided to turn left, an unusual maneuver, to streak ahead of a ship’s bow a second time.

Tabnabs

Not the first time I've heard/seen about a naval ship manoeuvring erratically

I never envy the Navy style of having so many bodies on the bridge. Two lookouts, two radars and a cadet plotting positions every six minutes was enough for us in the heaviest traffic situations on much larger, but much slower and less manoeuvrable ships.

Still, they are getting the book thrown at them. However, in true shipping fashion, they'll probably get promoted out of command to good safe desk jobs...

Snowc

The recent weather has being causing a few problems around the coast.It most have being awful on board the endurance that day seeing as two 100 + meter Spanish trawlers were taking shelter in Galway bay that day :eek:

Jambo

See this on gcaptain and a few other sites yesterday.


News Report, Pictures and Video here

And a video of the moment she broke up here, just shows you the raw power of the sea when you see the bow section getting thrown around like a cork

Tabnabs

Rolls-Royce Testing Drone Technology for Unmanned Cargo Ships

http://gcaptain.com/rolls-royce-testing-unmanned-drone-cargo-ship/

Fair to say that it will probably happen within our lifetime.

LiamoSail

Tabnabs wrote: »

http://gcaptain.com/rolls-royce-testing-unmanned-drone-cargo-ship/

Fair to say that it will probably happen within our lifetime.

I'd be sceptical. From the numerous regulatory issues,to the shipping business being notoriously slow to embrace change, to the need for basic maintenance, ships need to be manned.

Theoretically, it could be possible, but I don't believe its practical

murphym7

LiamoSail wrote: »

I'd be sceptical. From the numerous regulatory issues,to the shipping business being notoriously slow to embrace change, to the need for basic maintenance, ships need to be manned.

Theoretically, it could be possible, but I don't believe its practical

I would intend to agree.

Where I am quite sure, technically you could get a ship to navigate from A to B safely, there are far more things to consider. We assume we don’t want the ship tied up for any unnecessary time alongside for a “human” crew to board to undertake maintenance. The article states that increased level of automation will mean preventative maintenance etc… can be carried out without need for human intervention. This I would highly doubt. I would imagine the level of automation required to actually perform these tasks would be cost prohibitive for a start, never mind the likely impracticality of having a deck/engine room packed with automated equipment, all whirring along doing different tasks. Who’s going to maintain the automated maintenance equipment??? Who will look after fridges on container ships, who will monitor and adjust the lashings of containers/cargo? There are things like mechanical breakdown, we have all been on a ship when a hose has blown, a valve gets stuck etc…. these are the unplanned things that you have to have a human there to deal with. My last point is the protection of life at sea. An unmanned vessel isn’t going to be much use to another vessel in distress.

There are too many variables that humans need to deal with each day on board.

bladebrew

Here is a video released by the German navy of pirates attacking the MV Taipan back in 2010, I had never seen the second video (released in 2010) of Danish Marines landing on containers on deck and taking the ship back off the pirates,
I'm not really sure why the pirates even attacked the ship if there was a helicopter watching them?!

Tabnabs

A pretty grim but worthwhile interview with an American captain who was kidnapped in Nigeria whilst at sea on a supply ship.

http://gcaptain.com/captain-wren-thomas-kidnapped-off-nigeria-c-retriever/

Tabnabs

Iceland’s first PSV launched in Turkey

The vessel, named Polarsyssel, is a Havyard 832L WE design and it is Iceland’s first platform supply vessel.

Polarsyssel is an Ice Class B vessel and can accommodate 30 people. The ship is 88.5 meters long and 17.6 meters wide. The deck area is 850 square meters with a modular helideck. The ship is equipped with a fire fighting unit, an emergency oil recovery system, a dynamic-positioning system (DP2) for optimal position keeping during operations, refueling system for Jet A-1 fuel, and a night vision detection system for identifying people, oil, and ice in the dark. On board there is a twin-jet rescue boat as well as two work, search, and rescue boats.

The launching ceremony took place last Saturday in Cemre Shipyard in Turkey, and according to a statement issued by the shipyard, including this project Cemre has launched 29 ships so far.

The ship will service the Arctic island Spitsbergen 180 days a year, first season beginning in spring 2014. On their website the Ministry of Justice and Public Security in Norway stated that the new ship and two helicopters will strengthen the service in the Svalbard region substantially. The vessel will, in addition to servicing Spitsbergen, patrol, prevent pollution, conduct rescue services, and monitor environmental developments in the Svalbard archipelago, Bear Island, and Hopen.

http://www.offshoreenergytoday.com/icelands-first-psv-launched-in-turkey/

I wonder will we ever see such a vessel flying an Irish ensign (other than the Granuaile)?

tricky D

Crew missing after cargo ships collide near Hong Kong
Chinese vessel Zhong Xing 2 sank after collision with large container ship in waters off Hong Kong

more

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/05/cargo-ships-collide-hong-kong-hong

323

One here some might be interested in. Worldwide maritime and shipping news sent (free) as a .pdf daily.

Used to get this daily collection of maritime related news years ago to a work email when working for a Dutch company, had forgot about it.
Seen another on board reading it a few days ago and signed up again.

Sign up at http://www.maasmondmaritime.com/Inschrijven.aspx

Tabnabs

Sweet mother of divinity, imagine being rescued by that thing?!

According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, sailors aboard the small craft “Barents 1100″ sent out a distress signal on Sunday afternoon when they found themselves in the middle of some severe weather while in the White Sea.

To their surprise, the Oscar-class cruise-missile submarine “Voronezh,” belonging to the Northern Fleet, happened to be right in the vicinity and was on hand to provide assistance. After coming alongside the small craft, the crew of the Voronezh transferred the five sailors aboard the sub, and took the Barents 1100 in tow.

http://gcaptain.com/russian-nuclear-submarine-rescues-sailors-distress-photos/

Tabnabs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11W-xM0coHY

You've heard of the x-bow, well Ulstein have now come out with the X stern

Tabnabs

Here's an interesting tale of how geo-political wrangling can make the simple sailors life a misery. There's one (and possibly more) VLCC knocking around, full of "Kurdish" crude oil. There is a big legal dispute over the ownership of the oil and this has resulted in the ship just anchoring up and/or drifting in the US Gulf waiting for the legal side to be resolved.

They had apparently switched off her AIS and this naturally made the USCG nervy, but the USCG, aka

"sea scouts with guns"

have found her again and the saga rumbles on.

http://rt.com/usa/184264-usa-kurdish-tanker-oil/

Tabnabs

Elsewhere, oil is being stored in the worlds largest floating tanks until the price goes up and someone makes a killing...

http://gcaptain.com/chinese-oil-trader-books-ultra-large-crude-carrier-ti-europe-stash-crude/

Another cheap-as-chips tanker and a most unpleasant work environment for her crew.
http://www.aukevisser.nl/supertankers/id176.htm

islanderre

Another cheap-as-chips tanker and a most unpleasant work environment for her crew.
http://www.aukevisser.nl/supertankers/id176.htm[/QUOTE]


Why do you say this Tabnabs..... surely its no different to any other VLCC / ULCC except maybe a prolonged period drifting and attending to maintenance that may not get done if the vessel was underway.

Just curious!!!!!!!! :):)

Tabnabs

She was built in 2003, but the bridge and Cargo Control Room are decked out in basic 90s technology. You put that much crude oil into a ship, worth millions of dollars, send it around the world, and you don't even invest in a modern integrated bridge design and the CCR, the heart of operations when working cargo, you stick in the cheapest installation for controlling the loading and discharge of cargo.

This philosophy will extend to the standard of accommodation for the crew also. These ships rarely tie up ashore due to their immense size and normally lighter many miles offshore, so the crew may not get a minutes break for 4/6/8/12 months of their contract. So they are stuck on a floating oil tank with no comforts or small luxuries. Having spent months on a similar sized and spec'ed ship, it's what drives excellent and talented officers to leave the industry and take up work elsewhere.

islanderre

Thanks for the reply Tabnabs.

Yes it was one of the issues I too encountered sailing on VL & ULCC's was the lack of shore leave but in hind sight I think the Master(s) been quite tight when it came to paying for a launch may have something to do with it too.

Cheers,

Islanderre

Tabnabs

I wonder what kind of readiness her engines are kept at? :pac:

http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/Ferry-is-New-Home-to-Libyan-Parliament-2014-09-10

Tim the Enchanter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ktwo-k-onk

Tabnabs

Nightmare!

islanderre

How the feck...... thought all this would be proven before the ship leaves the yard....
Presume its down to the angle the lifeboat leaves the mother ship.....

Courtesy of gcaptain.com

who the fug

Tabnabs wrote: »

Nightmare!

Can see that vast tome that is the Suez Canal book being pulled out and blaming everything on the Captain, as he failed to declare his first born child is left handed

Nought to do with Pilot in a rush

LiamoSail

islanderre wrote: »

How the feck...... thought all this would be proven before the ship leaves the yard....
Presume its down to the angle the lifeboat leaves the mother ship.....

Courtesy of gcaptain.com

I'd say its more likely to be a consequence of the weight distribution on the lifeboat, too much up fwd, coupled with the ship being in ballast