I’ve been to this event a number of times in the past, and besides the fact it’s well attended by decision-makers from the most respected businesses on the planet, it’s a really good time.  CMA officials recently announced that this year’s event will be the largest in it’s history and for those of you who were there last year, you know this year’s event is going to be a good one.

Click HERE to see the list of exhibitors, but more importantly, see who’s actually going and RSVP HERE.

Hope to see you there…

Text extracted from Dudley Knox‘s “A History of the United States Navy,” page. 62. Sterrett reported that, “The carnage on onboard the Tripolitan was dreadful, she having twenty men killed and thirty wounded…Her mizzen-mast went over the side…We had not a man wounded and sustained no material damage in our hull or rigging.”

USS Entrerprise vs. Tripolitan Corsair Tripoli, 1 August 1801. Lieutenant Andrew Sterrett leaving USS Enterprise to board the Tripoli after the corsair’s surrender. Artwork by Orlando Lagman after Claudus, 1965. Courtesy of the Navy Art Collection, NH 54386-KN (Color).

The fight between USS Enterprise and the Barbary Corsair, Tripoli, 1 August 1801.

Photograph of a painting by G. A. Traver. NHHC Photograph Collection, NH 56709.

USS Enterprise, Captain Andrew Sterrett, paying tribute to Tripoli, 1 August 1801. Photograph of line engraving by M. Corne. Lieutenant Sterrett, Commanding the schooner Enterprise, captured the polacca Tripoli after a three-hour battle. From the publication, “The Navy Temple,” NHHC Photograph Collection, NH 56706.

Nor-shipping 2011, one of the premier events for the European maritime industry, is kicking off this week in Oslo, Norway.  This years show dares to ask the question ‘What’s next?‘ and the conferences May 24 and 25 will explore the theme from a number of different perspectives.  So what is next?  Well, the major themes leading up to this years show has been the shipping industries push to offshore oil and gas and social media.

Nor-Shipping 2011 will be hosting its first-ever Offshore Agenda conference to highlight the growing demand from the offshore oil and gas industry.  Specifically, the conference is marking Brazil’s importance as a hotspot for offshore service providers with Petrobas’ CEO José Sergio Gabrielli delivering the keynote address and officially marking Day Two of the conference ‘Brazilian Day’.  The conferences will also  feature presentations by top industry leaders such as Tor Olav Trøim of Frontline, Peter Evensen from Teekay Corp, Peter Anker of RS Platou, Cecilie Fredriksen with Frontline, Thomas Wilhelmsen of Wilh. Wilhelmsen, Roy Reite from STX OSV and Karl Johan Bakken of Farstad Shipping ASA to name few.

Embracing social media, Nor-Shipping has launched an official twitter page and an interctive “ebook” to compliment the show and has already received praise for their digital strategy by ShipServ, a company that has proved itself forerunner in the maritime industries push online.  The new website, NextGenerationShipping.com, was launched in January as a platform for discussion leading up to Nor-Shipping.  The website is a callaborative effort  from companies such as ABB, DNV, Kongsberg, Jotun, Wilhelmsen, Wartsila, and Ulstein among others.  You can also follow the show by using #Norshipping hashtag on Twitter.

With everything going on, hopefully by the end of the week the shipping industry will have a clearer answer to the question “what’s next?.”  Keep checking back to gCaptain for updates on the show.

This week the gCaptain team is in New Orleans attending the annual International WorkBoat Show.  The show is huge, with thousands of visitors from all over the world and easily a few hundred exhibitors sprawled throughout the Morial Convention Center.  Yesterday, we were able to meet with a number of the largest companies operating in the maritime and offshore industries, something that is always good for us (and you).

The highlight of the day was Admiral Thad Allen’s Shipyard Day Keynote address.  For those of you who missed it, Ben Strong from the Amver blog has a good write up and be sure to click over to the full article for a roundup of tweets from Allen’s speech.

If you weren’t able to attend Thad Allen’s presentation today at the International Boat Show here is the breakdown of Tweets we provided.  It was nice to see our old boss today.  Despite a hoarse voice he provided an excellent overview of leadership in complex incidents drawing on his experience from Hurricane Katrina, Haiti, and the Deepwater Horizon spill.  He also answered questions from the audience.

What’s he up to now?  He’s working as a Fellow at the Rand Corporation.  Want to hear more from Allen?  Check out his interview with the Harvard Business Review.

For those of you in the New Orleans area today and tomorrow, I highly suggest coming by the show.

[Image via Amver Blog]

Here at gCaptain.com, we are big proponents of safety in the workplace and often times for us professional mariners, that means reporting on technologies that are going to keep us alive should any of us hit the water.  We are always on the lookout for new and interesting items like PLB’s, man overboard alert devices, fast rescue or lifeboats and, of course, life jackets.

That is why we were very excited to hear about the Innovations in Life Jacket Design Competition hosted by the Boat U.S. Foundation.  The goal of the competition is to “encourage and solicit innovative ideas and new technology to design a life jacket that the majority of average boaters might wear.”  The Boat U.S. website tells us:

Each year drownings account for 70% or more of all boating fatalities. Of the people who drown, over 80% were not wearing a life jacket. The U.S. Coast Guard has estimated that over 200 lives may be saved each year if people wore their life jacket.

Studies conducted by the BoatUS Foundation indicate that lack of comfort is the number one reason why life jackets are not worn in greater numbers. In fact, the average life jacket wear rate for boaters is generally around 20%.

The BoatUS Foundation believes that innovation and the application of new technology might entice more boaters to wear life jackets. If you are a creative thinker and have an idea for a new and innovative life jacket your ingenuity may help save lives. We don’t have any rules as to what types of materials or designs are allowable. The Foundation wants you to come up with as many new, imaginative and out-of-the-box ideas as you can.

Participants will be required to submit a 4-minute video of their invention in action and entries will be evaluated by a panel of judges based on wearability, reliability, cost or price point and innovation.  Winners of the competition will get to take home the $5,000 grand prize which will be awarded at the 2011 International Boating and Waterways Safety Summit.

For more information about the contest visit http://www.boatus.com/Foundation/lifejacketdesign/.

Every October 15th, the blogosphere combines forces and participates in what’s called Blog Action Day.  The premise being to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion about one issue that impacts people around the world by having as a diverse selection of blogs write about the same topic on the same day.  Last year, over 13,000 blogs from 152 countries, including gCaptain joined forces to write about climate change.

Today, we were excited to announce the topic for Blog Action Day 2010…. WATER!  The Blog Action Day website provides a little more on why exactly they chose this topic.

Right now, almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight of us who are subject to preventable disease and even death because of something that many of us take for granted.

Access to clean water is not just a human rights issue. It’s an environmental issue. An animal welfare issue. A sustainability issue. Water is a global issue, and it affects all of us.

gCaptain is are excited to write about our favorite natural resource and we encourage other maritime bloggers to participate as well.  In order to do register your blog HERE or head over to the blog section of the forum to launch a gCaptain blog of your own.

We are proud to announce that gCaptain’s founder and editor in chief, John Konrad, got a book deal! The upcoming book titled Fire on the Horizon: The Untold Story of the Gulf Oil Disaster is being published by HarperCollins publisher David Hirshey and co-written with help from the prize-winning journalist  Tom Shroder.

While it’s written by John the book is a collaboration of discussions with gCaptain members & friends both online and off. “I would not have been able to write the book without the efforts of the bloggers, forum members and friends of gCaptain. This book is truly a collaborative effort. ” The idea for a book came from NPR journalist and friend of gCaptain, Joe Shapiro, who got us in touch with our agent.” said John.

Next stop? A movie based on the event! “Our publisher is the book arm of Wall Street Journal, MySpace, Fox News and Fox Studio owner News Corp, so we expect the media coverage of the book to be large with a real possibility for a movie.” said John. The book has already been mentioned by the New York Times and at PopUp Magazine and will be in bookstores nationwide this March.

*Interested in learning more?  For updates and announcements click “Like” on the book’s Facebook group or order a copy at Amazon.com today!

Be sure to visit Fire On the Horizon’s book website!

Related Links:

• Fire On The Horizon – Facebook Group
• Track Author John Konrad via the webform at HarperCollins.com.
• Pre-order Fire On The Horizon at Amazon.com
• Publisher’s Catalogue For Booksellers
• GoodReads.com Book Link

Per Transocean’s Well Control Handbook, a kick is defined as:

“The entry of oil, gas, or water into the wellbore.  When the bottom hole pressure becomes less than the formation pressure and the permeability is great enough, formation fluid will enter the wellbore causing a kick.”

The purpose of the negative pressure test on the Macondo well was to purposely lower the pressure inside the wellbore in a controlled manner to ensure that the casing and cement that separated the wellbore from the hydrocarbon-bearing formation could withstand that pressure differential without any leaks.

To do this however, it’s not a matter of simply turning a valve and watching the pressure go down.  The 5000-foot vertical column of heavy, barite-saturated mud within the choke line, kill line, mud boost, drill pipe, and production casing must be replaced by a much lighter column of seawater, which in turn reduces the total hydrostatic head pushing on the sides of the wellbore.

During the negative pressure test, 1,260 psi of pump pressure was needed to overcome the difference in hydrostatic pressure between the column of seawater and the column of mud that was being forced back to the mud pits via the riser.  Once the seawater/mud replacement was complete, the column of seawater was then isolated from the wellbore via the annular BOP and the 1,260 psi of head pressure differential was allowed to bleed off via the kill line causing a U-tubing affect within the wellbore.

BP’s investigation report states that upon bleeding off the pressure from the wellbore, 3.5 barrels of fluid should have returned.  Instead, 15 barrels came back.  BP goes on to say that this “should have indicated to the rig crew a communication flow path with the reservoir through failed barriers”…“The well site leader noticed the discrepancy and after a discussion with the rig crew, preparations for continuing the negative-pressure test were made by bleeding the kill line.”

Why BP decided to continue with the negative pressure test is unclear at this point, but in BP’s conclusion, they state:

“The guidelines for the negative-pressure test, a critical activity, did not provide detailed steps and did not specify expected bleed volumes or success/failure criteria. Therefore, effective performance of the test placed a higher reliance on the competency and leadership skills of the BP and Transocean rig leaders.

That statement seems to dictate a bit of ambiguity over who was in charge of this negative test in the first place.  Also, if BP’s procedure for conducting the negative test did not include details of expected bleed volumes from the kill line, or procedures on what to look for, it’s unclear how the rig crew could have been expected to notice a 15 barrel gain in the mud pits that ultimately would have indicated a kick was in progress.

Overall, there was a lot of interesting information in BP’s report, but this was the first of it’s kind we’ve seen and like most things lately, certainly deserves to be taken with a grain of salt.

Click image for high resolution

This weeks ship photo comes to us from the 18th annual running of the Great North River Tugboat Race & Competition held at Pier 84 in New York City this weekend.  Shown here is the tug parade just prior to race on September 5, 2010.

Fifteen to 20 tugboats participated in the event on the Hudson River Sunday morning, as they competed to be named the fastest boat in their class.  And it’s is not just limited to the fastest tug.  Tugs also challenge each other in nose-to-nose pushing duels and the line toss competition, where captain and crew get a chance to show off their skills and coordination.

The race is organized by the Working Harbor Committee in collaboration with Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises at 42nd Street. The WHC is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to educating people about the rich history, current vitality and future potential of the NYC /New Jersey Harbor. The organization also provides Hidden Harbor Tours® and runs an extensive youth educational program.

As for the results of the race….?  You’re just going to have to check back as we await official word.

For gCaptain’s coverage from previous years, click HERE.

[Image credit: Bernard Ente]

Even before our Nation declared independence, our forebears recognized the importance of merchant ships and seafarers to our economic and national security. Since 1775, America’s maritime fleet has risen to the challenges before them and worked to meet our country’s needs in times of peace and war alike. On National Maritime Day, we recognize the men and women of the United States Merchant Marine for their contributions to America’s leadership in the global marketplace, and to our security.

Civilian mariners and their ships have played an important role in equipping our military forces at sea in national conflicts. During World War II, they executed the largest sealift the world had ever known, and thousands gave their lives to help convoys with desperately needed supplies reach our troops. Their service to our Nation continues today. Merchant mariners support military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as humanitarian missions, including the delivery of supplies to Haiti following this year’s devastating earthquake.

The United States Merchant Marine also shepherds the safe passage of American goods. They carry our exports to customers around the world and support the flow of domestic commerce on our maritime highways. They help strengthen our Nation’s economy; bolster job creating businesses; and, along with the transportation industry, employ Americans on ships and tugs, and in ports and shipyards. Today, we pay tribute to the United States Merchant Marine, and we honor all those whose tireless work is laying a foundation for growth, prosperity, and leadership in the 21st century.

The Congress, by a joint resolution approved May 20, 1933, has designated May 22 of each year as “National Maritime Day,” and has authorized and requested the President to issue annually a proclamation calling for its appropriate observance.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 22, 2010, as National Maritime Day. I call upon the people of the United States to mark this observance with appropriate activities, and I encourage all ships sailing under the American flag to dress ship on that day.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.

BARACK OBAMA