Maritime Monday 157

The following is posted by Fred Fry:

Welcome to this 157th edition of Maritime Monday.

You can find Maritime Monday 107 here. (Published 21 April 2008)

You can find last week’s edition here.

You can find links to all the previous editions at the bottom of this post. You are encouraged to participate using the comment link/form at the bottom of the post. If you have photos or stories to tell, do email me at [email protected].

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This Week’s Photos:

This week’s photos were taken by my friend ‘Erik’. I am sure the class of vessel is familiar to many out there.

* Rough Seas *

* Nav Lights – Not Just For Navigation *

* Lots of reefers on deck *

* Big Ship – Tiny Helm *

* US Flag – SEALAND FLORIDA *

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This Week’s Items:

EagleSpeak points out a problem the west has with fighting back in “Somali Pirates: Lawfare -“Maersk Alabama a ”crime scene””“. Right, and WWII made most of the planet a crime scene as well.

Also be sure to check out EagleSpeak‘s weekly series “Sunday Ship History: Remember the SS Mayaguez“

gCaptain has has “Overflight, Overflight, Overflight – The Missing Component To Combatting Piracy“. Also be sure to click through for coverage on the MAERSK ALABAMA.

Chron has “Piracy on minds of Houston sailors, marine engineers“.

Putting guns on merchant ships is a complicated issue, said Joe Angelo, deputy managing director for the London-based International Association of Independent Tanker Owners, known as INTERTANKO.

“Do we really want private industry taking law and order into their own hands on the high seas?” asked Angelo, who works at INTERTANKO’s North American headquarters in Arlington, Va. Policing international waters should be left to governmental navies, he said. Otherwise, private shipping companies could find themselves in an escalating arms race with pirates.

But wait, isn’t it the pirates taking law and order into their own hands???

Neptunus Lex has coverage of the multiple warnings the French sailing yacht received not to sail through the Gulf of Aden. As we all know, they ignored that advice, risking the lives of others and costing the life of one of their fellow travelers.

Information Dissemination has more on the French sailing yacht TANIT in “French Conduct Hostage Rescue Off Somalia – Updated” noting that they were blogging their journey.

The blog covering the journey of the French yacht Tanit is here. Florent Lemaçon, the owner of the yacht, was killed in the rescue attempt. Whether he was executed or killed in the crossfire remains unclear. His wife, 3 year old son, and 2 friends on the yacht have been rescued. Pictures of all on the blog, last updated March 20. If you read through the blog (in French), you will not how they did not take the piracy situation seriously, joked about piracy actually as if they were regular writers at the Huffington Post, ultimately ignoring the warnings they did not understand nor believe in.

The last photo album in their blog is simply titled ‘Djibouti – Aden‘. Given their attitude, I am starting to think that they actually wanted to get attacked by pirates.

National Review’s Corner has “Make Pirates Walk the Plank“.

Our problem with pirates is the same as the one with al Qaeda et al. We have extended legal rights to people who do not deserve them. We need to return to an important distinction first made by the Romans and subsequently incorporated into international law by way of medieval and early modern European jurisprudence, e.g. Grotius and Vattel. The Romans distinguished between bellum, war against legitimus hostis, a legitimate enemy, and guerra, war against latrunculi — pirates, robbers, brigands, and outlaws — “the common enemies of mankind.”

Xinhua News Agency has “Bulgaria not to pay ransoms for kidnapped sailors“. Makes you wonder how many cargo ships being held by pirates have been abandoned by the vessel owners and operators? Who comes to their rescue?

Bloomberg has “Ship Industry May Mothball Most Vessels Since 1970s, GAC Says“.

Forbes has “America’s Best Urban Fishing Spots“. You can thank the Clean Water Act.

An abundance of gamefish in New York City? You bet. OK, so you won’t find the solitude and quiet you would in, say, the remote Seychelle Islands in the Indian Ocean. But here’s what you will find: some of the best inshore saltwater fishing in the country. New York City’s water–the East River, the lower Hudson and Jamaica Bay–teem with striped bass, bluefish and weakfish.

ChronicleLive has “Sailors heading home after being marooned in Blyth“. The ship, the CALA PONENTE, was laid-up. They got frequent time ashore and the company looked after them. So I think the headline is a little misleading, unless Blyth is one of those places you’d rather not be.

Gateway Pundit has “Piracy Is Funny– Hillary Chuckles Over Somali Pirate Standoff (Video)“. This is not exactly the new Administration’s best moment.

Yahoo News has a slidshow on “Somali Pirates” including photos of the media circus awaiting the MAERSK ALABAMA upon it’s arrival in Kenya.

Television crews interview a crew member of the Maersk Alabama at the Kenyan coastal sea port of Mombasa April 11, 2009. The Maersk Alabama container ship that was briefly seized by Somali pirates earlier this week arrived safely in the Kenyan port of Mombasa on Saturday amid tight security. The captain of the huge vessel, Richard Phillips, was taken hostage and is still being held captive on a lifeboat by the gang of four pirates. REUTERS/Antony Njuguna – Reuters/Yahoo News

Yahoo News also has video of the ship’s arrival including one crewmember’s understandable verbal strike against the press. (Found via Mudville Gazette)

The Wall Street Journal has “Attack Raises Debate on Guns for Sailors“.

Tims Times has a near-miss with “Crazy Ivan“.

Deep Water Writing has a couple days off in Bremerhaven due to public holidays: “Easter Springs“.

Breakbulk Industry News has “Ro-ro up at Port of Jacksonville“.

The Port of Jacksonville handled 656,805 vehicles during fiscal year 2008, a seven percent increase from FY 2007, making it the nation’s second busiest vehicle-handling port after New York/New Jersey according to the port’s recently released annual report.

Christiaan Conover has “Life at Mass Maritime During the Maersk Alabama Hijacking“.

US Naval Institute Blog has pirates talking about getting tough in response to pushback by various navies in “It Begins“. The press likes to point out that pirates have not been hurting or killing merchant seamen so far, perhaps suggesting that we not be too rough in return. But that is simply because the pirates have been living with the understanding was that once they had the sailors, they would eventually be traded for cash. I think that this was a bad issue to take for granted, especially considering that at some point, the pirates are going to give up on trying to get a ransom for the ones they have held the longest and I doubt that they are just going to set them free. Not giving a forceful response early on just helped the problem grow.

Hometown Annapolis has the picture slideshow: “Ships crowd Annapolis Anchorage“.

Maritime Journal has “‘Iron Lady’ gets another five year makeover“.

What is claimed to be the world’s biggest coal fired, steam icebreaker still afloat, the Stettin, has undergone its regular five year check at Hamburg’s Blohm + Voss Repair Shipyard and been declared fit for further service.

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Casco Bay Boater’s Blog has “Commercial Fishermen Hanging Up Their Nets“

How many fishermen have left the business is difficult to say. Reliable figures are hard to come by. But there were 42,000 fewer commercial boats in 2007 than the 120,000 in 1996, according to the Coast Guard. And 90% of fishermen are small-business owners, most with a single boat, Fraser says.

MarineBuzz has “Swan Hunter Floating Drydock Leaves U.K to Join Bharati Shipyard” and “MT Granba in Distress: Overloaded with Sulphuric Acid off Sri Lanka Coast“.

Puget Sound Maritime has “Navy exercises raise concerns about sonar use“.

Puget Sound Maritime also has “Human voice heard underwater in San Juans” and “Navy confirms underwater voices in San Juans“.

BitterEnd has “David Krapf is TWIC’ed Off“..

On March 27, the Coast Guard released the long-overdue TWIC card reader proposed rulemaking. In it was a key concession for the tug and barge owners, which somehow came about during a TWIC program moment of sanity. The proposal exempts vessels from having to carry card readers if they operate with 14 or fewer crew. That pretty much exempts every inland and coastal barge operator from having to purchase these expensive and useless devices.

These devices will serve no purpose on larger ships either, especially those calling foreign ports since foreigner port workers don’t have TWICs. Don’t try and explain this to a member of Congress though, as they might try and pass legislation requiring them to get TWICs as well.

Professional Mariner has disposal issues with “Expired pyro: hot topic“.

Towmasters: the Master of Towing Vessels Assoc. Forum has the Bellevue Range Rear Light for it’s “Photo Of The Week – 4/6/09“.

BarentsObserver has “Russia ready to build first LNG carrier“.

Isle of Wight County has “Solent shipping puzzle solved“.

The Register has “NASA: Clean-air regs, not CO2, are melting the ice cap“.

Sulfates, which come primarily from the burning of coal and oil, scatter incoming solar radiation and have a net cooling effect on climate. Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate emissions by 50 percent. While improving air quality and aiding public health, the result has been less atmospheric cooling from sulfates.

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Lloyd’s List has “Competition heats up for laid-up vessels“.

As locations such as Subic Bay, the Philippines, and Singapore’s outer port limits’ anchorages rapidly fill up with empty vessels, agents and ships managers are jumping on the bandwagon to manage laid-up vessels and offer new locations.

Tugster: a waterblog has photos of homemade tugboat “Toys“.

Houston ship pilot/photographer OneEighteen has “Narrow Daylight“.

Sea * Fever has “Restoring an American Icon: Mystic Seaport’s Whaleship Charles W. Morgan“.

Danger Room has “Exclusive: Somali Pirates’ Homemade Hijacking Video“.

The Pilot Boat has “Fishing Boats” violating restricted areas around offshore rigs off Brazil.

IceNews has “Titanic to live again…in Lapland?” Whatever happened to the TITANIC replicas that were in the planning stages around the millennium?

Old Salt Blog has “Commander Josee Kurtz: First Female to Command Canadian Navy Frigate“.

Panbo asks “Underwater lights, stupid & offensive?“. The lights are cool. The description however can apply to some boat owners though.

Ships & the Sea has photos of the Fred Olsen cruiseship “BLACK WATCH in Lisbon“.

7 News Belize has “7 Goes Inside with Local Marine Pilots” as they take a ride with the pilot as he brings in the MAERSK ROUBAIX.

An Unofficial Coast Guard Blog has “You activated your EPIRB… now what?” including a number of very good sample scenarios.

Stranded on the Largest Island has photos from Japan with “Shin Nishinomiya Yacht Harbour.“

Hellenic Shipping News has “Grim news for tanker owners, single hull vessels look set to vanish from the market“.

In a weak freight market, like the one shaping up in the tanker sector during the first months of 2009, the “weak” seem set to be eliminated, as is the case for single hull tankers. According to the latest weekly report from Gibson, “we are very close to the end for the single hull tanker. Age and preference have already steered many charterers away from single hulls, but over the recent boom years there have not been enough double hulls for everyone and so the singles have been needed. However the problem now is that this position is changing rapidly.

Lighthouse News has “Lighthouse Kid: Patos Island in the 1950’s” as the writer describes living on an island as her father was a lighthouse keeper in the 1950’s..

Dumpert has cool video of a gyro-stabilized pool table at sea.

The Islomaniac has “Skull & Bones Society’s Secret Island“.

MarineLog has rules stupidity with “Holes in bow make ship shorter“. Go check out the picture.

The shorter length allows the ship to comply with less rigorous international regulations and to sail with fewer crew.

Apparently, drilling the holes (Click on the story to see a photograph) makes the original bow a “false” bow. A new watertight bow has been fitted internally several meters aft of the original bow.

TigerHawk has “Sea ice, and a partial defense of George Will“.

The Journal of Commerce has “Truckers to DOT: Mexican Trucks OK“.

American Trucking Associations president William Graves told U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that the ATA has no objections to opening the southern borders to allow Mexican and U.S. trucks direct access to their customers’ freight facilities.

YouTube has “Strait Of Magellan / Skua Glacier Timelapse“. Yes, another time lapse video, but it is a very useful tool for filming shipping since most things take place much slower at sea. This is a good one as well.

Timelapse video of a cruise ship passing through the Strait Of Magellan to the Skua Glacier (Chile).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb_K9TgcKnE

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Fairplay Daily News has:

Gimme shelter, gimme gas mask – 200 TONNES of stinking, rotting meat – surrounded by the Dutch refrigerator vessel Beriks – was refused permission today to dock in Ukraine.

Beriks left the Georgian port of Poti in December. Its cargo of Brazilian and Chinese meat products have long since passed their sell-by date, but now its refrigeration machinery has broken down as well.

The ports of Nikolaev, Yevpatoria and Feodosiya have all refused entry because of the rotting cargo’s smell. The ship today reached the Kerch Strait but was instructed that it could approach no nearer than 20km from the coast.

The dozen crew members have told Ukrainian journalists that they must wear gas masks to breathe and have run out of food and water. Ukrainian authorities have rejected throwing the meat overboard because the technology needed to do so is not available. – Fairplay Homepage (Used with Permission)

AND:

US seeks tighter Antarctic rules – SECRETARY of State Hillary Clinton has unveiled US proposals for new maritime regulation of Antarctic waters and affirmed the Obama administration’s support for the Law of the Sea Convention.

Addressing the 32nd Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Baltimore yesterday, Clinton disclosed that the US has submitted a proposal “to extend marine pollution rules”.

This resolution “would place limits on landings from ships carrying large numbers of tourists” and would create “new requirements for lifeboats”, she said. The US is also urging “greater international co-operation to prevent discharges from these ships”.

In addition, Clinton said that “on Friday, President Obama sent to the US Senate the annex to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty that deals with liability arising from environmental emergencies”.

President Obama is urging Senate approval of the annex, which would take effect only when all countries of the Antarctic Treaty sign off.

Clinton also commented on Arctic issues, explaining: “That starts with the Law of the Sea Convention, which President Obama and I are committed to ratifying, to give the US and our partners the clarity we need to work together smoothly and effectively in the Arctic region.” – Fairplay Homepage (Used with Permission)

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Submissions for future editions:

Please submit articles for inclusion in next week’s edition using the following submit form at Blog Carnival. You are also welcome to email stories and photos to [email protected] for inclusion in future editions as well as suggest areas of coverage.

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Previous Editions: As linked below or click on the tag ‘Maritime Monday’ for all gCaptain editions.

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