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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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“.
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.
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.
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.
By Yimou Lee TAIPEI, March 7 (Reuters) – China has stepped up grey-zone warfare against Taiwan, aiming to make the areas around the democratic island “saturated” with balloons, drones and civilian boats,...
Austal USA has kicked off plans to construct a new manufacturing facility, marking a significant expansion of its shipyard capacity in Mobile, Alabama in support of U.S. Navy and Coast...
Oldendorff and Norsepower have announced an agreement to install three Norsepower Rotor Sails™ on board a modern bulk carrier to reduce its emissions. The vessel, Dietrich Oldendorff, will be equipped...
February 5, 2024
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