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While much larger initiatives are needed to make shipping more environmentally sound, the little things add up. Don’t believe me? Ask any Engineer who has played the efficiency contest, a game where each on duty engineer goes around the ship turning off lights to increase the vessel’s fuel efficiency during his watch. The object of the game is to obtain better efficiency figures than the last watchstander.

Or was the game just intended to confuse the Deckies? (We really need an Engineer blogger here at gCaptain… any takers?).

Panbo brings us a small improvement in energy conservation that, if deployed on ships worldwide, may have a lasting improvement. They write:

Last winter, thanks to Lee Guite of East Boothbay, I tried some LED bulbs Lee used to replace the incandescent ones in the Aqua Signal nav lights aboard his Dulcinea. Lee got pretty carried away researching available replacement bulbs and the ones he finally chose were “flux” models from the LED Shop in Australia. In the photo above I was trying to get a camera comparison of his steaming light versus an OGM combo LED running light. They both seemed fairly effective, but now the LED Shop has more powerful SMT bulbs, and Orca Green Marine has dropped the multi-LED models altogether in favor of single LED lights. I don’t know much about LEDs, but they do seem to be in a state of rapid technological change, which means that one LED may perform quite differently than another, and none of them may be what we’ll be using a few years hence.

Read Panbo’s full article HERE.

The Marine Safety Forum gives us information on this lifeboat air bottle explosion:

A gas bottle exploded in a lifeboat of a vessel during the process of charging it up from the
Breathing Apparatus Air Compressor.

The Master of the 8 years-old vessel was in proximity of the lifeboat and he was very seriously
wounded. The bottle was quite old with different numbers/dates.

The photographs below speak for themselves. Unfortunately one person was injured – imagined
the results if this happened on the deck area with more people around.

Here is the full ALERT: [Continue Reading →]

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SAN PEDRO, Calif. — The aircrews of Air Station Los Angeles spent the day training for cliff operations May 17 at Point Vicente Lighthouse. The air station trains for these types of operations twice a year in preparation for any rescues that may occur in the Southern California area.

Masig Island, one of the low-lying islands of the Torres Strait

The Independent/UK is reporting:

No one on Murray had ever seen such a high tide before. Other islands in the Torres Strait, which lies between the far north-eastern tip of the Australian mainland and Papua New Guinea, have witnessed similar scenes in recent years. Houses, roads and graveyards have been flooded, and the locals believe they know the reason: climate change.

You can read the full post here.

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This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd of the net.

In the following video we discus the various types of Position Indicating Radio Beacons. We explore the diffrences between an EPIRB, GPIRB, ELT and the increasingly less expensive PLB’s . We will also be taking a look at the new $149 Spot Satellite Messenger and ask if it’s the right solution for your emergency locator redundancy needs.

 

 GPIRB vs EPIRB vs PLB: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Photo by Peter MacDonald

Here at gCaptain we are interested in all things we can drive our ships over, under or through… this includes bridges. Our friends at Deputy Dog bring us the world’s most interesting bridge. Ok, it’s not really a bridge but its location (map) at the north end of the Malacca Straight makes it of particular interest to mariners. Click HERE for more information and the video!

911 Dispatch brings us this map of International Emergency phone numbers. Click HERE for the latest version.

For more time zone and international dialing secrets click on out post titled: +34 45-434 2958 …how do you dial that number??

The following is posted by Fred Fry:

For those of you who missed 10-hour PBS CARRIER marathon, have no fear as they were kind enough to post the full series online.

I am about halfway through episode 2 and it’s a great show. So click on the image to go to the episode list.

Full Episodes of CARRIER - PBS

Our friend Bob Couttie of Maritime Accident Casebook asks; Pirates, A Doom With A Q? He writes:

Earlier this week the US and France introduce a draft UN Security Council resolution co-sponsored by the UK and Panama, to combat piracy along Somalia’s nearly 2,000 mile coastline. Is it enough?

Faster than you can say “dead man’s chest” Somali pirates bounced back like Chuckie. As a dozen of their number, having snatched the yacht, Le Ponant, faced three square meals a day awaiting the pleasure of a Paris court after their capture by French forces, what’s generically referred to as the Somali Marines hijacked the Panamanian-flagged Fiesty Gas,  seized a Spanish tuna boat, Playa de Bakio, shot-up a Japanese tanker, Takayama and attacked a South Korean bulk carrier Not to be outdone, their south east Asian brothers boarded and robbed the Thai-flagged Pataravarin 2 in the second attack in Malaysian waters since January.

A bright spot is the imprisonment for life of 11 pirates by a court in Puntland. 

 

You can read the entire article HERE then head over to his main blog page and read the article; Cosco Busan Detainees - Where are the T-Shirts?

Congratulations to Mr. Platt and Viessman, grand winners in our birthday contest. Our winners will be receiving:

• Apple iPod
  
• Sony Noise Canceling Headphones
• gCaptain tshirt (Pirchase Your t-shirt HERE)

Congratulations also go to our second place winners who will receive a Starbucks gift card. They are kenschinn, I.fellows, oscarjack, engle and Tim Flanagan.

Why Starbucks? Find out HERE.

Here is video of the drawing:

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If you missed this contest don’t worry, we have done big contests before and will continue to offer them in the future. But you will only win IF you get the announcement early. The best way to keep on top of the latest happenings is by having gCaptain delivered to your email inbox daily. You can subscribe to that service by clicking HERE.