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I don’t have many pictures of my father but I recently ran across one posted on the website of his fire company “Rescue 3“. Following Vietnam and the Physician Assistant program at Cornell he joined the Fire Department of New York and was soon accepted into the department’s elite company Rescue 3.

These were the “War Years” and the Bronx was burning. He didn’t talk much about the fires so when he did I hung on every word. One day he was discussing the severity of the situation in the Bronx with an out of state firefighter and said “How many massive, fully engulfed fires with multiple casualties have you seen in your career? There were weeks I saw 5 or 6 per night!”.

What does this have to do with Marine Firefighting? [Continue Reading →]

Digital Ship tells us:

ORBCOMM has successfully  launched six  AIS-equipped satellites  (a  Coast Guard  Concept Demonstration satellite and  five Quick  Launch satellites) after the Cosmos 3M rocket carrying the company’s payload blasted  off at 10:36am Moscow time (06:36 GMT) from Kapustin Yar, in the Astrakhan Region, on June  19. The satellites are equipped with Automatic Identification System (AIS) technology to receive and report transmissions from AIS-equipped maritime vessels  from anywhere within the satellite coverage area, information which  is expected to be of major interest to authorities interested in Long Range Identification and  Tracking (LRIT) in the marine domain. ORBCOMM says it intends to market this AIS data  to US and international coast guards and  government agencies, as well as to companies  whose businesses require ship tracking and  other navigational  activities. These satellites  represent the  first stage  of a multi-year  satellite upgrade  plan, which ORBCOMM says now  makes  it  the only satellite company providing worldwide commercial AIS data services.

You can read more about this and other ship technology articles by subscribing to Digital Ship’s free monthly newsletter which can also be viewed on their website.

In related news INMARST has launched their third INMARSAT-4 satellite. Maritime Executive tells us:

The satellite was launched on a Proton Breeze M rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11.43pm BST on 18th August (4.43am 19th August, local time). Inmarsat’s tracking station in Fucino, Italy was able to track the satellite while it was still coupled to the Breeze M launch vehicle. Launch provider ILS confirmed successful spacecraft separation at 8.46am BST on 19th August.

The satellite is the third in the I-4 constellation, concluding a decade of development and a $1.5 billion investment. The current constellation of two Inmarsat-4 satellites delivers mobile broadband services to 85 per cent of the world’s landmass, covering 98 per cent of the world’s population. The third I-4 will complete the global coverage for Inmarsat’s broadband services.

Andrew Sukawaty, CEO and Chairman of Inmarsat, said: “The Inmarsat-4s are the world’s most sophisticated commercial network for mobile voice and data services, and the successful launch of the third I-4 allows us to complete the global coverage for our broadband services. Once the third I-4 is operational, Inmarsat will have the only fully-funded next-generation network for mobile satellite services.”

The Maritime Executive also has an excellent newsletter which goes out weekly via email. You can subscribe to it free by following this LINK.

John Clandillon-Baker of pilotmag has been featured along with his fellow London pilot (retired) Geoff Taylor in an article written by Libby Purves of The Times. This quote seemed to ring particularly true;

The human aspect of the job fascinated me. “I know what I’m getting into, from the first rung of the ladder and the angle of the captain’s head,” says Geoff. “I’m a psychologist, have to be. You get a sense of the ship – is it well run, is it happy, is it tense, how has it been for that month at sea? Is the master assertive or co-operative?” “Or bonkers,” says a Thames pilot. “A bad ship, you feel the rust on the ladder, you look up at the scruffy individual at the top who looks as if he’d like to stick a knife in you . . .” “You smell it,” says another.

The article can be found HERE and be sure to check back for a link to the BBC radio show of the same title.

We don’t usually publish press releases on gCaptain but we can’t help to be excited by new solutions for offering “High” Speed internet at sea. Marine Norway points us to this:

The introduction of FleetBroadband has pushed high-speed internet into the
marine mainstream, however, the pricing per megabyte of data puts the full
benefits of broadband usage out of reach of many vessels. Wired Ocean can
reduce the costs per megabyte of shore-to-ship FleetBroadband data to
approximately 10% by channelling the downlink through a vessel’s satellite TV
antenna. 

When used in conjunction with FleetBroadband, the Wired Ocean SBS brings with
it a tangible increase in downlink speed - a Wired Ocean downlink can be almost
twice the speed of a standard FB250 downlink without the Wired Ocean SBS
integrated. This makes the system ideal for high volume applications such as
internet browsing, downloading email with attachments, obtaining electronic
manuals and weather and navigation data for bridge and critical systems. Continue Reading…

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??

A big gCaptain welcome to the 2,000+ new visitors that have stopped by gCaptain.com this week. The reason for the influx? Our CEO, Captain John Konrad,  wrote an article on AIS technology for the venerable magize SAIL. To read the article you will have to visit your local newstand and flip to page 64 of the magazine’s May 2008 Issue… but if it’s the information you’re after, John has shared most of it already with Panbo.com’s editor Ben Ellison, click HERE to read that post now.

We received email that our last quiz was just too easy so we challenge you to try this…. the above picture shows something carried aboard certain ships that’s critical to the future success of this website. What is it?

Hint: It’s being covered today in the newspapers of our 4th and 5th favorite cities.

Update

You can find the answer on our post: Cable Laying Ships - Back In Business

Photo by Oneeighteen

In October of last year the Shipping & Transport College of Rotterdam held the International Maritime English Conference. A key topic of debate was the IMO’s current review of the STCW Convention and its focus on global assessment goals for non-native english speakers. This is of particular concern considering the growing shortage of qualified mariners combined with the unusually high incident rate seen in recent months.

Clive Cole of World Maritime University and Peter Trenkner of Wismar University have proposed implementing a Yardstick “against which student performance can be measured while at the same time providing goals for the tasks and requirements of the seaboard ranks”. Here is the plan as laid out in their position paper:

>The Yardstick >

>When developing the Yardstick below the authors deliberately did not include the identification of Maritime English communication requirements of the different shipboard rating ranks, i.e. the STCW95 Support Level, but restricted themselves to the personnel covered by the STCW95 Operational and Management Level educated and trained at higher MET institutions. >

>The shipping industry, however, may wish to have a Yardstick available for shipboard rating ranks, too. In this case an appendix would need to be developed together with the industry as the Maritime English requirements set out in the STCW95 (Part A, Chapter II, Table A-II/4 and A-III/4) regarding ratings are comparatively vague and need to be considered in the review of STCW95. >

>Furthermore, requirements concerning general English language proficiency have not been included > >expressis verbis > > as in the authors’ understanding a certain command of general English is a basic prerequisite in this respect (cf IMO SMCP 2002). >

> >

> > >

Click HERE to download the full report.

Working aboard boats in Puget Sound, I hear lots on the radio. This is but a short list of Nautical Misnomers that ticks me off:

Slack Tide … there is no such thing. Current turns to slack, while tides reaches a stand.

Over and Out … you are one or the other, but never both.

Placing “THE” before a boat name …. it’s “Diligence,” not “The Diligence”

Any CB lingo …10-4 Good Buddy, and no, I don’t have my ears on.

Incessant hailing … If the party you are trying to reach doesn’t respond, chances are they are not there.

Calling on Ch 16 to tell someone their fenders are out … maybe they just want to look like rubes.

_________________________

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 theUPDATE:

Wikipedia has a good entry detailing the meaning behind each of the Signal Flags. Click on the image above to view the rest.