UK’s International Boundary Research Unit from the University of Durham has released a detailed map showing maritime jurisdiction and boundaries for the Arctic Region’s surrounding nations. The map details all known claims and agreed boundaries, plus potential hotspots that could spark disputes over oil and gas deposits in the future.
This all comes following the uproar caused one year ago when a Russian sub planted its national flag on the seabed of the North Pole.
The arctic region is estimated to hold nearly 1/5th of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves and with warmer climates and the melting of polar ice, scientists are able to further explore the region. This region is now considered a potential area for development, not a hypothetical one, for the oil and gas industry.
Check out Durham’s University website and download the PDF HERE.
(Note: This post originally appeared on gCaptain Jan ‘08)
Three years ago at the World Expo in Aichi Japan SkySails promised a revolutionary design with the ability to reduce fuel consumption aboard ship by up to 24%. Last week the dream became reality. BBC News tells us:
There is something rather magical about being up on deck of a giant cargo ship as it pushes its way out to sea. Ten thousand tonnes of metal heaving through the water, the ship’s giant masts glistening in the winter sun. But there is something even more magical about being aboard MS Beluga SkySails. On the face of it, this vessel - which is carrying parts of a timber production line to Venezuela - looks like any other cargo ship.
MS Beluga SkySails believes its fuel bill will be cut by £800 ($1,560) a day. “We can demonstrate that you can combine economy and ecology,” Verena Frank of Beluga Shipping explains. “Economy, because you can reduce fuel consumption and fuel costs, and on the ecological side of things, we reduce emissions.”
The kite is controlled by computers. One computer helps it to fly in figures of eight in the sky - maximising the power it produces. Another computer adjusts the kite’s direction. If the project is successful, expect to see even bigger kites soon - some up to 5,000sq m (53,820sq ft) in size pulling ships across the seas and oceans. Read More…
Treehugger tells us of the largest temporary hotel built to date using shipping containers. They write:
We previously showed the Travelpod, an experimental prefab from Travelodge, and thought it was an interesting one-off. We were wrong; the company is looking seriously at prefab hotels and is building their first in the west London district of Uxbridge, right now. it is like a pop-up prefab:
“It could facilitate the creation of hotels on a temporary basis at times of peak demand in certain locations — such as festivals or sporting events,” the firm’s director of property and development Paul Harvey said. “A temporary structure to fill such a need would differ to the design of a permanent hotel but it could be built in as little as 12 weeks and removed quickly at the end of the event when the need is gone.” Continue Reading…
Find more interesting uses for shippign containers HERE.
A spy plane designed by Nasa will help track whales in the Mediterranean to try to prevent collisions between the giant mammals and ships.
Around 10 whales every year hit ships in the channels around the Cetaceans Sanctuary of the Mediterranean, a 40,000 square mile reserve that stretches from the coast of Tuscany in Italy to Toulon in the south of France, and includes the whole of Corsica and the northern coast of Sardinia.
Sperm whales, fin whales, pilot and grampus whales and common dolphins all thrive in the reserve. The prevailing east-west current in the area acts as a vortex, sucking up plankton from deeper waters.
However, around 5,000 ships a day now pass through the waters and five whales every year are killed. Under plans drawn up by the universities of Turin, Genoa and Montpellier, an intricate system of sensors will float in the reserve and track the movements of whale pods.
Since 1992, June 8th has been World Ocean Day. It is a well known fact that the worlds oceans cover more then 70% of our planet and June 8th is the day to appreciate our vast and amazing oceans. www.gdrc.org brings us more on World Ocean Day.
The world’s oceans cover more than 70% of our planet’s surface and the rich web of life they support is the result of hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Nomadic peoples were collecting shellfish and harvesting fish long before the dawn of settled agriculture. Great human civilizations, from the Egyptians to the Polynesians relied on the sea for commerce and transport, and now, at the end of the Twentieth Century, our fate is as tied to the oceans as ever. We still rely on fish for a significant portion of our daily protein needs, and more than $500 billion of the world’s economy is tied to ocean-based industries such as coastal tourism and shipping. Perhaps most important, this vast mass of water acts to help regulate the global climate and to ensure that a constant flow of vital nutrients is cycled throughout the biosphere.
But all is not well in the sea. Increased pressures from overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution and the introduction of invasive alien species have combined in recent decades to threaten the diversity of life in estuaries, coastal waters and oceans. Now a new threat, global warming, is making itself felt, and its impacts could be devastating for life in the sea.
Our friend Jean Pierre de Lutz is building a new boat using green technology and writing about it on his blog. Knowing we are interested in new technology geared toward reducing ship emissions he pointed us to the European Union funded project METHAPU. Here are the details:
After nearly one and a half years of research and development, the EU-funded METHAPU (‘Validation of renewable methanol based auxiliary power systems for commercial vessels’) project is about to start trials on a prototype of a methanol-based solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) unit. The protoype will be tried and tested for performance and emissions under real-life conditions onboard a car transport vessel involved in international trade.
According to the independent Norwegian organisation Det Norske Veritas (DNV), one of the five project partners, the world’s fleet of ships is the source of two percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, ten percent to 15 percent of nitrous oxides (NOx) and four percent to six percent of sulphur oxides. DNV specialises in risk management in various areas and operates internationally. ‘Fuel cells represent an interesting possible solution to the problem of reducing local and regional emissions,’ the DNV comments in its report on ‘Fuel cells in ships: safety & reliability’. ‘The technology is, however, still fairly unproven.’
This is what the EUR 2 million METHAPU project, to which the EU contributes EUR 1 million, is set to change: The one-year trial will help to assess the maturity of methanol-based technology and its suitability for daily use in the shipping sector.
It might soon be time for a revision of Pilot Charts. NatGeo tells us:
Europe and North America may soon experience chillier temperatures, thanks to natural North Atlantic variations that could temporarily mask the effects of human-driven, or anthropogenic, climate change.
“We believe that ocean currents and systems could, in the short term, change global warming patterns and even mean temperatures,” said Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany.
Keenlyside explained that since record keeping began in the 19th century, the North Atlantic climate has changed in natural cycles that last a decade or more.
These shifts are likely associated, at least in part, with natural variations in ocean currents.
The Economic Times of India bring us news of the world’s most infamous ship breakers;
The hands that used to work on mammoth ocean liners and crude carriers and generated revenues worth Rs 80,000 crore till 2008 in one of the largest ship-breaking yards, have deserted it. Alang Ship Breaking Yard, on Gujarat’s Bhavnagar coast, which until 2004 could boast of being one of the biggest employers of migrant labour, has lost its men to other clusters as it lost business to Bangladesh. Over a period of four years, numbers have dwindled from 40,000 to about 5,000 migrant labourers.
tagzaniapaste
Ever since Alang breached its first vessel — MV Kota Tenjong — in 1983, it drew migrant labourers from Mumbai, Orissa, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh. Alang beached 4,539 ships between 1983 and 2008 and handled tonnage to the tune of 3,19,89400 LDT (light displacement tonnage).
Between 1996 and 2004, whenever large supertankers, container ships or passenger carriers were beached at Alang, it used to resemble a honeycomb with hundreds of manual labourers buzzing around the ships; dismantling them, salvaging what they could and reducing the rest to scrap. During its prime in 1998-99, Alang handled a record 361 ships with 30,37,882 LDT.
“We had close to 40,000 labourers during those days when business was profitable. Now, we are left with hardly 5,000 of them,” says vice-president of the Ship Recycling Industries Association (SRIA) at Alang, Vippin Aggarwal. Close to 95% of the labourers at Alang have been migrants, he points out. Continue Reading…
Not mentioned in the article are newly imposed environmental guidelines set by India’s Supreme Court and scrap metal prices that make ship breaking profitable in places like the UK and US.
Urgent strengthening of the ships has been ordered by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB).
The MAIB blamed the MSC Napoli’s design after a series of large waves left a crack in her hull in January last year.
Vertical cracks could be seen in the hull below the waterline on the port and starboard sides, and the ship’s master assessed that the vessel had “broken her back.”
A “wall of oily water” shot through the cracked hull of the ship before it was safely abandoned, the report said.
The hull failure was due to “lack of buckling strength in the engine room region,” said the MAIB report.
More than 1,500 similar ships were screened following the incident, of which 12 unidentified ships required strengthening work “to bring them up to acceptable safety standards,” said the report.
Stephen Meyer, chief inspector of the MAIB said: “The MAIB has worked closely with the world’s leading classification societies to identify any other vessels that may have the same design flaw as the MSC Napoli. Continue Reading…
You can view the Full MAIB report courtesy of the BBC HERE.
Early last week the BBC also told us of the operation to recycle the ship:
Now the front section of the MSC Napoli is two weeks away from the smelters’.
The firm that built the Titanic - Harland and Wolff - landed the task of dismantling the cargo ship, which had to be beached on the Devon coast.
At the time there were incredible scenes of people rushing to the beach to take advantage of the unexpected bounty of the sea, in the shape of containers of motorcycles and other goods washed ashore.
The Belfast shipyard became one of the benefactors of the sad destruction of the ocean-going behemoth, keeping 80 pairs of hands busy at the yard.
It has been an interesting assignment for the crews, an estimated five cubic tonnes of waste oil needing removal became an actual 100 tonnes, adding to the workload of staff.
Now the cutting up of the superstructure is nearing completion and is expected to end up leaving 60,000 tonnes of ship-building grade steel, with the exception of one piece that was auctioned off for the BBC’s Children in Need charity. Continue Reading…
They also have photos of the scrapping operation HERE.
“It was evident during the investigation that the master had placed a great deal of emphasis on the importance of safety drills and the maintenance of lifesaving equipment, and that the preparation and lowering of lifeboats had been well-practiced in accordance with company policy.”
No-one was hurt during the evacuation from the ship, and that may be owed to the seriousness with which the master took safety procedures and drills.
The abandon ship did not go without a hitch, “the crewman sitting nearest the forward painter release could not pull the release pin sufficiently far to allow the painter to disengage. He was squeezed between two other crew and his movement was restricted by his immersion suit. The painter was eventually cut by the chief engineer, who had a knife, and was able to reach the painter via the lifeboat’s forward hatch.” Continue Reading…
Here is the ship arriving in Belfast:
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Here is the underwater survey on the damaged section of the ship:
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Here is the MSC Napoli in Photo:
For our previous related discussion click on our MSC Napoli tag.
(Ed. note: Thanks to colleague and regular gCaptain commenter, Capt. Jack Richards pointing me to information on Argo.)
Brief History of Argo
The name Argo was chosen to emphasize the strong complementary relationship of the global float array with the Jason satellite altimeter mission. In Greek mythology Jason sailed in a ship called “Argo” to capture the golden fleece.
An Argo float being deployed from a research ship.
Together the Argo and Jason data sets will be assimilated into computer models developed by project GODAE (Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment) that will allow a test of our ability to forecast ocean climate. For the first time, the physical state of the upper ocean is being systematically measured and the data assimilated in near real-time into computer models. Argo builds on other upper-ocean ocean observing networks, extending their coverage in space an time, their depth range and accuracy, and enhancing them through the addition of salinity and velocity measurements. Argo is not confined to major shipping routes which can vary with season as the other upper-ocean observing networks are. Instead, the global array of 3,000 floats will be distributed roughly every 3 degrees (300km).
Comprised of three subsystems:
Hydraulics: control buoyancy adjustment via an inflatable external bladder, so the float can surface and dive.
Microprocessors: deal with function control and scheduling.
Data transmission system: controls communication with satellite.
The three float models in use are the PROVOR built by MARTEC in France in close collaboration with IFREMER, the APEX float produced by Webb Research Corporation, USA and the SOLO float designed and built by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA.
You can find more details at Argo’s website, here.
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.
A “wall of oily water” shot through the cracked hull of the ship before it was safely abandoned, the report said.
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 
