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 come from the website of Denmark’s Nordana Line:
The name Nordana is taken from its NORwegian and DANish background. The service started in 1957 as a joint venture between Norwegian Fearnley & Eger and Danish DFDS. Later on F & E decided to withdraw and the service continued under Danish management, but the name remains as strong as ever. Initially the service was based on carryings from Mediterranean to Caribbean, Central America and Mexico, and the vessels returned to Mediterranean via USA/Scandinavia. With the upswing of oil and gas exploration in North Africa, a direct service from USA to Mediterranean was implemented in 1961, and the calls at Scandinavian ports were suspended. In 1969 four conventional sister vessels with 85 tons heavy-lift capacity were introduced in the service to accommodate the increasing demand for larger and heavier pieces of cargo to North Africa.
Increasing congestion in North African ports made it evident that more specialized tonnage was required to obtain priority berthing. In 1979 four Multipurpose RoRo vessels were introduced. The vessels offered a fully new, unique, and sophisticated cargo handling concept to the trade and to the distinct benefit of the Line’s many different customers. With the most advanced RoRo concept introduced, the vessels obtained quick dispatches in even the most difficult ports. Nordana has since expanded the geographic scope, improved the frequencies and widened its services to become one of the premier Multipurpose RoRo liner carriers. Today Nordana is recognized as a specialty carrier, able to accommodate our customers’ varying needs for cargo handling, reliability, and port calls. – Link
One Free Korea has “The Year of the Boat People?” noting increasing numbers of refugees arriving by sea to the South as food becomes scarce in the North and as the border with China is full of soldiers with orders to shoot to kill anyone attempting to flee the country.
CNN has American foolishness in “First U.S. ship carrying food to North Korea arrives“. (In news the US, North and South Korea would rather you ignore, a South Korean POW held for over 50 years as a slave laborer in North Korea, escapes to China. Story here. My commentary here.)
BitterEnd has “Adventuress Grounding & Salvage at Bell Rock” as it takes four rescue boats to refloat the 95 year old schooner SV ADVENTURESS. Lots of great photos including an aerial photo of a two masted halyard tow.
The Monitor has “The Right Honorable Stevedore” where in Canada, the Government there is conducting investigations including spouses and ex-spouses as part of granting port security clearance, noting that ‘Port workers and their spouses face more scrutiny than cabinet ministers’.
Daily Musings has “Culpability” in relation to the PRINCESS OF THE STARS disaster as it relates to the vessel operator. The shipping company is blaming an ‘act of God’ as well as the ship’s Captain. Unfortunately for them, the Captain is one of the missing/dead.
Robin Storm – In Search of Severe Weather covers a very foolish attempt to row across the Pacific Ocean in “The Exploits of Roz Savage“. At least solo sailors are facing in the right direction they are moving in, when they are awake and not blogging.
Cal Maritime. Follow The Voyage 2008 has the departure of the school’s training ship GOLDEN BEAR II from Hawaii in “Honolulu Departure – June 23“. Lots of photos including one confirming that even the pilots wear Hawaiian shirts.
Florida’s Sun-Sentinel publishes a reader response from a WWII Army Veteran who appears to have no clue where his bullets and supplies were coming from and how much of it never made it to him: “Merchant Marine hopes for $1,000 a month compensation; for what?“. (Quoted below as they appear to have pulled the letter from their website. Google cache here)
Re the May 25 article, “Merchant marine, 81, still hopes for compensation,” about the former Merchant Marine who is lobbying for compensation of $1,000 per month because he feels he was entitled to the same GI Bill benefits that Congress granted to members of the armed forces:
Those who joined the Merchant Marines were employees. They knew what their jobs would be and the risks involved and the compensation. He states he received $87 per month, plus $100 each time his ship was exposed to the enemy. Most times the enemy was miles away, and the Merchant Marines did not participate in engaging the enemy. Their job was to provide transportation.
I was an infantryman. The following are official governmental statistics. My infantry division suffered 27,617 casualties. That is probably many more than the total suffered by the entire Merchant Marines during World War II, and we did not face the enemy from miles away. Sometimes it was eyeball to eyeball!
Did you know that, after being adjusted for inflation, a holder of the Medal of Honor receives $1,129 per month, and the Merchant Marine wants $1,000 per month. The Merchant Marine received three cooked meals each day. I got my food in tin cans. The Merchant Marine slept in a bunk with a mattress, sheets and blanket. I slept on dirt, ice and snow during the Battle of the Bulge. The Merchant Marine had a hot shower. I had a shower after three months and had body lice because I was so dirty.
I am rated 100 percent handicapped from my service injuries. Do you know of any Merchant Marine who joined the infantry? I think the Merchant Marine is not entitled — he is greedy.
Andrew Zuccarello
Boynton Beach
Do you think he sounds a little bitter? He has the wrong attitude. He should instead be saying, ‘me too!’ as they all deserve more.
CONTINUING discrimination by Turkey against other flags has for the time being scuppered its hopes of becoming a co-operating member of the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Port State Control for the time being.
Pinoy Maritime has “A worsening problem with visa for seafarers“. Yes, the whole visa issue for seafarers is stupid. It is not just the US though, the ILO and the Labor Unions were not very interested in compromise either and ended up adopting an unworkable replacement to the seafarer’s Identity Document Convention. Not that it is going to make anyone feel better, but I remember no warm welcome from US authorities upon return to the US. So far only 12 countries have ratified the new Seafarers Identity Document Convention. Even more depressing is this (not for public consumption?) draft document noting the status of the Convention with the states that have not yet ratified it. Reading it makes it clear that the US is not the only country to blame for the failure of this Convention. (Although the US requiring it would have made this a much different story, despite it being a very bad convention.) Keep in mind that as far as the new convention goes, you would get your seafarer ID from your own country, not the country whose flag flies on your ship. So if your own Government doesn’t consider you a seafarer, then you would be out of luck. (For example, many Indian seafarers have never sailed on an Indian-Flag vessel and have no certification from their own country.)
The USNS MERCY’s Skipper’s Scrivenings has “Who We Are – CIVMARs“. Who are they? Try a couple Ms. Universe contestants.
Yea, I know folks… It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it! – Captain Bob Wiley
He had no life jacket and no safety line. The boom knocked the solo sailor overboard, stunning him. Automatically he trod water in the 66deg F (18deg Celsius) Lake Erie and went on treading all night long. Twelve hours later, he was rescued – his number just wasn’t up.
Waymarking covers the world’s largest TITANIC Museum. Located in Branson, Missouri, of all places. Go check out the photos of the building, which is a half-scale model of the TITANIC itself. You can find the museum’s homepage here.
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Haight’s Maritime Items has:
Sentence includes implementation of remote monitoring system– The US Attorney for the District of New Jersey issued anews release stating that a ship operator pleaded guilty to making false statements to the US Coast Guard when one of its chief engineers presented a ship’s oil record book (ORB) that he knew contained fraudulent entries. The entries did not disclose intentional discharges of oily waste water on the high seas. The company has agreed to pay a criminal fine of $3.25 million and to make a community service payment of $1.5 million. It has also agreed to replace the oily water separators on its older vessels and to implement an environmental compliance program. A novel element of the plea agreement involves implementation of a remote monitoring system by means of which company shoreside personnel and the US Coast Guard can keep track of waste levels and use of oil waste processing equipment in real-time using data transmitted via satellite. Note: In a perfect world, such monitoring equipment would be absolutely unnecessary. But this may be one of the few effective means of getting the industry and its engineering personnel out of an unfortunate past practice and hard-to-break habit. (6/19/08). – Dennis Bryant Holland & Knight homepage(Used with Permission)
AND:
EMSA – World Merchant Fleet in 2006– The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) issued anotice stating that the publication entitled the World Merchant Fleet in 2006 has been released. (6/23/08). – Dennis Bryant Holland & Knight homepage(Used with Permission) [Note: Click the link above to go to the download page for the free publication.]
Fairplay Daily News has:
Hebei Spirit found innocent – A SOUTH KOREAN court has cleared the master and first officer of the Hebei Spirit on charges of negligence following an accident involving a barge hitting the tanker.
Seosan court in South Korea however did find the tug captains guilty and sentenced one to three years imprisonment and the other to one year.
Despite allegations by Samsung’s lawyers that the Hebei Spirit was at fault in not getting out of the way, the court disagreed. The barge operator Samsung Heavy Industries was fined won30M ($29M), according to reports.
In a statement today, Bob Bishop, chief executive of V.Ships Shipmanagement, which manages Hebei Spirit, expressed sympathy to those affected by the event and regret for the environmental damage that resulted. He went on: “We are naturally delighted with this [court] decision and happy that our officers will shortly be reunited with their families. I have always stated that the actions of the Master, Chief Officer and crew of the Hebei Spirit are shinning examples of all that is excellent in responsible seafaring; I believe the decision of the Korean Courts supports this view”.
Last December, around 12,000 tonnes of crude oil was spilled following a collision between the oil tanker owned by the Hong Kong-registered Hebei Spirit Shipping and a barge owned by Samsung Heavy Industries in waters off Taean County, South Chungcheong Province, blackening beaches and fish farms along the west coast. The barge carrying a crane separated from its two tugboats and collided with the tanker. – 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.
Dive into a sea of information with our meticulously curated weekly “Dispatch” email. It’s more than just a newsletter; it’s your personal maritime briefing.
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February 5, 2024
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