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Maritime Monday 188

Fred
Total Views: 105
November 16, 2009

The following is posted by Fred Fry:

Welcome to this 188th edition of Maritime Monday.

You can find Maritime Monday 138 here. (Published 01 December 2008)

You can find last week’s edition here.

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 MarineTraffic.com. Many people are aware of the site due to it’s great global AIS ship tracking. But did you know that they also have a great photo gallery?:

About the Marine Traffic project
This web site is part of an academic, open, community-based project. It is dedicated in collecting and presenting data which are exploited in research areas, such as:

– Study of marine telecommunications in respect of efficiency and propagation parameters

– Simulation of vessel movements in order to contribute to the safety of navigation and to cope with critical incidents

– Interactive information systems design

– Design of databases providing real-time information

– Statistical processing of ports traffic with applications in operational research

– Design of models for the spotting of the origin of a pollution

– Design of efficient algorithms for sea path evaluation and for determining the estimated time of ship arrivals

– Correlation of the collected information with weather data

– Cooperation with Institutes dedicated in the protection of the environment

It provides free real-time information to the public, about ship movements and ports, mainly across the coast-lines of Europe and N.America. The project is currently hosted by the Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering, University of the Aegean, Greece. The initial data collection is based on the Automatic Identification System (AIS). We are constantly looking for partners to take part in the community. They will have to install an AIS receiver and share the data of their area with us, in order to cover more areas and ports around the world.

MSC_FRANCESCA

* MSC FRANCESCA – MARIJ *

CMA_CGM_NORMA

* CMA CGM NORMA – Nightshot at Amazone harbor unloading – By MSF Photography Almelo NL *

FLYING_DOLPHIN_XXIII

* FLYING DOLPHIN XXIII *

A

* A – by Vitwris Dimitris *

FULL_CITY

* FULL CITY – Full City drifted under stormy conditions and hit the island Saastein close to Langesund in Norway – By Tore Oyvind Moen *

SHINYO_SAWAKO

* SHINYO SAWAKO – Salvage tug connecting to the tanker Shinyo Sawako – By E.R. *

Their homepage can be found here.

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This Week’s Items:

EagleSpeak has “Somali Pirates: Attacking Farther at Sea – the 1000 mile mark“. Might they be operating out of the Seychelles and not Somalia?

Also be sure to check out EagleSpeak‘s weekly series “Sunday Ship History: Veterans Day

gCaptain has “Offshore Wind Farms and the Turbine Installation Vessel” and “US Merchant Marine Academy Superintendent Resigns“.

Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs has photos: “Documented proof of Iranian complicity in arms smuggling to terrorists“. (Found via Flags of Convenience)

IRISLCONTAINERS

Hunt of the Sea Wolves has “French commandos storm mothership, arrest 12 pirates“. (Photo from the French Forces website)

French commandos have stormed aboard a Somali pirate ‘mothership’ and arrested 12 gunmen, the military announced, adding that the gangs are increasingly operating in the deep waters of the Indian Ocean.

interception

Anyone know where Marenostrum went? Seems like an amazing amount of blogging effort to just be deleted…

Bryant’s Maritime Blog has “Yarmouth Castle fire and sinking – 13 November 1965“.

The passenger ship SS Yarmouth Castle caught fire and sank on November 13, 1965 while en route from Miami, Florida to Nassau, Bahamas. Of the 376 passengers and 176 crew on board, 88 passengers and two crew died. The ship was built in 1927 with a wooden superstructure. Wood and other flammable materials were used throughout the ship. As the US Coast Guard investigation noted, the foreign-flag vessel was not subject to USCG inspection. Passenger ship construction standards were subsequently strengthened and US law was amended to provide for examination by the Coast Guard of foreign passenger vessels embarking passengers in a US port to ensure compliance with international standards.

US Naval Institute Blog has “Photos From USS John C. Stennis“.

Casco Bay Boaters Blog has “WWII Lifeboat Survivor’s Diary Retrieved“.

The BBC has “MoD vessel ‘watched yacht hijack’“. The Royal Navy wanted to keep this a secret, but at least once crewmember must have thought that they should have acted and leaked the news.

The crew of a UK military ship watched as a British couple were taken hostage by Somali pirates but were ordered not to open fire, it has emerged.

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CDR Salamander has “The Potemkin Color Guard goes mainstream“. Having been in the Merchant Marine Academy Color Guard, the official explanations coming from the Naval Academy ring hollow with me. Unless somehow the Naval Academy is different and everyone over there is an involuntary active member of the color guard. (And not just a volunteer for unfurling the huge US Flag size #1.) And not for anything, but you just can’t throw someone onto the team who is not an active member. This Navy Times story noted that the USNI Color Guard only has 28 members. I would suspect that any decision over who participates in any event would be decided within the Color Guard itself.

No; internally the Navy I know and love wants to treat everyone the same regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin – it is Congress and Big Navy though that decided that equality isn’t enough. They must take from others to give to someone else – and will do it based simply on self-identified racial and ethnic groupings.

Michele Malkin has more with “Diversity engineers at the Naval Academy“. For me, I know first hand, given that USNA Admissions told me that my spot went to a minority when I called asking why I had not heard from them one way or the other concerning my application. Little did I know at the time that they were doing me a favor in the long run.

After the requisite he said/he said exchanges, where an academy spokesman denied that the school pulled the men because they were white, despite a press release apparently contradicting him, brigade commanders issued a gag order forbidding midshipmen to talk about the controversy to outsiders.

The Maritime Executive has coverage of problems in MARAD with “MARAD: Just a DOT on this Administration’s RADAR?” You know what I find so funny; that so many mariners had the opinion that President Obama was going to be so much better for the Maritime Administration that option B. That still might be the case, if he ever gets around with dealing with it.

We ended 2008 after observing, in my opinion, one of the most productive periods for MARAD in recent history. Active in a myriad of ways, the previous Administrator secured employment for U.S. mariners on a variety of platforms, presided over an efficient and environmentally correct disposal system for more than 100 obsolete vessels of the nation’s three reserve fleets and effectively used his authority to ensure that LNG approvals provided U.S. maritime professionals with employment. Today, most maritime announcements are couched as a triumph of the current administration and a departure from the policies of the past. Maybe I am “reaching” here, but if this is progress, then count me out.

MarineBuzz has “DV Platinum II: India Disallows Beaching and Recycling at Alang Shipyard” and “USS Constitution is America’s Ship of State“.

BarentsObserver has “Nuclear lighthouse projects moves from Barents to Baltic“. Russia gets away once again with having the West pay to clean up their messes. (Summary on RTGs/Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators here)

The lighthouses are in the Finish neighbouring waters, but it is Norway that put in most of the funding, about €11 million. Finland’s share in the joint project is about €1,5 million. The agreement to remove 71 of the 87 lighthouses around the Baltic Sea was signed by Norway’s Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Finland’s Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb. The last 16 lighthouses with radioactive strontium batteries will be removed with funding from Russia and France.

The strontium source in the lighthouses, or the radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), is highly radioactive. It is the heat from the radioactive source that is used to generate power to the lamp in the lighthouse.

The Old Salt Blog has “A Photo for a Monday Morning – Containers on the Husky Racer“.

WebUrbanist has “7 Wonders Of The Modern Shipping World“.

SHIPGAZ News has “Latvian Captain banned from Danish waters“. For one year.

In December 2007 he was intoxicated while having command over the coaster South Michelle during a ballast voyage through Lillebælt. The vessel grounded on the beach just north of the port of Assens on the isle of Fyn. When police entered the vessel the captain was asleep, he was intoxicated with a permillage of 2.75.

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IMOWatch has “Dubious Ownership of Dead US Ship Under Probe“.

SS United States Conservancy has “SS United States Gifts for the Holidays“.

HollandAmericaBlog has “Nieuw Amsterdam Photos: Nov. 13, 2009“.

TimesOnline has “EU set to ignore advice to ban bluefin fishing, says Greenpeace” as their delegates demand the largest quotas possible.

Courthouse News Service has “Amberjack Ban Attacked“.

Environment News Service has “Japanese Government Funding Cuts Could End ‘Research’ Whaling“.

The spending review committee established by Japan’s new Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has recommended that funding for the Overseas Fishery Cooperation Foundation be cancelled after 2010.

The OFCF is the largest financer of the Tokyo-based Institute of Cetacean Research, which runs the Japanese whaling program. The whaling fleet usually sails for the Southern Ocean in mid-November, hunting whales for scientific research regardless of a moratorium on commercial whaling set by the International Whaling Commission in 1986.

But the research program does not cover its costs, and Japan’s new government is looking for ways to cut spending.

Tugster has photos of a woodboat graveyard in “No Name Fleet 3“.

Towmasters: the Master of Towing Vessels Assoc. Forum has “Snap Back Kills Again: Review Your Procedures & Equipment And Maybe Save A Life.

Here’s an accident report from the U.K.’s MAIB that deserves to be read and disseminated widely. On the evening of August 7, 2007 the ferry Dublin Viking was alongside the dock at berth #52 in Dublin, Ireland while the crew was preparing to sail on the overnight run to Liverpool. Wind and tidal conditions were “benign.” The 2nd officer, assigned as the Officer in Charge (OIC) of the stern mooring lines, was standing in the snap-back danger zones near the fairleads because it was where he had to be to have simultaneous visual contact with both the line handlers on the dock and the crew members operating the winches. When a winch operator mistakenly heaved in on an already-tensioned line it snapped and recoiled, striking the officer in the legs, breaking both of them while nearly severing the left. He died six days later.

Kennebec Captain has “Oasis of the Seas – Life Boat Damage“.

HELLENIC SHIPPING NEWS has “3% of tanker fleet will still be single hulled after 2010“.

The Stupid Shall Be Punished has reader tales in “Submarining Is Scary” including ‘the scariest involved things like seeing an officer with a tool’. I have heard a couple times where Merchant Marine graduates that opted to go into the Navy have gotten into trouble because they actually started to fix something, to the shock of those around them.

One Free Korea has “North Korea Accuses South of Provoking Naval Clash“.

Greenpeace has “Vegemite or Marmite – definitely NOT tuna…” Since there is no money in it for politicians to save the tuna, I have no faith in the international community saving the Tuna, especially given that 90% of the tuna stocks are already gone. So my choice is tuna. Get it while you can.

The Merchant Marine Express reports from the AMERICAN TERN in “A Freshened Ship with a content Crew“. Photos of the week for Maritime Monday 22 were of the TERN in Antarctica. (See a summary about the vessel on Wikipedia here: MV American Tern (T-AK-4729)) So it looks like we are in store for some reporting from Antarctica soon, maybe.

Information Dissemination has “Anti-Piracy Reaper“.

Kings Point Waterfront has “Coast Guard has the Eagle……..Welcome Summerwind to Kings Point“. Very nice indeed.

SUMMERWIND

Never Sea Land has the photo “Kidnapped mermaid“.

Honolulu Advertiser has “Artifacts off auction block – Navy raises ownership questions over recovered items from USS Arizona“. (Found via Notes From the Wooden and Iron World)

The Business Insider has “BUY MADOFF’S BOATS“. I thought he would have something bigger. Nothing even approaches 100′.

YouTube has up-close tug video in “tug TRHES part 2“.

towing hual transporter on santander bay.

Video recorded by Javier Alvarez.

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Fairplay Daily News has:

India rejects ship’s recycling – INDIA refused today to grant permission to recycle a US cruise ship.

“There have been allegations that the ship has been brought into India with a falsified flag and registry,” the environment ministry said, explaining why Delhi rejected Platinum II.

The ministry also instructed the Gujarat Maritime Board continue its investigation of the 26,658gt ship’s contents, citing what it termed the “precautionary principle” as a guiding factor in refusing beaching permission.

The ministry’s technical team inspected the ship last month. It has been awaiting permission to beach about 40 km from Alang in Gujarat state.

Shipbreaker Komalkant Sharma, who bought the vessel, had earlier told Fairplay that his facility in Alang is equipped to safely handle toxic materials. – Fairplay Homepage (Used with Permission)

AND:

Crew bailed as captain slept – AN INQUIRY has heard crew on the Tongan ferry Princess Ashika say they bailed water out of the flooding vessel with buckets for two hours before waking the captain.

Captain Maka Tuputupu – who has conceded that he expects to be jailed over the 5 August sinking, in which 75 people were killed – did not reach the ferry’s bridge until shortly before it capsized, a witness told the Royal Commission of Inquiry yesterday.

He had time only to send mayday calls before the vessel sank in calm weather 86km northeast of the Tongan capital Nuku’alofa. The witness confirmed that passengers were given no warning of the ship’s plight.

The inquiry also heard that just before the government-owned Shipping Corp of Polynesia purchased Princess Ashika from Fijian owners, the Fiji Islands Marine Safety Authority had described it as a “maritime disaster waiting to happen”.

Later, Tonga’s own marine surveyors advised that extensive corrosion, blocked scuppers, welded ramps, disguised welding and other faults had made the ship “not seaworthy … and should be stopped”, – 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.

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