This video comes via Ben Strong of Amver live from the World Maritime Day Parelle Event which the USCG is currently hosting in the great city of New York. Ben writes to remind us that you can follow the days event on Twitter using hashtag #wmdpe. Thanks for keeping us informed, Ben – You look cold!
So, how are you celebrating World Maritime Day?
gCaptain searches the web each week to bring you the world’s most interesting and inspiring ships, but you don’t need to be a naval architect to design an imaginative vessel. The are the world’s best examples of buildings inspired by ocean going ships.
Tags: · architecture, design, Maritime, ocean, ship
Have an Iridium, VHF or SSB
Here’s what you need to do:
That’s pretty much it.
(This tip was suggested by Jean Pierre de Lutz. in his post “Sailing in Severe Weather Lessons Learned“.)
Video: [Continue Reading →]
Tags: · abandon-ship, boat, boating, cfm, diy, Gear, kit, Maritime, safety, safety-at-sea, ship, solas, survival
In honor of Earth Day, let’s take a look at an archived post on Skysails. But first, here is a brief update into the current state of affairs provided by Skysails:
Within the framework of the pilot phase, the SkySails-System is being explored on board the MS “Michael A.” and the MS “Beluga SkySails” during regular shipping operations. Throughout these trials the system’s level of robustness and reliability is first of all being elevated to that demanded by our customers and its suitability for daily use established. Subsequently the system’s performance will be evaluated extensively and optimized.
On both ships – the “Michael A.” and the “Beluga SkySails” – the SkySails-System has been put into operation successfully. The customer vessels remain in regular commercial operation throughout the pilot phase. Initially, two to three SkySails engineers will be aboard of each ship. All components are being long-term tested during use of the SkySails-System on board. The results immediately flow into the process of improving and optimizing the product. Read full update…
On her maiden voyage, the Beluga SkySails set sail to Venezuela from Bremen on January 22, 2008 and reached the Norwegian port of Mo-I-Rana on March 13, 2008 after travelling a total of 11,952 nautical miles.
Archived post originally posted in Jan. ‘08. [Continue Reading →]
Tags: · alternative energy, Beluga SkySails, co2, design, Environment, global warming, interesting_ship, Maritime, naval architecture, ocean, ship emissions, shipping-industry, Ships, skysails
Introducing gCaptain’s Google Toolbar buttons.
How do you get them?
Tags: · blog, boats, custom_search, custom_search_engine, discoverer, gCaptain, google, google_coop, google_cse, google_toolbar, Maritime, maritime_industry, maritime_industry_search, maritime_news, ocean, search_button, shipping, Ships, toolbar_buttons
The data visualization above represents the worlds 10 largest container shipping companies by TEU capacity. We created this chart using IBM’s Many Eye’s project which we enjoy using since it gives us a clear, easy to understand and interactive picture of numeric data. Plus it looks pretty cool.
Want to know which company has the largest number of ships or the highest percentage of the overall market? If so then CLICK HERE for the interactive version.
For those who prefer more traditional data we have provided it below or CLICK HERE for the interactive version:
Source: AXS-Alphliner (February 2009)
Tags: · apl, ap_moller, china-_shipping, cma_cgm, Container Ship, containers, container_shipping, cosco_busan, Data, data_visualization, evergreen, hanjin, hapag-lloyd, ibm, Interesting, maersk, many_eyes, Maritime, Maritime Expert, nyk_line, senator, shipping, shipping_companies, Ships, teu, Web 2.0
What happens when you let a comedian and elementary students paint a ship? No, the answer isn’t the Norwiegan Gem, it’s the Dream Tanker. Pink Tentacle tells us;
The Dream Tanker, one of the largest liquified natural gas (LNG) tankers in the world, now travels in style. Comedian-turned-painter Jimmy Onishi and 40 elementary school students have designed monster-sized psychedelic murals for the ship’s spherical tanks. The total area covered by the murals is large enough to cover 100 buses. The 120,000-ton Dream Tanker, owned by an affiliate of Osaka Gas, measures 289.5 meters (950 feet) long and 49 meters (160 feet) wide. With 4 independent spherical tanks measuring 43 meters (140 feet) in diameter, the tanker can hold up to 67,000 tons of LNG. Osaka Gas decided to decorate the tanker with graphics in celebration of the company’s 100th anniversary. The company asked Kansai-area elementary school students to draw pictures, which Jimmy Onishi then incorporated into his giant images of a fish, crab, shrimp and turtle. Sumitomo 3M Ltd. then used computers to process the images and printed them onto a special adhesive film, which was attached to the tanks. Read More…
Photos from her commissioning in 2006 can be found HERE.
Tags: · artist, design, LNG, lng carrier, lng tanker, Maritime, ship, students, Tankers
We recently ran across some interesting statistics from a 2005 joint study on manpower from BIMCO and the ISF.
Q: How many officers are currently employed aboard ships? [Continue Reading →]
Tags: · bimco, Data, Interesting, isf, labour_supply, manpower_issues, Maritime, Maritime Expert, merchant-marine, merchant-navy, oecd_countries, seafarer, seafarers, shipping-industry
The U.K.’s Daily Mail has the story of Second Mate David Blair, the lucky Merchant Mariner who was pulled off the Titanic just prior to her infamous voyage.
(Note: We are republishing this post on Today, the 96th Anniversary of the tragedy.)
Blair was replaced with the more experienced officer Charles Lightroller, Chief Mate of the Olympic, by White Star just four days prior to the tragic events and hours before departure. In the rushed turnover he made a seemly small but potentially critical mistake.
For those readers not familiar with the duties of a merchant officer, turnover is a critical time aboard ship. Today most mariners work an equal time-on time-off scheduled. For example, you may work 3 months aboard a ship then have the next 3 months off meaning there are two officers assigned to the ship in each position. The turnover between the two, however, is often a hurried process. The industry has built in many ways to avoid problems but the fact is you have one person excited to go home and another just starting a long hitch and sometimes “things” are missed.
So the day Blair signed-off he likely briefed Lightroller on his duties and operational specifics then gave him written notes and any items needed for the job. The mistake? Blair accidentally took the key to the binocular locker home with him.
The Daily Mail tells us;
Blair’s rush to leave Titanic he carried this key off with him in his pocket and forgot to hand it to his replacement, Charles Lightoller.
“Had Lightoller had the key then there probably would have been a pair of binoculars in the crows nest.
“It is supposition but, in lookout Fleet’s own words, they would have seen the iceberg sooner with the binoculars.
“It is the key that had the potential to save the Titanic.”
Senator Smith, chair of the inquiry, asked Fleet: “Suppose you had glasses … could you have seen this black object [the iceberg] at a greater distance?”
Fleet replied: “We could have seen it a bit sooner.”
Asked “How much sooner?”, he said: “Well, enough to get out of the way.”
I must stop the story and make it clear this mistake was just that ….a small error… therefore should Blair be blamed for the accident? Of course not. While some point to the ship’s excessive speed, the vessel’s design or the positioning of the ship’s compass as the cause of the incident the facts clearly show the titanic sunk as a direct result of the accident chain. In other words the titanic sunk, not due to one large error but a combination of small errors that linked together caused the tragic circumstances. Remove one small link in the chain and the incident is avoided.
It is interesting to note that a string of small errors caused by human error is the cause of most large maritime incidents. The lesson to be learned….. next time you make a mistake aboard ship listen for the voice in the back of your mind and quickly ask yourself; is this an isolated incident or indication of larger problems?
Ship incidents caused by Error Chains;
(This article was originally posted Oct 2007)
Tags: · binoculars, chief_mate, critical_mistake, crows_nest, daily_mail, History, key, management, Marine Incidents, Maritime, merchant_mariner, sea, second_mate, Ships, sinking, titanic, white_star
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.
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>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.
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>Furthermore, requirements concerning general English language proficiency have not been included
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>expressis verbis
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> as in the authors’ understanding a certain command of general English is a basic prerequisite in this respect (cf IMO SMCP 2002).
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Click HERE to download the full report.
Tags: · english, language, language skills, Maritime, merchant-navy, shipping
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