Have an Iridium, VHF or SSB handheld radio aboard? What about a portable GPS? Create an Abandon ship electronics grab bag that is waterproof, floats and will survive a fire.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Buy a Pelican Case
• Stencil it with the ship’s Name
• Apply Solas Reflect Tape
• Laminate copies of the electronics’ manual
• Print and Laminate a list of emergency contact numbers

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 →]

Hot on the heels of our featured stories “5 Most Ambitious Bridge Designs of Today” and “Windoc Incident - Story Behind YouTube’s Most Chilling Video” our digg friend msaleem points us to this post titled. “Most Horrific Bridge Collapses of Past 100 Years”

The article contains many pictures and can be found HERE.

This article, is just one of thousands of interesting posts found in our maritime archives. Click HERE to browse the archive of articles gCaptain has  published in the last three years.

This week’s vessel is the BEM Monge, a Measure and Test Ship of the French Navy.  The ship is equipped with extensive tracking technologies as well as trajectory processing and radio-electrical analysis, and specializes in taking measurements, processing data, and conducting naval and air surveillance.

In addition to its military functions, the BEM Monge participates in civilian missions for surveillance, space observation, and trajectography. The French space agency CNES has also used the BEM Monge to gather and process the launching parameters for the Ariane 5 space rocket.

[Continue Reading →]

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.

National Geographic also brings us this week’s Interesting Ship of The Week.  They tell us:

>> NAME: The Palmer is named for a U.S. seal hunter who sailed along the west coast of Antarctica in 1820 looking for seal rookeries. Many believe he was the first to discover the continent.

>> SIZE: Built in 1992, the Palmer is a 7,600-ton icebreaker capable of breaking 3 feet (1 meter) of ice at 3 knots. It is 308 feet (94 meters) long and has 12,720 horsepower.

>> CREW: The Palmer works year-round in the Antarctic. It has 22 crew members.

>> CABINS: Each cabin is outfitted with two bunks, a head (bathroom), a TV and VCR, a telephone, and a LAN jack for computers.

>> AMENITIES: A 24-hour mess hall provides meals to the around-the-clock researchers and crew. Several lounges have TVs, movies, and books, and there is a workout room.

>> COMMUNICATION: The scientists on board can send or receive e-mail twice a day. There are also telephones on board the ship.

Image source: davidcmartin.com

(Image Source: blogimg.goo.ne.jp)

This week’s Interesting Ship of The Week was actually recently named Ship of The Year for 2007 by The Japan Society of Naval Architects and Ocean Engineers.  Her name is Brasil Maru, a 320,000 DWT iron ore carrier operated by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL).  The selection committee noted that the Brasil Maru is a pioneering vessel in reducing iron ore transport cost which will have a great effect on steel production.  A June 18, 2008 press release from MOL reads:

Brasil Maru Vessel Characteristics

First of all, the Brasil Maru reflects the needs of the times, offering high efficiency thanks to its large size. With deadweight tonnage of 320,000 tons which is one of the world’s largest, it is the optimal size to transport iron ore produced in Brazil. MOL, with its customer (Nippon Steel Corporation), shipyard (Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co., Ltd.), and shipowner (Tamou Line S.A.) spent a year and a half studying and designing the vessel. It was built in Japan, where such large-scale iron ore carriers had never been constructed, and is ideally suited to meet increasing demand for transport of iron ore from Brazil to Japan via shuttle service.

Starting with the Brasil Maru, more than 50 iron ore carriers in the 300,000 dwt class have been ordered around the world. The Brasil Maru is truly the forerunner of future iron ore transport.

The vessel’s design relied on the most advanced computer simulation to optimize environmental protection and safe operation. It offers high-performance course stability that takes water flow into account, and excellent maneuverability. In addition, UIT, a revolutionary method of treating steel surfaces, was used to more than double resistance to metal fatigue in the welded parts. [Continue Reading →]

The Sea Barge (SEABEE) can carry the aircraft of Army units without extensive sectionalization. The 200- by 100-foot (61- by 30.5-m) deck area between the deckhouse and smokestacks provides a suitable landing area for fly-on/fly-off operations. The SEABEE barges are stored horizontally on 3 decks, 12 each on the main and lower decks and 14 on the upper deck. One hundred and sixty containers can be carried on 10 of the 14 barges on the upper deck. Barges are loaded aboard the SEABEE ship by a 2,000-ton-capacity submersible stern elevator. Under ideal conditions the SEABEE ship can load or discharge its load in 13 hours.

The dimensions and pertinent characteristics of the SEABEE ship areas follows: Length 874 ft (267 m) Width 106 ft (32 m) Deadweight (max) 38,410 LTON (34 000 MTON) Speed 21.7 knots Dry cargo 44,350 MTON Barge capacity 38 barges.

The watertight, double-hulled SEABEE barge is the same width and one-half the length of the standard US commercial river barge. It is slightly larger, but has approximately twice the cargo-carrying capacity of the LASH lighter. The barges are readily accessible during the voyage by catwalk in the ship and by manhole hatches in the barges. Each barge is fitted for smoke monitoring and has water fire-extinguishing systems. Forced draft ventilation while underway is also provided. The SEABEE barge, with the seven hatch covers installed, has a draft of just less than 2 feet (.6 m). The shallow draft allows the barge to be drawn very close to an unprepared river bank. No deck winches are installed on the SEABEE barge. However, sufficient cleats are available for securing the barge. The mooring lines must be kept taut at all times to prevent drift caused by tidal action or strong river currents. As the barge is loaded, the shoreside edge of the hull will settle firmly its full length on the river bank. The settling will add stability to the barge and aid in loading. Should high and low tidal conditions be expected along coastlines it will be necessary to prevent the barge from settling on shore. The loaded lighter can be moved off the river bank easily by crane or by a small harbor tug. (source: GlobalSecurity.org)

National Theater - Hungary

Japanese Maritime Museum

Concrete Tall Ship Korea

Gerechtsgebouw, Antwerp

The Ship Residence

The Ship Residence - High upon a promontory on South Bass Island in Lake Erie at Put-in-Bay, Ohio, sits the Owners and Captains Quarters of the former Great Lakes Shipping Boat, The Benson Ford. The boat was built by Henry Ford and named after his grandson many years ago. After fifty years of service on the Great Lakes, the Benson Ford was scheduled in 1986 to be scrapped at the Port of Cleveland, Ohio. On the top front section of the boat were the walnut paneled state rooms, dining room, galley, and passenger lounge designed by Henry Ford for his own pleasure while traversing the Great Lakes on business. (Source: Sea-Fever)

Collingwood’s Vessel: a Retirement Home for Elderly Fisherman

Ship Drydock Design - The scheme is a retirement home for elderly fisherman that also houses a working men’s club for members of Newcastle’s fishing community,” Pearson writes. “As a reflection of the separation and torpor of this unique society, the scheme takes the notion of the ship in an architectural context, to create an ersatz environment which interacts with the city around it as if it were a dry docked vessel. The environmental technologies and the ways in which the notional ship has been translated into an architectural system are the focus of this study.” (Source: BLDBLOG)

BIG Maritime Museum Denmark

BIG’s Maritime Museum - BIG [the Bjarke Ingels Group], has recently won a competition [by unanimous decision, even though they apparently didn’t adhere to the design brief - ninjas in true form] to design the Danish Maritime Museum in Helsingør, DK. While searching for an appropriate site for the proposed project, the firm discovered an abandoned 150m long, 25m wide, and 9m deep concrete dry dock within eyesight of Kronborg Castle . (Source: MNY)

The Floating Islands

Floating Islands - A design by Vincent Callebaut Architectures, Floating Islands is a flexible masterplaned multi-energy town. By using current power generators and other green technology this is a futuristic design for green living. Callebaut’s vision is “creation which consists in mixing a scientifical and cultural survey with a computer programmatic approach in order to transcribe in architecture landscape distortions or ecosystem abstractions. Each architectural project at any scale, wants to anticipate through this digital hybridization, the future lifestyles by inventing new imaginary worlds. More poetic worlds. More equitable worlds. More natural worlds. Actually, more humanistic worlds! ”

Performing Arts Center, Seoul

Performing Arts Center, Seoul - ” Whereas the orchestra is in rehearsal, we continue our walk towards the places switched by the sound of the soprano and the violins. The both performing rooms of 1500 seats each are megaliths submerging from the floor. They are located at the extremities of the island and each of them is isolated from the road by two blocks gathering together annex functions like workshops and rehearsal rooms, public sanitary, offices and technical spaces. Their double layer of concrete protects the shows from feared sounds of low frequencies coming from the freeway traffic. They are very white and diffuse a extraordinary light ! The roundness of these hulls makes us think of the most beautiful ships and plays with the shadows of the linen seams which projects itself at the surface. ” (Source)

Nantes Slavery Memorial

Nantes Slavery Memorial, France - Bonder + Wodiczko are received an ACSA award for their work on the design of a memorial to the abolition of slavery [Memorial à l’abolition de l’esclavage] in Nantes, France. Visitors to the memorial will walk along an altered landscape, littered with plaques commemorating each ship that carried slaves into Nantes [the plaques will display the name of the ship, the date, the number of slaves on board, and the number of slaves who lost their lives on the voyage]. Having walked along the length of the glass [which you can see actually slips through the ground plane], visitors descend a monumental staircase into a subterranean passage where these three aforementioned witnesses - the river, the quay, and the sky - meet [through the reflection from the glass] in one confined space. (Source: Architecture.MNP)UPDATE: Reader Submissions

Milwaukee Art Museum

Milwaukee Art Museum - The Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, the first Calatrava-designed building to be completed in the United States, first opened to the public May 4, 2001. On that date the museum opened the new exhibition galleries, larger museum store and auditorium in the Quadracci Pavilion along with the completely renovated and reinstalled permanent collection galleries. (Via Joe Smith)

Canada Place, Vancouver Cruise Ship Terminal

Canada Place -  Constructed for Expo 86 as the pavilion for Canada and was the only venue for the fair that was not at the main site on the north shore of False Creek. It can be reached via the SkyTrain line and the nearby Waterfront Station subway terminus. The striking white sails of the building has made it a prominent landmark for the city, as well as drawing comparisons to the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia. (Google Earth View)

The Windoc blocks the canal. Alex Howard

In August 2001 the Bulk Carrier Windoc was lined up on the Welland Canal’s Bridge 11 in Ontario Canada. After recieving the flashing amber approach light indicating that the bridge operator was aware of the vessel the captain lined up on the centerline and maintained a speed of 5 knots. Minutes later while the vessel was half way through the bridge started descending.

The Bridge Team’s Story

When the vessel was approximately halfway under the bridge, the third officer observed that the bridge signal lights were solid red and the lift span was descending. At 2053, the master sounded a few blasts on the ship’s whistle. The master, without identifying himself or the bridge in question, called the TCC on VHF channel 14 about the lowering of the bridge. The master quickly stopped the engines and ordered an evacuation of the wheelhouse.The master and third officer left the wheelhouse by the starboard navigation bridge wing. As they proceeded down the external bridge access ladder, the span of the bridge struck the vessel in way of the wheelhouse front windows, subsequently destroying the vessel’s wheelhouse and funnel. The wheelsman remained at his station in the wheelhouse and lay down on the deck as the bridge span passed overhead. He freed himself from the debris and descended by the deckhouse stairwell alive.

Miraculously no one was killed in the event. [Continue Reading →]

More photos of the M/V Riverdance can be found at Cargo Law and Ships Of The Mersey.