We recently had to map out all ship types for a client of Unofficial Networks, the maritime consulting arm of gCaptain. This is only the first draft so I’m sure we forgot a few (let us know in the comments section) and there are debates in regards to some of the categories but we thought you would be interested in this visualization of the data. Click HERE to download the full sized version.
CommentsTags: · data_visualization, Ships
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 →]
CommentsTags: · alternative energy, Beluga SkySails, co2, design, Environment, global warming, Maritime, naval architecture, ocean, ship emissions, shipping-industry, Ships, skysails
Introducing gCaptain’s Google Toolbar buttons.
How do you get them?
CommentsTags: · 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
Foreign Flag or Flag of Convenience?
by Ian Bowles
During the glory days of empire and famous shipping lines, it would have been easy for nationalistic tendencies to come to the fore. Easy to look down one’s nose at others, but at the same time though, have a mutual respect for one’s equals. Thus it came to be that there could be two main types of national ensign; one that is of a major seafaring nation and the other that is of not such a nation, and so entered the “flag of convenience” or as it was often also called, “foreign flag”. That is, a foreign flag was a bad flag.
Now fast forward to a few years ago and the Connecticut Maritime Association’s annual Shipping event. Your author had a great chat with a young man fresh out of King’s Point, his 2nd Mates ticket still in the wrapper, although he was old enough to drink! When I asked him what his plans were he said he was going to have either join some domestic tug company or a domestic tanker company, both trading up and down the US coast. Is that all that is on offer I asked and he said yes, without going foreign flag.
[Continue Reading →]
CommentsTags: · Ian Bowles, Maritime Expert, Master Mariner, shipping_companies, Ships
We found this interesting YouTube video of ships battling heavy seas and rogue waves. These photos have been provided by SplashVision.com. Here at gCaptain.com we would love to see your interesting photos of ships struggling in heavy seas and/or rogue waves. To submit you photos drop us an email at Tips@gCaptain.com. Thanks..
If you like this post you might also like to take a look at some of these other posts.
Deadliest Catch - Monster Waves
CommentsTags: · boats, heavy-weather, hurricane, Photo, photos, rogue-waves, Ships, slideshow, storms, Video, waves, Weather, youtube
Originally Published Sept 2007
By Tom Guldner, Marine Firefighting Inc.
First, let me state that this article is neither FOR nor AGAINST Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) in the USA. Its purpose is to understand what it is and how the vessels crew and Land-Based Firefighters and first responders can deal with emergencies. Opponents of LNG have come up with many false statements about the dangers of LNG while the LNG industry may lead us to believe there is absolutely no danger in handling LNG. We as firefighters (marine or land-based) and as the mariners who work with the LNG vessels must look at this issue in a more unbiased view. Anything is dangerous if used improperly. Even water has been found to be the culprit of many devastating oil tanker explosions when used under pressure to clean the vessels tanks. The static electric charge the water builds up can create a spark which can rip apart a huge oil tanker. We have also seen that water has caused many vessels to capsize and sink when too much of it has accumulated aboard a ship during firefighting operations.
My company, Marine Firefighting Inc., has been involved in providing informational seminars to the tug boat crews who have the task of escorting some of the large LNG ships into US waters. The tug boats being used are specially designed for this task. Each is equipped with state of the art firefighting equipment. MFI has been providing the familiarization with this new firefighting equipment and also familiarization with the properties of the LNG they will be working with.
Much controversy surrounds the Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) industry in the United States. A good deal of the criticism comes from the “Not in my back yard” syndrome. Most of us realize that our energy needs will soon outpace our supplies. With new emerging economies such as China and India the world’s existing oil reserves are going to be drawn upon much more than at any time in our history. LNG has been presented as one of the answers of bridging the eminent energy gap between users and suppliers. However, no one wants to live next door to an LNG plant.
What is LNG? Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) is a colorless, odorless, liquid which is natural gas in a liquid form. Previously, the world’s large supplies of natural gas have not been available to areas remote from these gas wells. The cost of shipping natural gas in its gaseous state was simply too expensive. Liquefying natural gas reduces its volume 600 times (see diagram left.). Because of this reduction in volume it became profitable to export natural gas in its liquid form (LNG). The process of liquefying natural gas differs from the liquefying of other gasses. The main difference is that LNG does not require pressurization to keep this gas in a liquid state as is the case with Liquid Petroleum Gases (LPG) such as Propane. (Marine transport of Propane may use refrigeration to reduce its pressure during transit.) LNG is formed by subjecting natural gas to extremely cold temperatures. At minus 260 degrees F (-161°C ) the gas becomes a liquid at atmospheric pressure. Liquids at these temperatures are considered “Cryogenic”.1 [Continue Reading →]
CommentsTags: · Firefighting, liquid-natural-gas, LNG, lng-tankers, marine-firefighting, natural-gas, ship-fires, Ships
Never Sea Land brings us the largest engine ever built:
The Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C turbocharged two-stroke diesel engine is the most powerful and most efficient prime-mover in the world today. The Aioi Works of Japan’s Diesel United, Ltd built the first engines and is where some of these pictures were taken.
It is available in 6 through 14 cylinder versions, all are inline engines. These engines were designed primarily for very large container ships. Ship owners like a single engine/single propeller design and the new generation of larger container ships needed a bigger engine to propel them.
The cylinder bore is just under 38″ and the stroke is just over 98″.
The engine weighs in at 2,300 tons and is capable of delivering 109,000 horsepower.
The largest piston in the world!
More Enormous Piston Rods.
“DU-Sulzer 12RT A96C” translated to “One large MFD”
How it works. [Continue Reading →]
CommentsTags: · Chief Engineer, Container Ship, emma-maersk, Engines, fire on the Emma Maersk, Interesting, largest, maersk, Marine Technology, marine-engineering, Photo, Ship Design, ship engines, ship-engine, Ships, Wartsila, Wartsila-Sulzer, world-record, world-records, worlds largest maersk
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)
CommentsTags: · 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
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)
CommentsTags: · 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
Here is episode #9 for your listening pleasure.
Show Notes Can Be Found HERE
Download the MP3 file HERE
Subscribe Via iTunes HERE
Background Reading:
CommentsTags: · boating boats, captain kelley sweeney, maritime podcast, ocean, podcast, Ships
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