gCaptain.com

(Originally published June 2007)

The title of one story in this week’s MarEx Newsletter proclaims “Maritime Academy Graduation Heralds the Continuation of Good Times” and nothing affirms this better than a look into the order books of the world’s largest shipyards.

The information the following links comes from the Colton Company: “a small firm of specialized management consultants. Its principal consultant is Tim Colton, an industrial engineer, maritime economist and naval architect, with 49 years of experience in the shipbuilding industry, both in the U.S. and worldwide. Our business is helping your business to grow and to prosper”.

MarineLog tells us:

Tim Colton opens new maritime consultancy
Tim Colton, formerly president of international shipbuilding consultants Colton & Company, has returned to the consultancy biz after three years with Halter Marine. Colton, the perennial moderator of Marine Log’s “Shipbuilding Decisions” conference and a frequent contributor to Marine Log magazine”

Here are the pages of greatest interest:

• Shipyard Activity in 2007. It seems that the Overseas Houston (in Aker’s Philadelphia Shipyard) is the only Unlimited tonnage being built this year.
• Large Cruise Ships on Order. The largest of the large are two more Royal Caribbean’s “Freedom of the Seas” class, the world’s largest (by Gross Tons) cruise ships. They are being built by Aker Turku in Finland and are scheduled to launch in 2009 and 2010.
• Offshore is seeing perhaps the largest growth with 13 Drillships and 39 Semi-Submersibles and 79 Jack-ups on order. View the list here.
• And what is seemingly the Topic of the Day… LNG orders. With an impressive 143 ships ordered we understand the push to build terminals across the U.S.

Of great interest to U.S. Mariners; The U.S. Shipping Fleet. With seemingly every ship under the U.S. flag listed this (along with our own Merchant Fleet Chart) makes for an interesting read. Many thanks to Tim Colton for maintaining this resource. Visit the Colton Company’s Homepage for more valuable statistics.

“No longer is a sailor’s life necessarily one of adventure. Deadlines are tight, and manning is at a minimum.” -Rep. Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation (Source: MMP News)

I wanted to take some time and thank some of our partner sites; Maritime Experts from around the web. I also wanted to take the time to explain each one to our readers. The sites can be found at the bottom of the right sidebar —>

Our first set of links in this series concentrates on sites devoted to large ships.

Fred Fry’s Maritime Monday

Fred Fry has a great set of posts on his blog called “Maritime Monday”. Fred is an avid reader and saves his favorite maritime related stories of the week and posts them every Monday morning. Along with our own Maritime News Discoverer it’s a must read for all in the shipping industry who need to keep up on the week’s news and interesting stories.

Maritime Executive Newsletter

Maritime Executive publishes a monthly magazine that I eagerly await. Of greater interest to the online community is their free weekly newsletter, a must read for shipping executives and sailors alike. I encourage everyone to subscribe to their MarEx Newsletter, it’s free and contains the best hard news stories delivered straight to your email inbox each week. If your interested in the magazine sign up to receive a trial copy HERE.

Council of American Master Mariners

A great resource from an organization devoted to the interests of the Master Mariner. They do not have a blog but publish stories on their homepage as well as a newsletter that can be read online.

Robin Storm - Severe Weather Blog

Robin is a Salvage Master, Licensed Chief Engineer and a Severe Weather Guru. We have collaborated on many stories including our series on the Sean Semour and a look into EPIRB failures. His blog contains mostly weather related stories and links pertinent to safety at sea. The blog is well written, thorough and is updated frequently… what more could you ask for.

Maritime Accident Casebook

If your a Ship’s Captain interested in keeping your crew safe Bob Couttie’s Maritime Accident Casebook should be your first stop. It contains detailed information, lessons learned and reports on maritime incidents from around the world. Bob is a talented writer and excellent investigator. Our favorite part of his site are his Maritime Incident Podcasts that can be downloaded to your ipod and listened to on those long flights to your ship.

Maritime Links Blog

Probably the best blog of the US Merchant Marine officer. Our only complaint is that the post are not as frequent as some of the other blogs we follow but this is because the Maritime Links editors are actually sailors with real shipping jobs. Many interesting stories can be found in their archives.

Unofficial Andes - Ski Travel Blog

Ok this blog link has nothing to do with maritime affairs but considering it (as well as Unofficial Squaw’s Blog ) was created by our company and is written by our chief editor’s brother, it gets a link. The blog follows the travels of Tim Konrad as he ski’s the Andes mountain range in South America. A good read.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this series and if you have a blog to suggest be sure to email it to our tip line; tips{at}gCaptain.com