Maritime Monday 101

Welcome to this 101st edition of Maritime Monday.

You can find Maritime Monday 51 here. (Published 19 March 2007)

You can find last week’s edition here.

You can find links to all the previous editions at the bottom of this post. To stay informed all week long, be sure to check out gCaptain’s Discoverer site and vote for your favorite stories as well as add ones that you find.

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This Weeks Photos:

This weeks photos are from the website of Saga Forest Carriers:

Saga Forest Carriers is an international shipping company specialising in the transportation of forest products and breakbulk cargoes. Our modern Open-Hatch Gantry vessels ensure the highest quality cargo care.

As of Oct 2007 Saga has 25 open-hatch gantry craned bulk carriers between 44,000 and 49,000 dwt capacity. We also have an extensive newbuilding programme in place which have provided 7 newbuildings in the period from 2005 to 2007. Two more vessels will be delivered in 2008.

SAGA ADVENTURE Maiden Voyage

SAGA VIKING

SAGA WIND in Drydock

Specialized Vessel Design

SAGA TIDE

You can find a photo of a Greenpeace Protester hugging some SAGA TIDE anchor chain as he gets a good hosing here.

Cargo Law has photos of a container stack disaster on the SAGA SPRAY.

You can find their homepage here.

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This weeks Items:

EagleSpeak has “Maritime Security: Syria on watchlist“

Also be sure to check out EagleSpeak‘s weekly series “Sunday Ship History: Behold the Barrage Balloon!“

Hey Dad! look, Tugster has photos of a ACF 47′ cabin cruiser built in 1929. For the rest of you, ACF stands for American Car & Foundry, which is an odd name for a company that made boats. Of course car stood for railcars.

Chaotic Synaptic Activity points to his first edition of Monday Maritime Matters.

AP has “Tons of Food Aid Rotting in Haiti Ports“. It all has to do with demanding payoffs to release food aid cargo. What a grateful bunch of aid recipients.

MarEx Newsletter has an update on the missing ship REZZAK in “Turks say Fraud is Involved with Missing Vessel and Crew“

Maritime Accident Casebook also covers the M/V REZZAK listing other suspicious details including possible connections to a number of cell phones belonging to members of the crew.

EagleSpeak also continues to cover this mystery.

MarEx Newsletter also has good news for 45 year old cadet Peter Sommerfield in “World’s Most Mature Cadet Qualifies for Sea Duty”. Congratulations!

gCaptain has “Rules, who needs them?“

As you know, the steering and sailing rules apply to you and only one other vessel at a time. It is perplexing because most of us are faced with a common problem; make the ETA. The courts have proclaimed: No vessel has the right of way through another vessel; therefore that eliminates an option.

gCaptain also has the sad story of “Hitler’s Titanic – MS Wilhelm Gustloff“

UN News Centre has “Surge in number of migrant boats – and deaths – in Gulf of Aden, UN reports” and “UN agency awaiting access to boat people rescued off Sri Lankan coast“

The United Nations refugee agency has lauded the Sri Lankan Government for rescuing 71 boat people who had been adrift at sea for nearly two weeks, and said it is now awaiting access to the survivors of the perilous voyage.

Maritime Global Net has European labor news in “VIKING CASE SETTLED IN SECRET DEAL“

SAILORS, MARINERS & WARRIORS LEAGUE has “Coast Guard Returns Migrants To Cuba“

Robin Storm has “Innovation: Tsunami Detection by GPS“

HomeboyMediaNews has “Greece plans tax breaks to attract shipping firms“

Hellenic Shipping News has “Hellenic ship owners say ”No” to newbuilding orders during February“

MarineBuzz has a summary of international “Women Seafarers on International Women’s Day” and “Sagar Nidhi Joins Indian Research Fleet to Extract Gas Hydrates from Sea Bed“

The Yankee Sailor has “Suicide bombers kill five at Pakistan navy college“

The Crossed Pond has an interesting look into Navy Squadron operations in “Sea Stories: Nicknames Are Bad“

Excepting aviators, it is nearly always a bad sign if your boss has a nickname. Smokin Joe. Iron Mike. Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler. If assigned to a ship with one of these bastards in charge, you are well and truly screwed. While our pilots get cute “call signs” e.g., Maverick or Walleye, assigned during their training process, black shoe officers will only receive a nickname in the course of a lengthy career of memorable behavior, such as certifiable insanity, slave-driving brutality, or spectacular hair-trigger temper.

Blue Crab Boulevard notes the recent discovery of the HMS HUNTER which was sunk in a Norwegian Fjord during WWII. It was found recently by a Norwegian Minesweeper during a training exercise.

The Torch notes Canada’s continuing contribution in the War against Terror in “Three Navy ships to Persian Gulf in June“

LEGO has the winners of “the Norwegian Cruise Line LEGO Cruise Ship Building Challenge“

OCRA Marine has “29.5m Gross Tons Of Merchant Ships Break Maltese Maritime Record“

The Journal of Commerce nicely posts a couple stories outside their subscription firewall including “Westbound boxes scarce as U.S. exports rise” noting that the decreasing value of the US Dollar has resulted in an export boom, filling up containers that either were shipped back to Asia empty or were filled with low value cargo, such as hay, ‘waste paper’ and garbage.

Sea * Fever covers the strike by some staff of the UK Coast Guard in “Notice to UK Mariners, please postpone all casualties until March 7th“

Kiwi at Sea has “Tying up in Valparaiso” and “Rough weather“. Guess there was not much time in port.

Life of a Sea Wife posts a long-overdue update.

Life at Sea has “HUMARINIYA” covering some shipboard practical jokes. No mention of the ‘mail buoy’. Also, no mention of getting a bucket of steam. Then again, that probably does not work too well on modern diesel-powered ships. Surely, there are many other jokes out there. Feel free to add your favorite in the comments.

Lloyd’s List has “Brussels rattles sabres over CO2 emissions“

Foreign Affairs Magazine has “The Economic and Security Implications of Global Warming” centering on the melting Arctic.

BitterEnd has “Anacortes WA: Our not so secret America’s Cup connection“. He also has extensive coverage of the ongoing Washington State Ferry System including anonymous comments by an apparent insider who is stoking the fire. So go to his homepage and scroll through the stories.

MEMRI Economic Blog has photos of “The Islamic Revolution’s Guards Engage in Smuggling” using their small boats to cross the Gulf.

Cruise Bruise covers a possible case of abuse where Carnival Cruises forcefully separates a husband and wife who were expecting to work on the same ship. Carnival appears to be taking a beating on the site, as they have documented at least 5 other cases of crewmembers claiming abuse and at least 3 cases of employees claiming forced/slave labor on the ships.

Reshma Harilal, age 33, says she is being held against her will aboard the cruise ship still at sea, her passport was taken away from her, and that the cruise line lured her from her native home in South Africa with the promise of a cabin stewardess job earning $3000 a month, but instead she got the old bait and switch. She says that she has a signed contract for the better job description and pay, and wants the money that’s coming to her per her contract.

Once she arrived in Florida and boarded the ship, with little money to care for herself, she says the cruise line told her she could not work in the promised job description and instead placed her in a position as an assistant to a cabin steward making only $500-600 a month.

‘Fun Ships!’ indeed. Whether the accusations are valid or not, and I am sure that I’m not the only seafarer who became outraged because he only found out that he was lied to after he got to the ship (Damn you to hell DynMarine!). Clearly Carnival has a crewing image problem.

Cargo Law has photos of “Mess At Manzanillo” covering a container stack collapse on the M/V CMA CMG DAHLIA.

The Pilot Boat has photos of the ferry ATLâNTIDA which is currently under construction.

The Jawa Report has “U.S. Navy Signalman Helping Taliban?” he was serving on the USS BENFOLD and relaying movement info among other things.

Maritime Monday 62‘s photos of the week were of inspections of containers of refuse in China. Shanghai Scrap explains why the inspections are important, noting that some containers of scrap steel coming from Russia and Kazakhstan were rejected because they were radioactive! (From July 07)

The Stupid Shall Be Punished notes “Submarine Involved In Somalia Attack?“

IMC Brokers has photos of the massive “Precast foundations for offshore wind farm Thornton Bank“

Cruising the Past has video of the “SS UNITED STATES – 1960s back stage tribute to the crews that served this famous liner…“

Toons at War has coverage of insignia of the WWII Hospital Ship “USS Mercy AH-8“

Mr. Boat Blog has video instruction on how to ride a “Hydrofoil Kiteboard.“

Never Sea Land has a short post on provisioning the USS CONSTITUTION. It should have been titled ‘Victory Through Hunting for Alcohol’

The US Merchant Marine Academy is racing in the Farr 40 Worlds 2008 off Miami, Florida this week. They are blogging about it here.

The Gazette (UK) has a photo gallery of the still-beached ferry RIVERDANCE, which I found via Robin Storm. He has an update on the vessel’s recovery operations included in this post here. Some of the photos in the gallery don’t look so promising.

RIVERDANCE – If only it were so easy!

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Haight’s Maritime Items has:

UK – report on passenger ship damage due to heavy weather – The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) issued the report of its investigation of the heavy weather damage to a passenger cruise ship in the South Pacific Ocean on 10 July 2007. The ship suffered structural damage and experienced water incursion when it encountered hurricane-force winds and high seas. The severe weather conditions had not been forecast. Investigation revealed that the ship had various fittings and ducts that were inaccessible for inspection. Some of these fittings and ducts failed during the heavy weather, resulting in damage to the ship. The report recommends that surveyors be provided with specific guidance on inspection of these generally inaccessible areas. Report No. 5/2008 (2/29/08). – Dennis Bryant Holland & Knight homepage (Used with Permission)

Fairplay Daily News has:

USCG boss urges seafarer respect – WASHINGTON, DC 5 March – Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen has urged members of his service to treat commercial seafarers “with the utmost professionalism and respect.” In a communication sent to “all hands”, Admiral Allen acknowledged that he has “received reports from highly respected professionals recounting Coast Guard boardings, inspections and investigations not displaying professionalism. Additionally, some have said they lost the complete trust they once had in the Coast Guard and are fearful of retribution if they challenge the Coast Guard.” Allen wrote, “We must change this perception,” noting that licensed and documented mariners are “professionals who share our interests in a safe, secure and environmentally compliant industry.” He recalled the words of Alexander Hamilton (the first US Secretary of the Treasury who launched the Revenue Cutter Service) that free men are impatient of “everything that bears the least mark of domineering spirit” and said that applies “as much today as it did in 1790 and equally to international mariners and our trading partners”. – 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.

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – 16 – 17 – 18 – 19 – 20 – 21 – 22 – 23 – 24 – 25 – 26 – 27 – 28 – 29 – 30 – 31 – 32 – 33 – 34 – 35 – 36 – 37 – 38 – 39 – 40 – 41 – 42 – 43 – 44 – 45 – 46 – 47 – 48 – 49 – 50 – 51 – 52 – 53 – 54 – 55 – 56 – 57 – 58 – 59 – 60 – 61 – 62 – 63 – 64 – 65 – 66 – 67 – 68 – 69 – 70 – 71 – 72 – 73 – 74 – 75 – 76 – 77 – 78 – 79 – 80 – 81 – 82 – 83 – 84 – 85 – 86 – 87 – 88 – 89 – 90 – 91 – 92 – 93 – 94 – 95 – 96 – 97 – 98 – gCaptain Editions: 99 – 100 – 101 – 102 – 103 – 104 – 105

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