Maritime Monday 124

Welcome to this 124th edition of Maritime Monday.

You can find Maritime Monday 74 here. (Published 3 Sept 2007)

You can find last week’s edition here .

You can find links to all the previous editions at the bottom of this post. You are encouraged to participate using the comment link/form at the bottom of the post. If you have photos or stories to tell, do email me at [email protected].

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This Week’s Photos:

This week’s photos are of the first recent shipment of wine sent in Europe by sailship by the French company CTMV:

18 juillet 2008 BREST : CTMV-FairWindWine load 22 pallets of South Of France Wines onboard Kathleen&May Schooner. Destination : Dublin. Unloading for Gilbey’s and Obriens importators the 25th July. 25, 26, 27th July, wine tasting onboard the ship in the center of Dublin. – Wine by Sail

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The S/V KATHLEEN & MAY

Their homepage can be found here.

More photos of the trip can be found here. They also promise: “Coming soon, Fair Wind Wines available in UK & CANADA.”

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This Week’s Items:

EagleSpeak has coverage of a great idea with “Disaster Relief — from Ships“.

Also be sure to check out EagleSpeak‘s weekly series “Sunday Ship History: Monitor Ships” and “Sunday Ship History: Update on the LST with a Sail“.

gCaptain has “London Gateway Project“.

London Gateway will be Uk’s first deep sea container port for over 25 years and offers an exciting opportunity for the UK economy and shipping industry as a whole. It is set to be the most technologically advanced container port in the world and will be fully integrated with Europe’s largest logistics park.

Lankaweb has “SRI LANKAN RICE CARGO SHIP SINKS NEAR CHITTAGONG HARBOR AND 16 CREW MEN ARE RESCUED; ONE MISSING“. The ship was the BADULU VALLEY.

Nhan Dan has “Vinashin’s cargo ship sinks off Ba Ria – Vung Tau“. The ship was the GREEN VISHIP.

Focus Information Agency has “US coastguards, Dutch navy land giant cocaine haul“. The ship was traveling from Venezuela to Europe.

Business Week has coverage of the results of what happens when you pay off pirates in “Warship tracks 3 ships, 57 crew seized off Somalia“.

MarEx Newsletter has “America’s Marine Highway: A gaping window of opportunity“.

In Connecticut, America’s Marine Highway – as MARAD’s Sean Connaughton has coined it – has significantly reduced traffic on I-95, partly through the use of a high speed ferry system between the state and New York. According to the Connecticut Maritime Coalition, as much as 19 million tons of cargo, 2.6 million people and 850,000 vehicles are moved over water by private operators each year and waterborne transport keeps 950,000 trucks off Connecticut’s roads annually. Hardly a status quo solution, but nothing to sniff at, either.

Houston Ship Pilot/photographer OneEighteen has photos of dolphins swimming ahead of a ship here and here. He also has a photo of what he tags a ‘lactating ship’ here.

Kiwi at Sea covers the job or greasing machinery in “Nipples“.

CDR Salamander exposes a big problem in shipbuilding in “What clown did this weld?“. The post brought lots of comments including one declaring: ‘This gets my vote as scariest thread of the week‘. My first ship, the car carrier NOSAC RANGER had cracks all over it back when I was sailing on it in 1992. Welding crews were regular visitors. So how are your welds?

The Maritime asks “Are we on the brink of a naval showdown in the Black Sea?” as the US prepares to run the Russian naval blockade of Georgia, using warships to deliver humanitarian aid.

The BBC confirms that “US warship reaches Georgian port“, but not the Port of Poti, instead calling the Georgian Port of Batumi, which happens to be the end-point for the Baku-Batumi oil pipeline. Oddly enough, the port was host to a Russian army unit until November, 2007 when they handed the base back to Georgia. So, I guess planning for the Russian invasion of Georgia didn’t start until after that point.

Pat Dollard has a Russian Admiral’s complaint in: “Aid Deliveries Cover For NATO Build Up“. Pat say yes. I wonder when we are going to tell the Russians to give us our Hummers back.

Information Dissemination has “Moskva Returns to Sevastopol” noting a lack of any visible damage from fighting in Georgia. The ship returned despite Ukraine’s declaration that Russian ships operating off Georgia might be banned from returning to their Ukrainian port.

Bob Couttie’s Maritime Accident Casebook has “Bullies Kill Crews, Sink Ships“.

Robin Storm – In Search of Severe Weather remembers 1958 in “SURVIVING THE BIGGEST WAVE EVER“.

Cargo Law has more photos of the collapsed container cranes at the Port of Jacksonville noting ‘JAXPORT Does Not Use A Tie-Down Method, And Believes That The Brakes Are Sufficient.’. As I mentioned last week, I was at the same terminal in 1992 on the containership SS HUMACAO when the wind pushed a crane so hard that it took off the top of our mast and slammed into two other cranes. Surely they were the same ones as involved this time. So the port knew that this was a possibility. One of the cranes was hit so hard that it was put out of action.

Lloyd’s List Newsroom Blog has “Overcapacity problem” (containerships) and “Is it curtains for reefers?“. (Reefer ships)

Helsingin Sanomat (Finland) has “Attempts to get GTS Finnjet back to Finland continue“. Good luck to them, especially considering that the ship is already beached at the breakers yard in Alang, India.

Marine Log has posted it’s August Edition online.

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Maritime Global Net has a case of possible unintended consequences in “INTERFERRY: SULPHUR RULES COULD PUSH CARGO ONTO ROADS“.

FERRY industry organisation Interferry has says it has alerted IMO that plans to reduce air pollution from ships could backfire both commercially and environmentally in northern Europe unless equally stringent limits on the sulphur content of fuel are applied to other transport sectors.

CourierPostOnline has “Junk exports aid port of Camden” as used and broken goods in the US find buyers in the third world willing to repair and reuse them. With that and with reports of the Russian Army stealing everything including items normally considered trash in the western world, perhaps the US can also solve its garbage problem by exporting it to Russia.

Maryland Daily Record has “Snow Bird fights to stave off order of sale“.

Meanwhile, in accordance with U.S. Department of Homeland Security policy, two armed guards stand watch over the ship 24 hours a day, at a rate of $2,640 per day. Skeen said the security measure is a consequence of one member of the crew abandoning the ship in Pennsylvania.

“They’re really not a threat to anyone,” Skeen said of the 10-man crew from South and Central America. “They all have visas, but they’ve been kept on board anyway because this one guy walked.”

No wonder there is a fear of them running away, the ship has been under arrest for five months!

The NY Sun has an opinion piece suggesting that NATO should blockade the Russian Port of Kaliningrad if Russia carries out its threat to re-arm their Baltic Fleet with nukes in “The New Insecurity“. Anyway, the Russians already have nukes there, right in the middle of Europe, which I would think would cause more of an uproar than Putin’s fit over a couple defensive missiles in Poland. See Stockholm News: “We know Russia has nukes in the Baltic region“

Trading Markets has “Peru Fights For Coins Retrieved In 2007 By Odyssey Marine“. That would be the same treasure that Spain is also demanding for itself.

The Monitor has bad news for Canada in “GOC Cancels New Vessel Acquisitions“.

Millions have been spent in the planning, design and the now aborted acquisition of the ships. Instead of buying, say one supply vessel and eight CG patrol vessels which would give the organizations at least something new to work with, every scrap of work done has been swept off the table.

For those of you located in Canada, The Discovery Channel is showing the series “Mighty Ships“. (Found at The Monitor)

Leaving 24-hour buffets, deck-side cocktail parties and peppy cruise activity directors to “tamer” ships, Discovery Channel climbs aboard to offer an exclusive look at some of the coolest working vessels in the world with the premiere of its new original Canadian series, Mighty Ships.

So far they have visited the containership EMMA MAERSK, the livestock ship BECRUX, and the Car Carrier FAUST. Anyone know when the series will be shown in the US?

AFP has more migrants traveling from Africa to the EU by small boat in “Nearly 900 immigrants converge on Italian island“. Maybe sending some naval vessels to patrol off Somalia will reduce the flow of illegal migrants?

Kennebec Captain has “Third Mates and Law School“. I sailed once after graduation. It was six months as an AB. Not by choice but simply due to a lack of third mate positions. Four of the six ABs were newly-minted third officers. Myself and one other were seen as competent. I stood bridge watch to give the Chief Mate time off as well as time to supervise what was going on around deck as the ship had no bosun. The other two couldn’t even handle doing AB work. (They also were not any good at practicing birth control with one getting the other one pregnant. It might not have happened had they done some overtime deck work. However, chipping and painting was beneath them.)

The New York Times has “Cargo Ships Leaving Red Hook? Maybe Not So Fast” as the New York City Council warns Mayor Bloomberg to back off plans to close the last remaining container terminal in Brooklyn, which by the way has lots of business. I would also think that this terminal would fit well into the US’s push to expand short-sea shipping (The Marine Highway Initiative).

The Washington Post has “Activists Break Blockade of Gaza“. They sailed a relatively small boat from Cyprus and brought in 200 hearing aids, a couple thousand balloons and 47 ‘activists’ who were hoping that Israel would make a scene by confronting them. If that’s what they are looking for, then maybe they should try breaking the Russian blockade of the Georgian Port of Poti. Y Net News has “Palestinians: Leftist boats didn’t bring enough food“

Professional Mariner has “Metal thieves cause leaks on derelict ship on Columbia River“. The ship is the former US Navy LST USS Washtenaw County.

BitterEnd has “Seriously LOST” covering a recent nighttime trip to find a small boater who had no clue where they were. They were so lost they needed to light off a couple flares. The Coast Guard was advised in advance that this would happen.

BitterEnd also has a warning for everyone taking fuel in “80 gal of diesel in a gas boat“.

Sea * Fever has the story on a house build on an island in Newport, RI in “Sea-Fever Style: The House on the Rock“.

MarineBuzz has “Wireless Maritime Services Provide Global Connectivity at Sea“. Before you get too excited, it appears that it has only been installed on cruise ships.

MarineBuzz also has “Indian Navy to Conduct Joint Naval Exercise with JMSDF” (Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces).

Tugster has photos of pizza delivery, to a New York City Police patrol boat.

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Kennebec Captain explains the “Suez Canal Light“.

The Maritime & Coastguard Agency (UK) has “8 FOREIGN SHIPS UNDER DETENTION“.

The Merchant Marine Express gets his replacement documents, noting:

I am amazed as to the government’s inability to track standard information such as citizenship through a routine background check as they surely know my Social Security number, I’m certain. Isn’t this critical information provided with every file that the Social Security Administration’s has on us?

How much do seafarers have to pay for that Government-conducted background check?

Hellenic Shipping News has “Scrap ships crowd Bangladesh shore on demand for cheap steel“.

An Unofficial Coast Guard Blog has “Africa and the U.S. Coast Guard“.

Maritime Compass has news from Canada in “Still Searching for the Franklin Expedition“.

Why send out the icebreaker Sir Wilfrid Laurier? Why look for Franklin’s ships after all this time? Not just for global maritime history, but for the reasons that have lain behind maritime exploration for centuries: to boost a claim for sovereignty.

Shipping Times has “Innovative new way to beat hull fouling“. Seems that ii is currently available for small craft.

Greenpeace is seeding the Sylt Outer Reef with huge stones to combat bottom trawling in “The North Sea ROCKS!“. Can anyone comment on the legality of this activity?

Tangobaby takes a trip to Suisun Bay in “Visit to the Ghost Fleet“. She traveled on the Liberty Ship SS JEREMIAH O’BRIEN. I was out there a long time ago, but that was to work.

Surely, everyone has seen photos of Senator Barack Obama at the beach on vacation in Hawaii. Well he also took his kids to the USS ARIZONA Memorial. Navy Newsstand has the photo.

Navy Newsstand also has a welcome to the Philippines for the USNS Safeguard (T-ARS 50).

080819-N-1231T-005 PHILIPPINES (Aug. 19, 2008) During a maritime interdiction operation exercise, a Philippine visit, board, search and seizure team member secures the bridge aboard the Military Sealift Command rescue and salvage ship USNS Safeguard (T-ARS 50) as part of a Southeast Asia Cooperation Against Terrorism (SEACAT) exercise. SEACAT brings several countries together for simultaneous bilateral exercises with the United States to enhance maritime security and interoperability. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Mark Thomas/Released)

Perfunction has “Spy Sat Sharpshooter Apparently Now On The Front Lines” with the US Navy tracking Iran’s latest missile launch.

Katu has a wreck removal update in “New Carissa gets smaller and smaller“.

delmarvanow has “Wrecked vessels tell a story – Del. coast littered with sunken boats from British rule in America“.

Watertown Daily Times has what sounds like a horror story in “Real invasive species – Snakes on Guam change the ecosystem“.

Wired looks back in “Aug. 22, 1962: First Nuke-Powered Cargo Ship Docks“. The ship of course is the NS SAVANNAH.

Wired also has “Air Force Dives into Wave Energy Project“.

BarentsObserver has fishing news with “New Russian quota regulations from Putin“.

Fox News has “Russia Won’t Leave Georgian Port, Angering Protesters“.

LiveLeak has a video tour in: “MAERSK MISSOURI…Cargo Ship Main Engine, super high def version.“.

IMC Brokers also has video in “Triple Expansion Steam Engined Tugboat SS Master” noting that the tug is ‘the last remaining wooden hulled steam powered tugboat of Her type in North America’.

blue water: news of my escape picks on bad news reporting with “Filipino Monkey and Media Idiocracy“.

Her Captain’s Voice has “US Navy ships heading towards Indian sea border“.

The SY-SHIMMI CIRCUMNAVIGATION… blog covering the round-the-world sailing vacation of Golla and Chantal Malherbe and their two little children (one of which is less than 6 months old) has been removed from Blogger. Their last post mentioned that they were sailing between Cuba and Haiti. What happened?

IceNews has “Thai tour company promotes endangered longtail boats“.

Free Ship Plans has the side wheeler “ROBT. E. LEE Missisipi Steamer Plans“.

THE PRIVATE ISLANDS BLOG has “East Germany Lives On – As a Tiny Caribbean Island“. The island is uninhabited. Hell, in my last job I ran into numerous USSR passports, issued as late as 2000!

intheboatshed.net has “Hervey Benham on the wonderful benefits of sailing a smack“. Don’t know what a smack is? Go and find out then.

Never Sea Land is getting ready to buy a bigger boat, which means his cool “Norseboat 17.5 Searaven is for sale“. (He is on the US West Coast)

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Haight’s Maritime Items has:

Maine – buoy bells have gone missing – The US Coast Guard issued a press release stating that a growing number of buoy bells have been removed from buoys along the Maine coast. Investigators suspect they are being stolen and sold. (8/14/08). – Dennis Bryant Holland & Knight homepage (Used with Permission)

AND:

Paris MOU – Annual Report – 2007 – The Paris MOU issued its Annual Report on Port State Control for 2007. It notes, that after several years of declining detention rates, those rates are now climbing. The report speculates that several factors may play a role, such as increased demand for tonnage worldwide and the reported difficulties of shipowners in finding well-qualified and experienced seafarers. (8/21/08). – Dennis Bryant Holland & Knight homepage (Used with Permission)

Fairplay Daily News has:

Three die as workers used for yard test – PROTESTERS have carried a mock coffin through Istanbul to dramatise their allegations of poor safety in Turkish shipyards.

In the most recent mishap, three men were killed on 11 August during a freefall test on a lifeboat at the Gisan yard in Istanbul’s Tuzla area. Thirteen others in the lifeboat were injured when a supporting cable snapped, propelling the craft onto a newly built tanker.

Protesters said 99 workers have been killed at the yard since 1992, but Gisan’s founder, Mehmet Oyar, told Turkish reporters that inexperienced workers were to blame for the deaths.

When asked why workers were used to load the lifeboat instead of sandbags, Oyar said: “I’ve done this job for 48 years, and I don’t know about sandbags. Sandbags are not used in those tests.”

He added that Turk Loydu, the Turkish classification and certification society, permitted using people for the lifeboat test.

The accident closed Gisan for two days. – 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.

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