Maritime Monday 152

The following is posted by the gCaptain team. Unfortnately, Fred Frey contacted us earlier saying he would not be able to put together this weeks edition of Maritime Monday.  But dont worry, we are going to see what we can put together for you and, perhaps of bigger worry, Fred will be returning next week.

So without further ado, welcome to this 152nd edition of Maritime Monday.

You can find Maritime Monday 102 here. (Published 17 March 2008)

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 the photostream’s from some of our favorite groups on the photo sharing site, Flickr:

Dry Docks/Ships/Tugboats

Ships and Vessels

Everything About The Sea

Be sure to check out all of the public Flickr groups gCaptain belongs to HERE

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This Week’s Items:

EagleSpeak has “Somali Pirates: Eyes in the Sky Intel,” featuring some good information on how unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are put to use in thwarting Somali pirates.

EagleSpeak also has some great video on “how to build a bridge in the 1930’s” presented by U.S. Steel on bridging San Francisco Bay.  Now, compare that to the new Bay Bridge.

gCaptain has an announcement from their sponsor, Faststream Recruitment, Inc.  Just recently “Faststream Launched Seagoing Recruitment.”

In the past year we have worked with Faststream to find jobs for shoreside personnel and the feedback we have gotten from our readers has been nothing short of exceptional. What we enjoy most about working with Faststream are the people. From fellow SUNY Maritime alumni and Chief Engineer Tim Klaybor and gCaptain contributor Matt Fuhrman in their Florida office to my former sailing partner Rob Almeida handling Offshore recruitment in Houston, working with Faststream has been an enjoyable experience because they, like us, are mariners and have a robust knowledge of the shipping community.

Be sure to check out Faststream’s website for more information.

gCaptain also announced the “YOUblog” feature on their forum.

Have a great idea you’d like to share with the industry? Ever think to yourself , “I could do a better job than these gCaptain guys“? Now is your chance to prove your worth.

Created by gCaptain readers, the YOUblog forum features subjects of discussion that are of interest to our members. Anyone can contribute and the best submissions are promoted to the main gCaptain blog!

So, do YOUblog?

Lloyd’s List Newsroom Blog has “Big Mistake“. As empty boxship tonnage fills up the world’s anchorages, it begs the question of whether the ultra-large containership will go the way of its older cousin, the ultra-large crude carrier.

The Maritime Executive has “State-of-the-Coast-Guard: Strong, but for how long?” and “Workboat Academy Graduates Second Class of Tugboat Mates“.

iCommandant had full coverage of “State of the Coast Guard Address” including an email distributed to the men and women of the United States Coast Guard by Admiral Thad Allen.  They also have video of the address and the Q & A session that followed.

U.S. Naval Institute Blog has “Sleep Matters!“

In 1988 Dr. Charles Czeisler and colleagues at the Center for the Design of Industrial Schedules conducted a sleep study of the Philadelphia Police Department.  They reported astonishing results.  Noticing that long, erratic work hours and shift work left police officers overly fatigued, he induced the Philadelphia Police Department to implement a new shift schedule.  The result: a 21% drop in personnel falling asleep at work and an astounding 20% reduction in on-the-job motor vehicle accidents. Interestingly, daily alcohol usage dropped  from 17% to 9%.

Space Daily has “Rapidly Developed Ship-Tracking Satellite Approaches One Year On Orbit“. They seem optimistic about the capability of this technology, Nanosatellite Tracking of Ships, despite the Coast Guard’s less optimistic predictions for the short term as discussed in a recent blogger’s roundtable with the team at acquisitions:

The satellite-based AIS that we’ve been doing right now is really more on the research and development side. As you know, we have paid for some sensors to be put on commercial satellites. The jury is kind of still out on how accurate it is and how much information it can provide. We’re still doing the analysis to see how the correlation works with, you know, terrestrial antennas we have that are picking up the same signal. But I think there’s, you know, high hope that, you know, satellites — if you chose to use that technology — have the capability to cover, you know, vast swathes of water, you know, much more so than you can with terrestrial antennas.

MSNBC has “Caribbean slow to plug cruise ship pollution“, U.N.-backed ban exists, but nations lack facilities, worry about losing ships.

The NYTimes Blog has a similar article for the US “New York City: A Plan to Cut Cruise Ship Pollution“.

The marine electronics blog, Panbo, has a question in their new forum “Group MMSIs: Any use at all?“.

Crowley Maritime joins the online trend to adopt social media tools by creating “Crowley Maritime Corporation; The FaceBook Page” and “Crowley Maritime; The Twitter Profle“. Facebook has a few maritime participants but Twitter has seen large scale adoption lead by the USCG and gCaptain but recently including Lloyds List, NOAA, Army Corps of Engineers, Norfolk Line, Brittany Ferries, Coracle and a number of other maritime interests.

Seaway has “Whale and Dolphin Strandings“.

Rigzone has “Nicaragua Inks New Offshore Exploration Deal“.

SeaFever has video from the recent TED conference of “Trash Talking from Captain Charles Moore” and also “5 amazing simulations of USAir 1549 water landing in the Hudson River” from Wired.com’s Autopia blog. This one posted below integrated the actual air traffic control audio with the simulation.

Kennebec Captain shows us advanced uses for a, seemingly, simple device in “Nautical Slide Rule, More Than Meets The Eye“.

The Monitor has “2 Million Dollar Bolts” illustrating the lengthy process after a mechanical breakdown and the importance of record keeping as seen by BC Ferries.

Ship Of The Day has “M/V Swan“

Today Ship of the Day is the semi-submersible heavy load vessel Swan (IMO: 8001000, Port of Registry: Willemstad, Dutch Antilles). The ship is 180.5 meters long, 32.3 meters wide and has a maximum draught when submerged of 21.6 meters. The Swan provides a deck space of 126.8 meters by 31.6 meters with a deck load of 16-20 tonnes/sq.m which ensures the vessel to carry heavy cargo up to 25,000 tons. She is equipped with 4 ballast pumps, electrically driven, with a total capacity of 2,800 cu.m/hr and 3 cargo pumps, also electrically driven, with a total capacity of 3,000 cu.m/hr. The Swan was built in 1977 as the Swan Arrow and was converted into her current state in 2003. She is currently operated by the Dutch based company Dockwise Shipping B.V.

The Economist has “Waiting for another Titanic: The risks of a holiday with icebergs” as pointed out by The Old Salt Blog.

Amver blog has “Don’t Trash The Beacon!“.

The Civil Air Patrol has launched a campaign to alert 121.5 beacon owners on the proper way of disposing of their old beacons. Read more about proper disposal procedures here. Improperly disposed of beacons means a volunteer air crew may have to risk their lives to search for a false alarm.

How do you dispose of a beacon?

1. Remove the battery!
2. Dispose of the device at an approved electronic disposal facility.
3. Register your new 406 beacon here.

The Unofficial Coast Guard Blog has “The Good of the recent USCG SAR case in Florida“.

The good? Yep, I’m more of a sliver-lining type of guy. There are several stories I’ve seen both on the boob-tube and on line about people madly dashing to get survival gear for their vessels; particularly EPIRB’s.

One such story is from MSNBC titled “People Stocking Up on Safety Gear After Boating Tragedy“

Shipgaz has “Fewer attacks off Somalia – more off Nigeria“.

King’s Poing Waterfront has pictures and video from a recent “Icebreaking Training Trip” on the Hudson River.

Speaking of training trips, fellow blogger Christiaan Conover of Mass Maritime did a great job of live blogging from their Sea Term 2009.

Casco Bay  Boaters has “Oceanus: As the World Turns and the Oceans Flow: In his lab, Jack Whitehead gets to the essence of complex phenomena“.

There’s the once-mysterious Alborán Gyre, for example, an unusual swirling current in the Mediterranean Sea that looks like a bulls-eye on maps and acts like a washing machine in the ocean. Or, the relatively fresh water that pours out of the Baltic Sea into the Skaggerat and noses along the south coast of Norway, floating above saltier, heavier North Sea water. Or, the cold, dense masses of water that shrug along the ocean bottom, occasionally hitting a mountainous seafloor “bump,” rising up, and cascading down the other side, like waterfalls within water.

Smithsonian Magazine has “Steering Ships Through a Treacherous Waterway“.  This is a great article (although it reads more like a story than an article) honoring Columbia River Bar Pilots.

Braving storms with 20-foot seas, an elite group of ship pilots steers through one of the world’s most treacherous waterways—the mouth of the Columbia River

Information Dissemination has “15 Classified Intel Reports Say Stealth Ships Aren’t Stealthy“.

Port Engineering News has “London Gateaway mega port put on hold” as its owner, DP World, reviews its expansion plans.  Work on the site in Essex is still expected to go ahead, but its anticipated opening in early 2011 is likely to be delayed.

Port Engineering News also has “Hope builds for Panama oil port“.

After a decade of fighting red tape and disgruntled competitors Atlantic Pacific S. A. (APSA) might be able to build a port to load and offload fuel in the area known as Oil Crib, in Balboa.

Two companies Port & Harbour Marine Services Corp and Transiberica Terminal & Services were competing for the concession and opposed to the project saying that they were unfairly treated.

Port and Transiberica put forward a request to construct marinas but the Panama Maritime Authority AMP did not give them an answer.

SteelGuru has “Slowdown signs – Chinese small shipbuilders to get hit more“. China Daily quoted an industry insider as saying that despite the positive impact of a stimulus package announced by the government recently, China’s shipbuilders, especially the mid and small scale players, would be deeply affected by the financial crisis.

The San Francisco Chronicle has “Cosco Busan pilot pleads guilty in deal“.

Capt. John Cota, 61, admitted in a San Francisco courtroom that he acted negligently in piloting the 901-foot-long Cosco Busan in a heavy morning fog Nov. 7, 2007, without using the ship’s radar or discussing his plans with the captain and crew. He also admitted failing to disclose all the prescription drugs he was taking when he renewed his federal and state pilot’s licenses in 2006 and 2007.

According to the article, the guilty plea agreemtent calls for him to serve two to 10 months in prison.

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So that does it for this edition of Maritime Monday, and I have to say, this was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.  We can’t thank Fred Frey enough for all the hard work he puts in on a weekly basis to provide us with this column, and I think I am going to be the first to say – We can’t wait to have you back, Fred.

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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