Maritime Monday 170

Fred Fry is on vacation this week.

Welcome to this 170th (abbreviated) edition of Maritime Monday.

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].

This week’s photos come form the New Zealand Shipping and Marine Society:

Photo by Alan Calvert showing Hikitia and Lyttelton 2 entering drydock at Lyttelton on Monday 8 June 2009.

And a “believe it or not” mystery from cal maritime alumni Tom Lytle who reminds us of the academy’s upcoming golf tournament.

EagleSpeak has “Book Review: Terror on the Seas by Daniel Sekulich” along with continuous piracy updates on their homepage.

gCaptain has more amazing photos, this time of “Workboats In The Gulf Of Mexico” and an interesting opening on their new Maritime Jobs board.

The gCaptain forum has “Murphy’s Law and the Marine Engineer“, the role of mentors in “What shapes a captain’s ‘seamanship’?” and the post “Modern Management or the Command System?” which was bound to get a reaction from deckies when it opened with this question:

How would people here feel if i raised the issue of complete executive management responsibility being put on a Chief Engineer instead of the Captain on board, because of his better understanding of the ship and it’s equipment?

Thought the QE2’s days of sailing the seven seas was over? USA Today tells us to think again with “Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise ship may become floating hotel“.

The Maritime Executive editor Joe Keefe brings us “Lining up the Gas: Steaming in the Wrong Direction”

Kennebec Captain brings us an age old question: “Ship vs Boat, who has the Right of Way?”

Manu’s scripts launches with an archived article “AIS: Friend or Foe?” and “An attitude for survival“.

Sea Fever has “Anchored” a beautiful animated short film by Lindsey Olivares.

Maritime Accident Casebook has “Lifeboats: Never Mind The Quality, Feel The Compliance”

The American Salvage Association brings their spring edition of Soundings online in their archives.

EagleSpeak also has “Every Sailor Is A Firefighter” and tells us:

other day I was talking to a professional firefighter and mentioned that I, unlike most civilians, had been exposed to firefighting training as a part of going to sea. I used the old Navy saying, “Every sailor is a firefighter.”

We took fire safety and fire fighting preparedness very seriously on the ammunition ship I served in, but really not any more than on a destroyer or cruiser.

But it got me to thinking that most Americans don’t always appreciate that sailors have to save their own ships if they can or deal with the sea. Lose your ship and it’s a long wet walk home.

Kurt’s Weblog takes a look at how NOAA and NASA are communicating online with “Government Center Homepage BAKE-OFF“.

It’s kind of like the old joke that ends with “If you have to ask the question…” in BitterEnd’s article “Are Bayliners Bad?” and of more interest to the unlimited crowd “NOAA Reprints“.

The Old Salt Blog has “Tugboat pilot plan may have backfired – AP“.

The Monitor brings us our favorite offshore research ship in “Scientific Victoria“.

While on the subject of our friends up north Marine Buzz has Marine Buzz has “NEPTUNE Canada: World’s Largest Cabled Ocean Observatory“.

Did you know that “Uglyships.com is now on Facebook“?

iCommandant brings us “A Cadet’s Perspective on Modernization — Part Two”

AMVER’s blog has 5 Steps You Can Take To Help in a post titled “Let AMVER Serve You”

Information Dissemination has “The latest pictures from PLAN” including these of  China’s hospital ships which were also mentioned over at the NY Times in “Ship 866“.

The BBC brings us “Virus tour ends with full refund” and “Internet’s role on bug-hit cruise ship“.

The Seattle PI has “A maritime college blossoms in Ballard” and the planed 18.3 million dollar expansion of Seattle Maritime Academy, a part of Seattle Central Community College.

In a post titled “Sleep” the USNI Blog get’s 43 comments to the question: Do you think surface warriors should get a minimum amount of sleep per night like aviators? Or are there sacrifices to be made when operating at sea?

KPBS shows us the bottom line on the port of San Diego in “Public Doesn’t Get Full Story on Port’s Maritime Losses“.

The Daily Echo tells us of a “Man trapped after crane collapses in Southampton Docks”

Tradewinds has “VLCC attacked” and tell us:

In a further development a mothership used in the attack on the 264,800-dwt A Elephant (built 1987) was itself hijacked in the region at the weekend, an informed source told TradeWinds.

The Liberia-flagged tanker has suffered some damage but there were no casualties amongst the crew during the assault at around 06:00 local time on Monday in the eastern part of the Gulf of Aden. “One mothership and two skiffs approached the vessel several times and opened fire,” a statement from the UK-based Maritime Security Centre (Horn of Africa) [MSCHOA] read. “The ship’s crew successfully avoided being boarded. A helicopter of the EU NAVFOR warship Aconit arrived on scene quickly, following the early distress call.”

The MSCHOA report does not name the ship but TradeWinds understands it belongs to TMT. It was registered with the MSCHOA at the time of the attack but it is not known if it was carrying any cargo.

A well-informed source also told TradeWinds that a vessel called ‘Nefya’, which was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden at the weekend, was used as the mothership for Monday’s attempted hijacking. The fate of the crew on the vessel, which cannot be found in any shipping databases, is unknown.

Lloyd’s List has Alarm Bells:

EVEN as the industry celebrated the release of the Hebei Two by South Korean authorities, three other seafarers were under detention without charge in Taiwan.

It has only just come to light publicly that three crew from the NYK-owned very large crude carrier Tosa had been detained without charge for three months by the authorities in Taiwan over their alleged involvement in the sinking of the fishing trawler Hsin Tung Chuan 86, in which two men died. The master and a crew member of the Tosa have been bailed but not allowed to leave Hua Lien, while the second officer is being held in solitary confinement as protracted investigations continue.

NYK Ship Management managing director Hemant Pathania and Hong Kong Shipowners’ Association managing director Arthur Bowring are quite right to express their concerns and frustrations over the treatment of the seafarers.

But why has this case taken so long to come to light? With the focus the Hebei Two brought on the fair treatment of seafarers in legal cases, more pressure could have been expected by now. The industry must stand up for the rights of its seafarers and make it known publicly, as HKSOA has done in this case, that enough is enough.

Obviously if the seafarers are charged and found guilty they should face the appropriate punishment. For the time being there is no question that they should be treated as innocent until proven guilty.