Maritime Monday – The Top Maritime News Headlines Of The Week

Please standby as we continue to test opportunities for the return of our Maritime Monday weekly news brief. 

Here are the top maritime news stories of the last week:

Ocean Rebellion launches a protest against Weymouth cruise ships | Dorset Echo Protestors from Ocean Rebellion, took to the water on Tuesday evening to raise awareness of their campaign to end the cruise ship industry. The group used large video projectors to light up hulls of the hull of ships with slogans like ‘illegal dumper’ and ‘ship of fools’.

Op-Ed: The Popular Mechanics Of Maritime Innovation – gCaptain  If we want profits, if we want to avoid risk, if we want to save lives at sea, if we want to survive in a post-COVID world then we can’t “manage innovation”. We can’t tell the maritime technology startups what to build. We can’t think linearly and lose patience when pitches start sounding a little complicated and messy. No, we need to write checks, we need to offer our trust and support and we need to ask the best and the brightest startup founders, people like MIT startup founder Dr. Mohamed Saad Ibn Seddik, how WE can help THEM.

China Is Not Even Close To Meeting Phase One Trade Deal Agreements Forbes Blame it on the pandemic. Or maybe (depending on whom you ask) it’s just China being China. But the “super great” phase one trade deal that President Trump got done last year is nowhere near the commitments China made in terms of imports.

For Women Seafarers in the Philippines, Sexual Harassment at Sea Goes Mostly Unpunished – gCaptain The new article by the IDS tells the story of how a group of Filipino women seafarers have organized the first-ever women’s committee at the Association of Marine Officers and Seafarers’ Union of the Philippines (AMOSUP), the biggest seafarers’ union in the Philippines, to help fight back against sexual harassment in the maritime industry.

CMA CGM hires driver of digitization strategy – FreightWaves, CMA CGM announced Friday it hired Nicolas Sekkaki, CEO of IBM France, to execute its digitization and technology strategy. Friday’s announcement made no mention of IT problems caused this week by the ransomware attack reported Monday.

Op-Ed It’s Time For Kings Point To Step Up To The Plate – gCaptain In the current political hurricane of COVID, supreme court battles, a presidential election, and political protests… it would seem best to hold off on increasing USMMA funding for now. That would be a mistake.

IMO Cyber-attack Has Serious Implications On Friday the IMO restored access to their website IMO.org after a cyber attack but what are the implications to implementing the organizations’ IMO2021 cybersecurity guidelines which go into effect at the end of this year?

Long Beach bridge, a decade in the making, opens Monday – FreightWaves The  $1.47 billion project took seven years and raised the bridge’s clearance 55 feet to more than 200 feet to allow increasingly bigger container ships to reach the Port of Long Beach.

US import bonanza could extend into 2021 on ‘record’ restocking – Freightwaves No one predicted a U.S. import surge in the middle of a pandemic — but it’s happening. The big question now is: How long can this last? The reason might be a shift in inventory levels as producers shift from ‘just in time’ to ‘just in case.’

 They Needed a Place to Marry. Suddenly Their Ship Came In- NYTimes.  With many venues closed, people are heading to sea to get married including this New York couple who got married on the world’s smallest aircraft carrier.

The Battle To Save The World’s Rarest Species From Extinction Following Mauritius Oil Spill – Forbes The Battle To Save The World’s Rarest Species From Extinction Following Mauritius Oil Spill The front lines of this extinction battle is happening live on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, which is still battling the effects of a major oil spill from the M/V Wakashio

Hydrogen fuel cells ordered for €5.85Bn European transportation project – Riviera. Netherlands-headquartered Chemgas Shipping has partnered with Austrian engineering group AVL and technology company TECO 2030 to install hydrogen fuel cells on river tugs.This is part of the €5.85Bn (US$6.7Bn) Blue Danube short sea ship[ping hydrogen project that involves river transportation of this liquefied fuel into central Europe.

Sale of the century: DOF, Vroon, Swire, Maersk and POSH shrink  Offshore Accounts – Baird Maritime  Tidewater and Bourbon have drastically shrunk their fleets in the face of pressure from investors tired of idle vessels bleeding cash in the multi-year downturn. We saw banks rushing to auction offshore assets for pennies on the dollar, and marveled at the bargains to be had in an industry where the main buyers of tonnage are little known Chinese and Indian companies.

Eastern Pacific unveils more comfortable living quarters for its crew – Splash247  According to Seth Godin design is free. The cost of making a space look welcoming and comfortable increases the health and welfare of the crew. A happy, healthy crew is safer and more profitable. A cool design also attracts young people. Great design = getting people to do what you want | Seth’s Blog

Next U.S. Supercarrier Named After Black American Hero Sailor – American Defense News In a U.S. military first, the Navy is naming its next aircraft carrier, not after an American president, but after a black American sailor and Pearl Harbor hero.

The Pentagon Wants to Supersize the Navy to 500+ Ships. Good Luck Paying for That. – Popular Mechanics The U.S. Navy wants to boost the size of its battle force fleet by at least 50 percent, making it the undisputed leader in warships. The Chinese Navy has more ships than the U.S. Navy, though U.S. warships are generally more technologically advanced and more capable. New plans to boost America’s fleet rely heavily on affordable unmanned warships.

Bunker quality concerns emerge amid aviation slump | TradeWinds $ Shipowners are being warned of the side effects of weak aviation fuel demand during the coronavirus pandemic: while bunker supply could increase, quality could be hit. 

A Keppel-South Korean yard merger could be a game-changer, says analyst | TradeWinds $ A merger between Keppel Corp’s offshore arm and one of its South Korean rivals could be an option for the Singapore company, a local

The Maritime Risk Podcast – The Digitalisation of the Shipping Industry with Winward According to recent predictions the amount of maritime data collected worldwide in 2025 will be ten times what it was in 2017. How will this data be processed and what are the implications Coe shipping. 

Chinese Test Shows Potential for Ballistic Missiles on Merchant Ships – MAREX  On September 15, China successfully launched the Long March-11 solid propellant launch vehicle off a merchant vessel in the Yellow Sea. This was the second such sea-based launch of a rocket conducted by China.

CDC Director Warns That Cruise Ship Travel Exacerbates The Spread Of COVID19 – gCaptain Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), announced in a new report that cruise ship travel exacerbates the global spread of COVID19 and has extended the CDC No Sail Order through the end of October.

Cruise Ship Construction Accelerates with Two Large Ships Delivered – Riviera Sidelined like so many businesses during the pandemic, cruise ship construction is picking up again with the first two large cruise ships delivered by their builders since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

The business case for all-electric-powered tugs – Riviera  There is a business case for tugs powered by batteries and shore power despite costing twice the price of conventional tugboats to build. This was a key takeaway from a recent Damen Shipyards study.

Implications of Qatar’s mega-order are more than meets the eye – Riviera  Qatar Petroleum (QP) has reserved newbuilding berths for more than 100 LNG carriers from South Korean shipyards by 2027. The implications of the deal for other LNG market players seeking to order ships and shipbuilders are potentially significant. 

Practical uses for IoT in ship management – Thetius  What are the internet of things (IoT) devices and how can they be used aboard ships? Nic Gardner at Thetius explains. 

American exporters want end to erratic container return dates – Freightwaves When containers are unable to enter the marine terminal due to a sailing schedule delay, container shippers like Sinner must scramble to find safe and secure sites nearby to hold their shipments. The longer the box sits, the hundreds of dollars in storage fees rack up and Sinner watches his profit on the shipment dwindle.

Goodbye, Narwhal: submarine whose stealth changed the Navy dismantled – Local News  The Narwhal’s reactor compartment, like the roughly 135 of them that have been shipped to Hanford, has to be sealed in steel 3/4 of an inch thick on all sides before transport aboard a specially reinforced barge. The whole process of dismantling takes the better part of a year and, on average, about $27 million.

Edison Chouest Offshore to Build and Operate First Large Jones Act-Compliant Offshore Wind Vessel – gCaptain Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO), Ørsted and Eversource have executed a long-term charter agreement for the provision of the first-ever Jones Act-compliant Service Operations Vessel (SOV) for the U.S. offshore wind industry.

Bouchard Transportation Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy – gCaptain The privately-held US company intends to fund the chapter 11 process with debtor-in-possession financing, which will provide it enough funds to maintain normal business operations as it undertakes “key operational restructuring initiatives, including to ensure the fleet is in full compliance with all operating regulations,”

Maersk sends its first train from Rotterdam to China | PortandTerminal.com  Emile Hoogsteden, Vice President Commercial at the Port of Rotterdam Authority, added: “This new direct rail connection between the port of Rotterdam and China is a fantastic first step. It has definitely whetted our appetite. Rotterdam has an excellent short sea network, and this initiative shows that freight trains form an efficient alternative thanks to our solid rail connections with the hinterland.”

Asylum seekers could be processed on old ferries – BBC News Now the Times reports that the government is giving “serious consideration” to the idea of buying retired ferries and converting them into processing centers, but it says the Home Office rejected a proposal to use decommissioned oil platforms in the North Sea.

EU Emission Trading System will inhibit global CO2 reductions – BIMCO When the EU attempted to unilaterally enforce its Emission Trading System (ETS) on airlines flying in or out of EU in 2012, it was met with stiff opposition from large countries, such as China, India and the U.S.; an EU-imposed regional ETS for shipping could lead to similar responses.

For the fire-ravaged ship Bonhomme Richard, the US Navy has no good options – Defense News The bottom line? The Navy can either: fix Bonhomme Richard at enormous cost; replace her with a new LHA, a class of ship that Congressional Research Service says is running about $3.8 billion per hull, further constricting an already squeezed shipbuilding budget; try to pull an old big-deck out of mothballs and overhaul it for a few years of service, or it can cut bait entirely and lose the capacity altogether.

Cracked Containership Leaking Oil at Bayonne, New Jersey Terminal – gCaptain A containership docked at a container terminal in Bayonne, New Jersey is leaking fuel from a small crack in the ship’s hull, the U.S. Coast Guard reported Wednesday. The impacted tank is reported to have a capacity of 462,297 gallons. At this point, it is unclear exactly how much fuel has leaked from the vessel.

Supply chain radar: Growing up…Zim lines up its fifth IPO attempt – The Loadstar  Rumours that Israeli shipping line Zim is once more considering an initial public offering were eventually confirmed a week ago in the small print that accompanied an announcement according to which the carrier is buying up to $58.5m of its debt from bondholders in a Dutch auction process.

Kathrine Fredriksen: Reading the runes of a Norse saga | TradeWinds  The fog around who will take control of John Fredriksen’s $13bn global empire is beginning to clear.

Dry bulk shipping rates have just hit a new 2020 high – FreightWaves  Capesize bulkers are now earning over $34,000 per day. More ocean shipping signals are flashing green. First came a recovery in the container sector,  driven by surging U.S. consumer demand. Now comes a rebound in dry bulk, the world’s largest freight market in terms of volume.

Sweden Launches New Arctic Strategy – High North News Sweden will profile and position itself as an attractive, innovative and competitive Arctic state and “draw benefits from Sweden’s Arctic competence and resources for growth, employment, increased welfare and sustainable development with reduced environmental and climate effects”.