Charter rates for tankers will be so low in the fourth quarter that there will be “blood on the streets,” as one insider described the situation. Currently, rates are barely covering operating costs.
The operators of nuclear-powered Russian icebreakers have received at least 15 requests for icebreaker assistance on the Northern Sea Route next year. (Russia is trying hard to prove that merchant-ship transits of the route are both practical and economically viable.)
Thin Places and Hard Knocks
Near Malta, what was described as the “Turkish goulette-type short-sea ferryboat” Fernandes hit the Marku Shoal and the master ran his leaking vessel aground on a nearby rocky shore. All 48 passengers and crew of six were removed safely, and salvage operations started. (The goulette or gulet is an extraordinarily handsome, traditional clipper-bowed, ketch-rigged craft originally used by Turkish fishermen or spongers and this one may have been in use as a cruise or excursion vessel.) Off Batangas in the Philippines, the cargo ship Hummer H1, carrying plywood, ran aground, opening cracks in both sides of the bow and damaging about 15,000 square meters of coral reef.
The cargo vessel Twisteden arrived at Duisburg with its wheelhouse crushed due to an allision with a bridge in Antwerp.
An explosion on the chemical tanker Gagasan Perak triggered an oil spill in Indonesia’s Sepanjang oilfield. The ship was being used to store crude oil.
In New Zealand, the coaster Spirit of Resolution was damaged by high seas when it tried to cross the Manukau Harbor bar. (Auckland has two harbors, the Waitemata on the north side of the city and accessible from the east, is used by most shipping, and the west-opening Manukau by coasting vessels.) It could move under its own power but had damaged steering. The tug Rupe headed north from New Playmouth and reached the damaged vessel the next day and started escorting it south for repairs. Off the Virginia coast, the tug Lucinda Smith was towing the 220-foot deck barge Dick Z when the tug crew noticed that the barge’s bow was flooding. The tug shifted to towing the barge by the stern and managed to anchor it, still afloat, in Hampton Roads. At India’s Jawaharial Nehru Port (India’s largest container port), two containers fell onto the tank tops of the container ship Lahore Express and punctured a fuel tank. The anti-pollution precautions taken soon after delayed about ten ships.
On the Houston Ship Channel, the scrap-loaded lead barge of a three-barge tow sliced into a high voltage transmission tower carrying multiple power lines across the Channel. Luckily the power was off for maintenance and the tower ended up being supported by the barge until the barge-carried derrick Big John could take over. Ironically, a major electrical power company owns the barges and the towboat is named the Safety Quest. Un-ironically, the three-day closure of the Channel kept about seventy ships from their business and cost the region about $1 billion. In North Devon, high winds broke the (apparently unused) suction dredger Severn Sands free of its mooring and it sailed into the River Taw, grounded, then floated free on a very high tide, and was carried upriver toward Barnstaple. It was finally beached at Fremington Quay, and officials and many others breathed easier.
Twelve people, mostly port officials and dockworkers, were treated at Abu Dhabi after being affected by gas fumes from a berthed tugboat at Mina Zayed. The tug had been there for about a year. In the UK, routine testing of the anchored tanker British Cormorant’s rescue boat got a visit from Captain Murphy when a line snapped and six crewmen were dumped into the water. A Coastguard rescue helicopter rescued them and took one with spinal injuries to a hospital. And during routine maintenance, a lifeboat fell onboard the cargo ship Belorus while in Turkey’s Aliagra Anchorage. Two crewmen were seriously injured, one dying later in a hospital. At a Korean-owned shipyard in the Philippines, an injured shipyard worker died on the way to a hospital. No mention as to what happened.
At Gig Harbor in the State of Washington, a worker fell off a barge while working on a sewer outfall and went under the barge un-noticed. He was spotted when he emerged at the other end, unconscious and purple. CPR resuscitated him and he was discharged from a local hospital three days later. A crewman on the 580-foot bulker BK Champ injured his hand and an Alaskan-based Cost Guard helicopter plucked him off the ship about 30 miles south of Adak. This seemingly simple mission required three MH-60 helicopters and one HC-130 aircraft and they flew over 1,800 miles.
Gray Fleets
Great Britain is so short of workers with shipbuilding skills that Polish welders are being hired to build the two aircraft carriers that the UK has under construction (at least until the next Defense Plan is released). Many of the foreigners learned their skills building Soviet submarines. It probably helps the Exchequer or the contractors’ profit lines that they are willing to accept wages that are nearly half that of their British equivalents.
While training at night with the US Coast Guard Cutter Frank Drew, a coastguardsman fell off a small boat. His body was found the next day.
For several years now, the thick anechoic coating on several Virginia-class subs has been peeling off in patches that sometimes measure hundreds of square feet. The US Navy is investigating why the sound-absorbent stuff has been causing “fail-to-sail” problems; particularly affected has been the USS Texas.
The US Navy stopped or limited operations of at least ten Cyclone-class coastal patrol boats after finding structural damage. The boats are essentially past their expected lifespan of fifteen years and have seen hard service chasing pirates and drug-smugglers.
The boom of a commercial crane fell across the aft section of the guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey at the Norfolk Naval Station. High winds apparently blew the boom over. Some damage to the warship but nobody hurt.
The commanding officer of the Indian Kilo-class submarine INS Sindhurakshak has had three accidents (in the language of an Indian news report: ”hitting a sand dune, entangling with a fishing boat, and hitting the submarine into a jetty”). A Court of Inquiry found him guilty of all three charges and he was, in the language of the news item, “set aside.
The French Navy does not have a need for such an offshore patrol vessel and is uncertain about the legalities but it has agreed to man the Hermes, a Gowind-class OPV built and owned by a French shipyard that hopes to get foreign orders for such vessels. The Navy crew would be onboard for up to three years.
During a search for the small boat My Business, a Venezuelan navy helicopter crashed into the Bolivian Navy research vessel Vo-11 and five were injured while two others went missing. Many of those involved in the crash were medical personnel who had treated people rescued from two motorboats the day before.
Russia will test its new Buluva intercontinental ballistic, sea-launched missile three more times. Failures will mean drastic changes in “the whole production and control system.” To date, only five of twelve test firings have been successful.
White Fleets
The 1975-built German cruise ship Delphin did not make a scheduled cruise to the Black Sea. The question was whether that was due to a ”technical defect,” as the charterer claimed, or the arrest by a French court due to claims for unpaid charter payments. In any case, up to 700 ticket-holders did not travel to the Black Sea.
The Oasis of the Seas was about to depart from Port Everglades when somebody spotted a Florida burrowing owl (a bird of special environmental concern) that had made a home in the ship’s mini-golf course on the upper deck. Wildlife personnel safely removed the pint-sized bird and released it somewhere more suitable.
Starting next year, larger cruise ships may be banned from the Antarctic. Smaller cruise ships must not use heavy fuel oil (due to its potential for devastating pollution in case of a spill) but can land up to 100 passengers at a time while larger ships must not offload any passengers.
A rumpus on the liner QM2 caused a couple to be ordered ashore, possibly in a remote part of Quebec. Fellow passengers interceded and the Commodore changed the marooning sentence to one requiring the pair to stay in their cabin under house arrest for the six remaining days of their £12,000 cruise plus turning over all their liquor. She is 82, Jewish and a successful Broadway play producer while he is 91, owns a chain of art cinemas, produced a porn film, and claims to be the illegitimate son of the Duke of Winsor (yep, he who could have been King Edward VIII but abdicated instead). The cause of the rumpus seems to have been a remark she overheard from a nearby dining room table that there were too many Jews on board. She stood up and responded with vigor and profanity before storming off to their stateroom. Next day, she refused to apologize for the vulgarity of her language. She later dramatically claimed that the episode has “ruined our lives. It has changed us forever.”
Computation sometimes makes modern ships difficult to operate smoothly. Take, for example, the up-to-date, all-suites Great Lakes cruise ship Clelia II. Recently, it lost power and grounded while on passage through the North Channel towards Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. It dropped an anchor, and soon was able to resume its voyage. Just out of the port, it lost power again and dropped that anchor again. It soon resumed steaming but power again disappeared. It was dragging both anchors as it tried to avoid plowing into a marina and took out one channel marker before it was able to back off. A tug soon appeared and took charge of the bewildered ship. Onlookers reported that there was a large boom like an earthquake when it hit the shore somewhere in its wild journey.
Those That Go Back and Forth
Fatigued by playing at a recent concert, a dozing Taiwanese violinist on a Hong Kong Star ferry failed to notice when somebody swiped his violin. It was made in 1838 and was worth more than $350,000. Closed-circuit TV helped authorities track down the robber. He said he thought the violin was worth maybe $20 and was fined 2,000 Hong Kong dollars (about US$257).
The smallish but government-owned Newfoundland ferry Marine Voyager struck a small (6 meter) anchored fishing boat off Burgeo on Newfoundland’s south coast whose occupant was fishing for cod. The ferry had just left the government wharf at Burgeo and continued on after striking the FV. The fisherman said he saw nobody in the wheelhouse or on deck. No injuries, some righteous indignation, and a protest to authorities.
In remote northeastern Brazil, a small and overloaded ferry capsized and ten children died. Seven adults, however, survived. On the Greek holiday island of Kos, the catamaran ferry Aegean Cat came into its dock too fast, and hit it twice. About 25 British tourists (out of 213 aboard) were injured, five seriously, with one female breaking a leg. In Nova Scotia at the ferry terminal at North Sydney, cocaine was found in a backpack and a man was arrested before he could board the ferry to Newfoundland. Street value of the white power was at least $1.5 million. In New York Harbor, a suicidal woman jumped off the ferry Andrew J. Barberi while it was passing the Statue of Liberty. Three harbor policemen rescued her within two minutes. Thirteen Sudanese traveling to mourn the 37 victims of a collision of two buses (one had rushed past a truck but smashed into an oncoming minibus, setting it on fire and killing four children) were themselves victims of a ferry capsize on the White Nile near Alrader. Nine others survived. At Genoa, two young German tourists were driving their car off the ferry Moby Otta when it moved and their car dropped into the water. They drowned.
At Auckland, New Zealand, alcohol played some kind of role when the ferry Quickcat, traveling at about 20 knots, sucked a 7.5-meter motor launch between its hulls, capsizing the smaller boat and putting two boaters in the water. The launch’s operator was asked if he had been drinking and tersely replied, “I have no comment on anything.” A police spokeswoman noted that there was no law against operating a vessel under the influence of alcohol but the ferry crew was breath-tested anyways. (Is there a conflict between police policy and the regulations of Maritime New Zealand?)
Legal Matters
Usually, US Federal courts go after the chief engineer and the shipping company when the crime is use of a ‘magic pipe” and/or improper logging of a watery-oil separator usage. But a recent case added a classification-society surveyor because he had certified that the pollution-prevention equipment on the landing craft Island Express I was adequate although the separator was actually broken. Everyone was found guilty and will be sentenced in December.
The master of the oil tanker Kashmir was found guilty of unintentionally destroying property after the ship struck the anchored container ship Sima Bay at Dubai last February, causing a major fire. He was fined Dh30,000 (about US$8,000).
A pilot took the tanker Noord Fast into the Fawley Refinery at Southampton in the UK while the master was down below, prematurely celebrating a scheduled return to his homeland. On the master’s return to the wheelhouse after the ship was moored, he was “unsteady on his feet” and had “glazed eyes” so the pilot contacted police. In court, the master pleaded guilty to being in charge of a vessel (even though it was moored) while drunk and was fined £1,700.
Migrants and Other Imports
Near Montreal, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police opened a shipping container and found it packed to the roof with cardboard boxes containing seven tons of hash. “It’s black and compact like Plasticine,” said one official. The hash may have originated in Pakistan.
Nature
The 620-foot German-flagged container ship Northern Vitality arrived at San Francisco with a dead minke whale draped across its bow but was unaware of its presence until a greeting tugboat notified the ship. The whale was still in position when the ship docked at berth 57 at Oakland. Judging by its swollen body (visible in photos), the whale had been dead for some time, and its head and fins were missing, perhaps eaten off by sharks.
In Scotland, Greenpeacers protesting deep-water drilling managed to attach a specially built pod to the anchor chain of the 700-foot drill ship Stena Carron and several lived in it for several days until police said ‘enough of this nonsense’ and ousted them.
Metal Bashing
Reefers – those ships whose holds are large refrigerators – are on the way out and are being replaced by refrigerated containers. The world fleet of reefers now numbers 778 and is expected to shrink to 450 by 2020. Of hundreds of ships on order, only eight reefers are being built.
The Royal Navy must eventually replace its Type 22 and 23 frigates and the replacements will be called the Type 26. A British defense contractor wants the Brazilian military to co-design the Type 26, a move that is OK with the British Government since it recently signed a pledge of military cooperation with Brazil. Other countries, such as India, may also be asked to become co-designers.
Nasties and Territorial Imperatives
Tanzania has a navy (seven fast attack craft and twelve patrol boats) and its sailors are not afraid to fight. Somewhere in the general vicinity of the energy-exploration vessel Ophir Energy, Somali pirates opened fire on an un-specified Tanzanian warship, hitting it at least fifty times. The warship returned fire and eventually captured a pirate. The baddies may have planned to kidnap workers from the Ophir Energy and hold them for ransom.
Somali pirates captured the Greek-operated cargo ship Lugela but the crew had fortified themselves in a citadel and would not allow the pirates to control the ship. Two days later, the frustrated pirates left the ship.
Odd Bits and Headshakers
Many inland vessels in Europe carry the owner’s car on the afterdeck. At Rotterdam, a Volvo station wagon became a CTL (constructive total loss) when it fell while the vessel’s crane was swinging it over another vessel to the wharf.
For some years, the specialized bulker 150-000-ton Taharoa Express, built in 1999, has been loading a pumped slurry of concentrated ironsand (titanomagnetite) from a New Zealand beach, and drying it on the subsequent voyage to China and Japan, where the cargo is unloaded conventionally and used to make steel. The ship is nearing the end of a contract (and its service life—it has had corrosion problems in recent months that seriously threatened its stability and worried maritime officials) so a Japanese shipping company is having a new slurry tanker built. That may mean the contract will be extended for another 15 years.
What is probably the world’s oldest complete steamship will go on exhibit at the Thames port of Tilsbury. The 1890-built Robin will sit on a “bespoke special floating dock” (read that as a “barge”). The oldie was recently and thoroughly conserved to the tune of £1.9 million (about $2.9 million).
A German firm has developed a propeller that can adjust its pitch without mechanical components. Carbon-fiber plastic blades are attached to a metal hub and they flex according to the load and rpms. A propeller can handle up to 3,500 bhp and ten sets have been ordered for use on ten patrol boats for the Dutch Water Management.
Because a tugboat had run into Wat Ka Rong’s floating market in Thailand, it broke adrift. It then sank about twenty small boats and slightly injured several people while running amok. The floating market is about 100 meters long and can support about 200 shoppers and merchants. Police filed charges of reckless driving.
