Thursday, February 3, 2011

Other Shores -February 2011

Offshore oilfield work is hard but lucrative, fishing pays off, and LNG is a coming area but don’t expect great profits from shipping in the next two years, predicted one expert.

Seafarers are subject to greater penalties than pirates – at least that is true in the European Union. The master of the Prestige (a tanker that broke in half 250 miles at sea and spilled its oil onto Spanish beaches) was prosecuted harder than any pirate in the last 50 years. He was detained for three months and then released on a “provisional” bail of €3million ($4million). That sum is greater than pirates get for simply keeping hostages for same amount of time! Now the EU’s and NATO navies advise that they will not even try to help a ship that has been boarded by pirates, and they even advocate non-resistance.

More than fifty years ago, New Zealand decided to ban visits by US naval vessels because the US Government would not state whether nuclear weapons were or were not on board. The US Navy’s official position now is that it has no military requirement for ship visits but would consider participation in naval exercises. But a message released by WikiLeaks revealed that a top-ranking United States navy commander privately admitted that the US had no reason to send any of its fleet to New Zealand anyway.

Thin Places and Hard Knocks
A rice barge did the bubbly act on the Saigon River in Ho Chi Minh City when hit by the container ship Fortune Freighter. The ship went on to damage nine more barges. In the China Sea, the Vietnam-flagged container ship Phu Tan sank 110 miles west of Hainan Island’s Sanya city. Two of a crew of 27 were saved. The stone-carrying Hung Cuc 168, probably overloaded, was capsized and sunk by strong winds near the Minjiang Estuary in the East China Sea. Thirteen of seventeen crewmen were saved. The 6,800-dwt ore-carrying freighter Van Don-2 sank quickly in off Vietnam and twelve of the crew were rescued by fishermen but eleven more were missing. The Korean trawler In Sung No.1 sank in the Antarctic in 30 minutes while long-line fishing for toothfish. Twenty fishermen were rescued, five were dead, and seventeen went missing. A company spokesman said the ship could have struck an iceberg or was hit by a giant wave.

In Chittagong’s wreck-littered harbor in the dark of night, the 40-foot fishing trawler Dwarkamal ran into a jutting piece of wreckage in the W-1 Anchorage and sank. Three fishermen managed to swim for two hours until picked up by a passing tugboat. The other six swam in the chilly water for four hours and finally reached the coast at Navy Nagar. All eight fishermen came from the same village and villagers later helped them retrieve the sunken boat.

On Turkey’s Mediterranean coast two Bolivian-flagged ships went ashore. The Sea Bright ran onto rocks off the popular resort city of Antalya while the Rant went ashore off the town of Adrasa southwest of Antyalya. Most of the Sea Bright’s crew was saved but the ship’s cook jumped into the sea and drowned. (In emergencies, cooks sometimes to do that.) The 173-metre-long Dutch cargo ship Stadiongracht, with a cargo of china clay from Brazil, ran aground near the town of Rauma on Finland’s west coast. Damage was limited to ballast tanks and the crew of seventeen patiently waited nearly a week for an Estonian tug to show up. In Florida, the research vessel Endeavour, operated by the University of Rhode Island, ran aground on the St Johns River near the Navy base at Mayport.

The smallish (10,000 dwt) ro/ro Jolly Amaranto had main-engine failure during a passage from Malta to Alexandria. Extreme bad weather then caused the ship to list 30-40°, several containers went overboard, and inside cargo was damaged. A salvage contract was signed and the deep-sea tug took the vessel in tow for Alexandria. There, two local pilots were on board and three local tugs were in attendance but theSimoon Jolly Amaranto veered off course anyhow and went hard aground between the roads and a quay. At the time the port was closed due to bad weather. (Some reports state that the vessel took on water and capsized, sinking in the shallows.)

Four Chinese sailors died when fire gutted the 1,400-ton Cambodia-flagged cargo ship Yunxing two miles from South Korea’s southern port of Busan. The coast guard said the blaze might have been caused by a short circuit in the ship’s galley.


At sea near Houston a Ukrainian crewmember died on the Dutch cargo ship Alexia. The FBI is investigating whether the death was a murder or an accident – according to some reports, there was a scuffle between two Ukrainians. At Lyttelton in New Zealand, two crewmen on the cruise ship Volendam were doing something (what is not clear from contradictory reports) on a lifeboat when a wire snapped. Both men were not wearing lifejackets and both fell into the water. One survived by clinging to a bucket but the other man, who was wearing heavy clothing and boots, was seen to go under and did not reappear.

Gray Fleets
Brazil’s new leftist government banned HMS Clyde, the 1,800-ton Falkland Islands protection vessel, from making a routine visit to Rio de Janeiro. Instead it had to reroute to Chile. The snub was to demonstrate solidarity with Argentina’s claim to the South Atlantic islands. In September, Uruguay refused to allow HMS Gloucester to carry out a routine visit to Montevideo.

The last of the US’s battleships, now swinging from a hook in Suisun Bay north of San Francisco, is looking for a permanent home and several California communities would like to have the USS Iowa as a war memorial. In 2005, San Francisco rejected the warship because of its association with the Iraq war and the military’s ban on gays. Stockton, on a navigable river leading to Suisan Bay, failed the financial test. Vallejo would like to exhibit the vessel at the former Mare Island Navy Yard but may lack enough money ($2-3 million a year) to support it. Los Angeles wants the battleship and would place the Iowa at Berth 87, now used only six times a year when other cruise-ship docks are occupied. No decision yet but one is looming just over the horizon.

Several years ago, the executive officer of the carrier USS Enterprise thought that part of his duties was to increase crew morale by amusing them. He produced a series of raunchy, definitely non-PC videos, and most of the crew didn’t seem to object to his broadcasts. Certainly, the Commanding Officer never brought him to heel. Years later, several of the videos came to public attention, and the XO, now paradoxically the CO of the Enterprise, was fired from his job. The CO at the time of the video showings is now a Rear Admiral and was about to retire. That retirement was deferred and he has been ordered to hang around while the circumstances surrounding the videos are investigated by the Navy.

The Royal Navy is down to just eleven submarines if you include the new HMS Astute, which is on sea trials when not running aground. The eleven can be compared with the fleet of 32 submarines back in 1982 at the time of the Falklands War. Present boats include four Vanguard-class boats that carry Trident nuclear missiles, and Trafalgar- and Astute-class attack subs.

White Fleets
An elderly man seriously injured his neck while disembarking (probably from the Emerald Princess, although no name was provided) and the company was quick to point out that he fell “ashore in Bonnaire…while stepping ashore.” In other words, technically he wasn’t on its ship. He needed an air ambulance to the States. A young man died by falling from the 14th deck of MSC Orchestra while it was anchored in Brazilian waters. The company stated, "He was rescued from the sea, but succumbed to his injuries and died," and considered that the man had placed himself in a “situation of high risk and dangerousness.” About thirty passengers were hurt and several public spaces were torn up when the Brilliance of the Seas hit rough weather while en route to Alexandria. A US Coast Guard helicopter lifted a thirteen-year-old and his mother off the Jewel near Cape Hatteras, NC. He had a suspicious appendix that needed attention. Similarly, an infant and her mother were flown off the Gem 245 miles south of Cape Lookout, NC. The baby girl was suffering from upper respiratory tract infection and respiratory distress. A Puerto Rican may have jumped off the Liberty of the Seas, possibly to his death, in the early hours of morning while the ship was at Belize.

Last November’s electrical fire on the Carnival Splendor of Mexico’s Baja California must have been more serious than first believed. The company added cancellation of five more sailings to nine earlier cancellations. Unexpected damage and the need to have parts made in Europe were cited as causes.

They That Go Back and Forth
The Alaskan fast ferry Chenega rode out a sudden storm by anchoring for a night in a remote bay, then proceeded to Cordova, The trip took somewhat longer that the scheduled 3 hours 15 minutes and the forty passengers on board had to rough it since the ferry has no sleeping accommodations.

In the UK over the past year, extensive dredging has been carried out at the major cross-Channel ferry port of Ramsgate Harbour but more work remains to be done, with the next round not due to commence until February. Which is too bad, because high winds pushed the 14,458-ton ferry Larkspur aground on a mud bank while entering the port with passengers from Ostende in Belgium. The emergency standby tugboat Nore Challenger was dispatched to dislodge the ship and guide it into its berth.

A ferry collided with a cargo ship in Bangladesh, dumping eighty people into the Suma River. At least 37, mostly women and children, died. In Malaysia, an overloaded boat (29 people on a vessel rated for 12) capsized about 300 meters from the Tanjung Lleman jetty in Pulau Sibu and only fourteen were rescued. The vessel had been coming to shore from a kelong (an offshore fishing platform on piles). Two men were missing at night after the ferry they were travelling in capsized in the Thames. The small boat was carrying six passengers when it went over near Pharaoh’s Island close to Shepperton.

Nature
The US Navy is serious about climate charge, with a rear admiral (the Navy’s oceanographer) heading a 450-man staff. “We in the US Navy believe climate change is real. It's going to have big impacts, especially in the Arctic, which is changing before our eyes.”

Nauru (pronounce it in three syllables) is a small island nation in the South Pacific Ocean, a solitary speck with a landmass of 8.1 square miles, surrounded by a coral reef. It was originally a heap of phosphate (guano) created from seabird droppings but almost all that has been mined off and shipped out, and most areas now resemble the surface of the moon. During the phosphate-mining era, Nauru had one of the highest per-capita incomes in the world. (Families imported top-of-the-line speedboats as well as BMWs and Cadillacs, which, given that Nauru only has 32 km of drivable surface, were somewhat curious luxuries.) After the phosphate ran out, Nauru briefly became a tax haven and illegal-money-laundering center. From 2001 to 2008, it accepted aid from the Australian government in exchange for housing a center that held and processed those immigrants who had tried to enter Australia in an irregular manner. The nation’s airline (Our Airline, formerly Air Nauru) is down from seven aircraft and an extensive route serving many islands to two Boeing 737s that serve only Fiji, Kiribati, the Solomon and Norfolk Islands as well as Australia. Unemployment now averages 90% and the nation survives on international aid.

Approximately 15,000 gallons of liquid animal fat flowed into the Houston Ship Channel, where it solidified into multiple foot-long, beef-tallow "patties." Clean-up workers soon scooped them out of the Channel.

Metal-Bashing
Mammoet Salvage, part of Mammoet, the worldwide leader in heavy lifting and transport, will salvage seventy shipwrecks in Nouadhibou Bay, Mauretania after the European Union made €28.8 million available for their removal. The junk ships, ranging from 200 to 1,200 tons, form obstacles and hazards to shipping and are one reason local shipping has dropped off greatly in recent years.

Nasties and Territorial Imperatives
Shipping companies are ignoring official advice and routinely employ armed guards on ships sailing in pirate waters. It’s far cheaper and far more effective than other anti-pirate means or paying a (typical) $6 million ransom plus lawyers, bankers, and other middlemen, whose costs may add another $19 million. Then add on the loss of income as a pirated ship awaits a parachuted delivery of ransom cash.
But officialdom frowned on the practice of the Yemeni government, acting through at least two private companies, of renting out its coast guard vessels and crews as anti-pirate escorts even though it was claimed that all proceeds accrued to the government. (Since 2003, the US Coast Guard has delivered two dozen vessels to its Yemeni counterpart, and two larger "coastal protection boats" are scheduled for delivery this year. The US Coast Guard has also given extensive training to the Yemen Coast Guard's estimated 1,800 servicemen and 200 officers.)

Chinese fishermen feel they can fish in South Korean waters; the South Korean Coast Guard disagrees, and things can get nasty. When two Korean patrol ships approached a Chinese trawler and tried boarding it, the Chinese crew started swinging iron pipes, shovels, and clubs that injured four Koreans. Then the 62-ton Chinese boat bumped one of the 3,000-ton patrol ships and capsized, putting ten Chinese fishermen into the sea. Eight were rescued but the boat’s 28-year-old captain died at a hospital after going into a coma, and another Chinese fisherman was missing. The Korea Coast Guard dispatched six patrol ships and two helicopters to find the missing man but failed.

Odd Bits and Head-Shakers
Two, perhaps three, Russian icebreakers (reports vary) tried to free ten vessels carrying 450- 500 fishermen, scientists, and mariners trapped by ice on the Okhotsk Sea in northern Russia only twelve miles from the coast. The ice was up to 30 cm (12 inches) thick in some places. The minister assured families that the men are quite safe and said they have enough food, water and medicines. There was good radio connection with all of the trawlers. The Russian port icebreaker Magadan failed to reach the trapped vessels and had to halt some four miles from the scene as temperatures in the region plunged to an all-time low. Arriving soon after were the Admiral Makarov and, later, the Krasin, both bigger, more-powerful icebreakers. Initial attempts to free vessels failed and rescue efforts were resumed as this item is being written in mid-January.

Whatever the experience of those now trapped by ice, it will hardly match that of the crew of the Grimsby trawler Sargon, stuck in ice in the same region in the early 1920s over 80 years ago when most trawlers were not fitted with radio. The Sargon was officially given up as lost but appeared outside Grimsby docks one day; the crew had survived for at least 16 weeks on seal meat and the fish they had on board. Meanwhile, one of the "widows" had remarried; the wedding was later held to be valid because her first husband had been officially recorded as having perished.

The remains of the USS Revenge, a Baltimore-built schooner, have been discovered off the coast of Rhode Island. US Navy hero Oliver Hazard Perry (of “Don’t give up the ship” fame, was in command of the Revenge in 1811 when it was wrecked while charting Rhode Island waters. The shipwreck was actually discovered back in August of 2005 by two civilian divers but they only recently revealed the wreck, and continued to investigate the wreckage in the meantime.

Transporting nickel ore is OK if you know what you are doing but it can sink ships. For example, last October, the 45,107 dwt Jian Fu Star capsized in rough seas off Taiwan and sank, killing 13; in November, the 55,000-dwt Nasco Diamond sank off Japan in calm weather, moderate wind, good visibility, and little rain, and twenty-one died; and in December, the 50,149-dwt Hong Wei sank in Philippine waters, killing ten. A common factor in the three sinkings was excessive moisture content of the nickel ore when it was loaded. The moisture turned the ore into a slurry or liquid that sloshed around, shifting a ship’s stability into nasty states such as extreme listing, and the ship capsized or filled. (It is possible that the Van Don-2, whose sinking was noted above, may have been carrying nickel ore.)

It is sometimes hard to “translate“ foreign news reports even when they are written in English. Here is one with creative language:

“A cement clinker-laden lighterage ship has been drowned at the outer anchorage of Chittagong port. The incident occurred around 6:45 am on Saturday when another lighterage ship hit it. Port secretary Syed Farhad Uddin said the accident happened when the drowned ship Manik Mia 2 was departing the port and Abdullah Al Asif 1 from the opposition stroke it near 'B Anchorage'. No casualties, however, were reported so far.”

In Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, Dutch Harbor put money into its concerns about possible pollution from broken-down ships. (Ships thread the Aleutians on the great-circle route to the Far East.) It created an Emergency Towing System that could be helicopter-dropped onto a stricken ship and picked up by a tug. A second, heavier system was purchased and one of them was recently used when the bulker Golden Seas lost its supercharger and could only proceed at three knots.

The tugboat Smit Yallarm was on a routine delivery voyage from its builders in Turkey to a customer in Gladstone, Australia when it was asked to divert in response to a pan pan radio call. A fisherman was in a critical state and needed evacuation from his boat 280 kilometers northeast of Bundasberg in Queensland. But Australian Army helicopters didn’t have sufficient range to handle a complete rescue. So one chopper picked up the sick man and delivered him to the tugboat, which then headed for shore at best speed. The second chopper met the tugboat at a rendezvous point near shore and took the sick man to a hospital.

A spur-of-the-moment hovering of two US Navy helicopters about 70 feet above Lake Tahoe to take photos for the squadron’s Facebook page caused the choppers, worth $33 million, to sag without warning to the water. Luckily, both aircraft were able to regain altitude and land nearby. There were no injuries to ten embarrassed crewmen but damage to both helicopters totaled a whopping $505,751. (A video of the incident is available on YouTube.)