Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Other Shores -September 2011

Other Shores                                              

US crude oil imports in the year’s first half fell to the lowest monthly average (8.8 million barrels per day) since 2000.

Traditionally, this is the busiest time of year for container ships but rates are down 9.3 percent since April due to the lessened demand for consumer goods for the back-to-school and holiday seasons. Last year at this time, rates surged 56 percent.

DNV, one of the major classification societies, sponsored a summer study by students, who concluded that major advances in technology, improved standards, and increased Arctic research are needed. About 25 percent of the world’s undiscovered petroleum resources are in the Arctic. (The contradiction inherent in that word “undiscovered” bothers me.) 

What happened to the surface oil slick from that massive Gulf of Mexico spill more than a year ago? A report revealed that microbes residing within the surface oil slick ate the oil five times more effectively than microbes outside the slick. Not only that, but the wee beasties did not seem to require much in the way of necessary nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, elements scarce in the spilled oil. In addition, the microbes’ respiration produced carbon dioxide and energy but they did not seem to use the energy – certainly not for replication! Scientists are puzzled but it’s reassuring when unexpected friends show up to help us humans.

Thin Places and Hard Knocks
In India, traditionally inefficient and lax Mumbia officials have stopped fooling around! They arrested the master and chief engineer of the Rak Carrier after the coal-carrying bulker sank some twenty miles offshore because “they were directly responsible for the vessel” and pollution from its bunkers was feared. (There was a spill, but that is not news in that part of the world.) In reaction to the sinking, the Gujarat Maritime Board, a state authority responsible for 1,600 km of coastline and several ports including Mumbia, banned all ships over 25 years of age. A floating drydock capsized and sank, reported Suez Canal authorities, adding that the two vessels in the dry dock had been raised. In Thailand’s Udom Harbor, the freighter Unison Vego was trying to anchor when its engine stopped. Momentum carried the vessel into the moored Ocean Tower, which slowly sank. It carried heavy machinery and some was salvaged as the ship settled lower and lower but most went under.
Near St Just (it’s in Cornwall), the container ship Karin Schepers ran onto the beach east of the Pendeen lighthouse but freed itself off before a rescue helicopter arrived.

The 3,225-dwt freighter Salmo managed to hit the quay at Brake in the Lower Saxony region of Germany. The master was fined 1000 euros and the vessel was detained during an investigation. 

(Wordplay about a possible cause of the accident and port’s name is permissible.) In southern Philippines waters, the Bulk Carrier 1 (probably a bulk carrier) sank after being in violent contact with the HS Puccini. Two engineers of the bulker died when trapped below. On the Rhine River, travel was messed-up for some time. A gravel-carrying barge sank between St. Goar and Bingen and that blocked the river. Then a second aggregate-carrying barge ran aground near Trechtinghausen, luckily outside of shipping lanes. A third barge, this one carrying ethanol, drifted out of the channel while waiting for the first barge to be removed and it too went aground.

While near Port Georgetown (this Port Georgetown may be in Guyana), a crewmember on the car carrier Global Leader died when a rescue boat collapsed onto him. Another man was seriously hurt.
Six hundred miles south New Zealand the Australian-owned, New Zealand-chartered fishing vessel Janas, longlining for the Patagonian toothfish, had engine problems. Emergency repairs failed so the Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis came to the rescue. It towed the FV to remote Macquarie Island where better repairs were made in the lee of the island. Then a female crewperson on the icebreaker had severe stomach pains so two New Zealand-based helicopters flew out nearly 500 km and got the woman to the Dunedin Hospital for a probable appendectomy. 

At the Black Sea port of Constantza, the bulker FGM Europe caught fire while under repair. The bridge and accommodations took a beating.

A SWAT team of police boarded the product tanker Al Mahboobah off the Portuguese coast after the master radioed that his crew had mutinied and threatened to kill him. The SWAT team took the ship into Lisbon to sort out what had happened.

The LPG tanker DP Proteus lost its propeller off Vietnam and started drifting toward a reef. The local Vietnamese tug Phu My 03 was dispatched, as was the deep-sea tug Pacific Hickory from Singapore, and the similar-sized tanker DP Azalea was chartered to stand by. The Phu My 03 was towing the vessel clear of the reef when the Pacific Hickory arrived and took over. The tow headed for Shanghai, but entry there was denied (perhaps due to the tanker’s dangerous cargo) and so the tow headed for South Korea. All to replace a lost propeller! (The Pacific Hickory is one of my favorite tugs. Formerly the Irving Miami and based in eastern Canada, the big Dominican-flagged tug pops up in almost any part of the world, almost always towing some large object.) 

Gray Fleets
The Australian Navy, unfortunately, managed to keep itself in the headlines. A RHIB overturned while transferring personnel from the patrol boat HMAS Maitland to the frigate HMAS Darwin and five members of the Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal needed hospitalization. And sex reared its ugly head once again on the supply ship HMAS Success when a female crewmember claimed she had been ambushed in a storeroom and sexually assaulted. She reported the incident to Navy officials and then went ashore and told Sydney police. The assault came only months after a report had revealed the existence of a predatory culture of sexual misconduct fueled by alcohol and drugs on the same ship.
Canada had its own share of naval problems. The submarine HMCS Cornerbrook struck the bottom while on an advanced submarine officer training exercise. It was Canada’s only operational member of Canada’s four submarines at the time. Repairs to sister-sub HMCS Windsor in 2010 alone cost almost three times the budgeted C$17 million – bad hull welds, broken torpedo tubes, a faulty rudder, and acoustical tiles that kept falling off. And the Navy also spent thousands trying to keep pigeons from roosting in the long-idled sub.

A female officer will command a Royal Navy warship for the first time. Promoted to Commander, she will take command of the frigate HMS Portland next April after commanding the minehunters HMS Pembroke, HMS Ramsey, and HMS Penzance

The Chinese Navy’s first aircraft carrier, formerly the Soviet carrier Varyag, went to sea for a short trial. Unlike the practice in the US Navy, where an aircraft carrier’s skipper is never an aviator, the first commanding officer of the yet-as-unnamed carrier is Li Xiaoyan, a top-rated naval flyer. Elsewhere, the former Soviet carrier Kiev is nearing completion as a luxury hotel that is expected to open later this year. Progress is at the internal-decorations stage. Pre-hotel, the carrier, moored at a theme park, was rated as attraction 33 of 158 attractions in or near Tianjin.

The US Navy has asked industry to come up with a large unmanned submarine able to operate in the open sea or in coastal waters and harbors on missions lasting more than seventy days.  The missions, of course, involve gathering intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. This LDUUV (Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicle) would be pier-launched and recovered (“door to door,” as it were) and would perform over-the horizon sensor missions in coastal waters and harbors. The program has two phases. In the first, hardware and software must be developed for missions lasting up to thirty days at depths from 100 to 400 feet. The Navy may provide a UUV prototype. 

In the second phase, missions would last more than seventy days without human interaction. The UUV must avoid all vessels in the area, detect stationary and moving objects and avoid them, detect and identify surface vessels and their intent, and avoid all kinds of fishing nets and gear including monofilament lines and twine nets. The program may take five years.

A company press release announced that the US Navy had lifted the veil of secrecy from its Ghost. It is a super-cavitating combination aircraft/boat that flies through an artificial underwater gaseous environment with 900 times less friction than water. The stealth craft was built at no cost to the government and the company expects it will have a great impact in many nautical matters. 

White Fleets
Bookings during the upcoming Rugby World Cup competition in New Zealand are disappointing operators of several cruise ships. For example, the Rhapsody of the Seas has resorted to selling half-price tickets (to New Zealand residents only) that combine accommodations, meals, entertainment, and a voyage around the North Island between matches.

At Key West, while trying to dock, the Carnival Fantasy managed to bump moored fleetmate Carnival Imagination. Cosmetic damage only. (Since one ship was immobile, it was, strictly speaking, an allision, not a collision.) 

One doesn’t think of large waves on the Volga River but the river system does incorporate large lakes in many places. And it was large waves that reportedly caused the multi-decked river cruise ship Bulgaria to sink in 66 feet of water. That cost 122 people (including 28 children) their lives in Russia’s worst maritime disaster since 1986. When the vessel was raised, investigators surmised that one engine may have failed because the steering wheel was found to be turned hard right and one engine had been asked to deliver full power. The accident had immediate repercussions. A criminal case was launched against the captains of the freighters Dunaysky 6 and Arbat for failing to take part in the rescue, a check-up of cruise ships found out that 90 percent failed to meet basic safety requirements and so twenty-three vessels were banned from operating as passenger ships, and prosecutors initiated sixty-six administrative cases against vessel owners. 

Top of Form
Only three weeks later, and infuriating Russian bureaucracy at the highest levels about the shocking state of that nation’s standards of maritime safety, the excursion boat Lastochka (Swallow) ran into a moored barge on the Moscow River. The allision killed nine partyers. The operator, who was also killed, had been fined three times this year for operating an overloaded vessel.

Those That Go Back and Forth
The British Columbia ferry Burrard Beaver struck the dock at Vancouver. The ferry was a half-boat length away when it lost power and steering and then veered to starboard and slammed into the dock. A nearby tug was able to get the ferry to its berth and there were no injuries to the 215 passengers. The Turkish ferry Ishan Alyanak sank at Izmir after the vessel struck the pier. The ferry with 250 passengers was approaching the pier when the rudder failed, resulting in the allision. There may have been some panic on board but everyone reached the pier safely. (A report stated that a fire in the stern section might have led to the rudder failure.) 

In New Zealand, the Marlborough Sounds ferry Straitsman had to stop and anchor for a couple of hours while repairs were made to a fuel pump. The fifty passengers on board may have enjoyed the pause and it is certain that the freight and vehicles didn’t care either way.

In India’s Goa region, the ferry on the Kirianpani-Aronda route broke down so hundreds of market-goers had to use a motorized canoe carrying only ten to thirteen at a time. In the Philippines, the ro/pax ferry Asia Malaysia sank off Calabasa Island after cargo shifted to one side in high winds and waves. All 107 passengers and 44 crewmembers were saved. The Government promptly suspended all operations by the ferry owners’ vessels. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a ferry carrying at least 200 passengers on the Tshuapa River sank after colliding with a wooden cargo vessel. Both craft were operating without lights and the cargo boat was not allowed to operate at night. At least 80 died. 

Nature
The Russians have two Arctic white beluga whales in captivity somewhere and wanted them to become used to humans swimming with them. One problem was that the whales shied away from contact with white diving suits so a 36-year-old Russian woman scientist named Natalie Davis Senke volunteered for the familiarization job. Naked, the yoga expert dove into water just above freezing and stayed under for up to ten minutes, thanks to her practice of doing rigorous meditation and breath-control exercises. The whales seemed to enjoy her company as she swam among them.

The operator of the Great Lake’s last steam-powered ferry, the Badger, asked officials in Michigan and Wisconsin to support its plea for an additional five-year exemption from the federal ban on dumping coal ash into Lake Michigan. The company is exploring the use of compressed natural gas. 

Metal-Bashing
Progress is being made in the UK on construction of two large aircraft carriers. The AMT Trader, one of the world’s largest barges, carried a 9,000-ton section of the future Queen Elizabeth from a Glasgow-area shipyard at Govan around Scotland to the Edinburgh–area yard at Rosyth, where it will be mated with other sections as they arrive or are constructed. For those interested in comparisons, that single chunk is heavier than one of the Royal Navy’s new Type 45 destroyers.

A report surmised that amalgamating the naval shipbuilding programs of Germany and France could create the biggest industrial partnership since armament-giant EADS was formed in 2000. The thinking was that Thyssen-Krupp, Germany’s largest steelmaker, would combine nicely with France’s naval shipyard DCNS. But ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems quickly squelched the idea, stating that it is not planning a joint venture with the French shipyards group, nor are there any plans for a merger or other partnership or alliance with French shipyards. (ThyssenKrupp recently cancelled a deal with Abu Dhabi MAR to set up a joint venture to sell naval surface ships to the Middle East and North Africa, blaming changes in the political landscape.)

Owners of supertankers have been torn between making some money in these hard times by scrapping their older tankers or keeping them in service although rates have dropped so low that some owners are effectively paying clients $1,037 dollars a day.

The over-aged (built 1974) product tanker Phoenix was slowly making its way towards a scrapping yard in India when its engine failed and it anchored somewhere off South Africa. Authorities, fearful of a possible pollution event, got a promise from the owner, reportedly a Lagos firm, to send a tug but it never appeared and subsequent phone calls were not answered. That meant that no insurance was available if anything happened so authorities prepared for a judicial sale. As expected, bad weather did arrive and the tanker’s anchor rode snapped. The deep-sea tug Smit Amandla, one the largest tugs in the world, attempted to connect a towline to pull the Phoenix to deeper water, but weather conditions made this impossible. Pushed by waves, the vessel struck bottom some 200 meters from the shore near Christmas Bay, north of Durban. Helicopters airlifted all fifteen of the Indian crew to safety. Three attempts to tow the 538-foot ship off the rocky beach failed and work shifted to removing the oil on board. 

Nasties and Territorial Imperatives
Think of Libya and Gaddafi, rebels, and oil probably come to mind. The Libyan tanker Cartagena belonging to a government-owned tanker company was anchored on Hurd’s Bank just outside of Malta’s territorial waters when a rebel-manned tugboat approached and captured the tanker and its cargo of 70,000 tons of gasoline. A Maltese Armed Forces patrol boat was nearby but took no action. Back in March, rebels similarly captured another Libyan-owned tanker.

Odd Bits and Headshakers
Many Viking ships succumbed to the cruelties of a sea voyage (witness the folk song “Sir Patrick Spens” and its “half o’er, half o’er to Aberdour lies guid Sir Patrick Spens wi’ the Scotch lairds at his feet” – yes, I know he was a Scot but he was sailing on a mission to his king’s liege lord in Norway and I suspect his vessel was Viking-like). Replicas of Viking ships also sink. The 2009-built Norwegian longship Dragens Vinge (as might be expected, that translates as the wing of the dragon) went under fifty miles east of Shetland. But its sailors had advantages their ancestors lacked. Modern technology, in the form of an EPIRB, lifeboats, helicopters and a liferaft, helped save the seven pseudo-Vikings. Weather at the time was force 7 to gale force 8. Replicas of Viking ships are surprisingly common. An entry in Wikipedia lists thirty-three and the list does not include the late Dragens Vinge.

In Australia, two young buckos cavorted around on a jetski until they chose to go around the back side of Flinders Island because a tugboat towing a big ship was blocking their way. They ran onto unseen rocks and were swept onto the island as their jetski was washed off the rocks and out to sea. Luckily, one man had grabbed his cellphone from a compartment on the jetski. His call brought a rescue helicopter. The mobile was an iPhone in a watertight plastic bag.

When Osama bin Laden’s body was flown out to the carrier USS Carl Vinson, officials wanted to make sure the body bag held the right body. The bag was unzipped and photos were taken but no ruler was available to measure the 6’4” corpse. So a six-foot-tall SEAL lay besides the corpse. Reports stated that the volunteer was about four inches shorter than he who had not volunteered. 

Has anyone noticed that the first races of the America’s Cup World Series are being held somewhere off Portugal? Does anyone care? For those that do care, there are eight boats from seven nations – the US, New Zealand, Sweden, China, South Korea, Italy, and two from France.) Next races in the Series will be held in the United Kingdom, and then at San Francisco. Later venues are to be announced. Then comes the Louis Vuitton Cup series in 2013 to determine the challenger. It will race the defending champion, the US’s Oracle, off Newport, Rhode Island in 2013 to decide which nation will keep the Cup for a while.

While racing off the Isle of Wight, the yacht Atlanta of Chester ignored multiple provisions of the Rules of the Road and an oncoming 869-foot large orange object. It bounced off the bulbous bow of the tanker Hanne Knutsen and then the tanker’s port anchor hooked the yacht’s hot-pink spinnaker and that pulled down the yacht’s mast as the yacht ground along the tanker’s side. The yacht was the give-way vessel but many have wryly noted that some yachties seem to feel that their racing always gives them precedence over any other vessel.