Egypt reversed its ban on weapons and armed security guards on ships because it might have an adverse effect on Suez Canal traffic.
Asian nations are stiffening their posture toward an expansive-minded China. Starting in 2012, 2,500 US Marines and aircraft will operate out of the northern Australian city of Darwin, ready to respond quickly to any humanitarian and security issue in Southeast Asia; the United States and Singapore are in the final negotiating stages of an agreement to base some of the US Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ships at the Changi Naval Base; and Vietnam offered use of its Vietnam war-era, US-built Cam Ranh Bay port for provisioning and repairs. And there is a strong possibility that the US and Australia will share military facilities on Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean. China, worried that the United States is caging it in, immediately questioned whether strengthening military alliances in the region was appropriate when economic woes should place a premium on cooperation.
Crude oil produced in the US Midwest has tended to pile-up at Cushing, Oklahoma. Now, a major pipeline operator will reverse the flow in a line so oil flows from Cushing to Gulf Coast refineries, and another company plans to build its own pipeline from Cushing to the US Gulf by early 2012. (This pipeline would be part of the longer Keystone XL pipeline that will run from Alberta, Canada, to the US Gulf as soon as environmentalists fail to delay its construction any longer.) The improved supply of crude to Gulf Coast refineries will mean that fewer VLCC voyages from the Middle East will be needed and should also improve the prices paid for West Texas crude, the US benchmark, which have been lower than prices for the North Sea’s Brent crude, the international benchmark. Already, exports on product tankers are up 27% from last year.
A Canadian government forecast stated the current 1.7 million barrels per day of oil will increase to 5 million bpd by 2035. Much of this could be available for export overseas and might require the equivalent of five Suezmax tankers every day.
The US and Canada possess very large resources of shale-based liquefied natural gas and that could mean that the two countries may become a major gas exporter (after Qatar, Australia and Indonesia) by 2020 and that would probably mean the addition of more than 100 additional LNG carriers to the global fleet.
Aframax tankers owners in the Mediterranean are hoping that resumption of crude-oil exports from Libya will mean that, once again, daily earnings can exceed vessel operating costs.
Thin Places and Hard Knocks
The South Korean freighter Bright Ruby sank off Xisha Islands in the South China Sea and six of 21 crewmembers went missing. The ship was carrying 16,000 tons of rolled steel from Singapore to the city of Rizhao in east China's Shandong province.
The bulker Alfa Dragon stranded itself on the island of Brac in Croatia while trying to pass through the Seagate of Split. It was carrying a crew of fourteen and 3,150 tons of salt. The fully loaded container ship Cafer Dede ran aground on Syros Island, a Greek island in the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea. Divers found very little hull damage, perhaps because the ship was ice-classed. Transfer of containers to a lighter started eight days after the grounding. In the Philippines at Nato Port, Carmarines Sur, the small freighter Jeric Jay was at anchor when large waves and a strong current strong-armed the vessel into shallow water. A Coast Guard detachment secured the Jeric Jay to a coconut tree to prevent further damage.
In Germany, the container ships Kovera and Ida collided in dense fog off Holtenau on Kiel Roads. Both ships were significantly damaged but no spills. Off Newfoundland, the supply vessel Maersk Detector struck one of the eight columns that support the semi-submersible drilling rig GSF Grand Banks. The resulting four to five-metre gash that covered about 20 per cent of the column's circumference accelerated preparations towards a scheduled 60-day maintenance period in January.
At Cape Town, an ammonia-caused fire on the fish factory Dongsan burned for about a week.
In the UK, two Russian seamen were airlifted to safety by an RAF helicopter co-piloted by Prince William (aka the Duke of Cambridge) after their vessel, the limestone-carrying Swanland, went down in the Irish Sea about 10 miles west of the Llyn Peninsula. The ship was hit by an "enormous wave" in the early hours of the morning and broke in half. An Alaska-based Coast Guard helicopter medevaced a crewman who had lost a finger from the container ship Mare Phoenicium. Did that sound dreadfully routine? The Mare Phoenicium was 575 miles away from the Coast Guard Cutter Sherman at the time of the call. The chopper, which was forward-deployed aboard the Sherman, pre-staged to Cold Bay (it’s part way out the Aleutian island chain) and once the container ship was within range, left for the vessel and arrived about an hour later. Probably the same chopper also medevaced a crewman suffering from abdominal pain from the bulk carrier Shagangfirst Power and flew him 72 miles to Cold Bay. But choppers aren’t always the solution. The bulk carrier Navios Ulysses had a crewman suffering from abdominal pain and the vessel was out of range of medevac aircraft. The Coast Guard cutter Rush met the Navios Ulysses 713 miles southwest of Kodiak and transferred the patient by small boat. Weather conditions on scene were 30-knot winds and 12-foot seas.
At Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a mariner on the cement-carrying barge St Mary’s Challenge was killed when his arm became caught in a moving conveyor belt and was severed at the shoulder. He was troubleshooting a hydraulic leak and had asked that the engine be turned off and then restarted. A log entry showed that it was restarted before he made the request for a restart.
The Singapore reflagged Morning Cedar, a vehicle carrier carrying packaged timber, became disabled off Tanaga Island, Alaska when the freighter’s rudder became stuck hard to starboard due to a hydraulic leak that the crew was unable to repair. A Coast Guard airplane was ready to deliver an emergency towing system but the vessel was able to maneuver away from the island by using a combination of main propulsion and bow thrusters. Technicians were flown to the ship as it drifted. In Brazil, the iron ore-carrier Vale Beijing, one of the world’s largest vessels, was being loaded at Ponta da Madeira when the hull cracked and the ship started sinking. Six tugs towed it offshore while pumps kept it afloat. The ship, delivered last September, must be fixed while afloat since the port has no unloading facilities and the ship’s engine must not be used.
Gray Fleets
The US Navy will discharge 28 sailors from USS Ronald Reagan for using the marijuana-mimicking synthetic drug Spice. They are in addition to 64 others, also from the Third Fleet, who were recently discharged for illegal drug use.
HMCS Vancouver will remain in the Mediterranean until early 2012, when she will be relieved by HMCS Charlottetown, all so Canada can maintain a presence in the Mediterranean Sea as part of Operation Active Endeavour, the NATO counter-terrorism effort in the region. HMCS Charlottetown will be equipped with a leased ScanEagle, a small reconnaissance drone capable of staying airborne for 20 hours while carrying an infrared camera and a radar system.
Naval forces off Libya apparently didn’t fear attacks by Libyan aircraft because the frigate HMS Westminster carried only four (two salvos) air-defense Seawolf missiles. Or maybe that was because the UK was short of weapons and warships due to the recent deep cuts in defense spending; about the same time it was revealed that the Royal Navy didn’t have a single warship to defend British waters during the month of October.
The US Navy and Marine Corps will buy all of Britain’s decommissioned Harrier jet fighters and will pay $50 million for the spare parts alone. It is not clear whether the 72 aircraft will be flown or cannibalized for additional parts. (Other users of Harrier aircraft are the Italian navy, the Spanish navy, and Thailand, which bought several Harriers for use on its aircraft carrier HTMS Chakri Naruebet.)
Russian naval ships will soon be outfitted with British-made furniture and Russian mariners are reported to be excited about living in the resulting high-quality conditions.
White Fleets
A cruise company terminated all parasailing shore excursions in the Caribbean after an accident in the Virgin Islands killed a 60-year-old female passenger from the Celebrity Eclipse and seriously injured her daughter. Squalls and wind gusts may have been factors in the accident.
Health officials boarded the Veendam after it docked at Rio de Janeiro because 72 of its 1,800 passengers and seven crewmembers had been sickened by a mystery illness during the passage from Valparaiso. Also aboard was a dead woman, who probably did not die because of the mystery illness but of natural causes.
In North Moscow, fire raced rough the river cruise vessel Sergey Abramov. Two passengers went to a hospital and a crewman was missing.
Frequent announcements on the Carnival Inspiration gave passengers a good idea as to the identity of the man who had just jumped overboard, leaving a note behind. His wife had recently died.
Two American women tried to import more than $400,000 worth of cannabis resin into Bermuda. They arrived on the Carnival Fantasy with 2.7 kgs (6 lbs.) of drugs strapped to their bodies.
Those That Go Back and Forth
Two Rottweilers were found dead in their owner's four-wheel drive vehicle in the Spirit of Tasmania's car hold when that ferry arrived at Devonport after an overnight voyage from Melbourne. The ferry line claimed the dogs died of carbon monoxide poisoning and said it had wanted to put them in the ship's kennels but the owner declined and instead signed an indemnity form to allow the dogs to travel in the car. They were to have taken part in a herding competition. (Surprised by that last bit? The rottweiler can trace his roots back to the drover dogs in Germany and still has the instincts to herd animals.)
Early-morning ferry travelers had to wait outside the Swartz Bay ferry terminal in British Columbia while a Mountie shot a 50-kilogram male cougar that had found its way inside. On the UK’s west coast, the Isle of Manx ferry Ben-my-Chree (“girl of my heart”) was berthing at Heysham in Lincolnshire in strong winds when it collided with a link-span. The allision left the vessel with a hole in its hull above the water line and stranded hundreds of passengers. At Picton in New Zealand, a strong northwest gust caused the recently rebuilt Interislander ferry Aratetere to swing away from its berth. That pulled a bollard from the quay. The chunk of metal slammed into the ferry’s bow, causing a sizable dent, and dropped to the bottom of the harbor. Having two mooring lines on the bollard may have overloaded it. In British Columbia, a hard landing at Departure Bay damaged both the Queen of Coquitlam and a wing wall that guides the ferry into the dock but no one was injured.
The Norwegian-flagged vehicular ferry Rauma lost power during a run from Aukra and Hollingsholmen and ran aground on rocks on the wrong side of the pier at Hollingsholmen. The ferry Nordmøre was taken from another run as a substitute ferry but first it pulled the Rauma to a dock. The next day and at the same landing, the vehicular ramp fell down while Nordmøre was unloading. A young couple’s car went into the drink and they were injured. In Finland, the newbuild passenger ro/ro Spirit of France broke its moorings in bad weather at the shipyard in Rauma and came to rest against a rocky breakwater. (The ferry was to have gone into cross-Channel service in September.)
In the Philippines, the Super Ferry 1 ran aground near Ditaytay Island between Coron and Puerto Princesa in Palawan. In Massachusetts at Hyannis, the ro/pax ferry Eagle struck the parked standby ferry Sankaty and suffered a large hole. The Sankaty took its passengers to Nantucket.
Typical of Third World ferry operations, it had room for only one vehicle but it was carrying an auto and a lorry. The engine broke down a few minutes after departure from somewhere in Borneo and then the ferry capsized. The eleven passengers jumped into the river and most swam to safety but search and rescue teams recovered the body of a 14-year-old boy some three kilometers downstream. The body had crocodile bite marks. His mother also drowned.
Legal Matters
Shipping agency Sea Star Line LLC agreed to plead guilty and pay a $14.2 million criminal fine for its role in a conspiracy to fix rates and surcharges for transportation of freight between the continental United States and Puerto Rico from as early as May 2002 until at least April 2008. A federal grand jury also returned an indictment against the former president of Sea Star Line for his role in the conspiracy. Horizon Lines LLC was also sentenced to pay a $15 million criminal fine, and five former executives from both Sea Star Line and Horizon Lines were sentenced to pay a total of nearly $85,000 in criminal fines. They will also collectively serve more than 11 years in prison.
Nature
The bulker Universe Forest was quarantined at Vladivostok after chetyrehpyatnistoy weevils (probably the wheat weevil) were found in grain, rice, beans, barley, and corn flakes in the vessel's food storeroom and pantry. The foodstuffs had originated in China.
Falling levels of water on the Rhine River triggered an extraordinary demand for truck and rail transport of grain. Sadly, these alternative means of transport could not replace the barge shipments. And silt and sand, probably swept down the Missouri River during its recent flooding, blocked the Mississippi near St Louis for several days until hurried dredging allowed re-opening of the River to a pile-up of waiting barges.
The US Navy successfully completed the largest-scale demonstration to date of alternative fuels. Its Self Defense Test Ship (the decommissioned Spruance-class destroyer Paul F. Foster, reconfigured into an unmanned test platform) made a 17-hour, remotely controlled voyage from San Diego to the Naval Surface Warfare Center Port Hueneme using a 50-50 blend of algae-derived, hydro-processed algal oil and a standard petroleum fuel.
Nasties and Territorial Imperatives
Three Russian warships appeared in Syrian waters, probably as a protest against sanctions imposed by the US, sanctions Russia dismissed as “exterritorial” and “unacceptable and violating international law.” A news item added that the warships could “protect strategic and national security interests and prevent war.” There are more than 100,000 Russian citizens in Syria and Russia is obligated to protect these citizens from any sort of military aggression by the United States.
A Kurdish rebel carrying explosives hijacked the Turkish ferry Kartepe and forced it to anchor off the port town of Silivri, west of Istanbul. About twelve hours later, while police conducted lengthy negotiations with the lone hijacker, Turkish commandos in civilian clothes slipped onto the vessel and posed as hostages before fatally shooting the hijacker and freeing 18 passengers plus four crew and two trainees.
An anticipated surge in Somalian piracy attacks failed to materialize, perhaps because the monsoon season lasted longer than usual or perhaps because of increased measures by shipowners and crews, more proactive military tactics, and international initiatives in Somalia. Three naval coalitions have eighteen warships on anti-piracy duties and there are additional warships of navies acting independently. The pirates appear to have far fewer mother ships. There are now just 10 hijacked ships, few of which could be used as pirate mother ships, whereas last January there were as many as 32 potential mother ships.
A Dutch shipowner reflagged his vessels that transit pirate-infested waters after the Dutch justice minister made it clear he has no intention of allowing armed guards on vessels flying the Dutch flag.
Odd Bits and Headshakers
Even US Coast Guard reports can be detail-inconsistent. For example, the Egyptian bulker Edfu briefly lost propulsion as it was crossing the Columbia River bar after leaving Astoria. The ship dropped both of its anchors, then regained propulsion. The Coast Guard ordered the vessel to hire tugboats to escort it on its trip from Astoria to Tacoma for inspection and repairs. A Coast Guard report noted that the bulker was missing both required anchors. Yet, only a month earlier, the Edfu lost power nine miles west of Cape Disappointment and anchored in an effort to keep the vessel from drifting to shore. At that time, the Coast Guard said carrier had only one anchor. In between these two exciting moments, a Coast Guard 47-foot motor lifeboat had transported an injured crewman with a ruptured left eye to Astoria while the Edfu was anchored in the Columbia River (number of anchors used not given.).
Much of the US’s corn and soybeans feed Asian cattle and hogs or are turned into food products. Traditionally, the grain would have been barged at some point but intermodal (truck/train/ship) transfer of grain in cargo containers is increasingly popular. One reason is that a bargeload of grain is 55,000-60,000 bushels but a cargo container holds only 1,000 bushels. Customers are willing to pay a premium (maybe 20 cents per bushel) for the containerized loads that are easier to distribute to end-users. Also containerized are high-protein corn cakes, a byproduct of ethanol production. The wet mash is dried so it will not spoil during transport and the resulting DDG, or dried distillers grain, is then mixed with bean meal and corn and made into cakes that will end up as cattle feed overseas.
The Russian icebreaking tanker Renda will attempt an emergency wintertime fuel delivery to Nome, Alaska, after difficult winter conditions turned back a barge carrying the city's last regularly scheduled fuel delivery. Nome, a city of about 3,600, lacks outside road access and depends on ships and aircraft for supplies, and fuel prices already average about $5.40 for a gallon of gasoline. The tanker has made progress through five feet of ice but the US Coast Guard ‘s polar icebreaker USCGC Healy will help if necessary.
The UK’s Ministry of Defense announced it will shed 11,400 members of the Royal Navy, Army, and Royal Air Force by 2015. The department will also dump 30,000 civilians over the next decade but the first batch must be volunteer retirees – in explanation, the MOD’s permanent secretary suggested that, unlike service personnel, civil servants are harder to sack because they have “flexible skills.”
When 1,330 tons of oil in the grounded tanker Petriana was pumped overside in a futile effort to free the ship, a press report glowingly described "a film of great beauty, radiating all the colours of the rainbow." But that was then – the tanker ran aground at Australia’s Port Phillip Bay in thick fog in 1903.
