Current News

JURISDICTION CLAIM: a man accused of starting a fire on a North Sea ferry which sparked a major rescue operation off the UK coast is set to argue the court has no jurisdiction in his case. Boden George Hughes is charged with arson and affray following the blaze onboard the DFDS vessel King Seaways in December last year. In a hearing due to take place on 8 May, his legal team will claim that the vessel was not British-flagged and was on the high seas at the time of the alleged offence, and therefore the court has no jurisdiction.

SPILL FINE: the German owners of a containership which spilled 1,000 litres of heavy fuel oil into Tauranga Harbour in New Zealand while the vessel was refuelling last year have been fined NZ$30,000 ($25,500). Jule Schiff ahrtsgesellschart admitted a charge that a harmful substance was discharged into water in a coastal marine area when the oil over-fl owed during bunkering of the vessel Liloa in July last year as a result of confusion between the chief engineer and the second engineer as to which tanks were to be filled.

SINKING PROBED: the UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch is looking into an incident in which a Barbados-flagged cargo ship started to sink off the coast of Cornwall last month. The Sea Breeze was towed to safety in St Austell Bay by a local tug after taking on water in the engine room while sailing to Shoreham with a cargo of limestone and six crew members had to be rescued by helicopter.

P3 PROTEST: the Global Shippers Forum (GSF) has called for international regulators, including European competition authorities, to investigate the impact of the proposed P3 vessel-sharing agreement between the world’s three largest container lines. It wants authorities to make ‘appropriate changes’ to ease unfair competition concerns.

CANAL DEAL: the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) has secured an agreement to end a dispute over cost over-runs which threatened the completion of work on the expansion of the waterway. Under the deal with the consortium building the third set of locks, both sides will put in US$100m to ensure the project is fi nished by the end of 2015.

MLC APP: the classifi cation society Lloyd’s Register and the UK P&I Club have produced a new version of their Maritime Labour Convention pocket checklist smartphone app. The new edition is said to be more interactive and complements similar checklists for ISM and ISPS Code requirements.

PLANE SEARCH: merchant ships transiting the Indian Ocean and South China Sea have been asked to help search eff orts for a missing Airlines Boeing 777- 200 ER, which disappeared while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in the early hours of 8 March.

SECURITY SUPPORT: the Japanese government has contributed US$1m to a fund established by the International Maritime Organisation to implement counter-piracy projects off the coast of west and central Africa.

FATAL COLLISION: one seafarer died and eight were missing, feared dead, after a collision between a containership and a general cargo vessel in Tokyo Bay last month. The Panama-flagged Beagle III sank following the collision with the South Korean-registered boxship Pegasus Prime.

WAGE WARNING: plans to ‘name and shame’ employers who breach the UK’s national minimum wage laws are a good start — but more needs to be done to enforce the rules properly, the TUC said last month. General secretary Frances O’Grady welcomed the government’s decision to expose employers who fl out the rules, but said greater eff orts had to be made to publicise all companies cheating their staff .

BUDGET BOOST: the UK Chamber of Shipping has urged the government to do more to attract maritime companies to the country, in order to support the goals set out in last month’s Budget. Chief executive Guy Platten said the Chancellor’s announcement of a cut in VAT for maritime rescue services was hugely welcome and will ‘help ensure the safety of our seafarers’.

PNTL PRESSED: Nautilus is seeking a date to meet management to discuss a pay and conditions claim for members employed by Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited. The claim includes an RPI increase, a move towards a one for one leave ratio and shared duties remuneration for members operating on reduced manning.

TUNNEL DELAY: the UK Competition Commission (CC) has delayed the publication of its latest provisional decision into Eurotunnel’s ownership of the MyFerryLink service, following the Competition Appeal Tribunal judgment quashing the original CC decision. The report was due as the Telegraph went to press.

CHOPPERS ‘SAFE’: the safety record of North Sea helicopters is as good as other sectors, aviation experts told a Parliamentary inquiry last month. Mark Swan, from the Civil Aviation Authority, told the House of Commons transport committee that off shore helicopter services are not inherently unsafe, even though there have been five major crashes in the past four years. The Scottish TUC has supported calls for a review of the fatal accident inquiry system after it took five years to report on an Super Puma EC225 accident in which 16 people died in April 2009.

DIEPPE RE-THINK: French politicians have promised a new style of public service ferry operations on the Newhaven-Dieppe service following a decision not to accept any of the companies bidding for the contract. Nicholas Roudy, the newly-elected chairman of the Seine Maritime district council, said discussions with unions, ports, and other stakeholders will lead to a ‘new-type public service mission’ for the route. This may include different ownership arrangements, a possible change in the type of ferries used and in the number of crossings, as well as a review of the ownership of the port of Newhaven.

COASTGUARD PROTEST: three seafaring union branches in the French port of Marseilles have given notice of strike action in protest at the reorganisation of local Coastguard services. The CGTCFDT- Unsa joint union committee said removal of vessels stationed in Marseilles and six other ports would lead to the ‘programmed death of the Marseilles coastguard’. They have made representations to the sea minister and launched an online petition.

DISMISSALS RULING: a court in Calais has ruled that French Rail (SNCF) wrongly dismissed 93 employees of its former cross-Channel ferry subsidiary SeaFrance. SNCF was criticised for not offering alternative jobs within the group and was ordered to pay almost six months of salaries in compensation. A further 200 cases are set to be heard later this year.

CLAIM SETTLED: the French ferry operator SNCM has secured a settlement with insurers over damage to the ro-pax Napoléon Bonaparte incurred during an accident in the port in October 2012. Reports suggest the company could receive around €60m from the insurers following flooding suffered when the ship broke its moorings in the port of Marseilles.

CHERBOURG BOOST: the French port of Cherbourg has seen the first growth in cross-Channel ferry volumes since P&O pulled out in 2004. Last year saw a 3.2% rise in freight traffic and stabilisation of annual passenger loads at 300,000. While passenger traffic with Ireland last year fell 8%, freight on the services grew by 4%.

DUNKIRK WORK: a €12m project to improve Dunkirk’s cross-Channel ferry facilities has secured support from the European Commission. The scheme aims to improve ship turn-around times and will enable DFDS Seaways to increase its capacity from the current 12 daily calls to 13 or 14 visits.

WELFARE WARNING: a French maritime welfare leader had expressed concern over financial problems affecting seafarer centres in the ports of Calais and Dunkirk, calling for visiting ships to pay more to help fund the facilities.

SNCM DELAY: French seafaring unions have voiced concern at the slow progress being made on the confirmation of an order for four new ferries for the Mediterranean operator SNCM.

SEAFARER SUPPLY: Ukraine and Russia are now second and third in the ‘league table’ of countries supplying officers for the global shipping industry, coming in behind the Philippines, according to a new report. In all, 27,000 Ukrainian and 25,000 Russian officers are employed internationally, along with a further 40,000 Ukrainian and 11,000 Russian ratings.

 Russia’s merchant fl eet is ranked 31st in the world while the Ukrainian-flagged fl eet is the world’s 72nd biggest.

INDIAN AIM: India’s shipping ministry has announced plans to increase the country’s share of the global seafarer labour market from 7% to 9% over the next five years. Shipping minister GK Vasan said the programme will include the opening of new Indian Maritime University campuses across the country, Currently India has more than 135 maritime institutes offering pre-sea and post-sea training in various forms.

MOROCCAN ROLE: the Italian ferry fi rm Gran Navi Veloci (GNV) is awaiting confirmation from the authorities in Morocco to continue running services between France and the ports of Tangiers and Nador. GNV took over the routes in June 2012 following the collapse of the Moroccan operator Comarit Comanav and last year carried 170,000 passengers on the services and almost the same number on the route to Genoa.

DATA GAP: the CGT union in France has urged the country’s government to provide better data on French seafarers. It warned that the patchy information currently provided by offi cial sources fails to give a clear picture of employment trends in the French shipping industry, and it is calling for fi gures for the last five years by operator, vessel category, nationality, number of officers and ratings and type of register.

FERRIES SALE: Italy’s state-owned train company Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), Europe’s last rail operator with a maritime fl eet, has announced its intention to sell its Bluferries subsidiary, which runs services between Sicily and mainland Italy. The route is the third busiest in Europe and FS’s nine vessels — including four train ferries — carried 6.7m passengers in 2012.

ORDERS UP: a total of 2,958 ships worth around US$131bn were ordered by owners around the world last year, the Greek broker Golden Destiny has reported. The fi gures compare with the total of just 665 ships ordered in 2009, and the broker said last year had also seen growth in sales of secondhand tonnage — with some 1,490 ships changing hands.

GUARDS DEBATE:: French seafaring unions and shipowners have welcomed an announcement by the country’s transport minister that the parliamentary debate on the government’s bill to authorise private armed anti-piracy forces onboard French flagged ships will take place on 9 April.

MAERSK JOBS: a big majority of the seafarers employed by Maersk Tankers France have voted to accept management’s redundancy plan ahead of the company’s closure later this year. The agreement aff ects 95 people serving on Maersk’s six French-flagged tankers.

CUTS CHALLENGE: six French ratings serving with the gas tanker company Gazocéan have challenged the operator’s plan to replace 57 French crew members with cheaper foreign labour.

Smuggling master goes to prison

A Greek shipmaster has been sentenced to 16 years in prison by a French court for his role in smuggling drugs onboard a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship.

Capt Sokratis Vassis was among five people jailed by the Rennes Assizes special court of appeal on charges brought after three tonnes of cocaine was found onboard his vessel, Junior, when the French navy intercepted the ship in international waters in the Gulf of Guinea in February 2008.

The drugs were valued at €900m and were said to have been loaded onto the ship in Brazil, apparently destined for Algeria.

Tried in his own country , the Greek owner of the ship, Nikolaos Kornilakis, was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2009.

Captain cleared on charges of putting his ship in danger

A shipmaster has walked free from a court in New Zealand after being cleared of causing unnecessary danger to passengers and crew by taking a ferry to sea with a hole in the hull. Captain John Henderson, master of the 14,588gt ro-pax Santa Regina had denied the charge, which was brought by Maritime New Zealand following an incident in April 2011 in which the Cook Strait ferry was damaged during berthing operations in the port of Wellington.

Prosecutors alleged that the ferry had been left with a 3.5m hole in its side after colliding with a fi shing boat while berthing in bad weather and that this had not been not noticed while the ship sailed to Picton and back to Wellington.

But defence lawyer Michael Reed called for the case to be thrown out.

He said the ferry had suffered two holes in the collision — the smaller of which had been repaired before the vessel left port.

Capt Henderson had been very thorough in his inspection of the ship after the incident, but the other hole — which was an opening of 1.8m — had not been noticed by anyone until the ferry arrived back in Wellington.

While the hole should have been fi xed had it been spotted, he argued that it posed no threat to the safety of the ship. ‘No water got in and it was nonsense to suggest that any water getting in would have caused a problem,’ Mr Reed told the court.

District court judge Tom Broadmore granted the application to reject the case on the basis that there was insuffi cient evidence from the prosecution to prove that a failure to fi nd the hole and deal with it had caused a danger or risk to passengers and crew.

Do you know a MN Medal candidate?

Do you know someone who deserves an award for their bravery at sea or their work to support seafarers? Now is the time to nominate them for the 2014 Merchant Navy Medal (MNM) presentations.

Established in 2005, the MNM is awarded annually to honour acts of courage afl oat, or meritorious service, by people from the UK or British overseas dependent territories, within the Merchant Navy or the fi shing fl eet.

Up to 20 medals may be awarded annually and the committee responsible for the MNM is now seeking nominations for this year’s awards. The committee is particularly keen to receive nominations for personnel serving at sea — and these can be put forward by colleagues or employers.

The award is made for meritorious service to those who are judged to have made a worthy contribution to merchant shipping, including operations, development, personnel, welfare and safety, or who have performed an act of courage afl oat.

A small number of medals can be awarded as ‘honoris causa’ to those who have made a major contribution to the shipping sector but have not served afl oat.

 (With thanks to the Nautilus Telegraph:  www.nautilusint.org)