Current News

GAS RULES: new rules governing the use of gas as a fuel on merchant ships are set to come into force in 2017 following an agreement at the International Maritime Organisation’s maritime safety committee last month. The International Code of Safety for Ships using Gases or other low-flashpoint Fuels (IGF) Code contains mandatory provisions for the arrangement, installation, control and monitoring of machinery, equipment and systems using low-flashpoint fuels, focusing initially on LNG. Related amendments will also be made to the STCW Convention.

MIGRATION CALL: the European Transport Workers’ Federation has urged EU member states to do more to tackle the problem of migrant deaths onboard unsafe vessels crossing the Mediterranean. New figures show that merchant ships have rescued some 13,000 people from the Italian search and rescue area, with a total of 302 commercial vessels tasked with responding to distress calls in the region over the past six months.

FERRY SAFETY: the Italian classification society RINA has launched a new initiative to improve ferry safety. Its ‘asset integrity management scheme’ for ro-pax vessels covers fire risk mitigation, single-failure risk assessment, enhanced planned maintenance and condition-based monitoring, along with special crisis management and behavioural training for crew members.

RIGHTS RISK: the TUC has urged UK prime minister David Cameron to ‘come clean’ on plans for renegotiating the rights of workers set out in the European Social Chapter. TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said the PM’s criticism of the measures, made in Parliament last month, ‘should send a chill down the spine of people at work’.

PIRATES CAUGHT: eight pirates were arrested last month after Malaysian authorities recovered a tanker that had been hijacked while carrying petrol between Malacca and Kuantan. A search was underway for a further five suspected robbers believed to have been involved in the hijacking of the 7,301dwt Orkim Harmony.

MEDIA AWARDS: the Maritime Foundation is seeking nominations for the best work to inform the public about the importance of shipping and seafaring. It is inviting nominations in four categories for its maritime media awards — full details are on the website: www.bmcf.org.uk.

MAERSK ORDERS: Maersk Line has placed a US$1.8bn order for 11 new ships, each with a capacity of 19,630TEU. To be built by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in South Korea, the vessels will sail under the Danish flag and will be delivered between April 2017 and May 2018.

CANAL COMPLETION: work to expand the Suez Canal is set to be completed on 1 August, according to one of the dredging companies involved in the project. Royal Boskalis Westminster said the project to dredge a new parallel canal that will be 35km long and 24m deep has progressed well.

DRONE PLAN: in a new move towards the development of ‘drone’ ships, the classification society DNV GL has revealed plans for a new unmanned floating LNG vessel which, it claims, will overcome many of the challenges of working in remote off shore gas fields. TIDAL ALERT: the Bristol Port Company has cautioned against a rush to build energy-generating lagoons in the Severn Estuary, warning that changes in tidal levels could severely constrain the ability of large ships using the port.

STOWAWAYS FOUND: investigations were launched by British police last month after 68 illegal immigrants were found on lorries that had arrived on a ferry at the port of Harwich following a search by Border Force officials.

MASTERS’ LEADER: Captain Hubert Ardillon, former head of the French masters’ association, has been elected to replace Wolf von Pressentin of Germany as chairman of the Confederation ofeuropean Shipmasters’ Associations. Capt Ardillon spent most of his seagoing career in command ofoil tankers and in 2002 he was master of the VLCC Limburg when it was attacked by terrorists in Yemen.

COMARIT SALE: the Moroccan port of Algeciras has sold four ferries that had been stranded in the port for almost three years following the collapse of the operator Comarit. The sale brought in almost twice as much as the port’s expenses in retaining and maintaining the ships, and the ITF, present at the auction, is continuing to fight for unpaid wages still owed to former Comarit seafarers.

EMISSION ROW: twelve non-governmental environmental organisations led by the Clean Shipping Coalition have written to European Union climate ministers expressing concern over the slow progress to cut greenhouse gas emissions from shipping. They have urged the International Maritime Organisation to set a plan for tough new targets.

WRECK PROBE: the ‘abnormal’ presence of air in the main engine cooling water system has been blamed for the loss of a Spanish cargoship in storms off the French coast last year. Investigators found that the 4,634 dwt Luno had lost power and hit a breakwater and sank off the port of Anglet. Twelve crew members were airlifted to safety.

CORSICAN PLAN: the low-cost Mediterranean operator Corsica Ferries is seeking to expand to western France and Germany. The company says it may establish bases in Nantes and Cologne to develop new services in the Baltic, Greece and, possibly, western France in competition with Brittany Ferries.

SEAFARER SURVEY: Malta is to survey the number of seafarers serving onboard ships using its register. Owners, operators and managers have been asked to supply crew lists for all merchant ships, river vessels and commercial yachts fl ying the Maltese flag.

DEATH PROBED: an investigation was launched in Montenegro last month when one seafarer died and three more had to be hospitalised after an accident onboard the Cyprus-flagged ferry Horizon. Police said the three crewmen may have been affected by fumes.

CAR CHANGE: the French port of Calais soon could lose its long-standing exports of Peugeot and Citröen cars to the UK. The operator Gefco is seeking to shift its operations to Zeebrugge for services to the UK ports of Sheerness and Killingholme.

WATER WORKS: the New Zealand inter-island ferry Arahura is testing fuel oil emulsion technology, using a watered-down version of diesel in one of its auxiliary engines. It is hoped the system will cut costs and reduce emissions.

MASTERS BLAMED: two masters have been blamed for a collision between a bulk carrier and a fuel oil barge which resulted in a 168,000-gallon spill in the Houston Channel last year. The National Transportation Safety Board said the captain of the tug Miss Susan, which was towing the barge, had cut across the path of the 43,193 dwt bulker Summer Wind. The investigation also ruled that the bulker’s master and navigator had failed to set a safe speed in foggy conditions and vessel traffic services had failed to properly interact with the two vessels.

FERRY PLEA: the French and Spanish governments have agreed to make a joint approach to the European Commission to seek the go-ahead for an early re-launch of the ‘motorway of the sea’ ferry service between the ports of Montoir and Gijón. French operator Louis Dreyfus Armateurs pulled out of the route last year as a result of ‘low returns’ following the loss of a subsidy for the service. Spain and France are urging Brussels to pay an ‘eco-bonus’ to support the scheme to take freight off the roads.

PERU PROTEST: The International Transport Workers’ Federation has lodged a protest with a United Nations agency over the use of military forces to break a strike by port workers in Peru. It has complained to the International Labour Organisation about the way in which naval personnel and merchant seafarers have been used to carry out duties normally done by dockers in the port of Callao during a dispute with the Netherlands-based company APM Terminals.

LANGUAGE CALL: the French officers’ union CFECGC has expressed disappointment at the government’s decision to pull out of talks on the use of French as the compulsory working language onboard ships in the country’s coastal services. General secretary Patrice Le Vigouroux said speaking the same language had been shown to reduce the consequences of accidents and incidents at sea.

DAMAGES CASE: Australia is suing the Chinese owner of the bulk carrier Shen Neng 1 in a bid to recover damages arising from the ship’s grounding on the Great Barrier Reef five years ago. The government said it had no option but to take Shenzhen Energy to court after it failed to meet the full costs of restoring the damage caused by the grounding of the 70,181dwt vessel in April 2010.

SUICIDE VERDICT: the French prosecution service has confirmed after an autopsy that a Croatian officer found dead in a cabin onboard the Dutch-flagged general cargoship Beaumonde had committed suicide. The 40-year-old officer was discovered with deep cuts to his throat and arms after the ship arrived with a cargo of cement from Tunisia.

CALAIS DISPUTE: dock workers employed by the Calais Chamber of Commerce took strike action last month in protest at Eurotunnel’s decision to put two MyFerryLink ferries on the market, posing a threat to the future of the French cross-Channel operator.

AMSA Domestic Commercial Vessel Update

AMSA to deliver full range of services for domestic maritime industry. Transport Ministers representing all states and territories decided in November 2014 that the Australian Maritime Safety Authority will assume responsibility for full delivery of services and funding for domestic commercial vessels by July 2019, with a two year transition period commencing in July 2017. It is anticipated that there will be an increase in fees for DCV operators for Private Surveying accompanied with a “AMSA National System fee”

IMO leader voices safety concerns

The head of the International Maritime Organisation has questioned whether sufficient progress is being made to improve passenger ship safety.

Speaking at the opening of the UN agency’s maritime safety committee meeting last month, secretary-general Koji Sekimizu told delegates: ‘We have put serious efforts on the debate on risk assessment approach and goalbased regulations, but what we have achieved in the legislative field is still in my view marginal or virtually nil.’

Mr Sekimizu said the IMO had done a lot in the past 25 years to address environmental issues. But, he added, ‘our safety regulations have not seen much of innovative actions except for the response to major maritime casualties such as the Herald of Free Enterprise, the Scandinavian Star, the Estonia, numerous bulk carriers and, most recently, the Costa Concordia’.

Although the organisation had acted proactively to address the safety of large cruise ships over the past 15 years, the same could not be said about domestic passenger ship safety, with more than 1,000 lives lost in 20 accidents over the past 18 months.

‘I firmly believe that the currently unacceptable level of casualties and incidents involving domestic ferries can be avoided if adequate laws, regulations and rules are developed and effectively implemented and enforced,’ he added.

The IMO leader re-stated his ‘accident zero’ aim of halving the marine casualty rate, and said he hoped the maritime safety committee would take the shipping industry into a new age of using technological innovation to improve standards.

Master is fined after cruises hip runs aground

The master of a cruise ship involved in a Costa Concordiastyle incident in a Scottish port was fined £800 and ordered to pay £13 costs last month after admitting breaches of the Merchant Shipping Act.

Belfast magistrates court heard that the 15,067gt Hamburg had suffered a temporary blackout after passing over a rocky shoal while entering Tobermory Bay on 11 May this year.

Prosecutors said the Bahamasflagged vessel had been forced to anchor outside the port on arrival from Dublin as two other cruiseships were already there. When Hamburg got the go-ahead to enter, it took a course direct to the port, approaching from the north of a starboard hand channel buoy rather than the west.

The port side of the ship ‘grazed’ along the side of the rocky shoal and the propeller struck, causing the ship to temporarily lose power, the court heard. The ship was forced to enter the port without the use of its port engine.

Prosecutors said the alarm was raised by the mother of a crew member whose daughter had told her what had happened. When the mother lost the phone signal, she feared the worst and contacted the coastguard.

Captain Joao Manuel Fernandes Simoes pleaded guilty to failure to properly passage plan in breach of SOLAS and failure to report the incident, contrary to the Merchant Shipping vessel traffic regulations. He was fined £400 for each charge and £13 costs.

Judge Ken Nixon said he appreciated that other people were on the bridge at the time, but the captain was in charge and had to take responsibility.

Fraser Heasley, surveyor in charge of MCA Glasgow, commented: ‘This incident could very nearly have ended in tragedy. The master failed in his duty to keep a proper lookout and to ensure the safety of his passengers and crew. Following the grounding he proceeded directly to Belfast without notifying the appropriate authorities or accurately assessing the extent of bottom damage by an underwater dive survey.’

New alert over ECDIS deadlines

Nautilus has expressed concern about new evidence showing the slow progress of the shipping industry towards compliance with deadlines for the carriage of electronic chart display and information systems (ECDIS).

The UK Hydrographic Office revealed last month that only 54% of the 8,750 tankers in the global fleet of vessels over 3,000gt are currently using electronic nautical charts — even though the SOLAS regulations on mandatory carriage come into force on 1 July 2015.

Progress has been made in recent months, with the global ‘ECDIS readiness’ figure having risen from 42% in September 2014, it added. The UKHO data also revealed disparities in the adoption of ECDIS between different elements of the global tanker fleet. Just over 80% of LNG tankers are currently using an ENC service, compared with 70% of crude oil tankers and 36% of product tankers.

Thomas Mellor, UKHO’s head of OEM technical support and digital standards, said that while tanker owners had made significant progress towards compliance, more than 4,000 vessels are still not yet using an ENC service.

‘Even allowing for exemptions and the grace period until their first survey after 1 July 2015, which could be up to 12 months later, this is a considerable undertaking, and the ECDIS supply chain can expect to come under considerable pressure in the coming months,’ Mr Mellor warned.

Tanker owners should act quickly, he pointed out, as failure to comply can lead to severe operational, commercial and reputational consequences.

Nautilus senior national secretary Allan Graveson described the data as disturbing. ‘This demonstrates that a significant part of the industry is reluctant to accept new technology. In the absence of equipment specific training, relying on generic and familiarisation alone, I await the sequel,’ he added.

Report warns on anchor use

Seafarers should be aware of the risks of using anchors in an attempt to halt their ships in an emergency, Danish accident investigators have warned.

The alert comes in a report on an incident last October in which a Danish-flagged ro-ro cargoship carrying radioactive waste suffered a fire off the coast of Scotland — prompting the shut-down and evacuation of a North Sea oil platform as it drifted without power.

The 5,801gt Parida was carrying nuclear waste on a regular run from Scrabster on the NE coast of Scotland to the Belgian port of Antwerp when a fire broke out in the main engine funnel casing.

Investigators said the incident showed how ‘a small everyday malfunction of a technical component’ can create the potential for a major disaster. In this case, the fire began after oil leaked from a pressure gauge that was damaged in heavy weather.

The blaze was extinguished by crew within 35 minutes, but engineroom staff were unable to restore power because of the loss of the thermal heat-oil system and the risk that the fire might reignite.

Parida drifted to within 9nm of the Beatrice Alpha platform and the UK emergency towing vessel was considered to be too far away to be an effective solution. The ro-ro was eventually towed to safety by the off shore support vessel Pacific Champion.

The Danish Maritime Accident Investigation Board (DMAIB) said the use of anchors had slowed the drift towards the platform and stabilised the situation before the tow was established. But it cautions against the perception that anchors are, in part, intended for use in such emergencies.

‘The standard anchor equipment onboard ships generally does not support this purpose,’ the report stresses. ‘Thus, emergency use of anchors might introduce an excessive strain on the ship’s structure and may expose the crew working near the anchor winches to an additional risk.’

Officer died while working alone

Seafarers should avoid ‘spur of the moment’ decisions to do jobs on their own without consulting colleagues, a fatal accident investigation report has warned.

The fourth engineer onboard the Isle of Man-flagged bulk carrier Nordic Visby was discovered, dead, by two cadets while the vessel was in the port of Alexandria in July last year. He was on a workshop bench with a gas welding filler rod in his hand, which was touching an overhead light fitting.

Investigators said work was being carried out in the engineroom even though it was UMS on the night of the incident and there were no records of the duties being carried out by the five staff in the machinery space. The fourth engineer had been carrying out unplanned work on his own, the report notes, and this was in breach of the company’s procedures. ‘If he had been accompanied, or undertaking the work when the engineroom was manned, the accident may not have been fatal,’ it adds.

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

1. 

   jahangir says:

   July 23, 2015 at 1:43 pm

   Test