Current News

MEMORIAL DEMAND: relatives of some of the estimated 4,000 people who lost their lives when the troopship Lancastria was torpedoed off France in June 1940 are calling for the UK government to ensure that the vessel is designated an official war grave. MPs are also calling for the government to release all the documentary evidence, much of which was suppressed at the time of what was Britain’s biggest ever maritime loss of life, without further delay.

RESCUE COURSE: the Human Rights at Sea charity has launched a new e-learning course to help address ‘a significant knowledge gap’ in the shipping industry on the rescue of migrants at sea. Developed in conjunction with the training provider Marlins, the course aims to provide masters, officers, crew and companies with up to date information to prepare for search and rescue missions involving migrants and refugees.

TRADE THREAT: the International Transport Workers’ Federation has warned that seafarers’ wages and conditions are at risk as a result of negotiations on a new global trade pact. It said leaked documents from the discussions on the Trade in Services Agreement showed that countries could undermine the minimum standards set by the Maritime Labour Convention.

CLYDE CALL: politicians in Glasgow have called for the Scottish government to rescue the former Cunard liner from its ‘neglected’ state in Dubai and to return the vessel to the Clyde. Councillors say the ship could become a ‘magnet’ for Scottish tourism following the failure of plans to turn it into a floating hotel in the United Arab Emirates.

CALAIS DISPUTE: officials at the UK port of Dover claim that a series of strikes by French seafarers protesting about the threat to the MyFerryLink operation have cost the UK economy as much as £1bn. DFDS has offered to take on 202 of the MFL seafarers, but this has been rejected by the SCOP Seafrance cooperative the crewed the ships.

SPACE DEATHS: three seafarers died last month in the latest in a growing list of enclosed space accidents. The crew members were discovered by Malaysian rescue teams after the Vietnamese-flagged vessel Hi Ram sent a distress message while off Tanjung Penyusup last month. Two other crew members had also suffered breathing difficulties.

DREDGING DEAL: Dutch dredging major Royal Boskalis Westminster has been awarded a contract from the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) of the UK Ministry of Defence to dredge the approach channel to the port of Portsmouth. The contract is worth €35m and work is due to commence in the second half of this year.

BOXSHIP BLAZE: the Japanese Coastguard was called in last month after the Liberian-flagged containership Kamala suffered a fire in the East China Sea. The blaze began in one of the containers onboard the 2,0111TEU vessel and crew members had reported that they were unable to contain its spread.

PORT AID: the Port of Cork has received almost €13m in EU funds for a €100m project to redevelop the port of Cork. The funding, under the Ten T, Connecting Europe programme, will support work including the construction of a new deepwater container facility at Ringaskiddy in Cork Harbour.

CUBAN CONTRACT: MSC Cruises is set to become the first major passenger ship operator to permanently base a ship in Cuba. The company announced last month that its vessel MSC Opera will operate out of Havana from December.

VISION EVENT: the Sea Vision organisation held an interactive maritime festival at Wyvern College in Hampshire last month as part of its programme to enthuse and educate young people about the maritime industry.

CAPTAIN JAILED: the captain of a US tug has been jailed for six months after being found guilty of felony maritime negligence which led to a fatal explosion onboard his vessel in 2005. Prosecutors said Dennis Egan had illegally allowed a deckhand to use a propane torch to unfreeze a cargo pump, which resulted in an explosion that killed the deckhand and resulted in a 600,000 gallon oil spill in the Chicago Ship Canal.

MYANMAR ACTION: maritime authorities in Myanmar have revoked the seafarer recruitment and placement services licenses for five local companies, while suspending five others from sending seafarers to foreign countries, according to an official report. The action is being taken in a drive to ensure that the country complies with Maritime Labour Convention requirements.

COLLISION PROBE: an investigation has been launched into the cause of a collision between a containership and a UK-managed LPG tanker off the coast of Indonesia last month. Crew members on the Liberian-flagged Navigator Aries managed to extinguish as blaze after the collision with the Panama-registered boxship Leo Perdana.

BRITTANY ADDS: French operator Brittany Ferries is poised to place an order for a new ferry under a short-term fleet renewal plan. Chairman Jean-Marc Roué said the new ship would replace the 1989-built Bretagne following ‘already significantly good results’ this year.

CHINESE FINES: China’s Transport Ministry has fined 21 container shipping lines a total of $684,000 over allegations that they ‘violated market conditions’ services between China and Japan by providing customers with rates below officially quoted levels.

COOK RULES: a new French decree has updated the status of ship’s cook, ruling that the job must be full-time on ships with 20 crew or more. The decree also sets requirements for ship cook qualifications, as well as hygiene and sanitation training.

ETV CHARTERS: France is to spend €22.1m to charter two emergency towing and anti-pollution vessels from the off shore support vessel operator Bourbon. The ships will be based in the ports of Brest and Toulon under a four-year contract.

GRIMALDI ORDER: Italy’s Grimaldi Group has signed a $165m order for three new vehicle carriers for delivery in 2017. To be built in China, the PCTC vessels will be able to carry up to 6,700 cars on eight decks.

CANAL CONCERN: French dockers’ unions have expressed concern that a project to widen links from the river Seine to other northern Europe waterways will lead to a loss of jobs and traffic in French ports. CRUISE BAN: the European Union has extended restrictions imposed on Russia, including a ban on European cruise ship calls at the Crimean peninsula and Sevastopol, until 23 June 2016.

ACTION BACKED: the European Transport Workers’ Federation has voiced its support for the Greek seafaring union PNO in a dispute with the country’s shipowners. The union had been planning to stage a 24-hour strike last month, accusing operators of violating collective labour agreements, cutting manning scales, reducing pension rights and using uninsured crew members. It postponed the action to enable people to travel on ferries to vote in a national referendum.

CALAIS EXPANSION: the European Commission has approved a €260m public investment scheme to support an €880 project to expand the port of Calais so that it can handle a new generation of large ferries. European transport commissioner Margarethe Vestager said the project will strengthen cross-Channel links and trade between the UK, Ireland and western Europe.

RUSSIAN RULES: Russia’s transport ministry is considering new rules to restrict tanker operations in its Arctic waters to Russian-flagged ships. If adopted, the law will prohibit companies from exporting Russian Arctic oil and gas with foreign-registered ships. The rules would have a significant effect on the country’s owners, as most of them operate under foreign flags.

SHORTSEA DEAL: the German short sea operator ODPR has been taken over by the French firm CMA CGM after European competition regulators approved the acquisition without any conditions. OPDR was part of the Bernhard Schulte group and specialises in short sea services between northern Europe, the Canary Islands, the Iberian peninsula and Morocco.

GUARDS GO-AHEAD: France has given the go-ahead to three private security companies to deploy guards on French flagged ships in high-risk pirate zones. The companies, one based in the UK, one in France and one in Greece, are the first to be approved since the law on private maritime security companies was changed in July last year.

SCRAPPING AID: China has given a two-year extension to a subsidy programme to encourage shipping companies to scrap old vessels. The scheme, which began in 2013 and was due to end this year, gives shipping lines grants worth US $242 per gross ton to replace ageing ships with newer, more environmentally friendly tonnage.

SKIPPER SENTENCED: a court in Paris court has sentenced the skipper of a river Seine cruise vessel to prison, suspended for three years, for the death of a pilot and a six-year-old child following a collision in September 2008. The court also suspended his licence for breaching security and speed limit rules on the river.

FRENCH REGISTER: ten years after it was established with 80 ships on its books, the French international ship register (RIF) has hit the 300 vessel mark. The register has been recently boosted by the off shore support vessel operator Bourbon and an increasing number of superyachts.

Port state control change ‘pays off ’

A new port state control inspection regime to target substandard shipping has paid off since it was introduced in 2011, the head of the Paris MOU on PSC has claimed.

Secretary-general Richard Schiferli said the initiative to use a risk-based matrix to focus checks on ships and to reward good operators with fewer inspections has helped to cut the detention rate to a new low last year.

Fewer substandard ships are operating in the Paris MOU region, he added, and an increasing number of ships have been banned from the region after being repeatedly detained. ‘Although it has become more difficult for substandard ships to slip through the net, some continue to take their chances visiting our ports,’ Mr Schiferli warned. ‘

These ships and their owners do not respect the international requirements and apparently have no intention of doing so. They continue to pose a threat to safety, the environment and working and living conditions onboard.’

The annual Paris MOU report shows that the number of ships having to be detained fell by 8% in 2014, even though the number of inspections in the area increased by 4%. Detentions fell from 668 in 2013 to 612 last year, while the total number of deficiencies discovered during inspections fell to 45,979, compared with 83,751 in 2008.

Deficiencies related to safety of navigation accounted for 13.47% of all deficiencies, closely followed by fire safety deficiencies (13.43%) and life-saving appliances (8.73%).

Last year was the first full year in which the Maritime Labour Convention was in force, and the Paris MOU said its analysis of the 14 key areas covered by MLC showed the highest areas of noncompliance to be with hours of work and rest (21%), food and catering (14%) and health and safety and accident prevention (37%).

The most common detainable MLC deficiencies were wages (20.08%), safe manning (9.27%), seafarers’ employment agreements (8.49%), work and rest hour records (5.79%) and sanitary facilities (5.41%).

The Paris MOU report also notes that 16 ships were detained in the region during a three month concentrated inspection programme carried out last year in response to concern over fatigue. ‘Whilst the detention rate appears low (0.4%), it has to be borne in mind that detention was not always the most appropriate action, as the breach of hours of rest may have happened in the past,’ it adds.

‘There was some concern that, although the CIC questionnaire was publicised in advance, 912 deficiencies recorded (22.57% of inspections) related specifically to STCW hours of rest.’

Union warns on ferry safety

The head of the United Filipino Seafarers union (UFS) has questioned the performance of the country’s maritime regulators following a fresh ferry accident last month in which 62 people died.

Police have filed murder charges against the owner, captain and a number of crew of the ferry Kim Nirvana after ruling that the vessel made too sharp a turn before it capsized off the port of Ormoc in heavy swell conditions.

But UFS president Nelson Ramirez said the national maritime authority Marina needed to answer questions about over-loading, lifesaving equipment, stability and the enforcement of safety rules.

Yard criticised for tank blast on UK-managed boxship

A seafarer onboard a UK managed containership suffered serious injuries following an explosion on the vessel while repairs were being carried out in a shipyard in China.

The AB on the 1,102TEU Munich Trader suffered second degree burns, a slight eye injury and the effects of smoke inhalation when the blast occurred in a heavy fuel oil bunker tank in July last year. A welder from the yard fractured an arm in the accident.

An investigation by the flag state, Malta, concluded that sparks from an oxy-acetylene torch being used by the welder had ignited flammable gases in the tank, causing the explosion.

The Maltese Marine Safety Investigation Unit report is critical of a lack of cooperation and information from the yard, which had claimed that a crew member using a power tool had caused the blast. Investigators said the seafarer had been cleaning the cross-deck at the time, in preparation for painting.

The report also notes that language problems between the crew and the yard workers ‘severely hindered effective communication’, leading to different interpretations over the location of the hot work permit— and the limited extent of information–sharing meant the master was unaware of the full extent of the work being carried out.

The report recommends that the UK managers of the vessel, Lomar Shipping, should ensure that yard selection procedures address potential barriers to the effective communication of risk and the management of safety onboard.

Masters should ensure that they are made aware of all critical tasks and kept updated on any developments, it adds.

Call for owners to act on ECDIS rules

Nautilus has welcomed a set of updated electronic chart display and information system (ECDIS) standards, due to be published by the International Hydrographic Organisation (IHO) this month.

The technical standards govern the display of Electronic Navigational Charts (ENCs), and the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) is urging shipowners to speak to their ECDIS manufacturers about the changes.

Most notable, says the UKHO, is the updated presentation library within ‘S-52’, the standard responsible for the portrayal of an ENC on an ECDIS screen. The UKHO says the safety and integrity of the data it provides is of paramount importance, and it wants seafarers to be able to see all the information provided, whether it is on an Admiralty paper chart or as an ENC. ‘However, without the latest presentation library (version 4.0) this won’t be the case with an ENC,’ it stresses.

The UKHO points out that the IHO has listened to feedback from seafarers, with the new presentation library addressing the ‘number one complaint levelled at ECDIS; constant audible alarms.

By providing clear guidance to manufacturers on ENC objects that will raise an alarm, the IHO has tackled the issue of alarm fatigue on the bridge,’ it adds.

Information such as fairway and anchorage area names now appear on screen, with landmarks, lights and buoys viewable via a ‘hover-over’ function. Both initiatives reduce the time-consuming need to find information buried in a pick report, the UKHO notes.

Existing ECDIS systems will have to be upgraded to the latest presentation library within 12 months.

Tom Mellor of the UKHO is chair of the IHO’s ENC working group. He said owners should take prompt action to plan for the transition to the new standards.

‘The upgrade requirements will vary between different ECDIS makes and models, so it is important that owners work together with their ECDIS manufacturers to identify the steps that need to be taken for all ECDIS systems across their fleet,’ he added.

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