Current News

Chamber of Shipping (ICS) has ‘greatly welcomed’ a decision by the COP21 United Nations climate change negotiators to exclude shipping from the ‘Paris Agreement’ on CO2 emission reductions. The ICS said it wanted target-setting to be left with the International Maritime Organisation and promised that there would now be ‘new momentum’ to help the industry deliver ever greater CO2 reductions when the IMO stages talks on the issue in April 2016. The European Community Shipowners’ Association and Maersk had both called for shipping to be included in the text.

VDR WARNING: the shipping industry has been warned that vessel voyage data recorders (VDRs) may be vulnerable to cyber-attacks and hackers. Researchers with the security firm IOActive examined one popular model, the Furuno VR-3000, and determined that its weak encryption and security features could allow hackers to execute arbitrary commands and to access, modify, or erase data stored on the VDR, including voice communications, radar images, and navigational information.

DREADNOUGHT CORRECTION: November’s Telegraph incorrectly named one of the administrators of the Dreadnought service as Sandra Gray rather than Sandra Jones. We apologise to Sandra Jones for any embarrassment caused. We would also like to clarify that donations to the Dreadnought service are used to provide extra benefits to seafarers such as covering the cost of accommodation or travel, and are not used to cover the costs of medical care, which is fully funded by the NHS.

BRITTANY ROW: unions with the French operator Brittany Ferries have expressed anger at management’s threat to switch its high-speed catamaran Normandie Express from the full French flag to the UK register if an agreement on working hours, currently being negotiated, is not signed by the time the vessel is due to resume summer season sailings on the Portsmouth to Cherbourg route.

COLLISION PROBE: the UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) is looking into the causes of a collision between a car carrier and a DFDS ro-ro cargoship in the Humber last month. The Panamanian flagged pure car carrier City of Rotterdam suffered significant hull damage in the collision with the Danish registered ro-ro cargoship Primula Seaways in stormy conditions at the entrance to the Humber.

PLYMOUTH AWARD: Koji Sekimizu, the outgoing secretary-general of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO, was awarded an honorary doctorate from Plymouth University last month. Presenting the award, interim vice-chancellor David Coslett said: ‘Mr Sekimizu has, in his distinguished career, made a huge contribution to a host of truly global issues through his work with, and leadership of, the IMO.’

LERWICK VMS: the marine equipment firm Transas is to supply a new vessel monitoring system to Lerwick Port Authority in a £450,000 deal. Due for completion in May 2016, the new system at the Shetland port, which handles more than 5,000 vessels totalling 12m gt annually, will be installed across four sites, including the main port operations building and three remote stations.

CHINESE MERGER: China’s government has given the green light for a merger between the country’s two main state-owned shipping companies, Cosco and China Shipping Group (CSG). The merger will create the world’s fourth largest boxship operator and the new Shanghai-based company will be called China Cosco Shipping Group.

NEWHAVEN DEAL: DFDS has secured a two-year extension to its contract to operate the publicly-owned ferry service between Newhaven and Dieppe. The contract will run until the end of 2017 and covers ship management and route operations.

FPSO TRIALS: BP has announced that its new Glen Lyon floating production storage and offload (FPSO) vessel has started sea trials in preparation for work on the Quad204 development in the west of Shetland area. The new FPSO is a key element of the project, which is re-developing the Schiehallion and Loyal fields to extend production out to 2035 and possibly beyond.

SHELL FINED: Shell UK has been fi ned £22,500 and served with two improvement notices by the Health & Safety Executive after admitting to an oil leak from a pipeline in its Gannet F field in August 2011. The spill had been spotted by a standby vessel and an estimated 218 tonnes was released into the sea.

FEWER SPILLS: accidental oil spills in the North Sea fell to the lowest level on record in 2014, according to fi gures published last month. The Oil & Gas UK Environment Report 2015 showed that overall trends ofemissions, discharges and accidental releases in the UKCS improved during the year.

UKCS CHARTER: UK oil and gas operators have agreed an ‘Industry Behaviours Charter’ setting out plans to cooperate on ‘transformational change’ in the sector. The Oil & Gas UK programme covers issues including efficiencies, new technology and shared learning.

AUCTION PLAN: a French court has ruled that the general cargoship Ocean Jasper, detained in the port of Brest since 2007 after a fatal collision with a fi shing boat, will be put up for sale. France’s merchant navy social security body has asked the judge to fi x the estimated value at €100,000, while lawyers for the skipper’s widow and the Sokalique’s crew are seeking €300,000.

LNG FIRST: the Finnish firm ESL Shipping is to order what are claimed to be the world’s first LNG-powered large bulk carriers. The two 26,500dwt ice-class 1A ships will be built in China and will start operating in the Baltic Sea in early 2018. CO2 emissions per ton of cargo transported will be reduced by more than 50% compared with current vessels, the company claimed.

BULKER HELD: a Liberian-flagged bulk carrier was detained by the US Coast Guard for more than a month while potential environmental law violations were investigated. The German-owned Cornelia had been held in Duluth Bay on Lake Superior since 2 November.

SUICIDE PROTEST: a 31-year-old seafarer committed suicide by hanging himself at a crewing agency’s office in Manila last month. The seaman, John Elejan, was reported to have been made redundant by the company for unspecified ‘bad behaviour’.

LOST BOXES: a major search and recovery operation was launched in the Channel last month after 12 containers were swept overboard from the Liberianregistered reefer containership Star First in rough weather off Boulogne.

GREEK STOPPAGES: unions representing Greek seafarers and port workers staged a 24-hour strike early in December in protest at plans to cut pensions, increase the retirement age and privatise some of the country’s main ports.

CHINESE CLAMPDOWN: China has revealed plans to introduce Asia’s first emissions control areas (ECAs) within its waters, with a 0.5% sulphur content cap on bunkers to be phased in over the next three years.

VALE SALES: the Brazilian mining firm Vale is planning to sell its remaining 11 Valemax bulk carriers in a US$1.1bn leaseback deal. The company disposed ofeight of the 400,000dwt vessels in 2015 and in 2012.

TUG TALKS: French transport minister Alain Vidalies had talks with unions representing tug crews after they warned of strike action in protest at European Union plans to liberalise port towage services.

BUNKER SPILL: an investigation was launched in New Zealand last month after a spillage from the Hong Kong-flagged multipurpose cargoship Ning Po during bunker operations in the port of Whangarei.

RESCUE APPEAL: the French national maritime rescue organisation SNSM has appealed for more donations to support its 24/7 services and its network of 219 rescue stations and 32 training centres.

CANAL CONTRACTS: the UK-based BMT Group has secured contracts to carry out a series of marine and port assessments for the proposed US$50bn Nicaragua Canal. Under the deals with the Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development Group (HKND), its BMT Asia Pacific and BMT ARGOSS units will examine issues including design, vessel movements, traffic and capacity constraints and to update the business case for the Canal’s Pacific and Caribbean ocean ports.

CREW FREED: the Polish master and four crew members from the Cyprus-flagged cargoship Szafir were freed last month nine days after being kidnapped by a group of armed men 130km off Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Eleven other crew members managed to escape by barricading themselves in the engineroom when the ship, which was en route from Antwerp to the port of Onne port from Antwerp— when it was attacked.

SUILVEN SINKS: 30 crew members and four passengers were rescued when the former Caledonian MacBrayne ferry Suilven sank off the coast of Fiji last month. Fiji’s Maritime Safety Authority has launched an investigation into the loss of the New Zealand-flagged vessel at the entrance to Suva harbour. The 41-year-old vessel was operated by CalMac for 21 years before being sold to Venu Shipping in 1995.

BREAKING BAD: the NGO Shipbreaking Platform lobby group has slammed three leading Italian shipping companies for their poor shipbreaking practices. The environmental organisation called for the Grimaldi Group, Ignazio Messina and Vittorio Bogazzi & Figli to end the use of South Asian ‘beaching’ facilities which do not meet the requirements of the new EU regulation on ship recycling.

RESEARCH PLEDGE: French seafaring unions have welcomed confirmation from the managing director of the national research body Ifremer that its 10 vessels will remain under the full French flag. Concerns were raised when an official report referred to the ‘exorbitant’ salary bill and mooted a transfer of the fleet to the French international register RIF.

CHEMICAL VENTURE: the Danish operator Nordic Tankers and UK-based Borealis Maritime are launching a joint venture firm to operate a fleet of 15 iceclassed chemical tankers in NW Europe and the Baltic. Crystal Nordic is expected to begin operations in the first quarter of 2016 and will run its vessels under the Danish tonnage tax system.

POLAR ALARM: the French ecological association Robin des Bois says action is needed to strengthen navigation in polar regions after a cruiseship collided with an iceberg. The Marshall Islands-registered Ocean Endeavour sustained hull damage in the incident, which occurred near the South Shetland Islands last month.

OFFICER LOST: US Coast Guard rescue crews recovered the body of an engineer officer who went missing from the Chilean-flagged cargoship Berkay N, 25nm north of Puerto Rico last month.

Master in court after his ship cuts off Algerian telecoms

The Chinese master of a Panama-flagged bulk carrier which has been blamed for cutting off Algeria’s internet connections for six days has been brought before a court to answer accusations of negligence and disrespect for regulations.

Captain Du Chang Long was placed under judicial supervision after his vessel, the 28,208dwt Povosa Ace, was detained on suspicion of severing the fi bre-optic subsea telecommunications cable between France and Algeria when it anchored off the port of Annaba in October.

The break in the SMWE4 subsea cable took down some 80% of Algeria’s international bandwidth for almost a week. Algérie Telecom has fi led a claim for compensation, claiming commercial damages of more than 600m dinars (€5.1m), almost €850,000 in lost profits and more than €150,000 in repair costs.

The company said the ships had been arrested as a precautionary measure and the master had been prohibited from leaving Algeria, with his passport and ship documents being seized.

Report reveals huge gaps in internet access for seafarers

Seafarers are suffering from a growing disparity in standards of internet access, according to the latest happiness report from Crewtoo, the online social network run by KVH Media Group.

The happiness index monitors seafarer satisfaction levels on a scale of one to 10, and the latest report shows a satisfaction level of 6.37, virtually unchanged from the levels reported in August.

However, the report found that issues around connectivity and shore leave have emerged as key issues among seafarers. KVH, which specialises in providing satellite TV and communications systems to ships, said the responses highlighted a growing split in connectivity for seafarers, with some having good, cheap or free access, whilst others are in the ‘stone age’, with virtually no connectivity at all.

The survey also revealed a threetiered system for shore leave, with some seafarers getting good shore leave access and opportunities, some being able to get ashore occasionally or with difficulty, and those who are denied even the most basic of shore leave.

‘Sadly, it seems from our results that by far the greatest proportion of seafarers suffer the double jeopardy of both poor quality, expensive or non-existent connectivity, and difficult, expensive, or non-existent shore leave,’ the report notes. ‘Having to deal with these parallel concerns would be hard enough, but they are not mutually exclusive. Each impacts greatly on the other and can have a dreadful impact on the happiness of seafarers.’

‘Accident’ ruling on hold deaths

An inquest has delivered an accidental death verdict in the case of three seafarers who suffocated in an enclosed space onboard a cargoship in Goole docks.

Filipino seamen Ferrer Punongbayan and Jonathan Sanosa were overcome by a lack of oxygen in the cargo hold of the Germanflagged Suntis, which was berthed at Goole Docks on 26 May last year.

Chief mate Gerd Jeschniak also died after attempting to go to their rescue and a fourth crew member, William Bosito, could also have died had he not been stopped from going down the ladder by a dock worker, Lance Pulford, who had come to help.

Mr Pulford, who had been preparing to unload the timber cargo, told the inquest: ‘One of the crew members came up to me and said he needed help. I saw him about to climb down the hatch to his colleagues, but I stopped him. He would have been the fourth person to die that day.’

Mr Pulford and Mr Bosito put on breathing apparatus and, together with another stevedore, managed to recover the three men from the hold but found none of them had pulses.

They were declared dead at Hull Royal Infirmary, despite prolonged resuscitation efforts. An inquest jury in Hull was told that the men would have collapsed within seconds ofentering the hold because the oxygen levels had been severely depleted by the freshlysawn timber cargo.

Subsequent tests showed an oxygen level of 20.9% outside the hatch, 10% half way down the ladder and just 5% to 6% at the foot of the ladder.

The reason why the two seamen went down into the forecastle storeroom before it had been properly vented would never be known, the inquest heard, as they would have been aware of the dangers ofentering a confi ned space.

The seamen had been assigned to remove the tarpaulins protecting the deck cargo and one, or both, had climbed into the forward tween deck hatch during the discharge operation.

Coroner Professor Paul Marks directed the jury to reach a conclusion of accidental death for all three men. ‘After listening to the evidence, I have found there is only one conclusion available,’ he added. ‘It must be particularly difficult for the families of these men who are thousands of miles away and lost their loved ones so far from home.’

US study warns on shipping decline

US maritime unions have welcomed a new report which warns that the country is putting itself at ‘grave risk’ by allowing its merchant fleet to decline to dramatically low levels.

The study points out that the US-flagged fleet has fallen to the lowest level in more than a century and argues that US global competitiveness and maritime security is being jeopardised as a result.

While China continues to expand both its naval sea power and its fleet of merchant vessels, the US has adopted an ‘abandon ship’ policy towards the crucial merchant maritime industry, it contends. China’s has doubled its merchant fleet in the past four years and it now totals almost 4,000 vessels, while there are now fewer than 100 US-flagged merchant ships operating on international trades, it points out.

Similarly, the number of Chinese seafarers has risen from 280,000 in 1989 to more than 500,000 now, while the number of US merchant mariners qualified for ocean-going employment has fallen to fewer than 12,000. Continued decline of the US maritime sector could put more than 650,000 jobs at risk, the report adds.

China’s growing commercial and military sea power will give it the ability to control—or even halt, shipping ofessential goods by other nations, the study argues.

The US has never been so dependent on imports and exports delivered by ship as it is today, it notes, yet never has the nation had fewer of its own ships to carry goods.

The authors, retired US Navy Captain and maritime historian Carl Schuster and political scientist Dr Patrick Bratton, warn against the threats to the Jones Act and US Maritime Security Program (MSP) measures to support US-flagged and crewed ships.

‘The best and perhaps the only way we can counter the threat of “sea strangulation” is to strengthen and expand the US merchant marine,’ they write. ‘In contrast, an over-dependence on flags of convenience carriers and ships belonging to China or other nations that may test us could lead to hardship for those who live and serve under the flag of the US.’

The report was welcomed by the US Masters, Mates & Pilots union. ‘Few people realise that China does not need to launch a naval attack or conduct a blockade to harm us,’ said president Don Marcus.

‘The economic power of their huge merchant marine, which gives them the ability to control shipping rates and service, has the potential to wreak havoc on our economy,’ he added.

Wave risk to Lighthouses

Concerns about the ability of rock lighthouses to withstand the effects of climate change have been raised in a new study by Plymouth University. Experts from the School of Marine Science and Engineering examined historical and contemporary data to assess the wave impact loading on remote off shore lighthouses during storm conditions.

Researcher Dr Alison Raby commented: ‘The General Lighthouse Authorities recognise the need to retain rock lighthouses as physical aids to navigation. However, there is concern about how well they would withstand the additional wave loading associated with predicted sea level rises and increased storminess.’

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