CURRENTS

CURRENTS

SCHETTINO APPEAL: prosecutors have called on Italy’s highest court to confirm a guilty verdict against Captain Francesco Schettino, the master of the Costa Concordia which capsized and sank in 2012 with the loss of 32 lives. The master has appealed to the Court of Cessation in a final attempt to secure an acquittal of the charges of manslaughter, causing a maritime accident and abandoning ship before everyone had been evacuated.

PIRACY ALERT: US defence officials have expressed concern over a fresh wave of pirate attacks off Somalia. There have been at least seven incidents over the past eight weeks, including several in which pirates fired at ships. US defence secretary Jim Mattis said that whilst he was not yet calling for a response from the US Navy, the number of recent incidents meant that merchant seafarers and shipping companies must once again be on high alert.

FAKE FLAG: the island states of Micronesia in the western Pacific have written to the United Nations to protest about the ‘illegal’ registration of ships and seafarers under their flag. The Federated States of Micronesia told the UN that it has no connection with the 300 vessels apparently registered to fly its flag, pointing out that its laws do not allow registration of international shipping and do not guarantee crew certificates.

NEWHAVEN PLEDGE: a pledge about the continuity of the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry link has been given by the chairman of the Seine-Maritime district council, which owns the two ships that DFDS Seaways operates on the route. Last year’s results for the service were described as ‘exceptional’.

PORTS PLEA: the British Ports Association has urged the UK government to ensure that trade can continue to flow freely through the country’s ports after withdrawal from the European Union. It says ministers need to avoid customs and frontiers controls which could create congestion in ro-ro ferry ports.

GREEN AID: the European Investment Bank and the Dutch bank ABN Amro have signed a €150m agreement to provide support for initiatives to make the European shipping industry and inland waterways transport more environmentally friendly.

HULL BOOST: P&O European Ferries has announced the launch of a new freight service linking Hull and Zeebrugge. The company has chartered the Dutch-flagged containership Elisabeth to operate the route, running three round-trips a week.

FATAL BLAST: two seafarers were killed after an explosion in the forward storeroom of the 56,600 dwt bulk carrier Tamar off Cape Cod in the Atlantic last month. Three other crew members suffered serious burns in the incident.

LIVERPOOL BOOST: Peel Ports says it has met its target of winning support from 200 companies for its campaign to encourage shipping firms to introduce direct deep sea services to the port of Liverpool.

MLC ADDITION: Tunisia has become the latest country to ratify the Maritime Labour Convention, taking the total number of signatory nations to 82, accounting for 91% of world tonnage.

BIG FIND: Hurricane Energy has made what it describes as ‘the largest undeveloped discovery’ of oil in UK waters. It believes that up to 1bn barrels of recoverable oil could be contained within the Greater Lancaster Area, some 97km west of Shetland. It hopes to begin production in 2019.

MAERSK ADDITION: Maersk Supply Service has taken delivery of a new vessel for its fleet, the 10,181gt AHTS Maersk Master. The first in a new class, the Danish flagged vessel is being deployed on the Janice and Leadon decommissioning projects in the UK sector of the North Sea.

ENGLISH COURSE: the Italian Merchant Marine Academy Foundation and the Ignazio Messina Group have successfully concluded their first joint course on maritime English in Genoa. The classes have been launched to provide basic English language skills for the crews of the company’s Italian-flagged ships, something especially needed in emergency situations.

RUSSIAN CRUISES: the Russian firm Black Sea Cruises has bought the historic French passenger ship Azur to operate cruises from Sochi and Novorossiysk on the Black Sea to the Crimean ports of Yalta and Sevastopol. The ship, which operated between 1975 and 1986 in the Croisères Paquet fleet, has been re-named Knyaz Vladimir and switched to the Russian flag.

DRUGS BUST: three people, including the master and chief engineer of the Liberian-flagged bulk carrier Mount Faber, were arrested after 108 kg of cocaine was discovered on board by police in Gibraltar. The drugs, which had an estimated street value of £6.5 m, had been concealed in a container attached to exterior of the hull under the waterline.

SEISMIC ALARM: French seafaring unions have expressed concern that their country will no longer have a national-flagged seismic research fleet following a financial restructuring agreement between the French operator CGG and its Norwegian partner Eidesvik in which Eidesvik would take ownership of seven CGG vessels.

BOXSHIP GROUNDS: the 13,296 TEU containership UMM Salal was refloated with the aid of a local tug after running aground shortly after leaving Malaysia’s Port Klang last month. The UASC ship was cleared to continue its voyage to Khor Fakkan after a survey showed no signs of damage.

GAS GROWTH: the global LNG carrier fleet has increased from 193 to 479 ships between January 2006 and March 2017. Total capacity of the LNG fleet has tripled to 70.2m cubic metres over the same period and is expected to grow by up to 2% a year over the next two decades as global demand for LNG increases.

SPANISH SERVICE: Africa Morocco Link (AML) has put a second ferry onto its service between Tangiers and the Spanish port of Algeciras. AML, a joint venture between the Greek firm Attica Holdings and the BMCE Bank of Africa group, aims to have a fleet of six ferries by 2020.

PORT UPGRADE: the French port of Le Havre has launched a €10m-plus project to update its cruise terminal facilities. The port is set to have a total of 140 cruiseship calls involving 400,000 passengers this year, up from 50 visits and 78,000 passengers a decade ago.

COLLISION PROBE: an investigation has been launched into the cause of a collision between the Hong Kong-flagged containership Maersk Genoa and the Danish-registered general cargo vessel Dan Fighter in the Westerschelde, off the port of Antwerp last month.

TAX WIN: seafaring unions in India have welcomed a ruling which protects the income tax concessions for crew members who serve on foreign ships in deep sea trades. The Central Board of Direct Taxes overturned a judgement by the Kolkata tax tribunal that seafarers’ foreign earnings were taxable. National Union of Seamen of India general secretary Abdulgani Serang described the decision as ‘great news’ and said it was the result of intense lobbying by maritime unions and their members.

CHINESE CREWING: Anglo-Eastern Shipmanagement has launched a joint venture with one of China’s largest crewing companies in a bid to meet what it describes as growing demand for the country’s seafarers. Its partnership with Shanghai-based Sinoship Seafarer Management aims to become the leading seafarer management company in China.

ICEBREAKER COLLISION: the Panama flagged bulk carrier Nordic Barents collided with the nuclear-powered icebreaker Vaygach while transiting the Northern Sea Route last month. Authorities said the 43,782 dwt bulker was damaged in the incident, but there were no injuries and no pollution.

NORWEGIAN REJECTION: Norway’s competition authority has rejected proposals from Icelandic shipowner Eimskip to take over the Norwegian firm Nor Lines, on the grounds that the deal would reduce competition in the transport of frozen fish from northern Norway to northern Europe.

MAERSK DEAL: the European Commission has cleared Maersk Line’s proposed acquisition of Hamburg Süd’s 130-ship fleet, on condition that the German carrier withdraws from liner alliances on five key trade routes in which the merger would have created insufficient competition.

VIRGIN START: a steel cutting ceremony has been held in Genoa of the first of three new 110,000 gt cruise ships Fincantieri is building for Virgin Voyages. Due for delivery in 2020, 2021 and 2022, the vessels will each have a capacity for more than 2,700 passengers and 1,150 crew.

SAUDI SWITCH: the state-owned Saudi Arabian tanker firm Bahri is planning to switch all its 37 VLCCs to the country’s ship register. Most of its 18 vessels which are not already under the national flag are presently registered in Liberia or the Bahamas.

ALGERIAN ADDITION: the Algerian ferry firm ENTMV has chosen China’s Guangzhou Shipyard to build its first new vessel in a decade. Due for delivery in summer 2019, the new ship will be able to carry up to 1,800 passengers and 600 vehicles.

FATAL FALL: a 19-year-old Indian cadet died after falling 16 m from a ladder on board the 6,266 TEU containership MSC Damla at the MSC PSA European Terminal in Antwerp last month. His family have called for a full inquiry into the incident.

Officer given $1m for waste tip-off 

A US$1m award to a ‘whistleblowing’ British engineer officer, who alerted the authorities about illegal discharges of oil-contaminated waste from the Princess Cruises ship Caribbean Princess, has been welcomed by many.

The reward was made by a US court as it confirmed a record-breaking $40 m fine for the company after subsequent investigations revealed that five of its ships had been using ‘magic pipes’ to bypass oily water separation equipment.

The district court was told that there were ‘significant failures in management and corporate culture’ within Princess Cruises and, in addition to the fine, the company will be placed on probation for five years. Over this period, all ships owned by parent company Carnival and trading in the US will be required to implement an environmental compliance plan that includes independent audits by an outside company and oversight by a court-appointed monitor.

US government and Coast Guard officials praised the newly hired officer for providing ‘invaluable’ information about the offences, including cell phone photographs and videos showing the attempts by Italian senior officers to cover up the illegal discharges. ‘Without the courageous act of a junior crew member to alert authorities to these criminal behaviours of deliberately dumping oil at sea, the global environmental damage caused by the Princess fleet could have been much worse,’ said Rear Admiral Scott Buschman, commander of the USCG Seventh District.

‘The selflessness of this individual exposed five different ships that embraced a culture of shortcuts, and I am pleased at this outcome.’

The US government sentencing memorandum stressed the importance of the whistleblower award: ‘Each year, thousands of seafarers participate in, or are aware of, illegal conduct aboard their vessels. A tiny minority choose to take active measures to stop the wrongdoing and bear witness.’

Charles Boyle, head of Nautilus legal services, commented: ‘The level of fine imposed on Princess Cruises in this case shows the severe seriousness in which environmental breaches are held, and this should be a warning for seafarers not to get involved in such illegal activity or by covering it up.

‘Any member who suspects that this type of activity may be in progress on board should contact the Union for advice, particularly if they want to report the matter to external authorities, and Nautilus will endeavour to ensure that get maximum protection under any applicable whistleblowing legislation,’ he added.

‘It is encouraging to see that a substantial amount of the fine will be donated to community service projects to benefit the maritime environment, and that the seafarer who reported the matter has also been substantially rewarded,’ Mr Boyle said.

US district judge Patricia Seitz also ordered that $1m of the fine should go for projects to benefit the marine environment in UK waters and a further $1m should be paid into the Abandoned Seafarers’ Fund, to provide humanitarian relief and support to seafarers stranded in the US after witnessing maritime related crimes.

‘These violations of law were serious, longstanding and designed to conceal illegal discharges,’ US acting assistant attorney general Jeffrey Wood commented. ‘The sentence in this case should ensure that these crimes do not take place in the future and should also send a strong message to others that illegally polluting US waters will not be tolerated.’

Training fund marks 40th anniversary

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Nautilus JW Slater Fund, a charity, established in honour of a former general secretary, which provides crucial support to help seafarers progress in their careers.

The Union is planning to celebrate the anniversary with a number of new initiatives, including a seminar in London in July to consider the results of specially-commissioned research into training issues, head of strategic development Steven Gosling told the UK branch last month. Mr Gosling said the fund had been set up to help ratings with the costs of education and training towards officer certification. Since 2012 it has been providing assistance to yacht crew and electrotechnical officers studying for their first certificates and, since its launch, more than 430 seafarers had gained their OOW certificate with Slater Fund scholarships, he added.

Last year, the fund received its highest number of applications and awarded a record number of 105 scholarships. There are presently 251 people on the programme and 50% of last year’s applications were from yacht crew or ETOs. The fund trustees have agreed to increase the value of the awards to £18,500 per scholar, with a £1,500 completion bonus, effective from 31 March this year.

‘It remains true that the fund has financed more rating to officer training than any other maritime organisation in the UK,’ Mr Gosling said. ‘This year looks like being a record year and we have good reason to celebrate

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