Currents ….

Currents ….

Trade worry: Maritime UK has urged the government to rethink plans for job cuts at the Department for International Trade. Maritime UK chairman David Dingle described the move as deeply worrying. ‘At a time when the UK is preparing to leave the European Union and then position itself as an outward looking, global trading maritime nation, we need maximum government support to encourage UK companies to export, and government support to match UK capability with global opportunities,’ he added.

DFDS drop: DFDS has ended its Rosyth-Zeebrugge service following an engine room fire onboard the ro-ro cargo ship Finlandia Seaways, in which a crew member was injured. The company said no replacement tonnage was available for the service and it had decided to withdraw from the route because of continued losses. Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said efforts are being made to keep the route running.

Shell simulator: Shell International Trading & Shipping (STASCo) has signed a contract to use an in-house advanced version of BMT’s Rembrandt navigation simulator to support projects involving navigation and STS operations. The current training facility will be expanded when STASCo relocates back to its international headquarters in London next year.

Auto-docking: the Finnish technology group Wärtsilä has reported the successful trials of a fully automatic docking system onboard the 83m Norwegian ferry Folgefonn between January and April this year.

Hours alert: the Dutch Safety Board has called for a review of the impact of fog and reduced visibility on the working hours of crews on inland waterway vessels. An investigation into a collision involving the benzene tanker Maria Valentine in December 2016 expressed ‘astonishment’ that the vessel’s captain had been permitted to sail for 13 continuous hours before the accident. The report also calls for improvements in crisis management and emergency response.

Sulphur fears: time is rapidly running out if the ‘game-changing’ global 0.5% fuel sulphur cap is to be introduced successfully, shipowners warned last month. International Chamber of Shipping chairman, Esben Poulsson, said there are concerns over the availability of compliant fuels after January 2020 and the International Maritime Organisation urgently needs to resolve ‘complex practical issues’ before the deadline.

SAR call: bulk carrier owners have called for action to improve standards of search and rescue resources around the world. Intercargo said the loss of the Stella Daisy and its crew of 22 in March 2017 showed that the maritime community ‘should be concerned about the nonavailability of sufficient shipping capabilities in the vicinity of busy shipping lanes around the world’.

CHIRP award: the UK’s confidential incident reporting programme, CHIRP Maritime, has been presented with the ‘team of the year 2018’ at the Lloyds Register Foundation international conference. Programme director Jeff Parfitt described the award as ‘a significant accolade’ in the light of strong competition.

Italian action: Italy’s three maritime unions called a 24-hour strike of seafarers and port workers to protest about cargo handling safety following three deaths in the country’s ports so far this year. They called for a meeting with the transport minister to discuss concerns over plans to reform port operations.

Social sale: a merchant ship involved in a fatal collision with a French fishing vessel in 2007 has been sold for scrap in an auction ordered by the Brest court. The Ocean Jasper was sold for €4,070 and the proceeds have gone to the French maritime social security body, ENIM.

Tender row: Corsica Ferries has filed a court case against rival operators La Méridionale and the liquidated SNCM, demanding ‘several tens of millions of euros’ compensation for claims that it was illegally excluded from a tender for the France-Corsica public service ferries contract.

Cruise target: Marseilles has reached its 2018 goal of beating Venice as the Mediterranean’s fourth-ranking cruise port, chalking up a 13% year-on-year passenger growth over 2017. The port expects 513 cruise calls this year, up from 444 in 2017.

Ukraine award: V.Ships Ukraine has won employer of the year in the country’s Maritime Rating awards, in recognition of its employment of almost 6,500 Ukrainian seafarers and more than 550 cadets.

Fatigue call: French unions have called for urgent talks after a survey of seafarers showed high levels of fatigue, depression, stress and sexual harassment.

Space deaths: another two seafarers have died in an enclosed space accident. They were among four crew members from the Hong Kong-flagged bulk carrier Feng Hui Hai who were taken to hospital after the master reported that they had been overcome by gas while the vessel was at an anchorage, waiting to discharge a cargo of coal at the Indian port of Naviakhi.

Brittany protest: French seafarer unions staged a protest in the port of Brest last month as the Cyprus-flagged ro-pax ferry Connemara made its first voyage from the Irish port of Cork. Unions have warned of industrial action over the company’s use of a foreign-flagged ship, crewed with ‘low-cost’ seafarers.

Danish record: the Danish merchant fleet has grown beyond 20m gt mark for the first time ever. Industry minister Brian Mikkelsen said the milestone reflected moves to make the country’s ship register more competitive, including the removal of registration fees earlier this year.

Greek strike: Greek seafarers staged a 24-hour strike last month in protest over plans to open up the country’s cabotage trades to foreign-flagged ships. They also highlighted concerns over pay and pensions and called for action to cut unemployment in the industry.

Jobs boost: the Naples-based Grimaldi group has pledged to recruit 1,000 Italian seafarers as part of a US$2bn fleet upgrade which will involve the delivery of 20 new vessels, including ro-ros of ‘revolutionary’ design that will be emission-free while in port.

IMO urged to act on automation study

Warnings have been registered that neglecting ‘human factors’ in the drive towards autonomous shipping could pose major threats to safety and the environment last month as the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) maritime safety committee began its two-year review of the regulatory framework governing the operation of autonomous ships.

The Union backed two papers submitted to the meeting by the International Transport Workers’ Federation and the International Federation of Ship Masters’ Associations. These warned of the potential for confusion arising from the lack of an agreed definition of an autonomous ship, and stressed the need for more attention to be paid to human/machine interface issues.

The seafarer representatives urged delegates to take note of the Nautilus Federation report on autonomous shipping and address issues including future human element requirements, enhanced redundancy and reliability, and the legal implications of remotely-controlled operations.

Azura master fine

A P&O Cruises master is facing a fine of up to €200,000 and up to one year in prison after the Bermuda-registered Azura was allegedly caught in breach of pollution rules in the French port of Marseille. Announcing the move, prosecutors said tests showed the sulphur content in the fuel onboard the 115,055 gt vessel to be 1.68%, compared with the 1.50% limit laid down in legislation introduced in 2015. The case is due to be heard in court on 9 July.

Drones tested for SAR role

The UK Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) and the RNLI have staged a week-long exercise to test the use of drones for search and rescue operations.

Conducted off the coast of Wales, the tests involved a selection of drones being used in four different SAR scenarios, including an offshore search for multiple casualties in the sea. MCA aviation technical assurance manager Phil Hanson said the trials examined the potential for technology to enhance SAR efficiency and reduce the risks to personnel.

‘It’s too early to comment on how we will move forward from the trials but one thing we all agree on is that drones cannot replace helicopters, coastguard rescue teams or lifeboats,’ he added.

‘However, it is entirely possible that they could be an additional tool to use in search and rescue.’

Pilots warn over scale of defective ladders

More than 15% of pilot ladders fail to comply with minimum international safety standards, the International Maritime Pilots’ Association (IMPA) has revealed. In a paper to the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) maritime safety committee, IMPA says there is worrying evidence to show that efforts to cut the number of defects in pilot transfer arrangements have not delivered.

IMPA says hopes that improvements would come by including pilot ladders within ships’ SOLAS safety equipment inspection regimes have not materialised. ‘IMPA has noted that the previous slow decline in the level of defects has ceased and levels remain too high,’ the paper adds. The paper is based on almost 3,000 reports from IMPA members, and shows wide variations in pilot ladder standards – with non-compliance rates ranging between 7.76% in the Asia/Oceania region and 21.3% in South America, and from 5.48% onboard car carriers to 21.05% on reefers. Some 15.6% of pilot ladders were found to be non-compliant, as well as more than 23% of helicopter and 20.64% of combination transfer arrangements.

Common problems included ladders not secured properly, ladder steps not being horizontal, and poorly rigged retrieval lines. ‘Pilot ladders are an extremely simple and inexpensive means of allowing a pilot to embark and disembark a vessel at sea,’ IMPA told the IMO. ‘Compliance is neither complicated nor expensive. Yet, in 2017, it is sad to say that pilots are still being injured and killed while embarking ships.’

IMPA said the causes of the problems include: new ships that do not comply with basic standards; classification societies certifying non-compliant arrangements; port state control officers signing off ships on the basis of certificates without even sighting ladders; fake ladders being sold to unsuspecting vessels; ‘and even sometimes dangerous boarding arrangements are prepared by poorly motivated crews often without officer supervision’.

ED: Amen to this.  Many marine surveyors suffer the same problems.

Deal welcomed to improve MLC support

An agreement has been welcomed to amend the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) 2006 to provide improved protection for seafarers held hostage as a result of piracy or armed robbery attacks on their ships. The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) is being urged to move onto the next big challenge and develop a long-term strategy to ensure that ‘desperately needed’ additional changes are made to the MLC.

Nautilus officials were part of the seafarers’ delegation to the third meeting of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Special Tripartite Committee in Geneva, which agreed an amendment to ensure that seafarers’ wages and other contractual entitlements will continue to be paid during the entire period of captivity. Charles Boyle, director of Nautilus legal services, said the amendment follows a working party which was established in 2016 in response to union calls for it to be made unlawful to terminate seafarers’ employment agreements while they are held captive; for seafarers to receive all their pay and other entitlements during the period of captivity; and for shipowners to be obliged to have some form of financial security certificate to cover their responsibilities.

‘Although we did not get agreement on the provision of financial security, the amendments that we did achieve are welcome and represent progress towards the protection of vulnerable seafarers and their families,’ he added. ‘The compromise reached is a much better outcome than the shipowners’ original proposals for guidelines outside the MLC, which would not be legally enforceable.’

The week-long meeting also saw the seafarers’ and shipowners’ groups jointly table three resolutions calling for action by governments on vital issues such as the facilitation of shore leave and seafarer abandonment.

The seafarers’ group also tabled a resolution calling for the ILO to consider convening a sectoral meeting to discuss decent work in the inland navigation sector.

(With thanks to the Nautilus Telegraph: https://nautilusint.org/en/what-we-say/telegraph/)

**  Contributions  **

Language problems in Channel collision

Language problems have been blamed as a key factor in a collision between a tanker and a bulk carrier in the Dover Strait last year.

The Hong Kong-flagged bulker Huayang Endeavour and the oil tanker Seafrontier, carrying 37,944 tonnes of gasoline, collided five miles from the Sandettie Bank in the early hours of 1 July 2017. Both vessels were damaged, and a UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) report on the incident says it was fortunate that there were no injuries or pollution. Investigators found that both ships had spoken on the VHF radio about 10 minutes before the collision – but the bridge teams of the two vessels developed conflicting plans for how Huayang Endeavour was going to overtake the tanker. The bulker’s Chinese bridge team thought the tanker wanted them to overtake on its port side, whilst Sea Frontier’s Indian bridge team thought it had been agreed that Huayang Endeavour would overtake on their starboard side.

The MAIB notes that watchkeepers are increasingly using VHF to resolve close-quarters situations, but it warns of a risk of confusion if the language used is not the crew’s native tongue. Had the bridge teams in this case used Standard Marine Communication Phrases, this danger would have been avoided, the report adds.

Fatigue was also identified as a factor in the collision. The MAIB said Seafrontier’s master had been on the bridge for more than 14 hours ‘and was probably suffering from fatigue, which was likely to have had an adverse effect on his decision-making and reaction times’.

(With thanks to the Nautilus Telegraph: https://nautilusint.org/en/what-we-say/telegraph/)