Maritime Transportation And Shipping Talk

I recently did some shipments by Air and Sea. They were of same type, size and weight. The process of getting the shipments ready was very different in many ways. Air transportation has many restrictions that you don’t find in maritime transportation. In a LCL maritime shipment the restrictions are not many as long as you comply with the appropriate documentation to follow your shipment. In the air type shipments you have restrictions regarding the content and the packaging has also to be of approved type for air use. Pressure vessels, batteries, liquids, electronics, they all have some restrictions that doesn’t apply to same shipment going by maritime transport.

Technorati Tags: Maritime Logistics

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The Container, the use of it and it’s place in Maritime Transportation has been going through a process of change over the last few years that could not have been foreseen back in the 50’s when the pioneers like Malcolm McLean, the founder of Sea-Land started the adventure of carrying full truck chassis onboard ships. Some of these changes are evident in the type of ships that are being used and other changes are evident in the type of equipment being used both onboard and ashore alike. Containers are moving in virtual space. There are unmanned equipment being used, control is done remotely by computer and a large volume of containers are being handled every day with no human present except for in the control tower overlooking the whole thing.

Back again a bit to the beginning of Ships Containers and how it all started. USA was the first country in the world to have containers on ships and if my memory serves me right it was the founder of “Sea-Land” Mr. Malcolm McLean that started it all. With a background from his trucking business he found a way for his trucks to bypass the different state regulations for trucking. Having a North South trucking route from New York to Texas he simply loaded the truck trailers onto a ship and transported them directly to Houston Texas. In the beginning the whole trailer chassis was loaded onboard but it was difficult to stow this way. The next step was to have removable containers from the trucks that was loaded onboard and could be stacked. The size that Mr. McLean used was 35 feet long. Box container had been in use for many years by the US Army and also by the British Railway. These containers bare no standardization at all. They existed in many sizes and were also made in wood before they became metal, as they are today, however the principal use was road and rail. Mr. McLean was really the first one to develop this container to suit maritime transportation. He could see the need for a standard box that would fit on truck, rail and could also be easily loaded onboard a ship. This is how he came to the size of 20’ long by 8’ wide by 8’ high. The popular term TEU was derived from this measure and translates to Twenty-foot Equivalent Units. These first containers that was used was loaded onboard and placed on deck of Tank Ships. These ships had a very small capacity for “containers” but in those days it was considered a revolution having a 58 containers on deck.

Technorati Tags: Maritime Transportation, Containers, Container Ships

Maritime Transportation has always been a dominant factor in Global Trading. Looking back through History we can see maritime transportation by the Egyptians as early as around 3200 BC. It is said that they had Maritime Trade Routs going as far as Sumatra (Indonesia). All maritime transportation depended on the wind until the mid 19th century when mechanized ships started with the arrival of the first Steam Engine. It is a belief that the first steam engine was built back in 1690 by the French inventor Denis Papin. The first known steam engine in a boat was in 1704 by the same inventor. The arrival of the steam engine in ships made for a gradual replacement of the sail ships. All of a sudden man was not depending on the flow of the wind anymore. It was the beginning of better and more efficient maritime transportation. New Trade Routes was opened up and ships were now able to carry things that in the past would not have been possible since the sailing time had been so long. Since steam engine came, ship speed was increasing and could be maintained for the duration of the trip. In the past with sail ships, the speed was just as fast as the wind could bring you. Larger and better ships were built, more power and better steam plants was built. It was a time with an explosion of development within maritime engineering and eventually led to the diesel engine that we have today. Diesel engines became a fact in the 20th century and again we saw an explosion within maritime engineering and maritime transportation saw some significant improvements.
Maritime Transportation is now at a stage were about 90-95 % of international trade is carried onboard ships of some sort. The largest part of this is probably Container Transport. These boxes of various sizes, mostly 20’ and 40’ size have revolutionized maritime transportation. The largest problem facing maritime transportation today is being able to accommodate the flow of cargo in the shore facilities. Container Transport is demanding a lot of space for port operations and since the size of these ships are steadily increasing the need for deeper ports is also rising. Maritime transportation in bulk is also seeing a increase as more raw material is in demand. Newly developed raw material sites has seen new terminals being opened up and a demand for new tonnage in Bulk Carriers to be developed for this trade. In North Eastern Canada the simple geographical placement of the terminal demands ships that are able to handle heavy ice conditions during winter months. Maritime transportation can be the make or brake factor for some of these industries that are depending on it to get their product out to the International market. The extreme demand on vessel construction and power in order to handle this trade has made for many new innovations in naval architecture and marine engineering. As we are seeing more segmented marine transportation the arrival of tankers has also played an important role. The demand for fossil fuels as energy has made it into a very lucrative market for ship owners to invest into large tankers. A sub category to this kind of maritime transportation was the arrival of parcel tankers carrying specialty chemicals and other liquid cargoes.
In this article we have laid the base for understanding the history of maritime transportation and touched base with some of the segments within it. As we continue this series of articles we will go more in dept on the various segments and look closer at their individual history.

Technorati Tags: Maritime Transportation, Marine, Shipping

We Better Prepare For Cold Weather! When I was sailing one of the things we always made sure of was to prepare the ship for cold weather.

We are heading north to cold weather and lots of ice. This time of the year it can be some severe weather conditions facing you. Better be prepared for some cold weather. One of the first things to do is to make sure that any water that can freeze is drained or protected. I’m talking about drinking water in the lifeboats. Pipe lines like fire lines, freshwater lines, ballast lines, lines for water to the anchor chain etc. They have to be drained and preferably blown with air to remove all water. You should add some antifreeze liquid to sounding pipes, enough to prevent it from freezing. Humidity can make for a lot of problem in the hydraulic lines if it has a chance to freeze. It would be a good idea to have the hydraulic system run so circulation is going. Certain areas might prevent you from doing all the above so other measures has to be taken. I lamp with some cover can be sufficient heat to prevent from freezing. Electrical heating coils or cables can also be used. There are many options available to you. Wheelhouses have a tendency to be cold in this climate. A trick to maintain heat in the wheelhouse is to have a fan heater on each side, very close to the door out to the bridge wing. This will act as a heat curtain and prevent the cold from accessing the wheelhouse. Having a fan heater blowing towards the wheelhouse windows or portholes will prevent them from freezing up on you. If started early, you prevent it from building up and it becomes easy to maintain.

These above are some simple things that can prevent a lot of headaches later on. You will have ice on deck so a couple of mallets would help you with removal. Ice buster or road salt is also of good help. Make sure you have warm clothing available for the crew. They will need it. You don’t need a bunch of sailor becoming sick on you with colds and flu etc. It can be a great experience going north in the winter providing you are prepared for it. 

It has been almost a month since I last wrote something here. The New Year is in full swing on the Saint Lawrence River. Even though it’s in the middle of winter ships traffic on Saint Lawrence River is still going as far as Montreal. The Seaway Lock System is closed for the winter months. Canadian Coast Guard Ice Breakers are readily available for any ice jams in the river. They will have the river flowing again in a very short time should it happen to jam up. Container traffic on Montreal doesn’t seem to slow down any during the winter months. Canadian Lakers are laid up for the winter but there are a few that are still operating in the open waters on the east coast of Canada. Traditionally winter months in this area was used for vacation and some sorely needed time for the families involved in shipping. Having a Seaway system like ours means that the summer months were very busy and time off was hard to find. Ports like Montreal used to close down completely and operations were moved out to the Maritime Provinces. Cities like Saint John, New Brunswick used to take the brunt of the business from Montreal during those months. Companies had a full operation in those ports. They just moved their people down for the winter. Icebreakers and better ships changed all that the day the Government started to keep the River open to Montreal during the winter months.

It has been a trail to get the ships up and down the Seaway these last few days. Heavy ice in front of the Seaway locks has hampered the entry of ship into the locks and also exiting the locks. Who is to blame? There have been some serious delays for ships and certainly a costly affair. Who will bare the blame or will there be any pointing of fingers? Is it only Mother Nature that will bare this one? Could the situation with the locks have been avoided?

This year December 2007 we have seen what many have been waiting for. Mother Nature gave us an early Cold and Snow winter. As many years in a row now we have seen fairly easy operation well into the end of December before we started to get any serious problem with Ice. This year we got it early. I wonder if it has been any estimate on the loss of revenue for owners and operators of the ships? Will there be claims against the Seaway? What will happen now?

Would a batter agitation in front of the locks have helped? We are using a ice buster system around the propellers of the ships during lay up and that seem to keep it almost free of ice. Would a similar system working on the same principals, in front of the lock gates have helped? It seems that the current system is not working very well. It might just be that we need some modernization of the seaway and a re-thinking and assessment of what has happened this winter.

It is common knowledge that a ship cannot sail unless it has sufficient lifeboat capacity to cover the registered crew onboard. The older ships used to have a lifeboat on each side of the ship. Each of them had enough capacity to carry the whole crew. It was done this way in case one side of the ship was unable to lower the lifeboat. The other one would hopefully be useable. Now a day’s modern ship has only one lifeboat mounted on the stern. This type is a free falling type of lifeboat and are usually not depending on any side being free simply as it is used from the stern of the ship only. If a ship has a problem with lifeboat capacity and simply unable to use any given lifeboat that they can by temporary means while undergoing repair, have a sufficient capacity of life rafts take over the position as a lifeboat. What I mean by this is that if a lifeboat cannot be used, you can get a temporary permission from Class Society to use life rafts as replacement. The capacity has to be equal or more than the lifeboat it replaces. It is a requirement that it has the proper installation i.e. being mounted in a cradle and have the proper hydrostatic release attached. The life raft has to be up to date with certifications etc.  Class has to visually see the installation before being able to issue a temporary certificate and allow ship to sail. As we see so many times, there is always a way for owners to keep the ship operating even though it might not be safe. It can be a subject for discussion if a ship is safe without proper lifeboats in working condition. Is it safe to rely on only life rafts? North Atlantic wintertime can be tuff on you no matter what you are using. A life raft might just be a better alternative here. Than again it depends where you are I guess. Many distress situations seem to be favoring the rafts. From the news you can also see on many occasions that sailors have been rescued from rafts. And there was no lifeboat to be seen, at least from the aerial photos shown.

As most Seafarers know, mechanical splices can slip and your Eye Splice on the wire becomes a choker type eye. If this happens to a mooring wire used in the Seaway you have a problem to get the wire loose from the Bullard and in most cases the wire has to be cut. The new regulation for the Seaway that came into effect a while ago, specified that no more mechanical splice was permitted on the mooring lines. It is still permitted if the eye is of a “Flemish” type. In that case the mechanical splice is just for security lock and are not bearing and significant pressure from the tension on the wire. Scenario that brought this into effect in the Seaway was as follows: Traffic is heavy and the transit time of each vessel is minimized at the maximum possible. Mooring with wires that had a poor mechanical splice and the tension on the wire was just enough to make the splice slip and the eye was tightening around the Bullard. The only way at that time to get it off was to cut the wire. In this case, valuable time was lost and created a problem for lock crew. The wire was finally cut but in meantime a whole chain of events had happened, oncoming vessel had to tie up on the approach wall and vessel behind had to slow down also.

Technorati Tags: Wire, Seaway, Splicing

Using Motorola Transportable Mobile Telephone as a permanent installation onboard ships can be a way of reducing cost of communication through Satellite. The system set up is fairly easy to set-up and following is needed; A) Transportable Mobile Telephone. B) Magnetic Antenna C) Voltage Transformer to fit Power Supply onboard with an output of 12V D) Fax connection adaptor. E) Cigarette lighter output adaptor. As a second option to this, you could also install a regular cordless home telephone and connect to the system. This will give you the mobility onboard so you don’t have to carry the Transportable around with you. The reason for a Transportable Telephone is simple, it is the only Mobile Telephone that has output of 3 watt for transmission and therefore gives you a reach of up to 50 nautical miles from shore, depending of the weather conditions and the placement of the antenna. Installation diagrams are available upon request.

Technorati Tags: Mobile telephone, Shipping talk, communication

A few newly required people to the marine purchasing scene have no knowledge of what a Bowsing Tackle is nor what the purpose of it is. I will try to enlighten them on the use of it and also explain how it is put together. A Bowsing Tackle is simply two wooden blocks double or triple whatever your preference is. Mostly used is a 2-sheave block in each end. A rope suited for the size of sheaves ties them together. Running freely through the sheaves in loops it becomes a handy and powerful pulling tool. Knowing the law of weight reduction versus pull strength when using this type of a pulley you can understand the handiness of it. As a Bowsing Tackle it is used for holding your lifeboat in place alongside the ship when lowered from the Davit. It simply pulls the lifeboat up close to the shipside so people can enter safely into it while hanging from the Davits. Once all is onboard you simply loosen up the rope and the lifeboat will swing out from the shipside so you can safely lower it down into the water. This way the whole operation becomes safe and you avoid swinging the lifeboat abruptly.