Maritime Transportation And Shipping Talk » General Shipping

A major oil spill in Saint Lawrence Seaway

Arild — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 03:55:21 +0000

It has been all over the news these last few days. A ship had an oil spill in the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Looking at the international scene this spill is just a minor little thing. The amount of oil that leaked out into the Seaway was not a lot but as with any oil hitting water surface, it spreads very fast and makes the whole thing look far worse than it really is. When you look at the local scene in the river of Saint Lawrence this is a major spill. It was major enough to shut down the traffic in the Seaway for a few days. The risk was also there for local water filtration plants to be contaminated and that would have affected several local communities water supply. As the Saint Lawrence Seaway have an emergency response team already in place, the response time was fairly quick and the contamination was brought under control fairly quick. The traffic was back up and ship was moving again by 1600hrs local time today Thursday July, 2010.
Looking back at this event we should ask some question, not to put blame but to see if things like his can be avoided in the future.
As in many maritime disasters the first thing that is looked at is the people onboard the ship. Did they react properly and quickly enough? What was the cause of the puncture in the fuel tank? Was this a double hull ship and fuel tank? It the ship lost engine power, what was the reason? If it was engine failure, was this a problem that was recurring or was it simply a new and unforeseen problem? Could it have been avoided with better maintenance?
Understanding that the current owner has recently acquired this ship is there a history of mishaps with the ship that they should be aware of?
I hope that whatever enquiry the authorities have after this is over that measures will be taken for this not to be repeated anytime soon
You can read the latest about Navigation Resumes In Seaway’s South Shore Canal

A low cost solution for sending a small shipment overseas.

Arild — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 17:50:31 +0000

If you intend to ship less than a full container load overseas a freight forwarding company can save you a lot of money. The advantages if you are using the service of a broker are that they will handle the shipment door to door. They will provide you with a drop off location for your small shipment or even come and pick it up. They will also follow up that your shipment is delivered at final destination.
If you have the time to ship your cargo or parcel(s) by container it will be your less costly way of getting it to your destination. Shipping smaller shipments that are less than a full 20 foot container can still be your most economical solution if you use the service of a LCL broker. What this broker does is simply collect multiple smaller shipments and packing them in a container that will be sent with a ship. The time involved is longer than if you ship by air but it is also a lot cheaper. Most containers are a week or so at sea before they reach the continent. Americas to Europe for most Shipping Lines are about 7-10 days crossing. Most major industrial centers have freight forwarding companies covering that area and getting a price and time quote would be the right thing to do. Ask 3 companies for a price quote before deciding

PRESS RELEASE! For Immediate Release

Arild — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:28:13 +0000

Reformar Inc enters into long-term charter agreement for the Research Vessel Coriolis II with Seaforth Geosurveys.
(Rimouski, Qc); March 15, 2010
Reformar

Reformar Inc. is pleased to announce that it has signed a long term exclusive charter agreement for the Research Vessel RV Coriolis II. This exclusive agreement covers the use of the Coriolis II for the private sector contract. The 50 m former Canadian Coast Guard vessel has been operated by Reformar Inc. of Rimouski, Quebec since 2002. While the ship’s primary function is for academic research and training, Seaforth will also utilize the vessel for its worldwide marine survey operations. The ship, which is certified for operations in both domestic and international waters, is currently being mobilized in Quebec City with various geophysical sensors including multibeam, sidescan sonar, subbottom profiler, magnetometer, USBL, multi-channel seismic data acquisition and processing systems, and geotechnical sampling equipment. The vessel will also be configured with a dynamic positioning system, providing excellent station keeping for geotechnical operations and as an ROV support platform. Based in Rimouski during the summer, it is expected that the Coriolis will be based in Halifax during the winter months to support Seaforth’s domestic and international initiatives. “We are very excited about the opportunity presented with this partnership with Reformar”, stated Seaforth President David Lombardi.
To read the whole press release CLICK HERE!

What is “Green Award” For Shipping?

Arild — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:00:24 +0000

If we are to study this subject I think we should at least get the name right. The correct name is “Green Award”. It is a voluntary quality program for ship-owners, managers and their ships.
In the last article we covered some of the history and laid the base for our articles and study. The next step will be to look at the concept and how it works.
Green Award for shipping is primarily a scheme aiming paying extra attention to three primary items and they are safety, quality and environmental protection. The ambition is to create preference for ships conforming to these requirements, giving them a better market position. A safer ship will have fewer incidents and therefore avoid damage to reputation of owners/managers. Motivation and pride of crew becomes an important factor and will increase as improvement continues.

Ship-owners and managers are starting to recognize the importance of implementing this kind of certification. The cost recovery is also very fast. Conforming to the minimum legal requirements is no longer enough especially for tanker operation being such a high visibility type of operation.

More transparency is demanded by the general public and the shipping companies are starting to understand that they have to do more and also show that they are doing so. A way of showing that transparency is by having the “Green Award” flag flying in their mast visible to all. Visibility in the media was one of the reasons for tanker operators to be the first ones to come onboard in this program. The program was opened up for bulk carriers and their operators back in 2001, however the ship has to be 20000 DWT or more. Informing the general public and media at large about a program like this will hopefully have a snowball effect and have a positive impact on clients and future clients’ relation.

The concept or more correct the Certification System is based on ISO/IEC standards and the requirements formed from that are divided in to three parts under the headings of Basic Criteria, Ranking Criteria and Visual Inspection. Each criterion has its own checklist for auditors to go through together with appropriate department or employee.

What Is Green Ship

Arild — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:54:00 +0000

First, some history to bring us up to were we are today.

What does the Green Ship term mean? In International shipping “Green Ship” is mainly associated with the Green Ship Award Program. There is also something that is called Green Ship Initiative established in North America and some others but that is a whole other subject that we might get into another time. So here in these articles we are going to concentrate on “Green Ship Award System”.

In order for us to get an understanding of what it all means I think we should lay a bit of background.
The ships that we are using on the seven oceans have always had a great attention to the safety. The ship owners were always greatly concerned with the safety of the vessel and the cargo that it transported. After all the aim was to make money as a transporter. Onboard the ship, crew was always concerned with the safety and the equipment needed in situations of emergency.
As ship types and technology has changed so has the quality of the ship. The navigational equipment used to navigate safely on the oceans and especially in areas of high traffic has seen a great improvement and made the logistic quality very high. Probably the greatest advancement we have made so far is the GPS and all the technology that became possible due to that technology.
Our Ships, the way they are constructed and the way they operate, are safe. The crew onboard and the management office ashore are all part of making it safe. Today the big word in ship safety is prevention.
Just after the Second World War United Nations founded a body name IMCO overlooking the safety of maritime shipping. This body has since become IMO (International Maritime Organization). Imo have been laying the laws applying to shipping and has bodies in place to enforce those rules. These laws that IMO has set for shipping to follow are basic minimum requirements and to some they are not strict enough. Looking at the ships we could see a large spectrum of ship types and also quality. The age of the ship was also an issue. If we had a quality level of let’s say 1-10, 1 being the top, the gap between 1 and 10 was simply too large. There had to be a second set of higher standards set in place and also incentives to owners for bringing the operation up to those higher standards.
This was the base for the governing body at the Port Of Rotterdam when they took the initiative in 1994 to establish these higher standards. It was all on a voluntary basis and became “Green Ship Award ” standards. It was to be applicable to the whole shipping company both ashore and onboard the vessel. The first ships to get into this higher set of standards were tankers. Since then we have seen the bulkers come along also. Personally, I’m still waiting for the container ships to catch up.
I think that in this first article about the Green Ship Award we have opened up for some interesting subjects and discussions. Where are we heading from here? Come back and visit as we get the next article online soon.

Containers in Maritime Transportation

Arild — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:06:31 +0000

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

Arild — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:27:31 +0000

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

Keeping Your Ship Out Of Trouble In Cold Weather

Arild — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:20:59 +0000

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.

A Bit Of History This First Month Of 2008

Arild — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:06:10 +0000

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.

Saint Lawrence Seaway Major Ice Problems

Arild — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 09:25:22 +0000

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.