The only specialised marine publication in Oceania that focuses on the maritime industry, from super yachts to small craft to large commercial ships, including coastal shipping, tugs, tow boats, barges, ferries, tourist, sport-fishing craft
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B E Y O N D TH E HO RIZO N US DROUGHT COSTING HEAPS BY USA BASED CORRESPONDENT HUGH WARE bout two-thirds of the US have been enduring drought conditions and the cost might be $77 billion, making the drought the third-costliest natural disaster in US history after hurricane Katrina in 2005 and a devastating drought in 1988. At New Orleans, authorities notified anchored ships that their rudders may have set into the soft mud near the riverbanks while swinging at anchorage but no damage to steering apparatus was anticipated. Low water conditions on the Mississippi are to blame. Notice on a US ferry company���s website: ���We must close early this year due to low water levels.��� An international tug company cited lower volumes of shipping and increased costs as reasons for upping towage fees at one Australian port by a whopping 54 percent. The tug company has no competitors at that port. The current global marine insurance market has the capacity for $1.1-$1.2 billion of coverage, but the risk presented by a single large container ship could be larger. A loaded 18,000-teu box ship could have a total value of maybe $2.3 billion. In contrast, the hull and machinery and insured value of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, currently the biggest marine insurance loss in history, was $500 million. India���s Supreme Court has banned all mining operations and transportation of iron ore, a US$4.5bn a year business, in Goa after a report estimated that the exchequer had lost Rs35,000 crore (350 million rupees) due to illegal mining in the last 12 years. A In the south China port of Gaolan, a 1700 ton unloader fell into the water while being unloaded from the semi-submersible heavy-lift ship Zhen Hua 12 and hit the ship, punching two holes in its hull. Mis-ballasting of the ship as the unloader was being moved ashore was the probable cause. The unloader may have been one of seven coal unloaders recently bought by the port. Off Cornwall, a lone yachtsman wearing a personal electronic locator beacon was picked up by a Royal Navy helicopter an hour after he fell off the Regulus. Typhoon Son Tinh separated the jack-up drill rig GSF Key Hawaii from its tugboat. As the rig approached the shore of Ha Mai Island, a Vietnamese military chopper evacuated all 35 workers on board. An argument on the tug Nicole at Manila turned ugly and the quartermaster hacked the chief engineer to death with a bolo. About 90 miles SE of Cape Hatteras and pretty much in the path of hurricane Sandy, the replica square-rigger HMS Bounty ran into trouble and sank. Fourteen made it to liferafts but two were missing. One was later located, survival-suited but comatose and unresponsive. She was Claudene Christian, a direct descendant of Fletcher Christian, the original Bounty���s chief mutineer. Still missing was Capt Robin Waldridge. A South Korean Coast Guard small boat capsized while rescuing 15 of the Malaysian freighter Shinline���s crew, five of whom died. On the LPG carrier Maharshi Krishnatreya, five died when they accidentally inhaled gas from a leaking pipe. THIN PLACES AND HARD KNOCKS FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS Welding sparked a fire that killed five crewme1n and a fireman on a tanker possibly named the Shun Cheng while it was anchored in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam. In the UK, the master of the reefer Springbok pleaded guilty for: failure to keep a good lookout, failure to ascertain that risk of collision existed, and a failure to keep clear of a vessel being overtaken. Because visibility in the English Channel had improved, he had dismissed the lookout and proceeded at 18-20 knots. He spent the next twenty minutes chatting with a son and brother-in-law when he suddenly saw through the ship���s forward cranes the fast-approaching stern of the small LNG carrier Gas Arctic (7-8 knots), which was desperately altering course to avoid the coming collision. However, they did collide. He was fined ��1,500 plus costs of ��1,000. In 2003 at Singapore, a small timber carrier named Springbok was T-boned by an LPG carrier named Gas Roman. The collision welded the two ships together and salvors separated them with difficulty and some trepidation: different ships, different owners, same names. The container ship Fremantle Express ran onto rocks and its starboard anchor while entering Puerto Cortes in Honduras. No leaks or structural damage, and the ship was freed the next day by two tugs. In India, the chemical tanker Pratibha Cauvery was pushed aground at Chennai by Cyclone Nilam. As the crew tried to get ashore in a lifeboat it capsized, four were lost 18 were rescued. About 900 km east of Japan, the 119-ton tuna fishing vessel Horiei was run down by the 25,000-ton bulker Nikkei Tiger. The larger vessel could find only nine of 22 fishermen. Fire broke out in a container carrying hazardous and toxic substances so the Amsterdam Bridge was moved to the outer anchorage at Mumbai Port for some serious firefighting. Most of the ship-based conflagration was extinguished within three days but containers smouldered on for at least another month. The container ship Deike Rickmers arrived at Cape Town with dense smoke arising from a probable fire in a container. Last summer���s fire on the container ship MSC Flaminia has claimed one more life, raising the death toll to three when a Filipino crewmember died in a hospital in Portugal from severe burns sustained in the fire. 34 Professional Skipper January/February 2013 GREY FLEETS The US Army ordered ���up to three��� blimps or non-rigid airships as a manned platform for testing sensors, from the American company Northrop Grumman���s. Called Long Endurance Multiintelligence Vehicles the $517m deal was signed in 2010. They should see service in Afghanistan this year. They also sold one to the Thai Army in 2009. It isn���t operational yet. The US Navy has awarded a $94 million contract for advance planning and preliminary execution of fire-restoration efforts on USS Miami. The sub was damaged in a fire in May while it was drydocked at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. Estimates of repair costs are currently at the $650 million level. The Royal Navy���s Sea King helicopters will be taken out of service in 2016, leaving as much as a four-year gap in airborne early warning capability until 2020, when replacement airborne surveillance and control helicopters should become operational. In spite of Congressional disapproval the US Navy is dead-set