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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WATERFRONT BUSINESS In brief��� Whalers ��� Southern Ocean bullies Japan has vowed to continue its whale hunt in the Southern Ocean, after clashes with Sea Shepherd conservationists chasing the Japanese whaling fleet off Antarctica. A Japanese spokesman said, ���We are keeping our whaling program,��� and denied reports that Japan was forced to suspend its whale hunt. Japan���s Institute of Cetacean Research also said that its ship could not be refuelled ���due to Sea Shepherd���s dangerous activities���. New CEO for Seafood New Zealand The chair of Seafood New Zealand, Eric Barratt, announced that Tim Pankhurst has been appointed chief executive of Seafood New Zealand effective from April 2013. Pankhurst is currently the general manager of the Communications and Media Industry Training Organisation, and Print NZ, as well as having an advisory editorial role with the Newspaper Publishers��� Association. He was previously chief executive of NPA and is a former daily newspaper editor of The Dominion Post, The Evening Post, the Waikato Times and The Press. ���New Zealand���s standard of living depends on what we sell to the world. Our seas are rich and we are world leaders in quota management, developing and maintaining sustainable fisheries. That reputation is hard won and it needs to be preserved and enhanced. Seafood is a growth industry and a good news story, and it will be a challenge and a privilege to help project that,��� says Pankhurst. ���Roll of Honour��� graduates Competenz has published and distributed a ���Roll of Honour��� handbook acknowledging graduates who received their certificates in Level 4 or higher qualifications in 2012, within the maritime sector. ���Our graduates should be extremely proud. The skills they have gained will stand them in good stead for their futures,��� says John Blakey, Competenz CEO. ���With current and looming skill shortages, there has never been a more crucial time to be skilled in New Zealand, and their career prospects should look bright.��� Competenz annual alumni magazine The Guild will be published alongside the handbook featuring inspirational profiles from some of the 2012 graduates. 40 Professional Skipper March/April 2013 Amazing award winners COPPINS OUTDOORS STORE in Motueka, has just been recognised with an International Achievement Award from Industrial Fabrics Association International, for design excellence in specialty fabrics applications at the association���s 2012 expo in Boston, Massachusetts. The competition drew 355 entries from 14 countries, with WA Coppins taking the Award of Excellence in A massive sea anchor the Safety and Technical Products category for its Para Sea Anchor Bill Coppins says, ���We had 12 months ship steerage control project. to design, draft and construct the 12 Company owner and designer Bill metre, 80 panel system,��� he says. ���There Coppins says their brief was to design, were a number of challenges, including test and manufacture a Para Sea Anchor the complications of having to ship and system for the US Navy. test sea anchors half-way around the ���They wanted a sea anchor, basically world.��� an underwater parachute, that could be Other challenges included design for: released electronically and would hold a 200ton loading, sourcing the strongest a container ship in position to allow lightweight components, effective emergency transfers to another vessel in connections to ropes and shrouds, heavy seas. They needed a way to transfer designing a deployment bag of limp fabric freight at sea, to provide humanitarian aid that would release without tangling, and a or to project military power away from buoy shaped like a grader blade to drive traditional ports.��� The system had to hold into the sea and pull the PSA from the bag. the two vessels exactly seven metres The system was tested off the California apart for several hours while cargo is coast, using a newly-launched 41,000 ton transferred by crane. navy vessel, and it worked perfectly. For a small, family-owned company Coppins says the company is humbled from a small South Island coastal town, it and inspired by the respect shown to them took a lot of confidence to tackle a project by the US Navy, and by the international for one of the biggest navies in the world. recognition the award has brought. MPI READY FOR SNAKES A SNAKE, BELIEVED to be a non-venomous boa from the Candoia family, was intercepted in a container of scrap metal at a Manukau scrap yard in early January. The snake was found dead when a specially trained worker at the yard (Accredited Person), opened a container that had arrived in Auckland from Vanuatu. The worker passed the snake on to the MPI quarantine inspector who arrived to assess the cargo for biosecurity risk. Geoff Gwyn, acting Director Border Clearance Services, says the snake was very fresh and appeared to have died from the fumigation process that all imported containers of scrap metal undergo before being unloaded. ���We see scrap metal consignments as high risk for hitchhiking pests, insects and soil, which is why MPI requires all imported scrap metal containers to be fumigated at their first port of arrival. The interception showed that the different parts of our border biosecurity system are working as they should��� we rely on Accredited Persons to recognise biosecurity threats when they open shipping containers and to take appropriate action. And if the container hadn���t been fumigated, we could have had a live snake on our hands.��� MPI has a team of highly trained quarantine inspectors and dog teams to respond to live snake incursions.