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
Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/131029
BEYOND THE HORIZON CONTINUED… solo sailor from a liferaft. His boat, the Tchouk Tchouk Nougat, had been dismasted and suffered hull damage during a solo round-the-world voyage. The rescue effort lasted three days and involved near-continuous communication with the 63-year-old sailor and multiple airdrops by up to five aircraft while the PV Orion and its 100 passengers headed towards the raft through deteriorating weather. When in contact, the PV Orion launched a Zodiac and then tethered the Zodiac and liferaft together and pulled the sailor into the Zodiac. Next stop on the ship's revised itinerary? Hobart, Tasmania. THOSE THAT GO BACK AND FORTH The passenger ferry Sarash capsized after colliding with a sand barge on a river in central Bangladesh, dumping as many as 100 people into the water. There were no immediate reports of casualties after the ferry went down on the River Meghna in Munshiganj district, 32km south of Dhaka, but there was confusion over the number of passengers on board. A TV station put the number at more than 100, a local police official said it was about 80, and the president of the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport and Passenger Service said the ferry was carrying just over 50 passengers. In Greece, a strike by ferry workers was stopped when the Greek government imposed martial law on striking ferry workers and mobilized police to break up their picket lines. LEGAL MATTERS The Philippine Senate committee on foreign affairs conducted an inquiry into operations of the small tanker Glenn Guardian, a contract vessel that removed waste from US Navy ships, and found it liable for violating Philippine laws when it dumped some 200,000 litres of wastewater off Subic, Zambales in 2011. But the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority concluded that the Malaysian contractor had committed no violations, agreeing with company statements that the waste materials were "treated" and environmentally harmless. NATURE A preliminary new record low-water level of 175.57m was registered for Lake Michigan-Huron for January. It was the lowest water level for this body of water since Great Lakes water levels were first maintained in 1918. ENERGY ODD BITS India issued a circular reporting that a container ship arriving in Mumbai had fires in two of its containers. They held that a sunflower cake with an oil content of 14-16 percent and a moisture content of 4-6 percent and had experienced selfheating due to oxidation of the residual oil. The bulker Oliva with a cargo of soybeans was en route from Brazil to Singapore when it ran aground on a four square kilometre island in the Tristan da Cunha archipelago. The crew of 22 was removed and the vessel soon broke up. That was in March, 2011. Recently, a lifeboat from the Oliva washed ashore in the Cooring wetlands near the mouth of the Murray in South Australia after having floated about 8000km from Nightingale Island. The boat with 29 seats, a diesel engine, and a lot of barnacles must have passed south of one of the world's most-famous capes but which one? Was it the Cape of Good Hope, drifting eastward, or Cape Horn, heading westward? V VIP S70 VIP.S70 Although the current federal administration and the greenies want to kill off all fossil fuels, shipments of US-mined steam coal last year were 110 million tonnes, about twice that exported as recently as 2009. Most of the coal went to Europe, especially the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Italy, for generation of electricity. For many years, the US exported much highquality metallurgical coal used in steel mills but now most exports are of steam coal. A California senator introduced a bill to permanently prohibit offshore drilling on the outer Continental Shelf off the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington. Production of coal in Australia and the overseas shipping of it were hampered. Yancoal declared a force majeure for its Yarrabee coal mine after it received more than 360mm of rain in the pit and production was suspended for two days. Another force majeure was declared due to damage caused to the Blackwater rail corridor by ex-tropical cyclone Oswald. Yarrabee, along with several other mines on the same rail corridor, was not able to rail coal from the mines to the port in Gladstone. Following flooding in Queensland, Xstrata declared a force majeure on some of its coal exports because heavy rains damaged its rail network. Rio Tinto Ltd also declared a force majeure on coal sales contracts from its Kestrel mine due to damage to the Blackwater rail network. But Australian men also played a role. Australia's main rail union called two 24-hour strikes that affected the New South Wales coal industry. In Nigeria, Shell declared a force majeure at their Soku gas flow station when there was no supply available due to leaks in the pipeline and loading of a LNG carrier vessel at the Bonny Nigeria LNG Terminal had to be suspended. 36 Professional Skipper May/June 2013