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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BEYOND THE HORIZON INTERNATIONAL DEMAND FOR LIQUID NATURAL GAS BY HUGH WARE W ill liquid natural gas shipping rates rise? At least one shipping company thinks so. It turned down a one- year charter at US$125,000 a day of its new LNG carrier Stena Crystal Sky, preferring a daily rate of $110,000 over only 210 days. A South Korean yard is to build the world's first floating LNG plant for the oil giant Shell. It will process gas from offshore fields and cool it into LNG. The 488m plant will be the world's largest floating offshore facility. By comparison, the giant container ship Emma Mærsk is 397m long. Shell has been granted permission by the United States to drill six wells in the Chukchi Sea, north of Bering Strait, perhaps because polar bears were recently re-categorised as merely "threatened", rather than endangered. THIN PLACES AND HARD KNOCKS The container ships CCNI Rimac and CSAV Petorca collided at Shanghai. A fire started on the Rimac when water reacted with inflammable goods in a container. The crew was evacuated and the ship moved outside the port while authorities looked for 26 of her containers that had fallen overboard. Fire broke out on the UAL Antwerp at Luanda while she was discharging cargo, probably in a tank of kerosene. Due to the firefighters' extensive efforts, the Antwerp took on so much water she was beached to keep her from sinking. Alaskan Coast Guard helicopters found the bodies of five clam diggers on mudflats southwest of Kalgin Island in Cook Inlet. They had been digging for razor clams and what happened to their 6m skiff was unclear. GREY FLEETS Thou shalt lead a pure life. The US Navy has dismissed at least 29 commanding officers in the last two years, including nine for sexual harassment or inappropriate relationships in the last 18 months. Three others were dismissed for alcohol offences and two for personal misconduct. The Philippines may lease relatively new US equipment rather than wait for surplus material to become available. The objective is to make the Philippines a strong ally of the US. The Philippines also renamed the South China Sea as the West Philippine Sea, mimicking the US's recent renaming of the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf. Want to buy some surplus military and naval stuff? Australia is selling up to 24 ships, 180 aircraft, 600 armoured vehicles and 12,000 other vehicles to help pay for a $61 billion upgrade of its defence forces. China is hell-bent on getting aircraft carriers. Photographs taken far inland have showed concrete replicas of a carrier superstructure and a jump-jet flight deck. The government took over the half-built ex-Soviet carrier Varyag, which a Chinese businessman bought to convert into a floating casino. She will become China's first aircraft carrier. And several Chinese businessmen have bid for the retired British carrier Ark Royal. They intend to convert her into a floating showcase for high technology products. Last year, the US Navy acquired 59,000 Chinese-made counterfeit microchips equipped with a "back door" that could 36 Professional Skipper September/October 2011 allow nasty tricks such as admitting signals to shut off the chip. Women will be allowed as crew on board Royal Navy submarines now fears that fumes might affect foetuses carried by pregnant submariners have been allayed. Other nations allowing female subbies are the United States, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. About 3000 US Navy sailors are to be released as surplus to decreasing needs. They will get no severance package and no retirement pay, since most will not have served long enough to qualify. The Royal Australian Navy apologised to Britain, Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand because the submarine HMAS Decaineux broke down and couldn't play the enemy during the anti-submarine exercise Bersama Shield in the South China Sea. To make matters worse, the Aussies discovered their Navy News had published a pre-written complimentary article on the Decaineux's daring performance in the exercise. Top brass was not pleased. WHITE FLEETS The MSC Opera was towed to Sweden after an engineroom blast caused a massive power failure while she was in the Baltic Sea. "No power" means no toilets, lights, airconditioning or hot food, much like steerage class was a century ago. A Yorkshireman plans to spend a night on the Rockall Island to replace a brass plaque left there in 1955 Cruise ships too big to fit under the Sydney Harbour Bridge have been using the single berth at Circular Quay, but it really isn't suitable. Another option is the busy nearbyAustralian Navy base at Garden Island. A woman has successfully sued the owners of the Carnival Pride after she slipped on a pool deck in 2009 and fractured her kneecap. She claimed the cruise company knew the deck was slippery and was aware of passengers falling on other ships in the Carnival fleet. A US judge awarded her exactly $2,998,155.70. THOSE THAT GO BACK AND FORTH Patrons of a new East River ferry service in New York city linking Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn enjoyed a free service. Then tickets started costing $4 and patronage halved, but officials were pleased, as it was more than they had expected. The Alaskan ferry Malaspina was approaching Skagway when the bow lookout heard a faint call for help. A searchlight finally illuminated a badly injured man. He was taken on board and had no memory of what had happened, but he probably fell down a cliff into the water and had managed to pull himself ashore. In Indonesia, 10 people, including two children, died when their canoe sank in the Bengawan River in East Java. They were simply trying to get to their village on the other bank.