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 CONTINUED… shipment of cantaloupes to a distributor in California. Costa Cruises settled with French passengers who were on the Costa Concordia when it was wrecked: 235 get €9,000 ($11,700) and can sue the company; 180 have already accepted €11,000 each in exchange for dropping any legal action; 20 have joined a class action suit; another 20 are acting independently, and 14 are asking for €50,000, admitting that they have not suffered physical injury but have post-traumatic stress. The owners and operator of the supermax bulker Aquarosa were fined $925,000 each for oily water-separation no-no's. The ship's third engineer had told US Coast Guard inspectors about the malfeasance and provided extensive evidence, even showing them where the magic pipe was hidden. The court awarded $462,500 to the whistle-blower and he may get another $462,500 if an appeal by the companies is denied. They claim he should have notified the company instead of the authorities. The Seaman's Protection Act gives seamen legal protection when they complain to the Coast Guard. NATURE Explorer and filmmaker James Cameron of Titanic and Avatar fame, bottomed at 35,756ft in the Mariana Trench in his 24ft vertical "torpedo" Deepsea Challenger. The bullet-shaped vessel is designed to spin its way down faster than conventional diving vessels. Elsewhere in the Marianas Trench, scientists discovered an ecosystem, including ovesicomyid clams, that feed on mantle material such as serpentinized peridotite, or serpentinite – yep, rock-eating clams! The Cascadia fault in the Pacific Northwest is an offshore subduction zone fault capable of producing a magnitude 9 earthquake that would damage Portland, Tacoma, Seattle, and Victoria, British Columbia and generate a large tsunami. Scientists will soon build and install a seafloor geodesy observatory above the expected rupture zone. Oceanographers have found that the very cold deep sea Antarctic Bottom Water has been disappearing at an average rate of about eight million metric tons per second over the past few decades. That is equivalent to about fifty times the average flow of the Mississippi River or about a quarter of the flow of the Gulf Stream in the Florida Straits. In a Caribbean rift, other ocean scientists have discovered the deepest yet vents. They spout water hotter than 450 degrees celcius more than one kilometre above the vent openings, four times higher than other vents. The vents also host a new species of pale shrimp, which cluster in dense clumps of 2000 per cubic metre. The shrimp have a light-sensing organ on their back in place of eyes and the vent output is unusually rich in copper. The new icebreaking anchor-handler tug Aiviq, built for use in Alaskan waters, was painted white and blue because natives told the builder/operator that animals in the region fear the company's usual all-orange paint scheme. METAL-BASHING The ex-Exxon Valdez was sold for $25.8 million (about $460/ ldt) for scrapping probably in India, 23 years after the crude-oil tanker caused the worst oil spill in US history. Converted into an iron-ore bulker it was renamed Exxon Mediterranean, SeaRiver Mediterranean, S/R Mediterranean, Mediterranean, Dong Fang Ocean and, most recently, Oriental Nicety. Also sold for scrapping, this time in Turkey, was the cruise ship Pacific Princess, better known to TV watchers between 1977 through 1987 as the Love Boat. In Chinese waters, the 3100 teu container ship Bareli ran aground off the coast of Fuqing in March and salvors decided 36 Professional Skipper July/August 2012 to divide the ship after tide-induced bending caused significant metal fatigue. The stern section was towed to Tanguy anchorage while the forward section remained firmly aground. PEOPLE SMUGGLING The tanker Hamburg and a Canadian helicopter, rescued six of nine men on the 35ft sailboat Tabasco 2, in deep trouble about 100 miles off Canada's Sable Island. It is suspected that the boat was smuggling humans since the occupants were from Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia. In 2011 at least 1500 people lost their lives attempting to cross the Mediterranean in search of a better world and few governmental or private entities made any attempt to help those in trouble. One small boat left Tripoli during the conflict in Libya with 72 people on board. It needed help and a distress call was duly logged by an Italian rescue centre. Several vessels made contacts with the boat but none provided meaningful assistance, although a helicopter did drop biscuits and water. Only nine people were alive when the boat drifted ashore back in Libya fifteen days after its departure. PIRATES, NASTIES AND TERRITORIAL IMPERATIVES Employers and unions agreed that the territorial waters of Benin and Nigeria are a high-risk area so mariners venturing there will get double pay. The Royal Navy will no longer provide frigates to the NATO anti-piracy forces off Somalia. Budget restrictions now make only two frigates available to cover everything east of the Suez Canal, and neither ship can be committed to counter-piracy efforts full time. It is not yet clear whether the Royal Navy's replenishment ship Fort Victoria will continue to support the 16 ship fleet after this summer. Worldwide, 102 incidents of piracy and armed robbery were reported in the year's first quarter, with dangerously increasing numbers in West African waters. In total, 11 vessels were reported hijacked, with 212 crewmembers taken hostage and four were killed. A further 45 vessels were boarded, with 32 attempted attacks and 14 vessels fired-upon: the latter all attributed to either Somali or Nigerian pirates. A Kenyan court found eleven Somali suspects guilty of piracy and sentenced each to 20 years in jail. A US court found a Somali man guilty of kidnapping, hostage-taking, and weapons charges, although he was a land-based negotiator. Prosecutors said he received at least $30,000 for his role as a hostage negotiator for the Marida Marguerite, which was ransomed for $5 million in 2010 after nearly two dozen crew members were held captive for about eight months. HEAD-SHAKER In Louisiana, a foreign shipping company was fined $2 million for dumping oily water in international waters, while a land based environmental company was fined $5000 for dumping 1.2 million gallons of oily water into a canal near New Orleans. Same court, different justice. ODD BITS The mobile drilling unit Noble Clyde Boudreaux was anchored in 2027 meters of water, a world-record depth. Deploying and retrieving a drill rig's anchors requires powerful tugs with immensely strong and large winches to handle the mooring lines, which are increasingly being made from ultra-high-strength plastics instead of wire. This columnist's headline pick of the month was "Removal of Capsized Costa Concordia to Begin in Italy". Doesn't that lead one to wonder where the salvage process will finish?