BEYOND THE HORIZON CHEAPER BY SHIP BY HUGH WARE I
t's cheaper to ship three bushels of grain weighing about 180 pounds, from Oklahoma to the Gulf of Mexico by water than it is to buy a first-class postage stamp. Each barge holds 1,200 tons, equivalent to 60 semi-trailer trucks worth of material, and twelve barges are pushed out at a time, and on the Lower Mississippi, the standard tow is 35 barges. So, a towboat with a cre w of 10 is pushing the equivalent of 720 semi trailer trucks. That's why it's cheap, explained a Midwest shipping expert.
This summer an entire US Navy aircraft carrier strike group will be experimentally powered by 450,000 gallons of fuel made from chicken fat and other waste greases, algae, and perhaps even mustard seeds. But it may be the last time the Navy ever uses biofuels. The House Armed Services Committee banned the Defence Department from making or buying any alternative fuel that costs more than a "traditional fossil fuel", and environmentally friendly fuels cost about four times more than the traditional fuels made from "dirty" petroleum.
As a result of successive New Zealand governments failing to adopt the international Bunkers Convention and the 1996 Limit to Liability for Maritime Claims Protocol, NZ taxpayers will have to contribute $35 million to the clean-up of the container ship Rena's wreckage.
Save Money And Fuel! And Now We Are Making It Available To You!
To Ships In The Ice, Agricultural, Automotive Engineers, Generation, Suppliers.
We Supply Everyone From Trucking Fleets
CHORNCO'S PROPRIETARY RANGE OF PRODUCTS, PRODUCE COST SAVING BENEFITS THAT:
■ Reduce noxious emissions ■ Reduce fuel consumption ■ Replace fuel lubricity ■ Improves equipment performance ■ Sustain equipment effi ciency ■ Lower maintenance related costs ■ Eliminate Diesel Bug ■ Extend related equipment longevity
Offi ce 03-329-7834, Fax 03-329-7808 Email: Ralph@newfueltech.com Web: www.newfueltech.com
RALPH STARK 021-586-877 CONTACT US TODAY: VIP.S85 34 Professional Skipper September/October 2012
THIN PLACES AND HARD KNOCKS
In the Solomons, the interisland freighter Solfish 001 sank and four days later a search plane spotted survivors in life rafts. Forty-nine were picked up by the Micronesian Pride. The container ship Algarrobo built in 2009, arrived in Auckland from Brisbane and Singapore after sustaining hull cracks in a storm off Australia. Inspection revealed finger-wide cracks in deck coamings on both sides of the vessel. It replaced an earlier oil/ore- carrier of the same name that disappeared without trace in 1990 while carrying iron ore from Chile for Japan. An explosion caused by welding on the container ship MSC
Idil left it drifting and listing off Puerto Rico. Hull cracks let in water but no oil escaped. A US salvage firm made temporary repairs and the ship continued to Freeport, Bahamas eleven days after the explosion. While the bulker Frigia was unloading sulphur at Nantong near the mouth of the Yangtze, an internal pipe suffered a leak and 200 tons of heavy oil merged with about 1800 tons of the sulphur. In Nelson, New Zealand, a crewmember of the tuna-fishing Capt MJ Souza died after falling through a hatch into a hold while doing engineering work.
In British Columbia's famed and feared Skookumchuck Narrows, where water levels can differ by two metres from one end to the other and currents can exceed 19 mph (30 km/h), two
VIP.S68
