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… Three week maintenance for Arahura The Cook Strait ferry Arahura was out of service for three weeks in August undergoing maintenance in Auckland as part of a regular two-year maintenance programme for the ship. Its hull was cleaned and painted and the ship was also fitted with new propeller blades to increase fuel efficiency. Underwater inspections and surveys were conducted, all the salt water tanks inside the ship were painted to prevent corrosion, the stern door was overhauled and the rail on the rail deck renewed. 27 crew members lived on board during the docking period doing painting and maintenance tasks around the ship. $60m superyacht Star Fish up in flames In the early hours of Sunday morning August 12, fire fighters were called to McMullen and Wing's premises in Auckland to find the 50m steel/aluminium motor yacht Star Fish ablaze in the shipyard's largest construction hall. Star Fish is McMullen and Wing's largest project to date and was under construction for Aquos Yachts. She is the successor to the multi-award winning 45m luxury expedition yacht Big Fish, built for the same owner and was nearly two and a half years into her three year build programme. Damage to Star Fish and the yard's largest construction hall is very extensive. It took firefighters more than 10 hours to extinguish the blaze which engulfed the boat and surrounding shed. Once the burning building was dealt with, firefighters still had to get to the flames inside the vessel's hull. McMullen and Wing's workshops, office space and other four construction halls were spared by the fire and remain fully operational. The company has a refit project for a commercial aquaculture vessel underway in another construction hall, which was also unaffected. Star Fish would have been the largest vessel built by the company, and one of the biggest superyachts built in New Zealand. NEW TUG DESIGN JENSEN MARITIME CONSULTANTS, a Crowley Maritime Corporation company, recently began designing a new vessel, the Eric M. McAllister, a 5150 horsepower, twin Azimuth Stern Drive (ASD) tugboat, for McAllister Towing. This vessel, which will be built by Senesco Marine LLC of North Kingstown, RI, will be the tenth Jensen-designed and first Tier 3 tugboat in McAllister's fleet. The tug will be the third in a series of similar Jensen-designed McAllister tugboats, following the Andrew McAllister and Rosemary McAllister, both built in 2008, but will be operated in the New Bedford, Mass, area, where it will primarily perform ship escort work in Buzzards Bay, Mass. The Andrew McAllister is now operating out of Portland, Maine, and the Rosemary McAllister is currently under charter. The design will not only give McAllister improved performance over the previous two designs, but it is also an environmentally friendly tug with lower emissions and reduced fuel consumption to meet the Environmental Protection Agency's Tier 3 marine emissions regulations. Tier 3 standards require a 50 percent reduction in particulate matter and a 20 percent reduction in nitrogen oxide. At 96ft (29.2m) in length and 34ft (10.3m) in width, the Eric M McAllister will be powered by two, Caterpillar 3516CHD Tier 3 engines and two Schottel 1215 Z drives. The package will provide an estimated running speed of 12 knots and a bollard pull of 67 tons. The tug's firefighting system will produce 11,967 gallons (45,300 litres) per minute through a pair of FFS 1200LB remotely controlled monitors. The water is delivered through a single FFS SFD 300-400 pump powered by a Caterpillar C32 engine. The monitors will have a 1500 gallon (5678 litre) tank, foam capability and a deluge system. Towing machinery includes a JonRie 250 Escort winch with full render/recover on the bow and a JonRie 512 Tow winch with a spool capacity of 2100 ft. of 2¼" wire on the stern. The tugboat is expected to be delivered in mid-2013. Seafood Exports Boom MINISTRY FOR PRIMARY Industries statistics for the March 2012 quarter show a boom production year. Total seafood export revenue was up by 9.4 percent in the March quarter, due to increasing prices and a volume increase of 3.4 percent. The Primary Industries Production and Trade quarterly report for March 2012, comprising production and trade statistics for the Dairy, Meat and Wool, Forestry and Seafood industries, replaces separate quarterly reports for forestry and seafood. The primary sector continued to be an economic driver, with total primary sector exports accounting for 71 percent of all merchandise exports in the year to March 2012. Total seafood export earnings increased from $354.5 million in the March 2011 quarter to $388 million in the March 2012 quarter, an increase of 9.4 percent. All major seafood product groups contributed to this increase. Total seafood export volumes increased 3.4 percent to 80,267 tonnes in the March 2012 quarter. Export volumes were up for deepwater, inshore shellfish and pelagic species, but down for aquaculture and inshore finfish species compared to the March 2011 quarter. Export revenue increased for aquaculture and inshore finfish species while export volumes decreased, indicating that prices in our export markets have increased enough to offset any loss of export revenue from lower export volumes. This was achieved despite the high exchange rate with the United States dollar. The majority of seafood is traded internationally using the United States dollar. Inshore shellfish and pelagic species saw export revenue increase at a rate greater than export volumes indicating that prices in New Zealand's export markets for these species have increased slightly. 48 Professional Skipper September/October 2012