The appointment of IRS as a Recognized Organization by Marshall Islands is expected to boost shipping and seafaring activities.
Along with its curriculum expansion GL Academy sees its footprints grow in South Asia
An upbeat business message is bracketed by two views from Washington.
It is not clear whether the loss of the Jian Fu Star (October 27th 2010: 13 fatalities); Nasco Diamond (November 10th 2010: 21 fatalities); or the Hong Wei (December 3rd, 2010: 10 fatalities) involved a ship that lacked P&I cover or that was not classed with a known (much less respectable) classification society.
For more than 10 years the Viking cruise ferry MV Mariella has been successfully operating her four S.E.M.T. Pielstick 12VPC2.6.diesel engines with Humid Air Motor technology. This year the, Norwegian owned, purse seiner/trawler and factory vessel MV Kvannøy built in 2002, was converted to Humid Air Motor operation. NOx emissions were reduced by 61.3 per cent, a saving of 50 ton annually. The HAM system operates by saturating the incoming turbocharger charge air with sea water vapor before it enters the air box and then the combustion chambers. The result is a lower peak temperature in the combustion process thereby reducing NOx formation. The economic benefits of the change gives a theoretical payback time for the HAM retrofit of approx. 3 years.
Reederei Stefan Patjens is to retrofit a 5,000 TEU container vessel, the MV Maersk Drury for LNG operation.When completed on scheduled in 2012, it will be the very first use of LNG as a fuel on board a container ship and of LNG as a fuel in worldwide trading. The LNG fuel storage achieved using only containers. Only two of the four main MAN 7L27/38 generators will be converted for dual fuel operation as well as its auxiliary boiler will be modified.
In an earlier blog Reducing Air Drag, I mentioned the organization Greenwave. They have another wind power project called the Wind Engine.It is a mechanical sail uses the Magnus Effect and in its practical ship application has a tall cylindrical rotor as pioneered by Flettner in 1926. Test carried out by Auckland University, New Zealand, determined that the thrust produced by the Flettner rotor is eight to ten times more than a sail of equal area. Further tests with a 25:1 model ship indicate that wind assisted propulsion can deliver significant fuel and emission reductions with favorable winds and provides good maneuverability including crash stop performance. Lloyd’s Register provided technical assistance and expertise, for the construction of a full sized prototype rotor that was erected on a site in NE England. The next stage of the project is on board ship tests at sea which will be independently monitored by Lloyd's Register and is scheduled to take place during 2010.
The Japanese classification society NK published a 42 page booklet titled “Guidelines for the Prevention of Human Error Aboard Ships”, with the sub heading “Through the Ergonomic Design of Marine Machinery Systems.” According to the guidelines, man-made causes are said to account for 80 per cent of all marine accidents. The guidelines stress the importance of standardization in operating, control, methods, indicators, labeling and color coding to reduce confusion, avoiding the situation when crews familiar with a procedure on one ship are faced with opposites in procedure on another ship. To this end ergonomic design plays an important part so that operation of equipment is easy to understand and logical (even though logic differs by culture). A chapter covers design considerations and recommendations and there is an interesting section titled countermeasures giving advice on risk assessment and the best course of action to prevent (re-) occurrence. The publication includes a number of detailed reports of marine accidents and how to prevent their recurrence.
Indian ships may prefer to get classed only by the Indian Register of Shipping (IRS) now that it has been granted full membership of the International Association of Classification Societies
Germanischer Lloyd has begun offering training to those seafarers wanting to come ashore and make it big