North Pole Race in the Northwest Passage to Highlight Climate Change

Posted on by September 27, 2021

Interesting news from France24.com:

A French sports group on Saturday announced plans to launch a sailing race in the thawing Canadian Arctic to raise awareness of global warming.

Due to kick-off in 2023, the North Pole Race will be run from Quebec to Vancouver along the Northwest Passage, a sea route through the Arctic Ocean along North America’s northern course.

Crews will sail on special aluminum boats designed for polar waters, according to Herve Favre, president of the French group OC Sport.

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New York City Investing in Offshore Wind

Posted on by September 29, 2021

 Last week Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) committed to a plan called Offshore Wind NYC that will invest more than $191 million to make New York City a hub for the offshore wind industry in the region.

New York City has committed to 100-percent clean electricity by 2040 and carbon neutrality by 2050. This requires a shift to renewable energy from many sources—from rooftop solar and utility-scale renewables to energy storage. Offshore wind (OSW) has an important role to play in the decarbonization of NYC’s electric grid.

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‘Dinger’ Bell Completes 119 Day Unsupported Solo Transatlantic Row

Posted on by September 28, 2021

The BBC reports that former Royal Marine Dave ‘Dinger’ Bell has successfully completed a 119-day, 3,118-mile, solo row the “wrong way” across the North Atlantic. He arrived in Newlyn in Cornwall at about 13:00 BST on Sunday.

His team believes he is one of the first people to successfully row solo, unsupported from New York to continental Europe. Along the way, he was stung by a jellyfish, hit by huge storms, and revealed he has a fear of open water.

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Port Congestion Spreads to East Coast & Major Shippers Charter Ships Independently

Posted on by September 27, 2021

We recently posted about the record congestion in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach where over 60 container ships wait at anchor or simply drift offshore awaiting berth space.  The port congestion has spread to the East Coast where more than two dozen ships are waiting for dock space off the coast near New York.

The pandemic is largely blamed for the breakdown of the shipping supply chain. Pandemic-related pent-up demand for goods has created a huge trade imbalance with Asia, while labor shortages among longshoremen, truck drivers and other support and logistics staff have slowed cargo moving through the ports and transport hubs. In addition to delays in cargo deliveries, container shipping rates have also skyrocketed.  Market rates for a 40′ container have risen from an average of around $1,500 in June 2020 to a record price of over $20,000 in August 2021.

Several major shippers have taken matters into their own hands. Continue reading →

Noah’s Violin Serenades Venice as it Sails the Grand Canal

Posted on by September 26, 2021

We recently posted A Look at Venetian Gondolas — Designs New and Old.  Here is a post about a very different watercraft that graced Venetian waters last weekend. Named Noah’s Violin, it is a 12-meter electric-powered giant floating violin, the work of Venetian artist and sculptor Livio De Marchi. It featured a string quartet performing an arrangement of Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’ from The Four Seasons as it sailed down the Grand Canal, escorted by a small fleet of gondolas, water taxis, and sandoli. The musicians played barefoot for better traction on the curved violin’s deck.

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World’s Largest Floating Wind Farm Goes Online Off Scotland

Posted on by September 25, 2021

The world’s largest offshore floating wind farm has begun operation off Kincardine, approximately 15 kilometers off the southeast coast of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, at water depths ranging between 60 and 80 meters. The five floating turbines are expected to generate up to 218GWh of clean electricity per year, an output that will be enough to power approximately 55,000 households.

The project was developed by Kincardine Offshore Wind, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pilot Offshore Renewables (POR). Cobra Wind, a subsidiary of ACS Group, is responsible for the engineering, design, supply, construction, and commissioning of the Kincardine floating wind farm.

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Maersk Invests in Prometheus, Start-up Electrofuels Company

Posted on by September 24, 2021

A.P. Moller – Maersk has announced that Maersk Growth, its venture capital arm, has made a leading investment in Prometheus Fuels, a Silicon Valley-based startup with a promising direct air capture technology to enable cost-efficient, carbon-neutral e-fuels for shipping.

From the announcement: The minority investment in Prometheus Fuels will support A.P. Moller – Maersk’s work to execute on the strategy to decarbonize marine operations.

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Trawling For Plastic — Ocean Cleanup Boom Yields Meager Results

Posted on by September 23, 2021

The Ocean Cleanup‘s latest attempt to clean plastic from the Northern Pacific has proven to be unimpressive.  After two offshore supply vessels, donated by Maersk, towed a 520-meter wide boom for 120 hours, they succeeded in collecting around 8 tonnes of floating plastic, or roughly the equivalent to a single load of a standard garbage truck.

Around 2014, the media became enthralled with a story of a 19-year-old Dutch engineer named Boyan Slat, who claimed to have designed a boom system that would clean up half the plastic in the Great Pacific garbage patch within a decade. Many engineers and oceanographers doubted that the scheme would work, but the media and several large corporate sponsors bought into the grand vision. The title of an article in the magazine Fast Money from 2017, Boy Genius Boyan Slat’s Giant Ocean Cleanup Machine Is Real, reflects the enthusiasm for the project.

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Sailing on Bubbles of Air — MSC Orders 30 Silverstream Hull Air Lubrication Systems

Posted on by September 22, 2021

Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) has ordered more than 30 hull air lubrication systems from UK firm Silverstream Technologies to be installed on current orders of newbuild large container ships. The vessels applying the air lubrication systems are expected to be delivered from shipyards in Asia in 2022-2024.

Silverstream’s technology has been demonstrated to save 5-10% of fuel and emissions by generating a rigid carpet of air bubbles that reduce friction between the hull and the water. 

“Over the vessels’ lifecycles, a carbon emissions reduction of 1.6m tonnes – equivalent to the annual emissions of 350,000 cars – could be achieved as a direct impact of having the system onboard,” Silverstream claimed in a release yesterday. Over the same period, MSC will see an estimated fuel saving of $300m.

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A Look at Venetian Gondolas — Designs New and Old

Posted on by September 21, 2021

Starck’s Dream of Winter Gondola

This is a post about contrasts – new and old, fanciful and time-tested, inspiration and tradition. This is also a post about Venetian gondolas.

The gondola, the iconic Venetian rowing boat, has been around since at least the 11th century. It is estimated that there were eight to ten thousand gondolas on the Venetian canals during the 17th and 18th centuries. Today, there are only around four hundred in active service today, with virtually all of them used for hire by tourists. The gondolas’ future is uncertain at best.

Recently, Dezeen Magazine has reported that the famous French designer, Philippe Starck, has envisioned a futuristic gondola as a “symbol for the future of Venice.”

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Record Slaughter of 1,400 Dolphins in Faroe Islands Triggers Anger and Review

Posted on by September 20, 2021

The inhabitants of the Faroe Islands, a windswept archipelago in the North Atlantic roughly halfway between Norway and Iceland, have been hunting long-finned pilot whales and white-sided dolphins for food for almost a thousand years. The summer hunt is known as the Grindadráp, often called the Grind, and typically slaughters around 600 whales. The whale meat is considered a key part of Faroese culture and is shared among the community. The grind has been the target of international protests for years.

This year was more brutal than ever before. Faroese hunters corralled an extremely large pod of white-sided dolphins in a fjord and butchered a record 1,428 dolphins in a single day. 

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Humpback Whale Megapod Feeding Frenzy Off Australia’s NSW Coast

Posted on by September 18, 2021

For only the second time, a “megapod” of humpbacks whales, estimated to be between 100 and 150 animals, was sighted off the south coast of Australia’s New South Wales feasting on baitfish in what was described as a feeding frenzy.  A megapod was seen feeding in the same location last year.

Whale feeding frenzy off NSW south coast

Golden Ray & the Billion Dollar Blunder — Tallying the Cost

Posted on by September 18, 2021

We recently posted about the NTSB determination that the car carrier Golden Ray capsized due to an error in a stability calculation prior to sailing. Now as the salvage operation is wrapping up and the costs are being tallied, the error might be referred to as a billion dollar blunder.

According to the NTSB, when the car carrier lost stability and rolled on its side two years ago in St. Simons Sound near the Port of Brunswick in Georgia, it lacked adequate stability due to the chief officer’s error in entering ballast quantities into the stability calculation program. 

How much did this error cost? Continue reading →

UK Startup Wins Funding for Unmanned “Green Submarine”

Posted on by September 17, 2021

The UK startup, Oceanways, has been awarded funding to develop an autonomous hydrogen/battery-powered submarine in a UK government competition to tackle emissions from shipping.

The firm has been given £380,000 ($525,000 ) to develop the sub to deliver parcels without a captain or crew. The submarine will follow shipping routes but 50 metres below the surface. When not under the waves, the sub will also be able to deliver goods in shallow waters where container ships can’t operate.

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Australia to Build Nuclear Subs Under New Strategic Partnership with US & UK

Posted on by September 16, 2021

AP reports that President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday a new U.S. security alliance with Australia and Britain that will provide Australia with the technology and capability to deploy nuclear-powered submarines.

The agreement would make Australia the first country without nuclear weapons to obtain nuclear-powered submarines. The United States has previously only shared the technology with Britain in 1958. The submarines will be nuclear-powered but not armed with nuclear weapons.

Current plans are to build at least eight nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy in Adelaide, Australia. 

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