A NewsLink service for Dole Chile

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

SAFETY STUDY
WHEN THINGS ARE MEANT TO GO
WRONG
A warning signal on the machinery monitoring
system regarded as an instrumentation fault
proved to be urgent when the port propeller
misbehaved.

NARRATIVE
A sophisticated, newly completed, twin screw
vessel was on builders' trials. She had
completed a seagoing phase of her trials and
was about to return to her berth. During trials,
one of the processors serving the machinery
management system failed. This processor
was switched off but, as a result, the control
panel's warning light remained on. The
approach to her berth was along a river and
buoyed channel.
Shortly after the pilot boarded, a signal on
the machinery monitoring system indicated a
fault with one main engine to gearbox clutch.
However, the clutch appeared to be
performing correctly and the chief engineer
decided the problem was due to an
instrumentation fault. The vessel continued.
As the vessel entered a narrow part of the
channel, the pilot requested a slight change of
heading to port. The helmsman brought the
head around and applied starboard helm. Both
propellers were put on to astern pitch and
helm hard to starboard. However, the head
continued to swing to port. Speed came off
the vessel, but not before she touched bottom.
She remained grounded for nearly seven
hours. With the aid of tugs, she was floated
free and towed to her berth. Initial
investigation established that the port
propeller had spontaneously moved to full
astern pitch just, coincidentally, as the initial
course adjustment was made. Tests showed
that connections in a cable connector were
intermittently poor and had resulted in the port
propeller misbehaving.

LESSONS
- The earlier problems with the processor and
clutch instrumentation suggest that there were
sufficient warnings of possible problems
before the river passage began. Until all tests
and trials are satisfactory, the close
attendance of tugs, when in restricted waters,
is a prudent provision.
- A continuously shown alarm rapidly
becomes an ignored alarm. The illuminated
single alarm lamp on this control panel made it
difficult to give any subsequent alarm
condition its proper status, and confer on it the
appropriate level of urgency. Great care needs
to be applied to the configuration of machinery
alarm systems to ensure each is given the
consideration it deserves. Source: UKMAIB

ICS releases special brochure to mark

'IMO World Maritime Day'
The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS)
has launched a special brochure to mark the
occasion of IMO World Maritime Day on
September 25. This year's World Maritime Day
theme is "IMO Conventions: Effective
Implementation." The ICS brochure is being
circulated throughout the industry by its member
national shipowners' associations.
The brochure highlights the vital importance
of global rules for a global industry and the need
for governments to ratify and implement IMO
Conventions and regulations, which have
immensely contributed to the significant
improvement of the shipping's safety record and
environmental performance.

The ICS brochure also focuses on flag state

enforcement and Port State Control and
welcomes the IMO Assembly's decision in 2013
to make the IMO Member State Audit Scheme
mandatory, accompanied by the adoption of a
new IMO Instrument Implementation Code.
ICS also highlights the continuing publication
of its own Flag State Performance Table and
makes no apology for continuing to subject flag
states to scrutiny in the same way that ships and
company procedures are rightly subject to
inspection by governments.
The ICS World Maritime Day brochure and its
Flag State Performance Table can both be
downloaded from the ICS website, ICS said.

Somali pirates release

US-German journalist

Seaports reopen after Los

Angeles-area fire

Somali pirates on Tuesday freed a

German-American journalist and writer, Michael
Scott Moore, who was abducted in Somalia two
and a half years ago, officials said.
"The journalist was released and handed over
to Puntland authorities on Tuesday and he was
flown from Galkayo airport," the Deputy
Governor of Mudug region, Ahmed Muse Nur,
told reporters.
According to a Somali pirate source, a ransom
was paid for the journalist's release.
In Berlin, a German Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman confirmed "that a German citizen,
who also has US citizenship and who was
abducted in Somalia, went free today," but she
declined to provide further details.
The 45-year-old Moore, a native of Redondo
Beach, California, had worked for Spiegel
Online in Berlin years before he visited Somalia
to do a research on piracy. Moore was
kidnapped in January 2012 while he was
working on a book on piracy.
Meanwhile,
Spiegel's
editor-in-chief
Wolfgang Buechner thanked everyone who
contributed to his release. "We never gave up
hope and we're happy now with Michael and his
mother Marlis that this nightmare is finally
over," he said.
Pirate attacks off Somalia have been radically
reduced in recent years, with international fleets
patrolling the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean, as
well as armed guards being posted aboard many
vessels, AFP reported.

The twin ports that handle 40% of America's

import trade were mostly back in business again
after an idle day brought on by smoke from a
fire at an old wooden wharf.
The last of the 14 container terminals at the
ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is
expected to be reopened on Wednesday.
All eight container terminals at the Port of Los
Angeles and three of the six at the Port of Long
Beach were closed most of Tuesday because of
worries about unhealthy smoke, but all but one
were running again for the night shift nearly 24
hours after the fire was sparked by a welding
accident, port officials said.
That ignited the 800-foot-long, pre-WWII
wharf with creosote-preserved timber that
brought concerns over the plume of dark smoke
it produced.
The wharf is part of a terminal that processes
cargo that isn't confined to large, stackable
containers.
Fireboats spraying water and foam worked
with scuba divers and firefighters ashore to
contain the bulk of the fire after about 2 1/2
hours, but it continued to smoulder Tuesday
night, and officials did not know when the final
embers would be out.
"This is a very, very difficult fire to fight,"
said Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Ralph
Terrazas.

PAGE 2 - Wednesday, September 24, 2014

SHIPPING DATA

BALTIC EXCHANGE
Market snapshot: 11:30 GMT
Dry Index
BDI
1073
Capesize Index
BCI
2077
Panamax Index
BPI
800
Supramax Index
BSI
1041
Handysize Index
BHSI
513

-4
-41
-9
+99
+8

EXCHANGE RATES
New York (Tue Cls)
Fgn Currency
in USD
Britain (Pound)
1.6404
Canada (Dollar)
0.9030
China (Yuan)
0.1629
Euro
1.2857
India (Rupee)
0.0164
Indonesia (Rupiah) 0.000083
Japan (Yen)
0.009181
Norway (Krone)
0.1574
Philippines (Peso)
0.0225
Poland (Zloty)
0.3080
Russia (Ruble)
0.0259
Singapore (Dollar)
0.7882
Ukraine (Hryvnia)
0.0739

USD in Fgn
Currency
0.6096
1.1074
6.1373
0.7778
61.0110
12020.00
108.9300
6.3531
44.5200
3.2500
38.5926
1.2687
13.5310

The economic impact of the fire was not

immediately known and will depend on what
kind of cargo was held on the docks. Port of Los
Angeles spokesman Phillip Sanfield said he
expected the dollar loss would be minimal
because dockworkers have been able to catch up
following similar-length disruptions due to
weather or labor unrest.
He estimated a few thousand employees,
mostly longshore workers, were sent home on
Tuesday.
The Port of Los Angeles handles an average of
about USD 780 million of cargo each day, and
the consequences of delays in moving that much
product will reverberate down the supply chain from truckers who wouldn't get paid for the day
to exporters and retailers whose products won't
show up right on time. (AP)

UAE to launch CIC

A Concentrated Inspection Campaign (CIC) will
be launched by the 6 Maritime Authorities of the
Riyadh Memorandum of Understanding
(RMoU) on Port State Control to ensure
compliance with SOLAS Chapter II-2 and the
International Code for Fire Safety Systems on
board ships.
The CIC will be held from October 1, 2014 to
December 31, 2014.
The campaign will ensure that there is
compliance with the requirements of the SOLAS
Convention Chapter II-2 and the International
Code for Fire Safety Systems as applicable; the
fire-fighting equipment is readily available and
maintained at all times; the master, officers and
crew must have knowledge of the equipment and
have received training in carrying out their
duties and to raise awareness of issues related to
fire safety.

ENVIRONMENT

'GHG emissions from shipping

down by 20%'
Addressing a UN summit on climate change in
New York on Tuesday, Peter Hinchliffe, the
Secretary General of the ICS said that the total
Green House Gas (GHG) emissions from the
global maritime transport industry have been cut
by over 20% from 2007 to 2012.

According to reports, the global maritime

shipping industry, which transports around 90%
of all world trade, produced just 2.2% of the
world's total GHG emissions in 2012 in
comparison with 2.8% in 2007.
A comprehensive study of the shipping
industry's GHG emissions, prepared by the
International Maritime Organisation (IMO),
contains the estimates and will be considered by
its Marine Environment Protection Committee
next month.
Speaking at the summit, Hinchliffe, said: "The
latest IMO study, which uses satellite tracking,
suggests there's been a significant reduction in
absolute CO2 emissions from ships due to the
introduction of operational efficiency measures
across the whole fleet. This includes operating at
slower speeds, combined with more fuel
efficient designs on board the large number of
new build vessels that have recently entered the
market."
"The reduction in CO2 per tonne of cargo
carried per kilometre by ships is even more
impressive than the headline IMO figure for
absolute GHG reduction because cargo moved
by sea has continued to grow since 2009," he
added.
Shipping is the only industrial sector to have
mandatory global regulations in place to reduce
its CO2 emissions, which came into effect last
year.
"The shipping industry fully recognises that
governments expect even greater CO2 efficiency
improvements in the future," Hinchliffe said.
"Given the very high cost of fuel which is
soon set to increase by around 50% due to
separate new rules on sulphur the industry
already has every incentive to deliver this," ICS
secretary general concluded.

GRANT

MARAD grants USD 324.6mln

for LNG powered vessels
A USD 324.6 million loan guarantee for TOTE
Shipholdings and Saltchuk Resources for their
Marlin Class vessels has been announced by the
US Maritime Administration (MARAD).
The two new Marlin Class vessels will be the
first liquefied natural gas (LNG) powered
vessels in the world. They will serve the Puerto
Rico trade and are expected to be complete in
2015 and 2016.
TOTE and Saltchuk qualified for this loan,
granted under the Title XI Loan Guarantee
Programme, as the new ship build is an
advancement in shipbuilding technology and
being built at a US shipyard. The construction of
new vessels is underway at General Dynamics
NASSCO in San Diego, California.
"This financing from the US Department of
Transportation and MARAD enables TOTE to
invest in modern technology that will create
jobs, reduce our impact on the environment and
ensure a safer and healthier workplace for our
employees," Anthony Chiarello, President and
CEO of TOTE, said .

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HI-TECH
ENGINEERED PROTEINS MAY BE USED
TO REPAIR SHIPS
Shellfish such as mussels and barnacles
secrete very sticky proteins that help them
cling to rocks or ship hulls, even
underwater. Inspired by these natural
adhesives, a team of MIT engineers has
designed new materials that could be used
to repair ships.
To create their new waterproof
adhesives, the MIT researchers
engineered bacteria to produce a hybrid
material that incorporates naturally sticky
mussel proteins as well as a bacterial
protein found in biofilms - slimy layers
formed by bacteria growing on a surface.
When combined, these proteins form even
stronger underwater adhesives than those
secreted by mussels, MIT said in a press
release.
"The ultimate goal for us is to set up a
platform where we can start building
materials that combine multiple different
functional domains together and to see if
that gives us better materials performance,"
Timothy Lu, an associate professor of
biological engineering and electrical
engineering and computer science (EECS)
and the senior author of the paper said.
The paper's lead author is Chao Zhong, a
former MIT postdoc who is now at
Shanghai Tech University. Other authors
are graduate student Thomas Gurry,
graduate student Allen Cheng, senior
Jordan Downey, postdoc Zhengtao Deng,
and Collin Stultz, a professor in EECS.
The sticky substance that helps mussels
attach to underwater surfaces is made of
several proteins known as mussel foot
proteins. "A lot of underwater organisms
need to be able to stick to things, so they
make all sorts of different types of
adhesives that you might be able to borrow
from," Lu said in a press release.
Scientists have previously engineered E.
coli bacteria to produce individual mussel
foot proteins, but these materials do not
capture the complexity of the natural
adhesives, Lu said.
In the new study, the MIT team wanted to
engineer bacteria to produce two different
foot proteins, combined with bacterial
proteins called curli fibers - fibrous proteins
that can clump together and assemble
themselves into much larger and more
complex meshes.