|
MSC NAPOLI
If one types the words
MSC Napoli into Google, it can be seen that there are 1,460,000 possible
references. Just out of curiosity I found another marine disaster, the loss
of the Leonida II in November 2006, and typed the name in to Google. No-one
was lost from the MSC Napoli although a number of seabirds were oiled,
between 800 and 10,000 depending on the publication one reads. Sixteen
people died as a result of the sinking of the Leonida II, yet its appearance
over our media horizon was brief and limited.
In earlier edition of
this page I have reported on a number of misfortunes which have occcured apparently
without notice in the West. Ships have sunk without trace with the loss of
all hands but there has been no report. In general conditions on the vessels
sailing round the world carrying our freight are somewhere between poor and unacceptable,
but there is little to be done. The master of the MSC Napoli was Bulgarian
even though the vessel was registered in UK. Nothing against Bulgarians,
only against people from other countries commanding British vessels.
The MSC Napoli has
brought to our attention many aspects of the operation of ships, although it is difficult
to see whether the information will have any effect. To get a real idea
about what has been happening one would have to read Lloyds List, but we
can't really afford a paper which costs such a lot to purchase. To get the
stuff in the public domain one only has to watch a bit of TV, and see the
crowds plundering the containers on the beach to understand where the
excitement lies.
The MSC Napoli in a previous
life has been aground, and has been extensively repaired in Vietnam. The
Sunday Times reported that most of the bottom of the ship had been replaced
in that country, and one assumes that the appropriate class surveys were
carried out.
Some of our readers may
be unaware as to what Class surveys are, however, typing the name into
Google produces the site "DNV Exchange". DNV or Det Norsk Veritas is the
classification society for the ship. This means that surveyors from DNV have
been present when the ship was built, have examined it periodically over its
lifetime, and have ensured that the repairs to it have been adequate. This
is not an altruistic activity. It is required to ensure that the ship is
suitable to be insured, and being out of class means that it will be
difficult or impossible to obtain insurance for the hull. However, it is not
the insurers who pay for the class surveyor, it is the ship-owner and if the
owner is not keen on the class society doing the work they can change to
another. It is therefore in the interests of the classification society to
keep the ship-owner happy. Some believe that this is an inappropriate
situation, and one wonders why the insurers do not seem to have much
interest in the situation. But I am going on and we will leave the subject
for this month.
TIDEWATER'S PLANS
Those who might have been
wondering what Tidewater were going to do with the many, many Halter Marine
185 footers in their fleet, now that larger and more sophisticated vessels
are required more or less all over the world, can now be provided with some
sort of an answer. In the latest edition of "Tug and Salvage" the company
had advertised the Tidewater Ready Reserve, suggesting that these vessels
can be used for all sorts of things. This is more or less true, and at 4000
bhp they are not so powerful that they will use more fuel than anyone can
afford. If you were thinking of buying one consumption is about 5 tonnes a
day at 14knots.
Jesting apart, during
previous downturns many of these ships have found their way into the fishing
industry in America, some have gone towing logs on the west coast of Canada
and other have been used for carrying small numbers of containers between
very small ports. I particularly liked the idea that they might be used as
"Yacht Tenders". Years ago they themselves would have been turned into the yachts, but
today the yachts are so big, and the people on them require so much gear,
that small vessels are being used to carry the baggage, the jet skis, the
inflatables and doubtless the cases of champagne which might be required to
keep the 12 people the yacht can carry, happy.
JIGSAW
There are now four very
large supply ship shaped vessels sailing in and out of Aberdeen on a regular
basis, although they uniquely have a complex framework of equipment at the
forward end of the deck from which, in time, will be suspended two ARRCs -
or autonomous rescue craft. These vessel are the fruition of a period of
negotiation between BP and the HSE now many years ago, when BP proposed
replacing large numbers of ERRVs with some helicopters and these very large
ships, which were to be equipped with relatively small craft, to be launched
in an emergency to pick people out of the water. The big change is that
should the rescue craft be unable to be recovered they are large enough and
fast enough to make it to the shore.
We have been waiting
patiently for the service to start but have so far only seen one of the
ARRCs on a davit, and now it is reported by Offshore Shipbrokers that it may
be as late as mid summer before the service is fully operational. There have
been one or two problems, most apparently concerned with the late delivery
of the ships. Building in China seems like a bargain, but there is a lot of
input required from the crews to sort out the bugs.
A ROUGH DAY IN THE
NORTH SEA
Over the years we have
seen a number of photographs being submitted to our photo competitions
purporting to be the work of more than one person. We have also seen
pictures stolen from our site win competitions elsewhere. But what to do.
Probably not hold the competitions, because it becomes more and more
difficult to establish the origins of electronic photos as the years pass,
and indeed we have photos stored, and would like to use them, but sometimes
cannot establish who sent them to us. However, sometimes it is easy, as it
was about a week ago when a series of snaps showing waves breaking over the
deck of a bulk carrier circulated round the marine community in Aberdeen,
and for all I know round lots of other marine communities.
The group was titled, "A
rough day in the North Sea yesterday", and one of those though whose
computer had written "wow, can it get any worse".
A couple of things
prompted some of us to type in the name of the ship. For me it was the fact
that it was a bulk carrier which had supposedly emailed the snaps to
some-one the day before. I and others found that the pictures had actually
been taken in the North Atlantic in 1987. Not really a great joke, and
actually in the North Atlantic it can get a great deal worse.
ANOTHER NEW YEAR
PICTURE
And the
drilling rig survives as can be seen from a recent picture.
 |
