OCTOBER 2002 NEWSLETTER

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Of course the advantage I have is that no-one is paying me for what I write here, and no-one is likely to depose me from my position as Editor of the Marex Offshore Review, but even so one can only do a limited amount of campaigning on behalf of the mariner otherwise our readership would become distressed and stop reading altogether. We are also a magazine dealing with the offshore industry and so what is written here should in some way reflect that fact.

Having said all this I would ask our readers to reflect on the fate of the crew of the tug Elpida, reported on the Yahoo website on October 23rd and in Lloyds List on October 24th. The five Greek sailors who make up the crew are marooned on the vessel which lies at anchor, and broken down just outside the port of Split. This vessel has apparently been abandoned by the owners, named in the article as Portolos Tugs and Salvage of Athens. The tug, which built in 1981, has been at anchor since May and although there was an unsuccessful attempt to repair the engines then, the owners have apparently been unwilling to meet the cost of docking the tug, or towing it back to Greece. 

Hence in order to comply with maritime law the crew are obliged to remain on board, and are supported in all respects by voluntary contributions from the people of Split mobilised by the local ILO representative.  

This is not a unique situation, and most professional seafarers are aware of the demoralising effects of being on a vessel lying for long periods at anchor, even under the best circumstances. It is difficult to understand what the poor chaps on the Elpida must be feeling. They are condemned, yet their only crime has been to take a job on a ship, their only failing to have trusted their employers. And when eventually they do return home will they receive any compensation for this involuntary imprisonment? No - they will think themselves lucky of they receive any wages.  

It would be nice to think that some latter day Samuel Plimsoll is campaigning for an improvement in this situation, but no-one seems to be interested - except for Michael Gray. 

Gratifyingly, we have received some comments about the piece we ran in the last News and Views about the new ferry service to the Shetland islands. At least two people are reading the column. 

It was pointed out that the inter-island ferries in the Shetlands are run by the Shetlands Islands Council and that the service to the Faroes will not be filled by the St Clair, but by the Clair, which is quite a different vessel.

Meanwhile we notice that there is a P&O cargo ferry steaming in and out of the port which we assume is being used to replace one of the others which is seriously broken down. The most likely candidate is the second ferry partnering the St Rognvald. Also at the time of writing one of the new ferries has been driven to shelter by the high winds in the Northern North Sea. We are sure that the passengers will be hoping there is no repeat of the time then the St Clair was eventually forced to dock in Invergordon when Aberdeen remained closed for ages.

Last month Rolls-Royce announced the 400th order for a UT700 design. It is apparently a UT722LX which is to be built at Langsten Slip for Havila. To be honest the UT numbering system is almost as confusing as that for the Porsche sports car, and just when you think you've worked it out you identify a failing in the sequence. In this case we might wonder why the UT722 appeared after the UT745.

Elsewhere on this site there is a history of the UT704, on which the success of the design was based, and I am told that the 100 odd ships constructed to this design is soon to be beaten in terms of numbers by the UT755, which has become the PSV workhorse for the world. 

Probably the other really important number is the UT705 which was originally designed as a pipe carrier but which     became the basis for all modern PSV designs, and which specifically spawned the UT745.

The Edda Fjord has been delivered to its owners and, since we are a bit late with this report, has arrived in Aberdeen (7th November). Ostenjo continue to push the boundaries as they have for almost as long as we can remember, leading the way in the development of platform ships. This particular design is a VS498, and the Vik-Sandvik numbers are a lot easier to understand than the Ulstein ones, so we can tell that the ship is 98 metres long.

Initial specifications indicate that the vessel has 17,000 bhp available and 1270m2 of deck area. We now have a platform supply/construction vessel which has more power available than many anchor-handlers, and I would normally ask why so much power was required for a platform ship, and then suggest that possibly all this power was unnecessary. 

However, in the case of the Edda Fjord, although we have no idea why it should be so powerful,  we know that the Ostenjo organisation have been amazingly accurate in their analysis of what the oil industry might need several years after their vessels enter service, so one of these days we will find out why the Edda Fjord is so powerful.

It is many years since anchor-handlers habitually went about with A-frames hanging over the stern. In  the early days they were felt necessary in order to get anchors onto the deck, but of course they prevented the ships from towing. Now A-frames are making a come-back and both the Maersk Assister and the Olympic Poseidon now have large frames on the stern.

Of course these very powerful vessels are seldom used for towing and even if they were, the sideways thrust available is sufficient to drive the ship round onto a new heading regardless of the ability of the tow wire to move over the quarters. On the old ships it was of course necessary for the tow wire to be able to move over a considerable arc at the stern to allow the ships to take up a new direction while still keeping the power on.

These new A-frames are there to allow the vessels to be used for the deployment of  subsea equipment, and it is amazing what can be done today with a DP system, a big crane and an ROV.   

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