The shipping industry needs to set ambitious targets to help prevent global climate catastrophe, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) cautions in a new position paper launched today. There are currently more than 50,000 cargo ships on the world’s oceans, the majority of which run on low-grade, heavy ‘bunker’ fuel. Together, the ships emit as […]
By Michael Grey* “Am I a man – or an animal?” This was a question dramatically posed by a huge Sicilian lorry driver on a ferry that was carrying his truck full of vegetables on the overnight run up to Genoa. It was a very new service, designed to move cargo off the country’s north-south
On our Forum: Seafarers and truckers: supply chain’s most vulnerable providers Read More »
By Michael Grey* Will what we used to think of as “normal” ever return? Black swans used to be rare, but now they are coming by the squadrons, like migrating geese, as one daft occurrence succeeds the last in bewildering succession. There is a world shortage of lorry drivers, as they all opt to drive
On our Forum: Stranger than fiction in a world ‘not far short of chaos’ Read More »
By Michael Grey* The results of an inquest in the UK on the deaths caused by a tram coming off the rails gave one pause for thought. The driver, it had concluded, had suffered a “microsleep” at the very moment he should have been applying the brakes and the tram had rushed on with
The many challenges to one-man bridge operations (Forum) Read More »
The “Ship Carbon Recycling Working Group (WG)” of Japan’s Carbon Capture & Reuse (CCR) Study Group has confirmed that carbon recycled methane produced by methanation technology (Note 1) can be recognized as zero emission ship fuel. A technical paper describing the details of the calculation procedure and evaluation conducted by the WG has been
By Michael Grey* These are tough times for the professional salvor, with concern being expressed about weak revenues and worries about capacity. To the casual inquirer about salvage matters, it might seem that marine casualties have been both frequent and spectacular of late, what with containership fires, blazing tankers and car carriers that won’t stay
Marine salvage expertise must not decline… (Forum) Read More »
I have always been terribly enthused by Oliver St.John Gogarty’s poem The Ship and its first stanza – “A ship from Valparaiso came/ And in the Bay her sails were furled,/ She brought the wonder of her name/ And tidings from a sunnier world.” It came back to me last week reading about all
Of congestion, ships and crews Read More »
By Michael Grey* Nobody should be surprised that there has been something of a fight back by ship operators after the World Maritime University’s research earlier in the year showed up widespread “adjustment” in the recording of seafarers’ hours of work and rest (see A Culture of Adjustment). It was a shocking report,
Justifying the unjustifiable on inhuman seafarer crisis… (forum) Read More »
By Michael Grey* There will be few seafarers today who sail off to the Gulf of Guinea with a light heart and cheerful demeanour, any more than they did a couple of hundred years ago, when disease was endemic along its shores. It is a different sort of blight today, with the depredations of
Shipping’s nightmare with the Gulf of Guinea pirates (Forum) Read More »
Taiwanese Ping Shin 101 on which occurred the murders at sea described in this gut wretching article by investigative reporter Ian Urbina*. Photo Credit: Fish-I Africa The men are helpless in the open water, clinging to floating debris, tossed by the rolling ocean waves. Several large fishing ships circle. None of the victims have life jackets, but no one makes
A Captain caught after a slaughter at sea (Forum) Read More »