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Michael Grey* A modern ship is a complex creature, packed with different systems, machinery and equipment and at any one time it is inconceivable that they will all be operating without any fault. You might argue that ships have always been like that and the essence of seamanship and good marine engineering is to have […]

Michael Grey* One of the advantages (or perhaps disadvantages) of age is an ability to look back and see how custom and practice, behaviour and attitudes, have evolved over the years, mainly, it has to be said, to suit economic criteria. Risk taking has been part and parcel of seafaring since the dawn of time

By Michael Grey* He intended to pass. Probably, he won’t make that mistake again We all hope for the best, but it is slightly concerning to consider, in the event of the Houthi attacks on shipping continuing into the southern winter, all these containerships diverting around the Cape of Storms, with their huge, high, deck

by Michael Grey* We are terribly worried about our supply chains these days, now that we realise they stretch rather further than the delivery van. It is a concern that was illuminated in the past year, with the spectacular interruption to the westbound voyage of the Ever Given, followed by the revelation that the excitingly expanded

By Michael Grey* There probably will not be that many people around who can recall the summer of 1984, when there was an important conference in Geneva to consider the problems of flags of convenience (FOC), or open registers, as we are now enjoined to call them. The meeting, held in the lofty halls of

By Michael Grey* Strategies that contribute to the saving of the planet ought to be cheered to the rafters, but I confess that when I read about the pedestrian pace on passage of some modern ships, it was with rather mixed emotions. According to those knowledgeable folk in BIMCO, the speed of containerships and bulk

Par Michael Grey* Il y a eu des moments excitants dans le Grand Nord en septembre. Pour commencer, les passagers à bord du petit navire de croisière Ocean Explorer, se rapprochant des glaciers de la côte nord-est du Groenland, ont découvert qu’ils étaient incapables de se déplacer après que leur navire s’est échoué dans le

By Michael Grey* It represents one of the “least sustainable ways of going on holiday”, whimpered some “expert” of an unidentified discipline (probably either a climate scientist or a freelance consultant specialising in the promotion of mandatory misery). In case you haven’t guessed, it is, of course, cruising and the peak of the season in

By Michael Grey* You might think that insurers would have been more vocal about the risks they are taking on with bigger car carriers carrying apparently ever more “problematic” (here is my chance to employ a fashionable word) cargoes which cause a lot of grief. It took five days to extinguish the inferno which recently

By Michael Grey* I had just finished re-reading an old biography of Edward Wilson; doctor, scientist, naturalist, artist and Antarctic explorer, who died with Captain Scott and fellow members of the south polar party, in March 1912. Even across all these years, it is impossible to remain unmoved, reading his final letter to his wife,