A.P. Moller – Maersk has announced that Maersk Growth, its venture capital arm, has made a leading investment in Prometheus Fuels, a Silicon Valley-based startup with a promising direct air capture technology to enable cost-efficient, carbon-neutral e-fuels for shipping.
From the announcement: The minority investment in Prometheus Fuels will support A.P. Moller – Maersk’s work to execute on the strategy to decarbonize marine operations.
The Ocean Cleanup‘s latest attempt to clean plastic from the Northern Pacific has proven to be unimpressive. After two offshore supply vessels, donated by Maersk, towed a 520-meter wide boom for 120 hours, they succeeded in collecting around 8 tonnes of floating plastic, or roughly the equivalent to a single load of a standard garbage truck.
Around 2014, the media became enthralled with a story of a 19-year-old Dutch engineer named Boyan Slat, who claimed to have designed a boom system that would clean up half the plastic in the Great Pacific garbage patch within a decade. Many engineers and oceanographers doubted that the scheme would work, but the media and several large corporate sponsors bought into the grand vision. The title of an article in the magazine Fast Money from 2017, Boy Genius Boyan Slat’s Giant Ocean Cleanup Machine Is Real, reflects the enthusiasm for the project.
Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) has ordered more than 30 hull air lubrication systems from UK firm Silverstream Technologies to be installed on current orders of newbuild large container ships. The vessels applying the air lubrication systems are expected to be delivered from shipyards in Asia in 2022-2024.
Silverstream’s technology has been demonstrated to save 5-10% of fuel and emissions by generating a rigid carpet of air bubbles that reduce friction between the hull and the water.
“Over the vessels’ lifecycles, a carbon emissions reduction of 1.6m tonnes – equivalent to the annual emissions of 350,000 cars – could be achieved as a direct impact of having the system onboard,” Silverstream claimed in a release yesterday. Over the same period, MSC will see an estimated fuel saving of $300m.
Starck’s Dream of Winter Gondola
This is a post about contrasts – new and old, fanciful and time-tested, inspiration and tradition. This is also a post about Venetian gondolas.
The gondola, the iconic Venetian rowing boat, has been around since at least the 11th century. It is estimated that there were eight to ten thousand gondolas on the Venetian canals during the 17th and 18th centuries. Today, there are only around four hundred in active service today, with virtually all of them used for hire by tourists. The gondolas’ future is uncertain at best.
Recently, Dezeen Magazine has reported that the famous French designer, Philippe Starck, has envisioned a futuristic gondola as a “symbol for the future of Venice.”
The inhabitants of the Faroe Islands, a windswept archipelago in the North Atlantic roughly halfway between Norway and Iceland, have been hunting long-finned pilot whales and white-sided dolphins for food for almost a thousand years. The summer hunt is known as the Grindadráp, often called the Grind, and typically slaughters around 600 whales. The whale meat is considered a key part of Faroese culture and is shared among the community. The grind has been the target of international protests for years.
This year was more brutal than ever before. Faroese hunters corralled an extremely large pod of white-sided dolphins in a fjord and butchered a record 1,428 dolphins in a single day.
For only the second time, a “megapod” of humpbacks whales, estimated to be between 100 and 150 animals, was sighted off the south coast of Australia’s New South Wales feasting on baitfish in what was described as a feeding frenzy. A megapod was seen feeding in the same location last year.
We recently posted about the NTSB determination that the car carrier Golden Ray capsized due to an error in a stability calculation prior to sailing. Now as the salvage operation is wrapping up and the costs are being tallied, the error might be referred to as a billion dollar blunder.
According to the NTSB, when the car carrier lost stability and rolled on its side two years ago in St. Simons Sound near the Port of Brunswick in Georgia, it lacked adequate stability due to the chief officer’s error in entering ballast quantities into the stability calculation program.
How much did this error cost? Continue reading
The UK startup, Oceanways, has been awarded funding to develop an autonomous hydrogen/battery-powered submarine in a UK government competition to tackle emissions from shipping.
The firm has been given £380,000 ($525,000 ) to develop the sub to deliver parcels without a captain or crew. The submarine will follow shipping routes but 50 metres below the surface. When not under the waves, the sub will also be able to deliver goods in shallow waters where container ships can’t operate.
AP reports that President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday a new U.S. security alliance with Australia and Britain that will provide Australia with the technology and capability to deploy nuclear-powered submarines.
The agreement would make Australia the first country without nuclear weapons to obtain nuclear-powered submarines. The United States has previously only shared the technology with Britain in 1958. The submarines will be nuclear-powered but not armed with nuclear weapons.
Current plans are to build at least eight nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy in Adelaide, Australia.
The final report issued yesterday by the National Transportation Safety Board Office (NTSB) summarizes what happened on Sept. 8, 2019, when the roll-on/roll-off vehicle carrier Golden Ray capsized as it transited outbound through St. Simons Sound near Brunswick, Georgia.
Less than 40 minutes after leaving port, the 656-foot-long Golden Ray began to heel rapidly to port during a 68-degree turn to starboard. Despite attempts by the pilot and crew to counter the heel, the rate of turn to starboard increased, and the vessel reached a heel of 60 degrees to port in under a minute before it grounded outside of the channel.
The NTSB determined the probable cause of the capsizing of the Golden Ray was the chief officer’s error entering ballast quantities into the stability calculation program, which led to his incorrect determination of the vessel’s stability and resulted in the Golden Ray having an insufficient righting arm to counteract the forces developed during a turn while transiting outbound from the Port of Brunswick through St. Simons Sound. …
Photo: REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
The Marine Exchange of Southern California reports a new record for congestion in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. As of Monday, of 140 ships in the ports, 85 are container ships. Only 31 containerships are alongside the piers loading or discharging, however. 56 are at anchor or simply adrift offshore awaiting berth space. This is the fourth time in three weeks that Los Angeles and Long Beach ports have hit a new record for backups and delays.
Pent-up demand from the pandemic has triggered a flood of inbound trade with China, overtaxing port and distribution hubs already struggling with COVID-19-related disruptions and a national labor shortage.
The disruptions, however, are not limited to the North American side of the Pacific. Last month Reuters reported that Chinese ports are facing congestion as vessels due to call at Ningbo are being diverted and cargo processing is slowed partly due to stricter disinfection measures under China’s “zero-tolerance” coronavirus policy.
The Guardian recently published “The disastrous voyage of Satoshi, the world’s first cryptocurrency cruise ship.” Thanks to Joan Druett for pointing it out.
In 2020, three cryptocurrency enthusiasts bought a pandemic-bargain cruise ship with plans to create a libertarian utopia, that would be, in theory, free from conventions, regulations, and taxes. The 777 cabin, 804′ long ex-Pacific Dawn, would be anchored permanently off the coast of Panama and provide a home for freedom-loving digital nomads, entrepreneurs, and traders in crypto-currency. In homage to Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym of bitcoin’s mysterious inventor (or inventors), they renamed the ship the MS Satoshi. The ship would be the first large-scale attempt at “seasteading.”
Photo: Taiwan International Ports Corp
Ever Ace, the newest world’s largest container ship capable of carrying the 23,992 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units) transitted the Suez Canal at the beginning of this month. The Ever Ace is notionally 28 TEU larger than the previously largest container ship, HMM Algeciras, delivered last year.
The Ever Ace is the first in a planned series of 12 ultra-large container ships to be built for Taiwanese company Evergreen Marine.
The Ever Ace‘s transit through the Suez Canal is significant only in contrast to the grounding of the 20,000 TEU container ship, Ever Given, in the canal last March for 6 days, delaying roughly 400 ships and disrupting trade valued at almost $10 billion.
An updated repost. There is a line from a Paul Simon song, “these are the days of miracle and wonder.” One might not think to apply that lyric to the events of 9/11, twenty years ago today, and yet for at least part of that strange and horrible day, they fit. The great New York boatlift was part of the “miracle and wonder.” The wholly unplanned, boatlift was the spontaneous maritime evacuation of an estimated 500,000 people trapped in Lower Manhattan in less than 10 hours. The boatlift has been under-reported by the media, which is all the more reason to remember the mariners of New York who stepped up to perform what has been called the largest sea rescue in history.
There are moments in history when an individual makes the right choice at exactly the right moment and it makes all the difference. Such was the case with LT. Michael Day on the morning of September 11, 2001, in New York harbor.
LT Day was supposed to attend a meeting in the World Trade Center on that clear Tuesday morning in September. Before he arrived, a commercial airliner flew into the World Trade Center’s North Tower. Just over a dozen minutes later, a second plane hit the South Tower. In less than two hours, both buildings would collapse in a maelstrom of fire and debris. New York City’s emergency response center had been in the World Trade Center complex and was buried in the rubble.
When the towers fell, the US Coast Guard lost much of its communications. LT Day was dispatched in a cutter to serve as a “relay to pass information.” What he saw was nightmarish, out of the smoke, myriads of people driven by the fire and ash to the water’s edge, in desperate need of rescue.
Portside NewYork is hosting an exhibit of 9/11 videos, documents, and photography in a video booth on the deck of their flagship Mary A. Whalen in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and in an outdoor exhibit of banners. The exhibit runs through 9/26/21, open from 10am to 9pm. (If it is raining, the video booth and reading material will not be available; the exhibit banners on the fence are there in all weather.)
The videos and oral histories are also available online here and include:
Tomorrow, two events will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 boatlift, in which an estimated 500,00 people were rescued from Lower Manhattan following the attacks of 9/11. We recently posted about the Flotilla and Blessing of the Fleet hosted by the Classic Harbor Line Fleet. 100% of all ticket sales are donated to various waterfront organizations. Click here to learn more and to purchase tickets.
Onshore, the New York Council Navy League will present the 9/11 Boatlift 20th Anniversary Tribute, which will be held on Friday, September 10, 2021 at 1:00 P.M. at the American Merchant Mariners’ Memorial in Battery Park, Manhattan.
Fat Leonard
On March 14, 2017, The Department of Justice announced that retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Bruce Loveless and eight other high-ranking Navy officers had been indicted for accepting luxury travel, elaborate dinners, and services of prostitutes from foreign defense contractor “Fat Leonard” Francis in exchange for classified and internal U.S. Navy information.
The group of indicted officers have been described as a ‘tight group — calling themselves a “Band of Brothers” and “Cool Kids.”’ As their trial date finally approaches, now scheduled for November, the tight group may be growing apart.
A week ago, retired Chief Warrant Officer Robert Gorsuch pleaded guilty to his role in the long-running bribery scandal.
On Friday, retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Enrico DeGuzman, 63, pleaded guilty to accepting more than $67,000 in hotel stays, extravagant meals and other perks from “Fat Leonard.”
Since at least 2007, a variety of large inflatable rubber ducks have been showing up in harbors around the world. Most recently, a 25-foot high inflatable rubber duck appeared mysteriously in Belfast harbor in Maine. The word “JOY” was emblazoned on across its breast. The Belfast Harbor Master Katherine Given told the Bangor Daily News, “Everybody loves it, I have no idea who owns it, but it kind of fits Belfast. A lot of people want to keep it here.”
A few days later, however, it was gone again, although there have been sightings in nearby Islesboro. Given says she received an anonymous letter from someone claiming to be responsible — and they hinted that it may land somewhere else.
From the Royal Navy News: The last surviving World War 2 bomb disposal diver was honoured during a visit to the Diving Museum in Gosport.
John Payne, now 96, was on the first ‘P’ Party 1571 group – a select team of divers who cleared mines and unexploded bombs from harbours and ports in occupied Europe.
He was on the Normandy beaches following D-Day, helping to secure the Allied bridgehead and, along with others, saved many lives.