Sets Sail News

The Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) represented by BMW Oracle Racing and the Société Nautique de Genève (SNG), the Americas Cup defending champion, represented by Team Alinghi were entwined in a 2.5-year legal battle over multiple court cases, including hearings in the New York Supreme Court and the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, prior to the 33rd edition of the race, due to take place in 2010.The parties disagreed about the location, format, and restrictions on boat design, all of which were changed by the courts prior to the race.

The world's largest cruise ship is set for its maiden voyage on Saturday, but environmental groups are concerned that the liquefied natural gas-powered vessel - and other giant cruise liners to follow - will leak harmful methane into the atmosphere.Royal Caribbean International's Icon of the Seas sets sail from Miami with capacity for 8,000 passengers across 20 decks, taking advantage of the surging popularity of cruises.The ship is built to run on liquefied natural gas (LNG), which burns more cleanly than traditional marine fuel but poses greater risks for methane emissions.

BYD's first chartered vehicle carrier has set sail from China's southern city of Shenzhen, carrying more than 5,000 electric vehicles to Europe, state media Xinhua reported on Tuesday.Chinese automakers including BYD, Chery Automobile and SAIC Motor, have been placing orders for vessels to counter rising shipping costs as they boost exports.The new roll-on, roll-off vehicle carrier named "BYD Explorer No.1" departed on Monday for Flushing Port in the Netherlands and the German port of Bremerhaven…

The European Defense Fund (EDF)backed EUROGUARD project has officially kicked off in Estonia as Europe seeks to bolter its sea defense capabilities.The project's primary objective is to develop a modular and semi-autonomous surface vessel platform equipped with a remote control system. The initiative aims to enhance Europe's maritime defense capabilities while promoting cooperation and innovation in the field.The collaborative venture involves 23 companies and research institutions from 10 EU member states…

Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry are co-leading an international initiative to accelerate reduction of emissions from the shipping sector, and on December 1, during COP28, they chaired a new round of announcements under that initiative, the Green Shipping Challenge.Various countries and organizations proposed measures to reduce emissions from shipping. This year’s announcements include:• Amazon: Amazon and other…

A storage vessel for Mexico's first liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant departed U.S. waters on Monday for Altamira, Mexico, according to ship tracking data, putting the offshore project on track to soon inaugurate exports.LNG developer New Fortress Energy last week said its 1.4-million-metric-tons-per-year Altamira floating LNG project had begun processing gas. The company earlier this year had postponed the inauguration amid delays in receiving the infrastructure."We're excited to announce that we've achieved first gas for our Fast LNG 1 unit…

FPSO leasing company BW Offshore said Thursday that the hull of BW Opal, one of the largest FPSO hulls ever built and destined for Santos' Barossa gas project in Australia, had set sail from a yard in South Korea and was en route to Singapore for topside integration."On October 28, 2023, at 11:30 local time, the newbuild hull for the BW Opal FPSO, which is based on BW Offshore’s RapidFramework concept, started tow from the SK Oceanplant (SKOP) yard in South Korea, to the integration shipyard in Singapore…

Almost two centuries after Charles Darwin's voyage around the world, environmentalists plan to follow in his footsteps by undertaking a two-year journey across four continents to study endemic wildlife and boost conservation.The group will set sail on board a 105-year-old schooner on Tuesday from the southern English port of Plymouth, from where British naturalist Darwin's own expedition began in 1831, leading him to develop the theory of evolution by natural selection.The 40,000 nautical mile "Darwin200" expedition hopes to anchor in 32 ports, including all the major ports visited by Darwin's

This week, Canada welcomed the arrival of the its first fully electric tugboat, HaiSea Wamis.Built by Sanmar Shipyards in Turkey, the vessel is the first in a series of three Robert Allan Ltd. designed ElectRA 2800 battery electric harbor tugs being constructed for HaiSea Marine, a joint venture partnership between the Haisla First Nation and Seaspan ULC.Together with HaiSea’s incoming dual-fuel (liquefied natural gas [LNG] and diesel) escort tugs, the fleet will make the voyage…

A Turkish cargo vessel that Italian special forces boarded after the crew detected a group of unidentified people aboard has left waters off the southern city of Naples, website MarineTraffic showed, as police continued to investigate the incident.Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said on Friday that the special forces operation was launched due to the presence of about 15 migrants on board the vessel.A Turkish transport ministry statement said the Galata Seaways roll-on-roll-off vessel was sailing from the Turkish port of Yalova to Sete in France. The crew realised other people were aboard the ship late on Friday morning, it said.The crew locked themselves in the engine room and alerted maritime authorities in Turkey, who in turn contacted Italy and France.

Offshore wind developers Ørsted and Eversource marked the sailaway of the first U.S.-built offshore wind substation, which departed a Texas fabrication facility Wednesday. The substation is transiting across the Gulf of Mexico and then up the East Coast for installation at the South Fork Wind project site in a few weeks.Kiewit Offshore Services, Ltd. (Kiewit), the largest offshore fabricator in the U.S., designed and built the substation, which will be deployed at Ørsted and Eversource’s South Fork Wind project serving Long Island…

The Shipbuilders Council of America (SCA), the national association representing the U.S. shipbuilding, maintenance and repair industry, announced Frank Collins as Senior Defense Advisor, overseeing the organization’s national ship repair and security, as well as the industry workforce development and education initiatives.Frank Collins is an accomplished strategic business consultant with over 36 years of public and private sector experience in the ship repair industry. Collins served as Chief Executive Officer of United States Marine Preservation…

Chief Executive Bob Chapek introduced Walt Disney Co's first new cruise ship in a decade on Wednesday, the culmination of the first project the former theme parks executive championed to the company's board of directors.The launch of the 4,000-passenger Disney Wish is a bright spot for Chapek, who became Disney's CEO in February 2020 and secured a three-year contract extension on Tuesday following recent controversies that prompted questions about his tenure.It took more than six years to bring the 144…

TenneT's investigation has shown that there is no major damage to the HKZ Beta jacket in the Dutch North Sea which was hit by a drifting bulk carrier in a storm in January. This means that the 3,950t topside can be installed on the jacket as planned, forming part of the Hollandse Kust Zuid (HKZ) grid connection that connects the offshore wind farm zone to the Dutch mainland at the Maasvlakte. The wind farm is being built by Vattenfall. The incidentOn Monday, January 31, the freighter Julietta D.

The second High Voltage Alternating Current (HVAC) offshore transformer station topside, delivered by Petrofac and Drydocks World Dubai for the Dutch-German transmission grid operator TenneT, has set sail from the fabrication facility in the UAE, Petrofac said Monday.The 700 MW Beta topside weighs 3,950-tonne. It is being shipped to the Dutch North Sea aboard Boskalis' Mighty Servant 3 heavy lift and transportation vessel. The topside will form part of the Hollandse Kust Zuid (HKZ) grid connection that connects the offshore wind farm zone to the Dutch mainland at the Maasvlakte.

Exxon Mobil Corp's second floating production system for Guyana, the Liza Unity, arrived early on Tuesday in the South American country's waters, the U.S. oil company said.The production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility is expected to add 220,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil capacity to Guyana's current 120,000-bpd output when it reaches maximum capacity. Its startup is expected for early 2022.Exxon's first FPSO, the Liza Destiny, inaugurated the nation's output in late 2019 from the Liza-1 well, discovered in 2015.

Liza Unity FPSO, set to become Guyana's second offshore production unit, has been completed in Singapore and has set sail towards Guyana.Keppel Shipyard, responsible for the construction and integration of the topside modules with the China-built FPSO hull said Thursday it had delivered the FPSO to SBM Offshore. Once in Guyana, the FPSO will be deployed at ExxonMobil's Stabroek offshore block.Keppel O&M’s scope of work included the fabrication of several topside modules, the riser balcony…

The first cargo from new oil producer Guyana to the world's third-largest crude importer, India, departed this month from a production facility off the South American nation's coast in a vessel chartered by trading firm Trafigura, data from Refinitiv Eikon showed on Tuesday.India has asked refiners to speed up the diversification of imports to cut their dependence on Middle Eastern crudes after OPEC+ this month decided to extend production cuts through April, two sources said.As OPEC's share in India's oil imports fell to historic lows between April 2020 and January 2021…

Ferry company Stena Line announced that Stena Embla, the last of its three new ferries destined for the Irish Sea, has completed its sea trials in China’s Yellow Sea and is set to arrive in Belfast at the end of 2020.Stena Embla is the latest new Stena Line next generation RoPax vessel that is being constructed at the CMI Jingling Weihai Shipyard in China, marking the end of significant recent investment on the Irish Sea by the Swedish owned ferry company. The global pandemic did not delay the build of the vessel…

A vessel carrying about 1 million barrels crude oil from Guyana set sail on Monday for the United States, according to vessel tracking service TankerTrackers.com, ushering the tiny South American nation into ranks of the world's oil exporters.The first cargo of Liza crude departed from the floating platform Liza Destiny off Guyana, operated by U.S. companies Exxon Mobil, Hess Corp, and China's CNOOC . (Reporting by Marianna Parraga; editing by Diane Craft)

Four hundred years after the Mayflower crossed the Atlantic from Britain to the United States, a group of engineers plan to have a crewless-ship also named the Mayflower, navigate itself along the same route.The voyage is due to begin in September and the new Mayflower could become the first full-sized, fully autonomous vessel to cross the Atlantic, organizers IBM and marine research group Promare say.The original Mayflower ship transported 102 British settlers from England to America.

Dallas-based Energy Transfer said Tuesday it had loaded the first Very Large Ethane Carrier (VLEC) - the world's largest at that -  under its previously announced joint venture with Satellite Petrochemical USA Corp. called Orbit Gulf Coast NGL Exports.The Seri Everest, the world’s largest VLEC, departed from JV Orbit’s newly constructed export facilities at Energy Transfer’s Nederland Terminal in Nederland, Texas, on Jan. 17, 2021, to complete its maiden voyage.The vessel was loaded with more than 911…

European ferry operator Stena Line has announced that the first of its three new E-Flexer class ferries destined for the Irish Sea, Stena Estrid has successfully completed sea trials in China’s Yellow Sea.Following three days of extensive testing, the new vessel performed excellently across a wide range of stringent test criteria and is now on schedule to start operating on the Dublin to Holyhead route in early 2020.Stena Estrid is the first of five new Stena Line next generation RoPax vessels that are being constructed at the AVIC Weihai Shipyard in China, three of which will be introduced on the company’s Irish Sea routes from Dublin to Holyhead and Belfast to Liverpool.