Ship Sail

Carnival Cruise Lines, Port of New Orleans Extend Contract

Carnival Cruise Lines and the Port of New Orleans announced a new two-year contract retroactive to October 2006, with the option to renew the deal for an additional two-year period, which could keep the world’s largest cruise line sailing regularly from the Crescent City through 2010. Under the terms of the contract, the 2,056-passenger Carnival Fantasy, which replaced the Carnival Sensation in October of 2006, will make a minimum of 70 calls per year to the Port of New Orleans’ new $37 million Erato Street Cruise Terminal and Parking Garage. The ship sails four- and five-day cruises to the Western Caribbean year-round, with port calls in Cozumel and Costa Maya. Carnival also plans to hold its quarterly meeting of national sales managers on Sept. 24 and 25 in New Orleans to highlight the City’s rebounding tourism industry to its leading sales personnel. More than 100 of Carnival’s sales managers will attend the event, which will be held at Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter. An economic impact study found the cruise industry contributes $226 million annually to the regional economy and supports more than 2,800 jobs in Louisiana.

British Hydrographic Survey Ship Bound for Persian Gulf

'HMS Enterprise' sails from Falmouth in Cornwall to the Middle East for nine months, primarily for military data gathering. While the ship's primary tasking is military data-gathering she will also act as a deterrent to illegal activity by increasing security and preventing conflict. The military data-gathering conducted will help to eliminate 'no-go areas' for British and allied warships, but crucially will also be used to update badly-needed charts so all mariners can navigate the

Sun Cruises Dry Dock at A&P Southampton

Sun Cruises’ 22,945grt cruise liner, Sundream, has left A&P Southampton’s King George V Dry Dock after completion of a three-week dry dock and repair program. The 1,257 passenger, 1970-built vessel is a regular visitor to the port of Southampton and Harwich, but was its first visit to A&P. In addition to the usual general repairs, the program focused on extensive steel renewals to the vessel’s ballast and fuel tanks, upgrade and renewal of the sanitary pipe work systems

Asian Piracy Takes Center Stage

This week's kidnapping crisis in the southern Philippines has thrown the spotlight on the growing problem of piracy in Asian waters, delegates at an international maritime conference said. Maritime authorities from 15 countries -- including Japan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, India and South Korea – are meeting in Tokyo to discuss piracy in the region, mainly the armed robbery of commercial ships sailing through Southeast Asia.

Germanischer Lloyd Counts 50 Million GT in Class

Fuelled by the order boom in international shipping, the tonnage classified by Germanischer Lloyd has grown to more than 50 million gross tonnage (GT). This is a milestone in the history of the classification society, which attends to the safety of over 5,730 vessels worldwide. "We are deeply grateful to our customers at home and abroad for this growth," said Executive Board Member Rainer Schöndube. "Over the past eight years, we have been able to double the fleet in class."

Mesa Verde Completes Trials

The Northrop Grumman-built amphibious transport dock ship Mesa Verde (LPD 19) completed builder's trials last week, in a collaborative effort involving the U.S. Navy and Northrop Grumman. Shipbuilders worked on sea trial preparations weeks before the ship sailed the Gulf of Mexico from Aug. 13 to 16. The ship's compartments were 100 percent complete, and all systems and certifications were completed and tested 100 percent to pre-trial requirements.

Thales Launches Vigile DPX

Thales has announced the launch of a new naval Radar Electronic Support Measures (R-ESM) solution for multi-purpose ships that need continued capability in the littoral. Ships sailing close to shore can experience difficulties with radars, due to reflections from the landmass and interference from the greater density of radar traffic.  Vigile DPX, the latest member of Thales’s Vigile family of products

Rickmers-Linie Ships Kirow Railway Cranes to China

Extraordinary shipments are a common sight at the Wallmann terminal in Hamburg.  The breakbulk terminal, in which Rickmers-Linie holds a share of just over 25 per cent, specialises in the handling of out-of-gauge, heavy lift and project cargo. At the end of September 2010, a particularly unusual cargo was loaded onto the multipurpose vessel Rickmers Jakarta: three rail-mounted cranes manufactured by Kirow AG en route for the Far East

Union Complains of Unsafe Ships

Thousands of seafarers risk their lives on unsafe cargo vessels that daily enter the East African ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, trade union officials said last week. An estimated 85 percent of all vessels calling at the Kenyan and Tanzanian ports do not meet basic international safety regulations. "They are sub-standard in terms of accommodation, in terms of conditions in general and in terms of safety," Juma Khamis

DCT Gdansk Becomes Hub for Baltic Sea Region

On 4 January 2010, DCT Gdansk received the largest container vessel ever to call Poland when the 8200TEU Maersk Taikung (length 1,089 ft; beam 141.7 ft; draft 47.5 ft) arrived from the Far East. From January 2010, Maersk post-panamax ships sailing on Maersk Line’s AE10 service from China will call DCT Gdansk every Monday bringing Polish, Russian and Finnish cargo to be discharged at DCT Gdansk. This marks the beginning of a new era in container shipping linking directly Poland to Asia