Tech File: Battery Power Breakthrough in Ice
An ABB study based on three years of operational ship data mounts a case for integrating battery power onboard modern icebreakers, writes Samuli Hänninen, who specializes in icebreaking vessels at ABB Marine & Ports. The maritime industry is still at the formative stage of realizing the gains available from batteries, but the ability to scale up to megawatt-hour levels is not the only attraction for the zero-emission technology. Evidence newly disclosed by ABB suggests that the…
The Last Mediterranean Refugee Rescue Ship Ends Operations
The last refugee rescue ship working in the Mediterranean Sea, Aquarius, has ended her operations, French NGO Medecins sans Frontieres said late on Thursday, blaming harassment from Italy and other countries."This is a sombre day," Nelke Mander, Medecins sans Frontieres's general director, said in a statement. "The end of our operations onboard the Aquarius will mean more death in the sea, deaths that are avoidable and without witnesses."The decision to moor the Aquarius is the result of a "constant denigration, smearing and obstruction campaign led" against Medecins sans Frontieres and SOS MEDITERRANEAN by the Italian government and supported by other European countries…
USS Abraham Lincoln Achieves Redelivery
The USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) was redelivered to the fleet May 12, marking the successful completion of its refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) carried out at Newport News Shipyard. At sea for the first time since March 2014, the crew conducted rigorous tests of engineering components, the modernized combat systems suite and flight deck equipment that supports Lincoln's mission at sea. Damage control capabilities and basic deck seamanship were also checked to ensure both the ship and the crew's operational readiness. The ship marked its return to the fleet after four days of sea trials with high-speed maneuvers, that tested the ship's systems and crew.
1,200+ Migrants Rescued off Libya
Italy's coast guard said on Tuesday it had coordinated the rescue of 1,271 migrants from rubber and wooden boats in several operations off the coast of Libya. Italy was long at the frontier of seaborne migration from North Africa, but most of the hundreds of thousands of people arriving in Europe on rickety boats last year took a less risky route to Greece. Vessels from the Italian navy and coast guard and a Slovenian military ship working as part of the European Union naval operation Eunavfor Med conducted the rescues. Italy used to run its own search and rescue mission for the boat migrants, but the Mare Nostrum or "Our Sea" project was stopped and replaced with the European Union's Frontex scheme, which had to be expanded as Europe faced its worst migration crisis since World War Two.
Milestone for Cape Town Container Terminal Expansion
South Africa’s state-owned freight transport and logistics giant Transnet Limited today celebrated a significant milestone in its R5.4 billion expansion of the Cape Town Container Terminal. On completion, the five-year project will double the terminal’s capacity to 1, 4 million TEUs per annum. Speaking at a ceremony attended by Public Enterprises Minister, Mr Malusi Gigaba, Group Chief Executive, Mr Brian Molefe, announced the company had completed major dredging, deepening and refurbishment work at Berth 602, the second of four berths to undergo such upgrades.
New emergency Acoustic BOP Control System from KONGSBERG
New system developed for drilling and production safety in deeper waters. The next generation of Kongsberg Maritime's Emergency Acoustic BOP (BlowOut Preventer) Control System, the ACS500 uses the new proprietary Kongsberg Maritime 'Cymbal' signal processing protocol for optimal data communication at long distances and has a depth rating of 4000m. It is a robust, reliable and user-friendly system designed for use in emergency drilling or production situations, when the primary BOP control system has failed.
Cape Town Terminal Welcomes End Of Windy Season
[CAPE TOWN – 31 March 2011] The end of March should see a subsiding of the vicious south-easterly wind that has plagued the Cape and put Cape Town container terminal under serious pressure to keep cargo moving over the last few months. Just the first three months of 2011 have already seen 62 separate wind stoppages totalling 551 hours at the terminal – more than half of 2010’s full total of 964 hours lost to wind over 83 separate occasions. Around nine days or 219 hours were lost to wind in January, 220 hours in February and 101 in March.
