Vessel Transport News

Austal Philippines has launched the 115-meter, high speed vehicle-passenger ferry Express 5, for Molslinjen of Denmark, utilizing a new vessel transportation system designed by Austal.The Auto Express 115 high-speed catamaran ferry is the largest ferry (by volume) constructed by an Austal shipyard and was transported onto Austal Philippines’ floating dock by a new, rail-based system called ‘ANTS’, featuring self-drive trollies with variable geometry to suit any hull configuration.Austal…

Dredging work to deepen Savannah Harbor has wrapped up, reducing tidal restrictions for mega-ships transiting the Savannah River to clear the way for expedited cargo movement.Dredging for the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project started in September 2015, adding five feet in depth to the shipping channel. Initial feasibility studies for the harbor deepening began in 1997.“After more than 20 years in the making, we are thrilled to mark this accomplishment today,” said Griff Lynch, executive director of the Georgia Ports Authority.

A preponderance of climate studies on the Great Lakes predict a trend toward reduced ice cover. Ice is expected to form later and melt earlier. With Wisconsin Sea Grant funding, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Superior (UWS) are looking into how this might impact the shipping industry on the Great Lakes.Richard Stewart, director of the Transportation and Logistics Research Center at UWS, is undertaking the yearlong study with Daniel Rust, UWS assistant professor of transportation and logistics.

Canadian shipping company Algoma Central Corporation was fined $500,000 in the U.S. after pleading guilty to dumping wastewater into Lake Ontario.One of the Great Lakes operator's dry bulk carriers, the Algoma Strongfield, was built in China and delivered to Canada on May 30, 2017, by a crew from Redwise Maritime Services, B.V., a vessel transport company based in the Netherlands.During the delivery voyage, while manned by a Redwise crew, the oily water separator and oil content monitor malfunctioned or failed on multiple occasions, which resulted in an accumulation of unprocessed oily bilge water. On May 5, 2017, an Algoma employee…

The U.S. Postal Service is using ships for overseas transport as the number of commercial flights typically used to send mail abroad has plummeted due to the coronavirus pandemic. The agency said on April 23 that a first mail shipment bound for Europe departed JFK International Service Center in New York three days earlier and is being transported on a containership scheduled to arrive at the port of Rotterdam on May 7. The vessel is said to be carrying 6,036 receptacles in five containers weighing 32…

Small shipyards in the U.S. are critical to the nation’s maritime operations and economic security. Typically family-owned and employing less than 1,200 workers, America’s small shipyards support more than 400,000 jobs, employ more than 100,000 Americans directly and contribute tens of billions in gross domestic product, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD).In an effort to help support these vital assets, MARAD’s Small Shipyard Grant Program provides funds to help drive efficiency…

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) announced $19.6 million in grants to support capital improvements at 28 U.S. small shipyards as a part of its Small Shipyard Grant program. The grants enable small shipyards to modernize equipment and processes to fuel future growth. “These grants help create jobs in America’s small shipyards, which play a significant role in our country’s maritime sector,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine L. Chao.In 2013, U.S. shipbuilders produced $37.3 billion in gross domestic product.

To recreational boaters, Aids to Navigation (ATON) are the familiar red and green buoys (and day markers) that line our inland waterways. What they might not be aware of is that buoys have been around since the days of the Roman and Egyptian empires. In the decades following the creation of our country, buoys in every shape and color began appearing in our waterways. It wasn’t until 1850 that Congress harmonized their deployment, thereby encouraging the familiar “Red, Right, Returning” mantra.

Damen has concluded its latest multiple vessel transport. The shipment of ready-for-delivery vessels contains Stan Pontoons 4113, 4111, 4512, 5211 and 6316 in addition to a number of ASD 2810 Tugs. From a client’s point of view, a transport such as this means that vessels are available at competitive prices and within fast delivery times. The transport was performed by SAL Heavy Lift’s MV Svenja, which set sail from Shanghai at the end of August loaded with Stan Pontoons from Damen Yichang Shipyard, China.

Industry analyst and environmental consultant Dagmar Schmidt Etkin, PhD, takes a hard look at a rapidly shifting operational landscape in the Arctic. Always an honest broker of information, Etkin tells it like it is. Oil spill risk is present anywhere that oil is present in reservoirs, or is transported, consumed, stored, and handled in some way. The Arctic is no exception. Not only are there oil reserves in the Arctic, some of which are being or will soon be considered for exploration and production, there is also oil being transported as cargo or as fuel to Arctic communities.

Just down river from Damen Song Cam Shipyard, SAL Heavy Lift’s MV Svenja departed from Halong Bay loaded with 14 vessels. The shipment consists primarily of built-for-stock vessels – Stan Pontoons and Tugs – which will be available for immediate purchase on arrival in Rotterdam in October. MV Svenja’s voyage began in Shanghai on August 30th when she started loading eight Stan Pontoons that were built at Damen Yichang Shipyard, China. This first load includes Stan Pontoons 4113, 4111, 4512, 5211 and 6316.

Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. (Boskalis) has been awarded the Offshore Balance of Plant contract by Vattenfall for the construction of Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm, also known as the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre. Following the announcement on 29 June stating that Boskalis was the preferred contractor, the contract has now been formally awarded. The project will consist of eleven wind turbines with a capacity of 92.4 MW. The contract includes all offshore elements of the wind farm, with the exception of the wind turbine supply. The contract carries a value for Boskalis of well in excess of EUR 100 million. Aberdeen Offshore Windfarm is located approximately 3 kilometers off the coast of Aberdeen, United Kingdom.

Press release - The Damen Shipyards Group is shipping a total of 22 vessels from several Damen shipyards aboard the heavy-lift vessel Happy Star. This is Damen’s largest transportation of stock vessels to date. Upon arrival in Europe later this month, the completed vessels will be ready for immediate sale and can swiftly be put into operation. Damen has already sold a number of the vessels being transported. Amongst these are two Fast Crew Suppliers (FCS) 2610 to be used at North Sea offshore wind parks.

Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA-03), Ranking Member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure’s Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee, introduced H.R. 5270, the Growing American Shipping Act, which aims to modernize U.S. LNG shipping export laws and strengthen the maritime industry. The Subcommittee’s Chairman, Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA-50), joined the legislation as an original cosponsor. Existing law, written before the natural gas boom when it was thought America would be a liquefied natural gas (LNG) importer, authorizes the Secretary of Transportation to develop and implement a program to promote the transportation of imported LNG on U.S.-flag vessels.

The Coast Guard and state and local authorities began working to ensure the safe transport of two troubled vessels being towed to a Brownsville scrap yard after one began listing into the other Thursday. At approximately 8 a.m. Thursday, the captain of the tug with the vessels in tow called Coast Guard Sector Corpus Christi watchstanders to request assistance as one of the vessels was listing heavily into the other approximately two miles offshore and South of the Mansfield Jetties.

International Submarine Engineering Ltd was awarded a development contract in December, 2007 by Cybernetix S.A. of Marseille, France. Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) platform, known as SWIMMER. engineering Phase 1 of the SWIMMER project. and economic. of the overall SWIMMER concept. required of a traditional ROV. deployment time, labor and handling.

Bay Area members of Congress suggested that tougher safeguards might be needed on cargo ships to prevent accidents like the recent Cosco Busan spill that resulted in 58,000 gallons of heavy bunker fuel in San Francisco Bay. One possibility would be to require double-skins on fuel tanks or some sort of partial double hull on cargo ships. In response to the disastrous Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989, all oil tankers in U.S. waters must have double hulls by 2015. Another would be to make the Coast Guard's vessel transport system more stringent for ships entering and leaving ports, like the air traffic control system. Though the Cosco Busan did not have a double hull…