Robert Hall News

So what’s keeping ship operators awake at night these days? Plenty, it seems. Sluggish recovery from a lingering worldwide recession, unsustainable debt loads, endemic overcapacity in most shipping trades, punishing freight rates, rising costs of fuel and regulatory compliance and a lingering sense that ships are not running as efficiently as they could. The last two topics – reducing fuel costs while complying with emission regulations and improving ship operating efficiency – will take center stage at SHIPPINGInsight 2014, scheduled for Sept. 30 – Oct. 2 in Stamford, Conn.

Huntington Ingalls Industries' (HII) Ingalls Shipbuilding division delivered the amphibious assault ship America (LHA 6) to the U.S. Navy today. More than 900 crew members marched through the shipyard for a delivery ceremony on the ship's flight deck, where they joined Ingalls shipbuilders and personnel from the U.S. Navy's Supervisor of Shipbuilding-Gulf Coast. "The shipbuilders of Ingalls have worked tirelessly to deliver this awesome, powerful warship to our U.S. Navy customer," said Ingalls Shipbuilding President Brian Cuccias. "This took more than just doing a job.

A Korean Language version of Meeting MARPOL Standards (MMS), Waste Management Best Practices (WMBP) and NPDES Training for Vessels (NTV) software packages has been recently released by MARPOL Training Institute (MTI), a California-based training and consulting company. The computer-based training software programs have a Korean language audio track along with English text on the interactive screen images. The programs were developed by MTI principles, Captain Robert Hall and Chief Engineer David Hiller, who have over 75 years of combined experience in the shipping industry. Each program offers training for crew or officers to work at their own pace and provides a Certificate of Completion for the student and an auditable database record for the company.

MARPOL Training Institute (MTI), a California-based training and consulting company, now offers two auditable computer-based programs designed to give shipping industry employees the information they need to be in compliance with MARPOL standards and EPA National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) regulations. These programs were developed by MTI principles Captain Robert Hall and Chief Engineer David Hiller who have over 75 years of combined experience in the shipping industry. Both programs provide a training course for either crew or officer training and trainees can work at their own pace, leave to attend to duties, and return to pick up where they left off. Following successful completion and an open-book assessment, the trainee can print out a Certificate of Completion.

California-based MARPOL Training Institute, Inc. (MTI) released its NPDES Training for Vessels (NTV) software package. This software meets the requirements of the EPA’s Vessel General Permit (VGP) Section 5 for crew training which went into effect February 6. “NTV details each of the 26 discharges permitted under the VGP”, explained MTI’s Managing Partner Captain Robert Hall, “as well as providing training on a fully customizable checklist that helps you document required inspections and corrective actions. NTV is installed on either a local area network or training computer in offices and aboard ships and will soon be accessible on the Internet. For easy learner reference, many screens link electronically to a paragraph in the VGP as well as a citation in VGP Factsheet.

International Paint LLC, an Akzo Nobel company, announced a long-term agreement with Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines to supply the company’s fleet with Intersleek 700 foul release coating system. The agreement comes after Intersleek 700 was successfully used in a pilot program by Carnival beginning in 2001 to test the coating’s extended life performance in preventing organisms from adhering to underwater hulls. The program was expanded over the next five years. The consistent decrease in annual bunker costs over that time period led to the agreement that now includes 10 ships. Roberto Martinoli, Senior Vice President of Technical, Environmental and Safety Operations, performed a thorough evaluation of the pilot program, which initiated several rounds of negotiations.