Rescue Center News

The Bahamas-flagged Richmond Voyager was not involved in any collision in the Gulf, its manager, U.S. oil major Chevron, told Reuters on Friday, after Iran said it had a court order to seize the vessel.The U.S. Navy said on Wednesday that it had intervened to prevent Iran from seizing two commercial tankers including the Richmond Voyager in the Gulf of Oman, in the latest in a series of attacks on ships in the area since 2019.Iranian naval personnel had fired multiple, long bursts…

Iran said on Thursday it had a court order to seize a tanker in Gulf waters a day earlier after it collided with an Iranian vessel, one of two tankers the U.S. Navy said it prevented Iran from commandeering. The Richmond Voyager, a Bahamas-flagged oil tanker, had collided with an Iranian vessel, and the Iranian navy had a court order to seize it, the Maritime Search and Rescue Center of Iran's Hormozgan Province told the official IRINN news agency. The U.S. Navy said it sent guided…

An tanker picked up seven crew embers from a sinking fishing vessel in the Gulf of Finland.While en-route from the Port of Ust-Luga to Copenhagen on February 6, the tanker SСF Angara received a distress signal from the Russian fishing trawler Pongoma, which was sinking on the traverse of Tallinn, 26 nautical miles offshore, SCF Group said on Monday.The tanker and her crew, under the leadership of master Alexey Maksimovsky, responded to the request for help, and following the instructions received from the rescue center in Tallinn, diverted to assist the ship in distress.During a rescue operation, all seven members of Pongoma’s crew were brought aboard the tanker. Two fishermen in need of urgent medical care were then evacuated by helicopter to Helsinki.

Seven people have died after a cargo ship sank in the Beijiang River, in south China's Guangdong Province, Chinese official media said quoting local authorities.The report said that the ship, Yueyingde Cargo 8030, capsized and sank at 11:30 p.m. on Monday. All the seven bodies had been recovered by 5:45 p.m. on Tuesday.The maritime rescue center of the city of Qingyuan initiated an emergency response and dispatched search vessels to the site. The rescue is still on-going, it said.A team will be sent to salvage the wreck of the ship and further investigation will follow.

At the end of June, two Damen ASD Tugs 2810 set sail from Damen Shipyards Galati in Romania to Puerto General de San Martin (Argentina) for towing, mooring, and fire-fighting operations in the Argentinian region around Rosario on the Paraná river. Built at Damen Galati Shipyards (Romania), the vessels will be delivered on time, having met the expectations of Cooperativa De Trabajos Portuarios Limitada de San Martín. This was a first-time order for the Argentinian company who also purchased a Cutter Suction Dredger 500 from Damen Dredging Equipment…

A multiagency rescue operation to help a seriously ill merchant sailor aboard a cargo ship in the Pacific Ocean was cancelled Wednesday morning after the man was declared deceased, the U.S. Coast guard announced. Tuesday, at approximately 9:50 a.m., the 11th Coast Guard District Command Center received a report of a sick U.S. citizen aboard the Green Ridge, a 600-foot vehicle carrier, approximately 1,000 miles west of San Diego. The command center requested assistance from the…

McMurdo Group, a company in end-to-end search and rescue (SAR) and maritime domain awareness (MDA) solutions, announced that it has formally established its Americas Headquarters in Beltsville, Maryland located within the Baltimore (Maryland)/Washington D.C. metropolitan area. The new headquarters, a result of McMurdo’s recent acquisition of Techno-Sciences, Inc., will also be home to the group’s Search and Rescue Center of Excellence which will include a distribution warehouse and an advanced research and development team.

Both sides of the Taiwan Strait carried out joint marine search and rescue on August 7. It is the third large-scale cross-strait joint search-and-rescue drill since the direct shipping links between the two sides of the Strait was officially launched in 2008. The drill was jointly-held by China Maritime Search and Rescue Center (CMSRC), Chinese Rescue Association, Fuzhou Municipal government, Matsu Lienchiang county government and the relevant search and rescue departments from both sides of the Strait. The theme of the drill is “launch joint maritime emergency response and build peace Strait”. This drill focused on mass evacuation after marine incident, which included 8 sectors such as organizing and presenting rescue force and so on.

The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) coordinated the rescue of three people and a dog Thursday approximately 900 miles northeast of Bermuda. Rescued was 29-year-old Henri Worthalter of Belgium, 55-year-old Leonard Rorke of the United Kingdom, 50-year-old Lisa Rorke of the United Kingdom and Dexter, a Jack Russell Terrier, after the 49-foot sailboat, the Blue Pearl, sank in the Atlantic Ocean. The USCG said its 5th District Command Center watchstanders were contacted at approximately 6:30 p.m.

Altogether 26 people are missing after two ships sank in separate incidents off the coast of east China's Shandong Province, reports Xinhua. Strong gales were forecast off Shandong, when twelve people were confirmed missing after the ship "XINGLONGZHOU65", registered in east China's Zhejiang Province, sank off Yantai City report Xinhua citing the Yantai Maritime Bureau. Another cargo ship sank off Weihai City and 14 people are reported missing, according to Shandong Provincial Maritime Rescue Center. Source: Xinhua

The skipper of a former fishing vessel has been ordered to pay £3,825 in fines and costs after pleading guilty to firing rocket distress flares when not in need of immediate help. A red distress rocket flare was fired just before the boat torch light procession at this year's Salcombe Harbor Festival - popular with participants and spectators - landing on heathland, whilst still burning. Harbor Master Ian Gibson identified and spoke to the culprit Matthew Yeoman, a 50-year-old from Salcombe, and owner of the converted fishing boat Etoile, as it was clear he was not in need of assistance. Two further rocket flares were later fired further out into the harbor amongst moored boats. This resulted in calls to Brixham Coastguard and a response from the Hope Cove and Salcombe lifeboats.

Search is ongoing in the South China Sea amid strong gales for 74 crew missing after three fishing boats sank in Typhoon 'Wutip'. The three boats, all from south China's Guangdong Province with 88 fishermen aboard, were lost on Sunday afternoon near Shanhu Island of the Xisha Islands, about 330 km from China's island province of Hainan, sources with the Hainan maritime search and rescue center informed Xinhua. Of these, 14 survivors had been rescued. The Chinese Navy's Nanhai Fleet has sent 7 warships, a helicopter and ten rescue teams to search the waters around the scene of the accident. Currently, a total of 277 fishermen trapped in the typhoon have been sheltered by the army at Chenhang Island as of Monday evening.

Construction of a chain of rescue centers on the shores of the Northern Sea Route has already started. Russia is upgrading infrastructure along the Northern Sea Route. Three large and seven smaller emergency centers will be built from Murmansk in the West to Chukotka in the East. According to a new Russian rescue concept, three main Arctic Fire and Rescue Centers will be set up in Siberia, the North-West and Far East Russia. The rest of the centers will be their subdivisions or branches, said Vladimir Puchkov, Russian Minister of Emergency Situations. Construction of the first centers has now started. One such center with 60 employees is being set up in Dudinka in the Krasnoyarsk Krai. The Siberian center will be equipped with helipads.

An oil belt floating off the coast of southeast China's Fujian province has been mostly cleaned up from the Singapore-registered ship, Barelie which struck a nearby reef recently, local maritime authorities said. About five cubic meters of heavy oil and four tonnes of wastewater have been salvaged from the spill so far, with no new spills detected, according to the Fujian Maritime Rescue Center. Rescuers have unloaded 216 shipping containers from the ship, finding no dangerous goods inside, the center said, adding that container unloading and pollution control efforts are still under way. The Singapore-registered Bareli is aground near Jiangyin Port while on route from the city of Ningbo to the provincial capital of Fuzhou. All 21 of the ship's crew members have been rescued.

Singapore flag vessel m/v Bareli (35,881gt built 2004) is aground in Chinese waters having suffered hull damage. The crew has been rescued. The ship normally plies between ports in Africa and the Far East. The Fujian Maritime Rescue Center said that rescuers are working to retrieve the ship's fuel oil which has leaked into the sea, and they have called ship repair factories to send workers to help offload 1,913 containers loaded on the ship. The stranding ocurred near Jiangyin Port in Fuzhou, capital of southeast China's Fujian Province.

The UK’s Falmouth Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre (MRCC) is currently out of action following a lightning strike late last night. Until further notice its monitoring and co-ordination functions are being undertaken by Brixham MRCC. Following the lightning strike at around 11:00 p.m. on Jan. 17, Falmouth MRCC was evacuated because of smoke coming from electrical equipment. Cornwall Fire Brigade were asked to attend. The building was checked and although physically unmarked there appears to be significant damage to the communications equipment. While out of action Falmouth MRCC's emergency calls are being handled by colleagues at Brixham MRCC. Coastguard Officers are operating three remote stations at The Lizard, Trevose and Lands End.

The new Ship Security and Alert Systems (SSAS) regulations were adopted by International Maritime Organization (IMO) to enhance maritime security in response to the increasing threat from terrorism and piracy. After July 1, 2004, most deep-sea passenger and cargo ships must be fitted with a device that can send an alert message containing the ship's ID and position whenever the ship is under threat or has been compromised. The distress message must be activated covertly from a switch on the navigation bridge or other shipboard location, and transmitted only to the designated authority without being received on other ships or raising an alarm on the ship under attack.

Inmarsat, the original mobile satcom provider for the maritime industry, has been riding the crest of a wave recently, with users at an all-time high, overall 99.9 per cent satellite reliability and the launch of its Fleet F77, Mobile ISDN and Mobile Packet Data services for the maritime community. Ruth Ling reports on what's new and what lies on the horizon. Twenty years ago, a revolution hit the maritime industry. Satellite communications became available to ships at sea. Back in 1982, when Inmarsat began offering onboard satellite communications, its first and only system was Inmarsat A, which offered voice, facsimile, telex and data services. After nine years of successful service and expansion into most maritime sectors, Inmarsat began offering Inmarsat C.

A Maltese-registered tanker carrying 8,000 tons of potentially explosive sulphuric acid sank in the Bay of Biscay on Tuesday, French maritime authorities said. The 23 crew were picked up by ships and were safe, they said. A spokesman for France's Atlantic Surveillance and Rescue Center said there was a slight risk that the sulphuric acid would explode on contact with water. "The motor tanker Balu is reported sunk in international waters this morning about 130 miles (209 km) north of (the Spanish port of) La Coruna... while facing severe weather conditions," read a statement from Traschimar. French maritime authorities said earlier that it was not clear why the 5,795-ton tanker had sunk, and described weather conditions as "normal" for the time of year.

Reports indicate that two fishing boats collided on Sunday and one of them sank, leaving three people missing so far in the Nanri Island sea area in east China's Fujian Province. On Sunday morning, a steel fishing boat of Shishi County collided with a wood boat of Putian City. The wood boat sank and five crew men fell into the sea. Two people were saved and the three others remain missing. The provincial search and rescue center and the maritime bureau of Quanzhou City had sent ships to rescue the missing people. Source: Xinhua

According to the Tribune News Service, Egypt's presidential spokesman said that the owners of the Red Sea ferry that sank last week, causing about 1,000 people to drown, did not inform the government of the disaster for nearly six hours. Suleiman Awad said the government first heard from owner Al Salaam Maritime Transport Co. that the ship was in danger at 7 a.m. Friday. Reports indicate that the Al-Salaam Boccaccio 98 sank no later than 2 a.m. Awad said the rescue center was notified after the government and a plane was over the scene of the sinking by 8 a.m. Source: Tribune news services

China's largest ever maritime search-and-rescue exercise, involving 400 people, 28 fleets, two helicopters and an aircraft, was carried out on Thursday in the waters near Dalian Port, northeast China's Liaoning Province. The exercise started when a collision between a passenger ferry and a cargo boat was reported and the National Maritime Rescue Emergency Plan was enacted immediately. The main elements of the exercise, including the rescue of 368 passengers and dozens of sailors, fire-fighting and cleaning up an oil spill, were completed in 90 minutes. By involving 24 departments including the maritime department, the rescue department and the navy…

Security at Kenya’s ports is being upgraded at a cost of more than $11m. The World Bank-funded project includes the installation of an integrated security solution, involving an electronic access control system at all entrances. It will also see the fixing of an automatic perimeter intrusion detection system and a remote surveillance monitoring system or (CCTV). The recent inauguration of the Mombasa Port Search and Rescue Center was part of the project, according to AllAfrica.com. The center would be used to monitor the Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and the Seychelles coastlines and would be linked to two others in South and West Africa. The port is also in the process of implementing the International Safety Management (ISM) code.