L L Wyman News

Insurance broker Marsh and Lloyd's of London underwriters have expanded a marine war insurance program backed by Ukraine from grain shipments to all non-military cargo, such as iron ore and steel, Marsh said on Friday.Marsh, Lloyd's and Ukrainian state banks launched an initial program in November to cut the cost of claims for damage to ships and crew transporting grain through the Black Sea corridor, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine two years ago."Expanding insurance to cover ships carrying all non-military cargo is extremely important for Ukraine…

The U.S. Coast Guard’s mission of keeping the seas safe will soon get an additional boost from space with two polar satellites. The two satellites, called “cube satellites” or “cubesats” for their small size of about 60 square centimeters, or a little under 2 feet, will be part of a payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California Nov. 28. Although the Coast Guard has used satellite technology for years, these two are the first to be entirely dedicated to a Coast Guard mission. The initiative is part of the U.S.

U.S. warship USS John S. McCain, which was involved in a collision with a cargo ship east of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore in August, has arrived at Fleet Activities Yokosuka for repair. The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer DDG 56 arrived in Tokyo Bay aboard heavy lift transport vessel MV Treasure on December 5, and arrived at Fleet Activities Yokosuka on December 13 following several days of preparations. The vessel will be repaired by U.S. Naval Ship Repair Facility-Japan Regional Maintenance Center in Yokosuka before returning to service in U.S. 7th Fleet.

U.S. warship USS John S. McCain, which was involved in a collision with the merchant vessel east of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore in August, has departed Subic Bay, Philippines aboard heavy lift transport vessel MV Treasure en route to Fleet Activities Yokosuka for reapir. The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) was diverted to Subic Bay October 22, due to poor weather conditions and to repair cracks in the ship's hull discovered after the ship departed Singapore aboard MV Treasure, the Navy said.

Nicolas Quéru has been appointed to lead Navico’s Commercial Marine Division worldwide to take forward the marine electronics group’s continuing strategy for growth. Quéru has been made EVP Managing Director with immediate effect following his promotion from Vice President, Commercial Marine EMEA. He succeeds Jose Herrero. A French Native residing in Oslo, Norway, Quéru has extensive experience in international business management, including over eight years in management consulting at Oliver Wyman and Bain & Company leading assignments in strategic planning…

1861 - During the Civil War, the frigate, USS St. Lawrence, spots a schooner flying English colors and gave chase. Some four hours later, as she is overhauling the schooner, the fleeing vessel runs up the Confederate flag and fires three shots. Firing with her forecastle battery, St. Lawrence hits the vessel twice, once in her bow. Survivors from the sunken vessel reveal it had been the Confederate privateer, Petrel. 1926 - USS S-1 surfaces and launches a Cox-Klemin (XS 2) seaplane flown by Lt. D.C. Allen.

Cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports fell again in October, and 2008 is now expected to be the slowest year since 2004 as the downturn in the nation’s economy continues, according to the monthly Port Tracker report released on Nov. 7 by the National Retail Federation and IHS Global Insight. Volume is projected to total 15.3 million Twenty-Foot-Equivalent Units for the year, compared with 16.5 million TEU in 2007. That would be a decline of 7.1 percent and the lowest total since 2004, when 14 million TEU moved through the ports. The estimate is down from the 15.43 million projected a month ago, which would have been a 6.5 percent decline from 2007 and the lowest number since 2005’s 15.4 million TEU. One TEU is one 20-foot container or its equivalent.

The Coast Guard responded to reports that the 180-ft. barge Sei 17 sank in Quincy Shipyard in Quincy, Mass., with no one aboard, spilling an unknown amount of diesel fuel into the water . "Assets from Station Point Allerton arrived on scene shortly after the Coast Guard received notification, and we dispatched a petty officer from Sector Boston to investigate the situation," said Ensign Shelly Wyman, of Sector Boston's incident management branch. Shipyard personnel deployed fuel-containment boom and contacted Cyn Environmental, a private contracting company, to continue containment and clean-up efforts. The cause of the incident is under investigation.

Albert V. Brandemarte has received the L. L. Wyman Memorial Award for 2002 from American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) International. The award is given annually in recognition of meritorious contributions to standardization in the field of metallography through the work of ASTM Committee E04. Brandemarte serves as chief of metallography for the Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division's Metals Department in Bethesda. He has been a member of the ASTM committee E04 for 14 years and served as committee chairman from 1998 to 2002. Through his work on the committee, Al became a nationally recognized expert in metallography, a critical tool in most Navy ship failure analyses. The award is named for L. L. Wyman, chairman of the Metallography Committee from 1938 through 1966.

The U.S. Coast Guard reopened the Houston Ship Channel on a limited basis Monday, after the primary transport route in and out of the city's large oil refining and petrochemical complex was partly shut by flooding during the weekend. The Coast Guard shut down the channel north of Baytown early Saturday, after floodwaters from Tropical Storm Allison caused more than a dozen barges to slip their moorings and block the bulkloading facility. The southern section of the channel was closed to all but emergency traffic during that time. The decision to reopen the channel came after Coast Guard safety crews checked the integrity of navigational markers and found they were still intact. Traffic is still limited, however. "It's going to be on a case-by-case basis.