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Pacific Archipelago News

30 Jan 2024

bound4blue to Install Its eSAIL on Cargo Vessel Newbuild

(Image: Cotenaval)

bound4blue reports it has been selected to install a 22-meter-high eSAIL on board the newbuild multipurpose cargo vessel Na Pae E Hiro, helping shipowner SNA TUHA’A PAE (SNA) reduce energy consumption by 10%. Launching in 2026, the trailblazing ship will mix green technology with an ambition to accelerate development of the remote Austral Islands, carrying both vital supplies and up to 200 tourists on its voyages from Tahiti to the South Pacific archipelago.The eSAIL, designed for both retrofits and newbuilds, is a ‘suction sail’.

21 Jan 2022

New Zealand Water Ship Unloads in Tonga

File photo: HMNZS Aotearoa (Photo: Natalie Dorsey / U.S. Navy)

Life-saving water supplies from a New Zealand navy ship were distributed across Tonga's main island on Friday, as other countries battled the logistics of delivering aid to one of the world's remotest communities.Six days after the South Pacific archipelago was devastated by a volcanic eruption and tsunami that deposited a blanket of ash and polluted its water sources, the HMNZS Aotearoa docked in the capital, Nuku’alofa.The ship carried 250,000 liters of water and desalination equipment able to produce 70,000 litres more per day, New Zealand's High Commission said."Trucks ...

24 May 2017

Inmarsat, IMSO Partner in Vanuatu

Warringa (Photo courtesy of Inmarsat)

Inmarsat (ISAT.L) has made available five Fleet One units to a pilot initiative that aims to bring change to the way ships connecting island communities in the Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu communicate. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) endorsed capacity-building pilot program is the result of cooperation between the International Mobile Satellite Organization (IMSO) and the Government of Vanuatu under the leadership of the Ambassador of Vanuatu to the IMO. Waterborne…

08 Feb 2017

Repairing Fiji’s Maritime Navigation Equipment Post-Winston

A satellite images shows Tropical Cyclone Winston during peak intensity and striking Fiji on February 20, 2016. (Photo: NASA)

When Tropical Cyclone Winston struck Fiji in February 2016, the deadly category 5 storm raked across the country with peak winds of 185 mph, damaging or destroying some 40,000 homes and causing an estimated $1.4 billion in damages. The strongest recorded tropical cyclone to make landfall in the South Pacific archipelago, Winston significantly damaged much of Fiji’s infrastructure, including to a number of maritime aids to navigation and lighthouse sites. The Australian Maritime…

22 Mar 2015

Volvo Ocean Race Detours to Dodge Giant Iceberg

A massive one kilometre-wide iceberg has forced the Volvo Ocean Race to change the positioning of their ice gates to keep the fleet clear of trouble in the Southern Ocean on Leg 5 from New Zealand to Brazil, says a Reuters report. The berg was heading towards the path of the six-strong fleet, so organizers and their advisers, French company CLS and Dutch weather expert Marcel van Triest, opted late on Thursday night to move the current ice limit route further to the north. The main iceberg is not the only concern. Growlers – pieces of ice that have broken away and float semi-submerged in the icy cold water – are also a major threat to the fleet. The race has pre-set ice gates, or ice limits, on this leg to keep the fleet clear from icebergs.

06 Jun 2014

Rising Seas Wash Japanese War Dead from Pacific Island Graves

Rising sea levels have washed the remains of at least 26 Japanese World War Two soldiers from their graves on a low-lying Pacific archipelago, the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands said on Friday. "There are coffins and dead people being washed away from graves. It's that serious," Tony de Brum told reporters on the sidelines of U.N. climate change talks in Germany. Twenty-six skeletons have been found on Santo Island after high tides battered the archipelago from February to April, he said, adding that more may be found. Unexploded bombs and other military equipment have also washed up in recent months. "We think they are Japanese soldiers," de Brum said. "We had the exhumed skeletons sampled by the U.S.