Samos News

Sumitomo Heavy Industries Marine & Engineering (SHI-ME) selected SENSFIB Structural Health Monitoring for the third in a series of 115,000 DWT AFRAMAX crude oil tanker newbuilds for Greek ship management company Samos Steamship.The SENSFIB systems from Light Structures is already installed on the first two vessels in the series, both of which are due for delivery in Q2 2023 and Q3 2023.The SENSFIB system is designed to provide predictive and actionable real-time data on board…

Archaeologists in Greece have discovered at least 58 shipwrecks, many laden with antiquities, in what they say may be the largest concentration of ancient wrecks ever found in the Aegean and possibly the whole of the Mediterranean.The wrecks lie in the small island archipelago of Fournoi, in the Eastern Aegean, and span a huge period from ancient Greece right through to the 20th century. Most are dated to the Greek, Roman and Byzantine eras.Although shipwrecks can be seen together in the Aegean…

Norwegian shipping company Grieg Star has acquired a semi-open hatch vessel on the 25th of September. Her name is Star Majesty.Star Majesty was formerly known as Samos Majesty. "She is a sister of the Star Minerva, and thus a vessel type Grieg Star knows well and appreciates as efficient and reliable," said a press release from the company."We are really happy we have been able to conclude this deal. Grieg Star is committed to this business, and securing quality tonnage for the future is important for us," said CEO Camilla Grieg in the statement.Star Majesty, the 2009-built vessel, which has a deadweight of 50,790 tonnes, has entered into the G2 Ocean pool as of the 30th of September.

Nakilat-Keppel Offshore Marine (N-KOM) has signed a fleet agreement with Samos Steamship Company, under which N-KOM will be the preferred shipyard in the Middle East for the repairs of all vessels owned by Samos Steamship Company. The Greek shipping company is an existing client of N-KOM, with several repairs undertaken for their fleet of tankers to date. The deal was signed during this year’s Posidonia exhibition held in Athens.

A new lifeboat station has been opened on the Greek island of Chios – with the cooperation of International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF) members – to help support the rescue of migrants in the Aegean. The Lifeboat station was made possible through a partnership between Koninklijke Nederlandse Redding Maatschappij (KNRM), the maritime search and rescue service from the Netherlands, and the Hellenic Rescue Team (HRT), and with the support of the Maria Tsakos Foundation along with community leaders and local volunteers. At an event to celebrate the opening of the centre – which was completed in only three months – two lifeboat vessels donated by the KNRM, Athena and Arina to be deployed on the surrounding waters, were also christened.

Two ferries carrying more than 120 migrants returned to Turkey from the Greek island of Lesbos on Friday, in the second round of arrivals under an EU deal with Ankara to stem mass migration to Europe across the Aegean Sea. The accord, which came into force on Monday, aims to help end a chaotic influx into the European Union of migrants and refugees, most fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and beyond, after more than 1 million arrived last year. Around 325 people have now been sent back from the Greek islands under the accord, which the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) has condemned and rights advocates say may violate international law. They are to be sent to a camp near Turkey's border with Bulgaria, to which the UNHCR said it had yet to gain access.

The International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF) is to strengthen the capacity and effectiveness of the Hellenic Rescue Team (HRT), an IMRF member organization which is constantly rescuing migrants in the Aegean Sea. The IMRF will do this with the support of European maritime search and rescue (SAR) organizations who are also IMRF members. Following a temporary drop in the number of people trying to reach the Greek islands by sea in November, figures from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) are showing an increase again.

Four refugees drowned and another six were missing off the Greek island of Farmakonisi after their boat sank, the Greek coastguard said on Monday. Four people were rescued, the coastguard said in a statement. The vessel the migrants were travelling on sank in an unknown location north of the island, it said. Eleven people, including six infants, drowned on Sunday when their boat capsized off the island of Samos, trapping them in the cabin. The toll from drowning among thousands of refugees making the short but dangerous crossing from Turkey to Greece's outlying eastern islands has risen in recent weeks from the onset of colder weather. There were near-gale force winds blowing in the Aegean at the weekend. Reporting By Michele Kambas

Eleven migrants including six infants drowned when their boat capsized off the Greek island of Samos, trapping most of them in the cabin, the coast guard said on Sunday. Fifteen others were rescued when the six-metre boat sank in the early hours near the coast of the Aegean island. The death toll from drowning among thousands of refugees making the short but dangerous crossing from Turkey to Greece's eastern islands has risen in recent weeks as autumn weather has set in, bringing high winds and falling temperatures. "We recovered 11 drowned bodies, 10 of which were trapped inside the vessel's cabin," a coast guard official said, adding that the dead included four babies, two children and four women.

Greek coast guard searching for 38 migrants off Lesbos. Four children, two men and one woman drowned and 38 migrants were missing after their wooden boat sank north of the Greek island of Lesbos, the coast guard said on Thursday, as an extensive search operation continued for a second day. The coast guard rescued 242 people off Lesbos on Wednesday in what was thought to be the largest maritime disaster off Greece in terms of numbers involved since a massive refugee influx began this year. The search went on overnight. Four coast guard vessels were deployed on Thursday, assisted by fishing boats. Three helicopters were hovering above the sea.

Two high-speed boats from Sweden have joined the sea rescue effort in the Eastern Aegean, and it was GAC that coordinated their delivery to Greece. The craft were sent by the not-for-profit NGO, the Swedish Sea Rescue Society (SSRS), in response to the growing humanitarian crisis that has seen thousands of refugees attempting to cross the sea to enter Europe through the islands of Eastern Greece. According to figures from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, in July 2015 alone 50,000 new arrivals were reported, mainly to the islands of Lesvos, Chios, Kos, Samos and Leros. 2014 was the deadliest year on record, with over 3…

Greece will ask the European Union for about 700 million euros to build infrastructure to shelter the hundreds of refugees and migrants arriving on its shores daily, the government said on Thursday. The cash-strapped country has seen a rise in the number of refugees and migrants -- mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- arriving by sea from nearby Turkey. Aid agencies estimate about 2,000 people cross over to Greek islands including Kos, Lesbos, Samos and Chios every day. The interim government said it planned to set up a new operations centre and take steps to improve conditions at existing refugee centers. Economy Minister Nikos Christodoulakis said the country will seek EU funds earmarked to address the crisis.

Mediterranean Rescue Services are in urgent need of support because they are struggling to keep up with the replacement of equipment being used to rescue the increasing numbers of migrants in their waters and have contacted the International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF) for help. In response, the IMRF is relaunching its ‘Members Assisting Members’ webpage to help identify the need and enable connection to the 2,500 contacts on the database that may be able to help. The three…

A number of orders are reported by Clarkson Hellas in their latest S&P Weekly Bulletin, with contracts being signed across the Dry Bulk, Tanker and Container markets. Activity has been focused amongst the small/midsized vessels with Empros Lines reported to have signed up for a pair of 63,000 dwt Ultramax bulkers at Imabari. Delivery of both vessels is scheduled in 2016. Inui Steamship meanwhile are reported to have turned to Onomichi Dockyard for one 60,000 dwt bulker with delivery much later in early 2018. In amongst the smaller handysizes, Nissen Kaiun K.K. are understood by Clarkson Hellas to have placed an order at Shikoku dock for a pair of 34,500 dwt Handysize bulk carriers, which are the 2nd and 3rd vessels in this series on order and will deliver in 2016 and 2017.

Twenty-two migrants drowned and at least 10 were missing after their vessels capsized off the Greek island of Samos early on Monday in seas where hundreds have died attempting the perilous crossing this year alone, the Greek coast guard said. Thousands of migrants from Africa and the Middle East pack into often unsafe boats to get into the European Union through Greece, Italy, Malta and other coastal states. The numbers have increased since "Arab Spring" uprisings triggered unrest across North Africa and civil war in Syria. Two boats, a yacht and a life boat, carrying about 68 migrants, capsized about four nautical miles off Samos in the eastern Aegean Sea, close to the Turkish coast.

The Bahamas-flagged bulk/oiler Samos was refloated on October 28 one mile below mile negative one, on the Mississippi river, U.S., Reuters reported. The 54,500 dwt vessel reloaded its cargo of carbon black feed at Boothville, which had to be lightered to aid the refloating and it then resumed its voyage. Samos ran aground on October 23.

Minoan Lines' 70 percent-owned subsidiary Minoan Flying Dolphins has maintained its very active buying spree of late with the announcement that it has acquired three ferries from the shipping family Nomikos for an undisclosed amount. The ferries are F/B Anemos, F/B Lemnos and F/B Macedon. F/B Anemos services the sea route linking the port of Piraeus with the islands of Ikaria and Samos in the Dodecannese, also making stops in the Cycladic islands. The other two ferries operate in the routes to the Sporades island group. Minoan Flying Dolphins (MDF) said the three ferries have a combined annual turnover of about 2.05 billion drachmas ($6.51 million), carrying 300,000 passengers and 50,000 cars to the Sporades annually and 125,000 passengers to the Dodecannese destinations.