South Carolina Coast News

Stunned residents of the Bahamas surveyed the wreckage of their homes and officials struggled to assess the number killed by Hurricane Dorian, as the storm bore down on the South Carolina coast, threatening record flooding on Thursday.The United Nations said 70,000 people in the Bahamas needed immediate humanitarian relief after the most damaging storm ever to hit the island nation.Aerial video of the worst-hit Abaco Islands in the northern Bahamas showed widespread devastation…

Portline Bulk International S.A. pleaded guilty in federal court in Charleston, South Carolina, to one count of violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships and one count of Obstruction. The charges stem from the falsification of the Oil Record Book onboard the M/V Achilleus, a Maltese-flagged ocean-going bulk carrier ship managed by Defendant Portline.From April 2017 to August 2018, senior members of the vessel’s engineering team oversaw and participated in the bypass of the ship’s Oil Water Separator utilizing a yellow plastic hose, referred to as a magic pipe. The ship’s Chief Engineer made a series of fake entries and key omissions in the Oil Record Book in order to conceal the illegal overboard discharges of oily bilge water. On Aug.

The city council of Savannah, Georgia on April 30 unanimously approved a resolution opposing offshore seismic testing and oil drilling activities, the Savannah Morning News reported. The city’s opposition comes as the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is trying to open the mid and south Atlantic coastal areas to exploration and development of offshore drilling as part of the Obama Administration’s drafted program to allow exploration and drilling at least 50 miles offshore starting in 2017.

A deep-ocean exploration company in Florida says it has recovered nearly 1,000 ounces of gold, worth $1.3 million at current gold prices, on a reconnaissance dive to an historic Atlantic Ocean shipwreck. The dive confirmed that the ship had not been disturbed since 1991 when another company stopped recovery work, Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration, announced on Monday. The ship's sinking in 1857 with 21 tons of gold aboard in a hurricane off the coast of South Carolina sparked a U.S. banking panic. Recovered gold included five gold ingots and two $20 Double Eagle coins, an 1857 coin minted in San Francisco and an 1850 coin minted in Philadelphia. The gold ingots were stamped with the manufacturer's "assay-mark" and weigh from 96.5 to 313.5 troy ounces. U.S.

Coast Guard Cutter Charles Sexton was commissioned into service March 8 at Coast Guard Sector Key West, Fla. The Sexton is the second of six Fast Response Cutters to be homeported in Key West, and the eighth vessel to be delivered through the Coast Guard’s Sentinel-class FRC recapitalization project. The cutter is named after Machinery Technician 1st Class Charles W. Sexton, who drowned during a rescue operation conducted off the coast of Washington. On Jan. 11, 1991, Sexton was aboard a motor lifeboat dispatched to assist the 75-foot fishing vessel Sea King…

The Coast Guard formally accepted and introduced its new Rescue 21 advanced communications system at a ceremony aboard Coast Guard Sector Charleston Monday, June 14. This new capability increases the Coast Guard’s ability to execute all its missions, especially its search and rescue mission, with greater agility and efficiency. “Rescue 21’s direction-finding capabilities provide lines of bearing to the source of the transmission and enable watchstanders to more accurately direct response assets to the distressed mariner,” said Michael Tangora, Coast Guard Deputy Assistant Commandant for Acquisition. Tangora cited two recent search-and-rescue missions which were successful because of Rescue 21’s advanced capabilities.

The Coast Guard initiated a formal investigation into the marine casualty aboard the motor vessel Miss Calabash II to determine what caused the fire and examine the Coast Guard's vessel inspection methods and procedures implemented for this vessel. The Miss Calabash II caught fire while at sea off the South Carolina coast last Wednesday, forcing the 23 passengers and three crewmembers to abandon ship. All 26 people were recovered from the water quickly and in good condition by two nearby good Samaritan vessels. Rear Adm. Steve Branham, Seventh Coast Guard District commander, ordered a District Formal Investigation because the casualty involved the loss of a Coast Guard inspected vessel, which is consistent with Coast Guard policy.