Ultimate Solution News

Jennifer Carpenter has been president and CEO of The American Waterways Operators (AWO) in January 2020, but her time with the national trade association representing the inland and coastal tugboat, towboat and barge industry dates back to 1990. This month, she weighs in on top challenges and opportunities currently present in the industry, from difficult regulatory changes to the uptake of cleaner vessel technologies.What are some of the biggest and most important issues facing the tug, towboat and barge industry?Big picture, I feel like our industry has never been more relevant.

Dutch shipbuilding group Damen has signed its first contact with ballast water treatment systems (BWTS) manufacturer ERMA FIRST. The Greek manufacturer ERMA FIRST will supply its oneTANK, which is the world’s smallest BWTS, using chemical injection methods to clean ships’ ballast water.Damen Green Solutions has a broad selection of BWTS in its range, offering shipowners various capacities and techniques in treating their ballast water. With the addition of the ERMA FIRST oneTANK, Damen can provide clients with a solution that is not only small, but also modular.

ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. on Wednesday announced the creation of a new subsidiary, Ship4wd, a digital freight forwarding platform offering an online self-service end to end shipping solution.Launching October 18, 2021, Ship4wd is intended to be a one-stop-shop international shipping service targeting U.S. and Canadian small and medium-sized businesses importing and exporting from China, Vietnam and Israel, ZIM said. The Ship4wd platform consists of both sea and air shipping services up to the final destination…

Sembcorp Marine subsidiary Jurong Marine Services has ordered a hybrid tug for delivery from the Sembcorp Marine shipyard by the end of 2020.The tug, which will operate in Singapore harbor, will be equipped with ABB’s electric propulsion, power, energy storage, control and automation technology, making it the first tug in South Asia capable of switching between low emission liquefied natural gas (LNG) engines and zero-emission battery power, ABB said.LNG as a fuel virtually eliminates sulphur oxide emissions…

Wärtsilä asks: is shipping able to cope?2018 can be viewed as the year of pivotal climate action when the world started demanding change. The global warming debate intensified when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that surpassing the 1.5 degrees rise in global temperature carries huge risks for humans and nature alike. Global emissions need to be lowered dramatically and the maritime industry has a significant stake in making it happen. This is a call…

Leland, Mich., on the shores of Lake Michigan, is one of the jewel communities of the state’s Northern Lower Peninsula. Originally developed in the 1800s as a port for the iron mining and lumber industries in the area, which used Lake Michigan as a water route to the Port of Chicago, Leland was an important cog in the Michigan economy. Over the past century, Leland’s role along Lake Michigan changed, and it became a summer boating Mecca and a harbor of refuge during inclement weather for boaters on Lake Michigan.

U.S. Navy’s AGOR Research Vessels are built to be as operationally quiet as possible. That’s where Mascoat’s Sound Control-dB coatings come in. When the U.S. Navy began its design and build program for its newest generation of research vessels, it specified that the vessels had to be as quiet as possible. That’s because a large part of ocean research involves listening and excessive ship noise tends to negate that effort. Achieving the goal of an exceptionally quiet vessel, the vessel’s design team employed a variety of methods to meet the Navy’s exacting standards, choosing systems, defined equipment locations and designed special installation methods with acoustics as a priority. One of those methods involved Mascoat’s Sound Control-dB coatings.

OceanSaver has achieved a certification double, with the news that its Mark II Ballast Water Treatment (BWT) system has achieved U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) approval, while the company itself has achieved ISO 9001:2008 certification. Based in Drammen, Norway, OceanSaver provides efficient and reliable BWT systems for medium and large vessels, such as VLCCs, LNG Carriers and a variety of tankers and bulk carriers, amongst others. The USCG’s  Alternate Management System (AMS) approval means that vessels fitted with OceanSaver systems - combining effective and reliable filtration with high-performance electrodialytic disinfectant treatment – are free to discharge ballast water in U.S. ports. Newbuilds constructed after December 2013 must have USCG compliant systems to perform this task.

Connectivity and Communications Complete the Package. The complex task of operating any marine enterprise isn’t getting any easier. Financial, regulatory, operational, environmental and human resource pressures all increase over time. In the brown water, workboat world, these problems are exacerbated by the sheer number of smaller operators struggling to catch up with business requirements that have become increasingly sophisticated, and over a very short period of time. Keeping track of the new subchapter “M” rules…

Any move at the government level to ban the payment of ransoms to pirates would have a massively detrimental effect on the risk to the world's seafarers and the global economy, according to Alastair Evitt, Managing Director of Meridian Marine Management, President of InterManager and the newly appointed Chairman of the Save Our Seafarers Campaign. Addressing the opening session of this year's Connecticut Maritime Association (CMA) conference in Stamford, Evitt said that not only would such a ban have an impact on the willingness of any crew to transit high-risk areas…

Foss Maritime, founded by the matriarch of the Foss family in 1889, is as much a cultural icon on the U.S. West Coast as McAllister or Moran are on the East Coast. Norwegian immigrant Thea Foss began the business when she bought her first row boat in Tacoma, Wash. and painted it the signature green and white. The Foss family grew the business into a launch  service ferrying crew and supplies in the 1910s, then shifted into towing work in the 1940s. Thea Foss is considered the inspiration for Tug Boat Annie…

Click Bond, Inc., the leader in adhesive bonded fastening technology is pleased to announce receipt of American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) Product Type Approval for several of its fastener and adhesive products. The approved products include of a variety of bonded studs, standoffs, cable tie mounts, brackets, loop strap fasteners, insulation pins, and adhesives. The Product Type Approval follows a successful ABS Manufacturing Assessment (MA), and Product Design Assessment (PDA), and is valid for products intended for use on ABS class vessels and Mobile Offshore Drilling Units (MODUs).

Furuno and SIRIUS are working together to provide satellite weather information on the NavNet vx2 line of multifunction navigation units. Furuno will be releasing the BBWX1 SIRIUS Weather Receiver in late spring. This receiver will simply plug into an existing NavNet vx2 network, requiring only a software update to the NavNet vx2 displays to allow access to the BBWX1. The combination of NavNet vx2 and the BBWX1 will provide live, up-to-date weather information and forecasting. The information will be overlayed onto a C-Map MAX chart, allowing one to see the weather cells in relation to one’s geographic location. A monthly SIRIUS Marine Weather subscription is required.