Websites News

For Cheryl “Cherrie” Felder, the path to the maritime industry was both untraditional and seemingly meant to be. After studying African art, she began her career working in a museum in New Orleans before landing a role directing professional rodeo in the Big Easy.“It was a lot of fun, and I learned a whole lot,” Felder said. “But as you may imagine, New Orleans is not a rodeo town. After the third year, the board of directors decided, okay, that's it. No more rodeo.”And that’s when Felder’s doorway to the maritime industry swung open…

Oil stains possibly coming from neighboring Tobago have reached the island of Bonaire, local media said on Monday, prompting authorities to begin organizing protection to beaches and mangrove areas.Since an oil spill from a capsized vessel was first spotted by Trinidad and Tobago's Coast Guard on Feb. 7, it has blackened the Caribbean nation's beaches and is threatening other countries, including Grenada and Bonaire, whose main source of revenue is tourism.Part of Bonaire's East coast…

Like many ports, the Alaskan Port of Homer faces aging infrastructure and capital needs well beyond the local funding capacity. The port is a key link in the supply chain for 47 remote, rural, disadvantaged or Alaska Native communities served by Homer, making proposed port infrastructure upgrades critical for shipping statewide as well as for the local community.Enter the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. This unprecedented…

The Member Authorities of the Tokyo and the Paris Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) on Port State Control will launch a joint Concentrated Inspection Campaign (CIC) on Fire Safety in September.The purpose of the campaign is to create awareness among the ship’s crew and owners about the importance of fire safety measures and to verify that the ship complies with fire safety requirements under the relevant IMO instruments.This inspection campaign will be held for three months, commencing from September 1, 2023 and ending November 30, 2023.

The Member Authorities of the Tokyo and the Paris Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) on Port State Control will launch a joint ConcentratedInspection Campaign (CIC) on Fire Safety to create awareness among the ship’s crew and owners about the importance of fire safety measures; and  to verify that the ship complies with fire safety requirements under the relevant IMO instruments.The three-month inspection campaign will commence September 1, 2023 and end November 30, 2023, and will…

A Liberian-flagged oil tanker set sail in May from Russia's Ust-Luga port carrying crude on behalf of a little-known trading company based in Hong Kong. Before the ship had even reached its destination in India, the cargo changed hands.The new owner of the 100,000 tonnes of Urals crude carried on the Leopard I was a similarly low-profile outfit, Guron Trading, also based in Hong Kong, according to two trading sources.The number of little-known trading firms relied on by Moscow to export large volumes of crude exports to Asia has mushroomed in recent months…

Much has been said both in Congress and by the current administration of the need to restore and enhance our nation’s transportation infrastructure, including its maritime transportation infrastructure. Recent legislation, such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law), the Inflation Reduction Act, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year (FY) 2023, and the related appropriations acts, has shown that Congress is ready to provide substantial funding in support of these stated goals.

Ship insurers said they are cancelling war risk cover across Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, following an exit from the region by reinsurers in the face of steep losses.Reinsurers, who insure the insurers, typically renew their 12-month contracts with insurance clients on Jan. 1, giving them the first opportunity to scale back exposure since the war in Ukraine started, after being hit this year by losses related to the conflict and from Hurricane Ian in Florida.P&I (protection and indemnity) clubs American…

China has entrusted a defense-focussed state firm to ship millions of barrels of Venezuelan oil despite U.S. sanctions, part of a deal to offset Caracas' billions of dollars of debt to Beijing, according to three sources and tanker tracking data. China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) stopped carrying Venezuelan oil in August 2019 after Washington tightened sanctions on the South American exporter. But it continued to find its way to China via traders who rebranded the fuel as Malaysian, Reuters has reported.

Cruise operator Royal Caribbean Group (RCL.N) on Thursday reported a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss as bookings rebounded and travelers splurged on cabanas, spa treatments and watches while onboard.The world's second-largest cruise line operator is the latest company to report good results as travelers, free of restrictions related to COVID-19, spend heavily on rental cars, airline tickets and hotels."Despite concerns about the U.S. and global economy, high inflation and amid geopolitical uncertainty…

Hong Kong-based ship management company Anglo-Eastern announced it has opened a fleet performance center within its Mumbai office.The Anglo-Eastern Fleet Performance Center (AEFPC) has been established to drive optimal performance by identifying trends and translating data into proactive human interventions aimed at improving overall fleet safety, performance, regulatory compliance, predictive maintenance, and safe navigation, the company said.The center will leverage data gathered from day-to-day vessel performance monitoring by technologies such as Wӓrtsilӓ’s Fleet Operations Solution (FOS)…

In the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2021, Congress amended the Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) administered by the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) to reserve to smaller ports 18% of the amounts appropriated for grants under the PIDP, and increased this percentage to 25% in the NDAA for FY 2022. This replaced the minimum dollar threshold for PIDP grants of the lesser of $10 million or 10% of the total amount appropriated for the PIDP for a fiscal year.

The Federal Maritime Commission met in both open and closed session today to be briefed on efforts to address detention and demurrage, improve supply chain data transparency, and an ongoing investigation of Canadian government regulations that affect U.S. flag Great Lakes shipping. The Commission was also advised of the work its Area Representatives are doing at locations key to shipping around the Nation.Lucille Marvin, the Commission’s Managing Director is leading both the Vessel-Operating Common Carrier (VOCC) Audit Program and VOCC Audit Team…

The giant container ship Ever Given, which blocked the Suez canal for six days in March, crossed the waterway on Friday for the first time since it left Egypt after the incident.The ship, en route from the United Kingdom to China, crossed the canal among a convoy of 26 vessels sailing from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said in a statement. Another 36 ships crossed the waterway from the south.A group of SCA senior pilots and two tugboats escorted the Ever Given throughout its journey through the canal…

When Dutch boat captain and engineer Ernst-Jan de Groot applied to continue working in Britain after Brexit, he became ensnared in a bureaucratic nightmare because of an online glitch and says he is now likely to lose his job.Under new immigration rules coming into force, de Groot faces the prospect of losing the right to come to Britain to work unless he can successfully apply for a visa through a government website by the end of June.Following its departure from the European Union’s orbit at the end of December…

Very few people live day-to-day expecting a disaster. However, disasters do happen and a critical component of business continuity is ensuring that when disaster strikes, our critical systems are returned to normal operations as quickly and efficiently as possible. Last month’s training tips for ships discussed a catastrophic fire that occurred in France last month at one of the world’s largest data centres. This fire took millions of websites offline including the Learning Management System (LMS) for one of the world’s largest cruise lines.

A customer once told me that they had just completed a business continuity analysis and had identified their LMS as their second most mission-critical technology - second only to payroll! Take a moment to consider how much you rely on training technologies to sustain your operations and compliance. How long could you comfortably go without your employees having access to training? How long could you go without access to your compliance records or your employees’ certificates?

Traffic in the Suez canal was not affected by an oil tanker’s sudden engine failure on Tuesday, the canal authority said, adding that the vessel had been fixed and started up again.Shipping websites MarineTraffic and TankerTrackers said earlier that marine traffic had slowed in canal as oil tanker M/T Rumford appeared to face difficulties in the southern part.“The authority dealt quickly with a sudden failure in the engine of one of the ships crossing the canal, the oil tanker Rumford, with a payload of 62,000 tonnes, while crossing the canal among the southern convoy,‮”‬ the Suez Canal Author

In the wake of the pandemic COVID-19, maritime training companies Seagull Maritime and Videotel have launched a new program called: “Coronavirus- How to Beat it.”Available free to the maritime industry, the program outlines the common symptoms that seafarers need to be aware of and details the key precautions that individuals onboard can take to minimize the spread of this highly contagious virus.Frequent hand washing is one of the ways to reduce infection and the program demonstrates…

Truth be told, my ship-spotting addiction (nurtured by webcams streaming on the internet and fueled further by excessive desk-time during the 2020 pandemic) actually started with some business purpose. Agents in far flung locales were sometimes not as swift as hoped for with their reports- so when a vessel was visible online, augmented by AIS driven position websites, information flows to clients or partners in various supply chains were improved. It probably started around 2014 when a client’s vessel was transiting through Miraflores Locks in Panama.

Marine traffic slowed in the Suez Canal on Tuesday as oil tanker M/T Rumford appeared to face difficulties in the south of the canal, shipping websites MarineTraffic and TankerTrackers said.A trade source said that the canal notified companies that the M/T Rumford faced engine trouble in the canal and that it had sent tug boats Tim Hope and Mosaed 3 to its aid.TankersTracker said on Twitter that the vessel had run into difficulty but is finally heading north again.The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) told Reuters the issue had only lasted about 10 minutes and "was fixed".

Two decades into the 21st century, we’re seeing a growing and pernicious threat to global information security: ransomware. Even non-technical folk have loosely heard of it, but the broader implications haven’t yet penetrated the public consciousness. In different industries, that general lack of awareness could be a big problem—and the maritime sector is a good example.Ransomware hits at the confluence of two critical trends in modern technology: the ever-increasing integration of IT systems into daily life, and the interconnectedness of those IT systems.

Subchapter M, the United States regulatory code dealing with towing vessels and requirements for towing vessel safety, has officially been in place since July 20, 2016, when the U.S. Coast Guard finalized Sub M rulemaking.Since the rules were finalized there have been a couple of important hammer dates. In spring and summer 2018 the first certificates of inspection (COI) were issued. COIs are central within the Sub M program. A vessel needs a COI to legally operate. (All vessels were required to comply with Sub M by July 20, 2018.