Swedish Maritime Administration News

The Swedish Maritime Administration has purchased the 18-year-old icebreaker Polar Circle, expanding its fleet of icebreaking ships to help keep the nation's ports and shipping lanes clear during the cold winter months.In December, the Swedish Maritime Administration put out a tender to acquire a secondhand icebreaker, with Polar Circle emerging as the most suitable option. The agency recently ran the Polar Circle through trials in the Gulf of Bothnia before committing to purchase the vessel."We are delighted to welcome Polar Circle to our fleet.

Finnish companies have designed about 80 percent of the world’s icebreakers, and about 60 percent of them have been built by Finnish shipyards.Finland is home to a strong and vibrant maritime cluster, with a mix of large, medium and small shipyards, as well as a deep pool of marine engineering expertise and a broad network of vessel equipment suppliers.As one of the world’s northernmost countries, Finland is also home to a fleet of icebreakers that keep imports and exports flowing through its harbors, even during the coldest winter months.

A mother and her 7-year-old child have been rescued after falling overboard on Thursday from a ferry traveling from Sweden to Poland, Swedish media reported.The two were being winched to a helicopter and are taken to a hospital, Stefan Land from the Swedish Maritime Administration told TT news agency, without specifying their condition.The ferry, Stena Spirit, was in the Baltic Sea midway through its journey to Gdynia in Poland from Karlskrona in Sweden when the incident occurred.The 7-year-old fell in and the mother jumped in after, the rescue services told TT.A large rescue effort was initiated, with several helicopters and NATO ships in the area helping out, TT reported.(Reuters - Reporting by Anne Kauranen; Editing by Conor Humphries)

Unexplained gas leaks detected in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines from Russia to Germany have prompted investigations by European countries into the cause, including possible sabotage.Denmark's armed forces on Tuesday released video showing bubbles rushing to the surface of the Baltic Sea above the pipelines, and said the largest gas leak had caused surface disturbance of well over 1 kilometer in diameter.Here is a breakdown of what is known so far:What happened?The operator of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline reported a sudden drop in pressure overnight on Monday…

A ferry was back in the Swedish port of Nynashamn on Tuesday after a fire on the car deck temporarily knocked out its power, the Swedish Coast Guard said in a statement. The fire in a refrigerated container started at mid-day on Monday north of the island of Gotland as the Stena Scandica was heading to Ventspils in Latvia from Nynashamn. The fire was put out on Monday afternoon. No injuries were reported among the 241 passengers and 58 crew aboard, the Swedish Maritime Administration said.Suffering a power failure after the fire…

Swedish and Finnish rescue services began evacuating families and elderly passengers from a fire-stricken Swedish ferry in the Baltic sea late on Monday, but said the situation was calm and that no one had been injured.About 70 out of around 300 people onboard were scheduled to be evacuated by helicopter as the powerless vessel was drifting toward the island of Gotland and risked running aground later on Monday, at roughly 2100 GMT."We are evacuating families with children and the elderly. We have strong winds that make evacuation by boat difficult," a Swedish Maritime Administration spokesperson said.

A fire has broken out on board a car ferry carrying 300 people off Sweden's coast, Swedish authorities said.The ferry is the 222-meter RoPax Stena Scandica, which operates on the Baltic Sea between Nynäshamn, Sweden and Ventspils, Latvia, with a capacity of 970 passengers.The fire reportedly started in a container on the car deck while the ferry was traveling from Latvia to Sweden.The blaze has been contained, though some smoke can still be seen rising from the vessel, according to local media. The extent of the damage is unknown, and no injuries have been reported.Stena Scandica is said to be sailing under its own power, and there are no plans to evacuate the ship, the Swedish Maritime Administration said.

All radio traffic on the emergency channel that reaches Sweden is now transcribed by artificial intelligence (AI) and shown to the operators at the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Gothenburg within a second. Keywords, such as "Mayday", "SOS", "help" and "sinking", are clearly marked and cannot be missed.The Swedish Maritime Administration, together with the Swedish companies Tenfifty AB and Maranics AB, has conducted a research and innovation project during the past two years.

The Swedish Maritime Administration said it will order two new icebreakers after funding for the vessels was included in the government's latest national investment plan.According to the plan, when the two icebreakers are in operation, there will be an opportunity to invest in a third icebreaker, if the need exists.Icebreakers are required to allow commercial ships to transport goods to Norrland's ports all year round. However, the current Atle-class icebreakers built for Sweden…

A pilot boat converted to run on methanol has entered service in Sweden as part of a demonstrator project aiming to prove the cleaner-burning fuel's ability to reduce carbon emissions.On Tuesday, the FASTWATER Consortium and the Swedish Maritime Administration (SMA) successfully ran the vessel in Stockholm Harbor following methanol bunkering at the SMA pilot station in Oxelösund, Sweden, where the pilot boat will be based.Methanol is among a number of alternative fuels currently…

Two Danish crew members of a capsized barge were missing in the freezing Baltic Sea on Monday after an overnight collision with a British vessel in a busy maritime route off Sweden.With the pair unlikely to survive long in water temperatures around 4 Celsius, rescue boats and a helicopter hunted for hours. There was also hope they might still be inside an air pocket within the hull of the overturned Karin Hoj.The 55-meter Danish barge and 90-meter Scot Carrier were sailing in the same direction off the island of Bornholm when they crashed in fog and darkness at 3.30 a.m.

Aker Arctic Technology Inc announced Tuesday it has signed a contract with the Swedish Maritime Administration (SMA) and the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency (FTIA) to develop new icebreakers to meet new challenges in Baltic Sea escort operations.The “next generation” icebreaker design will be capable of assisting the larger merchant ships entering Finnish and Swedish ports, incorporate latest environmental technologies and be ready for future fossil-free fuels, the Finnish engineering firm said. “Our foreign trade and competitiveness are based on year-round security of supply.

Teledyne CARIS has announced that the Swedish Maritime Administration (SMA) has selected Teledyne CARIS to provide tools for generalization of bathymetric data in nautical charts.Through a competitive tender process, SMA has chosen Teledyne CARIS to provide CARIS BASE Editor as the solution for the generalization of bathymetric data in nautical charts. The software platform will provide the tools needed to generate contours and sounding selections using automated processes as…

Navelink is a newly formed sea traffic management industry consortium initiated by the industrial companies Kongsberg Gruppen, Saab and Wärtsilä, three influential and significant maritime equipment manufacturers and service providers.The aim of the consortium is to reach a new global standard enabling scalable maritime information exchange. The consortium already has the Swedish Maritime Authority (SMA) boarded and has commissioned Combitech to deliver the infrastructure needed."Ship owners and operators, as well as coastal and port authorities and their service providers can benefit from the open infrastructure we are establishing.

The Gothenburg Port Authority launched a digital solution designed to make bunkering at the Energy Port easier and more efficient.The new ‘Bunkering App’ is one of the first in the world to offer this range of functionality, said a press release from the  largest port in the Nordic countries.The Port of Gothenburg Energy Port is the largest open access energy port in the Nordic region, handling over 2,500 calls and more than 23 million tonnes of energy products each year. The Energy Port is also one of the world's larger bunkering hubs. In an effort to make the bunkering procedures easier and more efficient, the Gothenburg Port Authority has developed the new ‘Bunkering App’.The app is available to all bunkering operators at the Energy Port.

The Maritime Connectivity Platform Consortium has been established and a Platform launched last Friday during the conference e-Navigation Underway 2019.The Maritime Connectivity Platform (MCP) is an open source technology a digital maritime domain. It brings common internet standards to maritime navigation and transportation systems.MCP enables infrastructures for efficient, secure, reliable and seamless electronic information exchange among maritime stakeholders using available communication systems. MCP is an open and vendor-neutral technology.The platform has been evolving for a number of years. Around 2015, development escalated significantly, when three large projects collaborated on the common use and further development of the technology. These were the E.U.

The Methanol Institute welcomed the findings of the Sustainable Marine Methanol (SUMMETH) project, which has backed the increased use of Methanol as a marine fuel. The research concluded that there are no obstacles to the efficient use of Methanol in a converted diesel engine and that smaller vessel conversion projects are feasible and cost-effective, with levels of safety that easily meet existing requirements. Switching to Methanol would offer immediate environmental benefits, including close to zero SOx and particulate matter emissions and significantly lower NOx emissions compared to conventional marine fuels or biodiesel. Joanne Ellis…

The developer of the barnacle-repelling antifouling ingredient Selektope have become members of the non-profit organization Clean Shipping Index (CSI). Through its membership, I-Tech AB will encourage environmentally responsible decisions around antifouling coating procurement to users of CSI’s holistic labeling system which ranks the environmental performance of ships. I-Tech will seek to promote the benefits of choosing less environmentally impactful antifoulings and educate CSI users on the impact of coating types…

Inspired by the European program for Air Traffic Managemen, the Sea Traffic Management (STM) methodology has been developed by the Swedish Maritime Administration MonaLisa project to define a set of systems and procedures to guide and monitor maritime traffic. The STM Validation project co-financed by the European Union has made the first operational tests with the shore center manufacturers. The key to the interoperability between different systems is the robust underlying infrastructure.

On 1 October 2015 the Maritime Single Window (MSW) portal will be launched for reporting of information regarding entry at port. From that date reports that were previously made in SafeSeaNet Sweden (SSNS) will be made in the portal, and simultaneously the reporting system of Port of Gothenburg will be integrated with the MSW. Electronic ship reporting in the MSW portal becomes a reality on 1 October. The technical systems will be deployed in several stages and SSNS and Port of Gothenburg are first in line. This means that ship reporting is to be made in the MSW portal from the current date. During a transitional phase all other reports will proceed according to former routines to the authorities concerned.

A group of industry stakeholders have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for academic exchange and cooperation within the framework of the Kalmar Ice Academy, with a focus on collaboratively helping the offshore and shipping industries to increase operational safety and efficiency while reducing environmental impact, through furthering understanding of maritime operations in ice. The parties, which included Kongsberg Digital, Viking Supply Ships, the Swedish Maritime Administration and the Kalmar Maritime Academy at the Faculty of Technology…

The Swedish Club and Stena Line have completed a major Emergency Response Training Exercise, designed to test how Stena’s own emergency procedures integrate with those of the authorities and support services in the event of a major incident. The round table exercise took place last week at the Swedish Sea Rescue Society headquarters, with over sixty expert contributors taking part. The drill, jointly planned and conducted by the Club and the Swedish Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC)…

Forecasts and route planning tools from GAC-SMHI Weather Solutions are playing a key role in a European Union initiative to promote safer and more efficient shipping. The Sea Traffic Management (STM) Validation Project, developed by a European Consortium led by the Swedish Maritime Administration, aims to make merchant shipping safer, smoother and more efficient by tackling the fact that international shipping remains relatively unregulated. The route chosen by a ship is often unknown to other vessels – something which can increase the chances of collisions, near misses, congestion and delays. The STM projects aims to tackle that issue by exploring ways in which routing information and planning can be shared to minimise the risks.