Virginia Marine News

HII announced its Newport News Shipbuilding division partnered with the Virginia Marine Resource Commission (VMRC) to donate and sink a former dry dock caisson gate offshore, giving it new life as part of an artificial reef.Caisson gates are used at the harbor end of a dry dock, with pipes inside allowing for water from the James River to enter when NNS needs to flood the dry dock. This particular gate, originally put into service at NNS in 1967, was part of a dry dock no longer in use at the shipyard.NNS crews worked to prepare the caisson gate…

A tugboat captain's Merchant Mariner Credential has been suspended after it was determined that he was operating his vessel under the influence of alcohol during a grounding incident in eastern Virginia.On November 14, 2019, the tugboat Niki Jo C drifted off course and ran aground outside the main channel of the Rappahannock River.In conducting their investigation, the US Coast Guard, the Virginia Marine Resource Commission and the Richmond County Sheriff's Office tested the crew's blood alcohol content to determine if alcohol was a causative factor. The results showed that the captain of the vessel was intoxicated at the time of the incident…

The Coast Guard suspended its search for a 63-year-old missing mariner on the Elizabeth River in Norfolk, Virginia, Sunday night.The missing 63-year-old man, Paul Youngk, was reportedly aboard his vessel when it began taking on water and eventually capsized early Sunday morning.An MH-60 Jayhawk aircrew from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and the crews of Coast Guard Cutter Hawk and Station Portsmouth searched a total of 152 square miles in 11.6 hours.Also assisting in the search was the Virginia Marine Resources Commission…

Good Samaritans rescued four people from the water Saturday morning, after a collision between a recreational boat, with six people aboard, and an oyster barge being pushed by a tug which was headed for an oyster bed near the James River Bridge. The two people went missing after a collision took place between a recreational boat, with six people aboard. First responders from multiple agencies are working together by boat and air to search for the two other people that were aboard the 19-foot center console boat when the incident occurred. The waterway is closed between the James River Bridge and the Monitor Merrimac Memorial Bridge Tunnel for safety of life.

The U.S. Coast Guard said it is monitoring a 586-foot Thai-flagged cargo vessel that ran aground off Sewells Point in Norfolk, Via., Thursday. Watchstanders at the Sector Hampton Roads Command Center in Portsmouth received a call at 12:50 p.m. that the bulk cargo ship Mallika Naree lost propulsion in the Elizabeth River, struck buoy #5 and ran soft aground outside the channel. The Mallika Naree is carrying cement and steel. 45-foot Response Boat-Medium and 29-foot Response Boat-Small crews from Coast Guard Station Portsmouth and a boat crew from Aids to Navigation Team Hampton Roads launched at about 1 p.m. An MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, N.C., was diverted at 1:20 p.m. to conduct an overflight assessment of the surrounding area.

The U.S. Coast Guard assisted with the rescue of a boater Monday after the man's 33-foot sailboat caught fire five miles west of Windmill Point in the Chesapeake Bay. Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Hampton Roads received a VHF-FM channel 16 broadcast from Brown at approximately 10:40 a.m., stating his sailboat was on fire. Watchstanders were unable to maintain communications with Brown after the initial broadcast. A good Samaritan contacted the Coast Guard watchstanders and reported they had the burning sailboat in sight.

The Coast Guard rescued two people Sunday who were reported missing after their 21-foot fishing boat sank approximately a mile west of Kiptopeke State Park. Rescued were Bonatacio Montalvo, 64, of Machipongo, Virginia, and Jose Rosales, 27. Eduardo Montalvo swam to shore and called 911 dispatchers, who relayed the distress to Coast Guard Sector Hampton Roads watchstanders at approximately 3:25 a.m. reporting two people aboard the boat he was on were missing after the boat sank at approximately 9:30 p.m. Saturday. Sector watchstanders issued an urgent marine information broadcast and dispatched crews aboard a 25 -foot Response Boat - Small from Coast Guard Station Cape Charles and an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

Navis, a part of Cargotec Corporation providers of technology for the movement of cargo through terminals, announce that Richmond Marine Terminal, in Richmond Virginia, went live with Navis SPARCS N4. The Port of Richmond is a barge terminal handling containerized, break-bulk and bulk cargo across all modes of transportation, located 70 miles inland. The Port of Virginia selected Richmond as a stepping stone to launch Navis SPARCS N4 at its other sites. Replacing a legacy home grown solution, SPARCS N4 will help Richmond Marine Terminal improve operational efficiencies, such as manual data entry. With SPARCS N4, terminal operators can now perform real-time data entry using N4 Mobile enabled iPads at both the barge and gates.

A six-year-old boy was found alive under a capsized boat near Huntington Park, Newport News, Va. last night. The boy was found by Newport News Dive Team members in a joint-agency rescue effort involving the Coast Guard, Virginia Marine Resource Commission, Newport News lifeguards and Newport News Fire and Rescue. The Coast Guard was notified at approximately 5:30 this afternoon of a 15-foot pleasure craft capsized in the James River with four people already recovered and the boy missing. Coast Guard Station Portsmouth immediately launched a 25-foot rescue boat, and the Coast Guard Cutter Kennebec, a 160-foot construction tender stationed at Portsmouth, was diverted to assist.

The Coast Guard concluded two days of meetings today with local, state and federal officials as part of its ongoing review to help evaluate the suitability of the Chesapeake Bay for importing Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) aboard tankships. The Coast Guard Captain of the Port (COTP) Baltimore received a letter of intent to resume LNG import operations from the Williams Company at its Cove Point facility in Calvert County, Md., last October. If approved, LNG import operations will involve moving LNG in tankships on the middle and lower Chesapeake Bay to Cove Point where the cargo will be handled and off-loaded at the company’s waterside facility. Under federal regulation (33 CFR Part 127.009), the COTP is required to evaluate the suitability of the Bay for conducting LNG operations.

In 1988, Congress enacted the Abandoned Shipwreck Act (Pub. L. 100-298, 43 U.S.C. §§ 2101-2106), in an effort to give states more authority to protect the historical provenance of abandoned shipwrecks in state waters. It was one of the more controversial laws Congress passed that year because it pitted treasure salvors and divers, on the one hand, against states and historic preservationists on the other. In the end, the states won passage of the legislation, but some twelve years later, the question remains whether the Act has had the intended effect. Two significant decisions since 1988 have called into question the law's stated Congressional policy. First, a description of the Act itself.

PORTSMOUTH, Va. – Rear Adm. Sally Brice O’Hara, Commander, Fifth Coast Guard District and the Commonwealth of Virginia Governor Mark Warner will formalize an important maritime security partnership at a signing ceremony to be held at 10 a.m. Monday at the Renaissance Hotel. The partnership, known as a Memorandum of Agreement, allows Coast Guard law enforcement crews and Virginia Marine Police officers to better work together to ensure the safety and security of Virginia’s waters and waterfront facilities, including those in the Port of Hampton Roads and the National Capitol Region. “We’re working across traditional agency boundaries to make America stronger in the maritime domain,” said Rear Adm. Brice O’Hara.

The vice president of a Virginia marine products company has agreed to plead guilty, serve a sentence and pay a criminal fine for his role in a conspiracy to rig bids and allocate customers with respect to marine products purchased by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Department of Justice announced. William Alan Potts, a British citizen who is vice president of a marine products company located in Clearbrook, Va., entered a plea agreement in the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Va. According to the one-count felony charge, Potts participated in a conspiracy between December 2000 and May 2003 to allocate customers and rig bids for contracts to sell plastic marine pilings.

The Coast Guard and the Virginia Marine Police are combining forces in southeast Virginia to sponsor a search and rescue forum from 8:30a.m.-3:00p.m. at the Coast Guard Integrated Support Command Portsmouth on Tuesday. The forum will include classroom search and rescue training, underway search and rescue techniques, rescue and survival equipment procedures and helicopter familiarity. More than 70 maritime search and rescue first responders will attend the forum. The search and rescue forum is aimed at building upon existing interagency cooperation by providing training and enhanced understanding between coastal and maritime search and rescue agencies.

onboard a commercial scallop vessel in violation of regulations governing both size and number of fish. penalties between $1,000 and $40,000 and/or permit sanctions of between 10 and 30 days. On August 3, 2002, a Virginia Marine Patrol officer boarded the fishing vessel Kimberly and Kathryn, a commercial scallop vessel, to monitor an offload of scallops. While monitoring the offload, a large number of tuna were observed to be on board the vessel. identified as yellowfin tuna by the vessel skipper, John P. Jones, but were given a preliminary identification of bluefin tuna by a United States Coast Guard officer. assessment. NOAA Agent Steven Niemi positively identified the offloaded tuna as bluefin. two per vessel, with a minimum commercial size limit of 73 inches curved fork length.

The Coast Guard will escort a liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipment into Dominion’s natural gas facility in Lusby, Md., Friday about 2 p.m.; the first vessel to unload product at the facility in 23 years. The Coast Guard Captain of the Port of Baltimore in consultation with other federal, state, and local agencies verified the Cove Point facility is ready to resume operations and is capable of safely receiving and handling shipments of LNG. Homeland Security is a top priority of the Coast Guard, and the agency’s marine safety offices in Hampton Roads, Va., and Baltimore worked with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Police, Virginia Marine Patrol and other local maritime enforcement partners on security related plans.