Alarm News

The Greek-flagged bulk cargo vessel Sea Champion arrived in the southern Yemeni port of Aden on Tuesday after being attacked in the Red Sea in what appeared to have been a mistaken missile strike by Houthi militia, shipping and military sources said.Shipping risks are escalating due to repeated drone and missile strikes in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait by the Iran-aligned Houthis since November. U.S. and British forces have responded with several strikes on Houthi facilities but have so far failed to halt the attacks.The Sea Champion…

The wreck of a World War II-era freighter has been discovered in over 600 feet of water around 35 miles north of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula.Over the last 7 years, shipwreck researcher Dan Fountain has been studying remote sensing data in the search for shipwrecks in Lake Superior. After coming across a particularly deep anomaly, he reached out to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society (GLSHS) for help in identifying the potential wreck. In 2023 GLSHS Director of Marine Operations…

Paducah, Ky. headquartered Crounse Corporation announced it has taken delivery of a new 6,034-horsepower towboat built by Conrad Shipyard, based in Morgan City, La.The 166- by 48- by 12-foot Alice is named after the company’s first vessel that began operating in 1949. Delivered with a U.S. Coast Guard Certificate of Inspection for Subchapter M compliance and two EPA Tier 4 compliant main engines, the newbuild is one of the most efficient and environmentally-friendly vesselsoperating on the United States' inland waterway system.Alice and powered by two General Electric (GE) diesel engines…

Houthi rebel drone attacks on vessels traversing the Red Sea and Suez Canal route, accounting for 10% of global trade, have exposed the shortcomings of current ship alert systems.The unpredictability and increased frequency of these attacks have created a challenging security environment for ships passing the area via the Bab el Mandeb strait, posing a substantial risk to seafarers and maritime trade by endangering the safety of the crew and cargo.Initially focused on Israel-related ships in solidarity with Hamas…

BMA Technology has delivered a suite of electrical solutions for two new A2B-online’s multi-fuel container vessels, being built at Sedef Shipyard in Turkey.BMA Technology has provided a comprehensive suite of electrical solutions to power A2B-online's environmentally friendly container vessels, each with a capacity of 650 TEU.This includes components such as electric drives, motors, Li-ion batteries, low voltage switchboards and alarm monitoring and control system.These essential components are at the heart of A2B-online's two revolutionary container vessels…

ClassNK has released amendments to its Rules and Guidance for the Survey and Construction of Steel Ships dated December 22, 2023.ClassNK is constantly revising its Rules and Guidance in order to reflect the latest results from relevant research and development projects, feedback from damage investigations, requests from industry as well as changes made to relevant international conventions, IACS Unified Requirements (UR), etc. More specifically, some of the amendments made this time are as follows:Responding to requests from relevant industries…

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is recommending new notification alarms and procedures for potential incursions on pipelines and a change to an anchorage off the California coast following a crude oil release in 2021 caused by ship anchors damaging an underwater pipeline.NTSB investigators determined that the oil leak, which began on October 1, 2021, in San Pedro Bay, resulted from an anchor strike on the pipeline that occurred eight months earlier, when anchors…

Saudi Arabia has asked the United States to show restraint in responding to attacks by Yemen's Houthis against ships in the Red Sea, two sources familiar with Saudi thinking said, as Riyadh seeks to contain spillover from the Hamas-Israel war.The Iran-aligned Houthis have waded into the conflict that has spread around the Middle East since war erupted on Oct. 7, attacking vessels in vital shipping lanes and firing drones and missiles at Israel itself.The group which rules much…

The November edition of Marine News magazine highlighted a selection of the most notable American newbuilds delivered of 2023—from a first-of-its-kind green towboat, to the lead vessel in a series of game-changing ships to train U.S. mariners.Empire StateAs the lead vessel in a series of five new training ships being constructed to serve America's state maritime academies, Empire State is easily one of the most important U.S.-built vessels delivered in recent memory.Built by Philly Shipyard for the U.S.

Berg Propulsion has been selected to provide control and propulsion technology for what will be one of the largest hybrid tugs ever delivered, after owner Buksér og Berging AS (BuBe) agreed specifications with Turkey’s Uzmar Shipyard for its latest newbuild.Berg has been contracted to provide the full electrical power and control package for the Robert Allan-designed Rampage 4100BB-H tug, which will join BuBe’s North Sea operations in December 2024. Supply will include the electric motors…

Danish company Green Instruments has entered a major agreement with Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding for the delivery of equipment that detects oil mist and vapor on ships and triggers an alarm before fires can develop and endanger the crew, ship, equipment, and environment.The shipyard now installs Green Instruments’ equipment on every new vessel built.Oil mist is formed by oil droplets floating in the air and can ignite at low temperatures. Green Instruments’ oil mist detector is designed to register the slightest traces of oil mist and vapor from hydraulic oils and bunker fuel…

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Thursday cited thermal runaway of a cell within a handheld radio’s lithium-ion battery as the cause of a fire on an oil tanker docked in Baton Rouge, La.The Liberian-registered oil tanker S-Trust was docked at the Genesis Port Allen Terminal on November 13, 2022, when a fire on the bridge was sparked by one of the cells in a lithium-ion battery for an ultra-high-frequency handheld radio exploding, the NTSB's investigation found.

Pelagus 3D said Wednesday it had delivered a Return Oil Standpipe at Kobe, Japan, to be installed on Wallenius Wilhelmsen's RoRo vessel TYSLA. The collaboration involved Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Wilhelmsen Ship Management.Traditionally, the procurement, fabrication, and delivery of specific spare parts has been a time-consuming process, often leading to costly downtime for the maritime and offshore industries. However, with the advent of Additive Manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D Printing…

The three incidents that resulted in damage to a gas pipeline and two telecom cables between Estonia, Finland and Sweden "are related", Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said.Finnish police leading the pipeline investigation have named the Hong Kong-flagged container carrier NewNew Polar Bear as the prime suspect in damaging the Balticconnector Finland-Estonia gas pipeline early on Oct. 8.A large anchor was found near the pipeline, and the investigators believe the pipe was…

Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK), MTI, and Nabtesco Corporation have developed an electric diagnostic tool that records, visualizes, and analyzes the operational sounds of a vessel's engine plant for early anomaly detection.The device has been named “Kirari MUSE” and can store operational sounds from the equipment as data and use it to diagnose equipment conditions.Listening rods made of elongated metal are already widely used for diagnosing equipment conditions. By placing a listening rod on a turbine…

Fatigue and complacency led to a Washington State Ferries passenger and car ferry striking a mooring structure, or dolphin, at a Seattle ferry terminal last year, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said Thursday. The contact resulted in $10.3 million in damages to the vessel and $300,000 in damages to the dolphin.The Cathlamet had crossed the Puget Sound with 94 people on board and was approaching the Fauntleroy Ferry Terminal on July 28, 2022, when it struck the ferry terminal dolphin.

Ukrainian officials on Thursday asked Lebanon to bar a Syrian state-owned cargo ship carrying allegedly stolen Ukrainian grain from docking in Lebanon's Tripoli port, according to the Ukrainian embassy and a diplomatic note seen by Reuters.The Ukrainian mission said in comments to Reuters that the Finikia was transporting 6,000 metric tons of corn, which it considered stolen, from the Black Sea port of Sevastopol.In the note to Lebanon's ministries of transport, finance and economy, as well as the customs directorate, the embassy said the corn had been "stolen from storage units in the Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions".It said…

A loss of propulsion due to a false alarm led to cargo vessels colliding near Port Arthur, Texas last year, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said Thursday.While transiting the Sabine Pass on August 21, 2022, the general cargo ship Damgracht lost propulsion when the vessel’s main engine shut down due to “high oil mist density” sensed by its oil mist detector (OMD). Due to the abrupt loss of propulsion, the Damgracht began veering into the path of the bulk carrier AP Revelin.

Washington State Ferries has tapped local shipyard Vigor to convert up to three of its Jumbo Mark II class ferries to low-emission hybrid-electric power.Vigor's $150 million winning bid for the contract came in about $16 million under the second place bid from another Washington shipyard, but was still approximately $30 million above the state’s $120 million estimate for the project. Vigor has been awarded approximately $100 million for the conversion of two vessels, with a fixed-price option to convert the third vessel in 2025.WSF…

A joint study into ammonia safety onboard ships undertaken by the Lloyd’s Register (LR) Maritime Decarbonisation Hub and the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping (MMMCZCS), has found that a range of mitigation methods, from ship design to crew training and operations, are required to keep toxicity risks to crew within published tolerable limits.‘Recommendations for Design and Operation of Ammonia-Fuelled Vessels based on Multi-disciplinary Risk Analysis' presents a study of the effectiveness of risk mitigation measures in three ammonia-fueled vessels – a container ship…

It's nearly 45 years since the tragedy on the ANCO Duke where seven crew died at the bottom of the tank they were cleaning. “I was working on chemical tankers then. All the crew felt this terrible loss of life and took on tank entries with a heightened safety focus,” says Captain Dave Watkins, Deputy Director of the confidential near-miss reporting service CHIRP Maritime. Since then, enclosed space deaths still occur, although not in the number they did.Watkins has years of experience on chemical and VLCC tankers as an officer and master…

Rescuers scoured seas off Greece on Thursday in a massive search operation, as hopes dwindled of finding survivors of a shipwreck that killed at least 78 migrants in one of Europe's deadliest such disasters in recent years.Reports suggested hundreds of people had packed the fishing boat that capsized and sank early on Wednesday in deep waters about 50 miles (80 km) from the southern coastal town of Pylos, while being shadowed by the Greek coast guard. As dawn broke on Thursday, a coast guard vessel sailed into the nearby port city of Kalamata, transferring victims.

A Turkish cargo vessel that Italian special forces boarded after the crew detected a group of unidentified people aboard has left waters off the southern city of Naples, website MarineTraffic showed, as police continued to investigate the incident.Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said on Friday that the special forces operation was launched due to the presence of about 15 migrants on board the vessel.A Turkish transport ministry statement said the Galata Seaways roll-on-roll-off vessel was sailing from the Turkish port of Yalova to Sete in France. The crew realised other people were aboard the ship late on Friday morning, it said.The crew locked themselves in the engine room and alerted maritime authorities in Turkey, who in turn contacted Italy and France.