River Bank News

An electrical generator set (genset) failure and subsequent loss of steering led to the grounding of a towing vessel near Greenville, Miss., the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said Thursday.The towing vessel Marquette Warrior was pushing 35 loaded dry cargo barges down the Lower Mississippi River on Nov. 21, 2021, when several barges grounded on the riverbank. Four barges were damaged, including a hopper barge with bean cargo that partially sank. None of the nine people on board the Marquette Warrior were injured.

The death toll from the sinking of an overcrowded ferry carrying Hindu devotees in northern Bangladesh climbed to 50 on Monday, with many passengers missing a day after the disaster.Onlookers and relatives of the missing gathered along the riverbank as rescuers searched for bodies, witnesses said."I just want to see the face of my mother," Deepak Chandra Roy said, speaking through tears as he searched for his mother.

The National Transportation Board said Thursday that a Mississippi River towing vessel’s pilot and its captain pushed its tow up against a riverbank too close to a railroad track, leading to a collision and train derailment near Galland, Iowa.Marine Investigation Report 22/22 details the NTSB’s investigation into the Nov. 13, 2021, collision between the towing vessel Baxter Southern and a BNSF coal train transiting the track along the shoreline of the Upper Mississippi River. The train struck a barge that was overhanging the railroad track.

The London Fire Brigade has added a pair of new fireboats on the Thames as part of a £40 million investment made by City Hall to expand the Brigade’s fleet of equipment and vehicles.The new 16.2-meter-long boats, Tanner and Errington, are named after Auxiliary Fireman Harry Errington and Auxiliary Firewoman Gillian Tanner, who in the Second World War were both awarded medals for bravery. The call signs for the boats are H23A and H23B, a reference to Adam Mere and Billy Faust, two London firefighters who died fighting a fire in 2004.Built by Holyhead Marine…

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District, collaborated with the St. Paul District, of the Mississippi Valley Division, to bring the Dredge Goetz onto the Missouri River from late October through early November 2021 to participate in a pilot project to dredge sediment that had created shallow areas in the shipping channel.The Goetz has provided critical assistance to the Kansas City District through this pilot program, said Maj. John Chambers, deputy commander of the Kansas City District.Chambers noted that as a learning organization…

Paraguayan firm Ingeniería de Topografía y Caminos S.A. (T&C) has ordered a customised Cutter Suction Dredger (CSD) 500 from the Dutch shipbuilder Damen.T&C will use the dredger to transform the southern riverbank of the capital Asunción, in the Costanera Sur project. "The modular dredger will sharply increase sand production, required to meet the ambitious projects deadlines," Damen said.According to Damen, parts of the city have flooded annually for decades due to their proximity to the river.

A Bangladesh ferry carrying around 50 passengers collided with a cargo vessel and sank on Sunday in the Shitalakhsya River south of the capital Dhaka, leaving at least 26 people dead and a few still missing, officials said.Twenty one bodies had been recovered on Monday. The ferry sank just after it departed from the industrial Narayanganj district about 20 km (12 miles) from Dhaka, to Munshiganj, said Mustain Billah, Narayanganj district administrator."Most of the bodies were found inside the sunken boat after it was dragged to the bank…

It was a beautiful mid-summer afternoon in the nation’s heartland. The skies were clear, the sun was shining and the variable southwest breeze barely caused a ripple on the muddy water of the winding river. Optimistic fishermen lined the riverbanks and a few recreational boaters were cruising close to the floating docks lining both shores.This tranquil scene on this busy waterway was about to change…and quickly.A parting of the waysAbout a half mile upriver, a 95-foot tug was proceeding southbound on a slow bell with two barges made up end-to-end along her starboard side.

Australia’s new, nearly completed icebreaker built at Damen's Galati shipyard in Romania is traveling to the Netherlands to undergo final commissioning and sea trials that had been delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.The Nuyina is currently under a month-long tow from Romania to the Dutch port of Vlissingen, where teams of equipment installers from Western Europe will access the new research and supply vessel (RSV) for final commissioning of essential propulsion, electrical and navigation systems…

Ships transporting cargo from Argentina's Rosario grain hub through the Parana River are having to reduce their cargoes after a bank collapse obstructed the navigation channel, exporters told Reuters.Dredgers are working in the Parana to the south of the Rosario complex to try to restore the necessary depth of water for export traffic, but at present have no estimate of when normal operations on the grains superhighway can resume."Ships cannot leave because they do not have the adequate safety margin…

Bodies of all but nine of the 28 victims of a deadly boat crash in the Hungarian capital have been recovered in an intensive search up and down the Danube involving units on water, air and land, Hungarian police said on Friday.The Mermaid, a pleasure boat carrying 33 South Korean tourists and two Hungarian crew, capsized and sank on May 29 after a large cruise liner struck it from behind as both vessels passed under a bridge in the centre of Budapest.Seven Koreans were saved and 19 bodies have been recovered so far in the worst accident in more than half a century on Europe's longest river. Among those still missing and presumed dead are the Hungarian captain and a Korean child.The recovery operation…

UK-based provider of mass flow excavation services Rotech Subsea Ltd. has announced that it has signed an agreement to undertake a major seabed preparation scope for United Arab Emirates-based ULO Systems.The preparatory work will precede the installation of 12,000 concrete mattresses designed to minimize erosion by protecting a river bank on-site at a nuclear plant in rural Bangladesh.Rotech Subsea recently mobilised its state-of-the-art TRS2 Controlled Flow Excavation (CFE) tool from Rotech Asia’s Kuala Lumpur base with the work to be completed during Q1, 2019. Rotech’s TRS2 was selected due to its unrivalled power and controllability.Speaking about the deployment, Rotech’s Director of Subsea, Stephen Cochrane, said: "We are delighted to be working with ULO.

Strength, Safety and Sustainability are at the heart of this Homeland Security stakeholder’s mission set.For over 30 years, high performance fiber rope manufacturer Phillystran has worked with the U.S. Coast Guard to supply mooring and towing lines. As innovations in fiber rope technology have enabled lighter and stronger ropes, the Coast Guard has not been slow to take advantage of these and other developments.In step with most maritime stakeholders, NAVSEA approved fiber ropes are widely used by the U.S. Coast Guard.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Marine Design Center (MDC) will soon be releasing a sources sought notice for the construction of the Mat Boat, a 188 x 74 x 10-ftl. deck barge, for the Mat Sinking Unit (MSU) located on the Mississippi River. The barge is to be built to American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) Rules for Service on Rivers and Intracoastal Waterways. The sources sought notice is only for the construction of the barge, shown in Figure B, and not for the final product which incorporates a government furnished robotics package shown in Figure A.

Eleven people on a river cruise were killed when their boat collided with a tugboat late on Monday in the Russian city of Volgograd, which is hosting matches in the soccer World Cup, rescue services said.Emergencies services received notification at around 10 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Monday that the vessels had collided on the Volga River, about 250 meters from the riverbank.There were 16 people on board the pleasure craft, all of them Russians, the RIA news agency cited the local administration as saying.Five people had been rescued…

The U.S. Coast Guard said it is working with local agencies to respond to a barge fire on the Mobile River near Mobile, Ala.Coast Guard Sector Mobile received a report from Mobile County Fire Department that a barge carrying scrap metal caught fire at mile marker three on the Mobile River at approximately 10 a.m. on Sunday.According to Mobile Fire-Rescue, two linked barges carrying demolished/crushed cars are ablaze.No crewmembers were reported to be aboard the barges when they went up in flames, and there have been no reports of injuries or pollution.The barges are aground on the riverbank.Mobile County Fire Department is on scene conducting…

Wison Offshore & Marine said its newly-developed floating storage regasification and power generation barge (W-FSRP) has received Approval in Principle from Bureau Veritas. W-FSRP integrates functions of LNG loading and storage facilities, regasification and power generation. Wison and Bureau Veritas have completed the validation for the specified design of 50MW FSRP this time. As the turnkey service provider for the world’s first FLNG and FSRU barge,Wison built on its rich expertise in floating LNG facilities to provide the LNG industry with innovative solutions…

Port of Hamburg project to redesign the Vorhafen harbor basin entrance completed, meaning more maneuvering space for big ships, faster berth assignment and improved safety of navigation. The Hamburg Port Authority (HPA) said it has officially completed the project “Redesigning the Entrance to the Vorhafen Harbor Basin”, within the schedule, both in terms of time and money. The widened Vorhafen basin access benefits both container shipping and cruise shipping. For one, the tidal…

Two local contractors in Nigeria recently took delivery of 10-inch Wolverine Class Dredges, designed and manufactured by DSC Dredge at its facility in Greenbush, Mich. As the political capital of Delta State, Asaba is a rapidly expanding city along the banks of the Niger River Delta. There is a growing demand for infrastructure improvement projects, including roads and livable space along the Niger River. Yet, this fast-flowing river brings sand downstream from the interior of the nation.

The U.S. Coast Guard has lifted its safety zone on the Neches River Tuesday as oil spill cleanup activities near their conclusion. The response began after a pipeline at the Jefferson Energy Terminal released an estimated 880 gallons of Eagle Ford crude oil into the river Saturday afternoon, leading to the river’s closure from the Kansas City Southern Railroad Bridge to the north end of the Standolind Anchorage, near light151. With the safety zone lifted, all vessel traffic may now transit without restriction, but the Coast Guard has requested that mariners observe a minimal wake zone through the affected area. The Coast Guard, Texas General Land Office…

Over that past 15 to 20 years there has been a revolution in U.S. ship docking tugs. Larger container ships and tankers made obsolete the conventional single and twin propeller tugs that could serve either line haul or ship docking functions. Pilots and insurers wanted modern technology that, more often than not, meant stern mounted azimuthing Z-drives. This revolution eventually includes ship docking on the Mississippi around the Port of New Orleans. But mixed in with the ship moorings and piers…

It has been said that the vast majorities of collisions at sea occur in near perfect weather conditions. That trend can also be applied to the inland river system. Not too long ago, it was a beautiful mid-summer afternoon in the nation’s heartland. The skies were clear, the sun was shining and the variable southwest breeze barely caused a ripple on the muddy water of the winding river. Hopeful fishermen lined the riverbanks and a few recreational boats were cruising close to the floating docks lining both shores. This tranquil scene on this busy waterway was about to change … and quickly.

The board of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority voted today to accept an annual budget for 2015. The budget includes $20 million in capital investments to enhance maritime operations and sediment management. The port’s balance sheet also allows it to continue investing in its European liner service, Cleveland-Europe Express (CEE), which was launched in April. The port is expanding CEE service in 2015 to two sailings a month between Antwerp and Cleveland, as announced in September.