Ship Sail News

Ingalls Shipbuilding has reopened its rebuilt and modernized facility on the east bank of the Pascagoula River after much of the site was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.The Pascagoula, Miss. shipbuilder announced Friday that it moved the newly built destroyer Delbert D. Black (DDG 119) to the east bank's Pier Four, signifying the site's official reactivation. Ingalls, a division of Virginia-based naval shipbuilding giant Huntington Ingalls Industries, had shifted all of…

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd faces at least two lawsuits by passengers accusing the company of negligently endangering their lives by letting its Anthem of the Seas cruise ship sail into a fierce Atlantic storm this month. The lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court in Miami claim that Royal Caribbean knew, or should have known, that a coastal storm carrying hurricane-force winds had been forecast before the ship set sail from Cape Liberty, New Jersey on Feb. 6 for a scheduled seven-night cruise to the Bahamas.

Huntington Ingalls Industries' (HII) Ingalls Shipbuilding division delivered the amphibious assault ship America (LHA 6) to the U.S. Navy today. More than 900 crew members marched through the shipyard for a delivery ceremony on the ship's flight deck, where they joined Ingalls shipbuilders and personnel from the U.S. Navy's Supervisor of Shipbuilding-Gulf Coast. "The shipbuilders of Ingalls have worked tirelessly to deliver this awesome, powerful warship to our U.S. Navy customer," said Ingalls Shipbuilding President Brian Cuccias. "This took more than just doing a job.

The Maritime Labor Convention of 2006 (MLC 2006) is now in force – although not here in the United States. How much different is what happens on MLC compliant ships from what transpires on U.S.-based, domestic workboats? The Maritime Labor Convention of 2006 (MLC 2006) came into effect on August 20, 2013. Globally, the new rule impacts many aspects of how seafarers are treated, working conditions and a myriad of less well defined requirements that leave some operators scratching their heads to figure out. The United States has not ratified the Code and probably never will. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have work and rest rules under U.S. law, as well. We do. Regulation 2.3 of the new MLC Code also delineates hours of rest and work for mariners.

"La Unión" the new Peruvian Navy tall ship sail training vessel, will be constructed under the supervision of classification society Germanischer Lloyd (GL). Tall ships are used in navies around the world to build seamanship, leadership and foster teamwork under challenging conditions at sea. The keel laying for the new ship took place in December 2012 at Marine Industrial Services (SIMA), the Peruvian shipyard where the new vessel will be constructed. The 50 million dollar project will involve more than 800 people working on the vessel's construction…

Princess Cruises has announced that for the first time it will base a ship in San Francisco year round, beginning in May 2013.The extensively renovated Grand Princess will first offer a series of Alaska cruises during the summer months from the "City by the Bay," followed by a schedule of Hawaiian Islands, Mexico and the California Coast sailings during the fall 2013 to spring 2014 season. Last year the 2,600-passenger Grand Princess underwent the largest drydock in Princess Cruises history…

The sails will be made from 5 sheets of aluminium and fibre reinforced plastic, and will each stand 164 feet tall and 65 feet wide. The 5 sheets which make up each sail will be individually controlled by motors to be raised or lowered depending on the strength of the wind, or turned on an angle in order to catch the most wind. Kiyoshi Uzawa, the professor in charge of the team, said that they predict their sails will cut fuel consumption by about 30 percent. They have already performed several simulations for common routes, such as Yokohama to Seattle and found that the ships only used about two thirds of the normal fuel consumption.