Blunt News

Canada's understaffed and resource-stretched navy is in "a critical state" and might not be able to carry out its basic duties next year, the top admiral said in a YouTube video released this week.The comments by Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee are an unusually blunt expression of unhappiness from the military over the state of the armed forces. Canada only spends about 1.3% of its annual gross domestic product on defense, much less than the North Atlantic Treaty Organization target of 2%.In the video…

A fleet of U.S. offshore wind projects central to President Joe Biden's climate change agenda may not move forward unless his administration eases requirements for subsidies in the year-old Inflation Reduction Act, according to project developers.Norway's Equinor, France's Engie, Portugal's EDP Renewables, and trade groups representing other developers pursuing U.S. offshore wind projects told Reuters they are pressing officials to rewrite the requirements, and warning of lost jobs and investments otherwise."The components needed for our projects to progress simply do not exist in the U.S.

While people in all generations measured themselves against eternal factors—fellow employees, family, their industry, etc.—Generation Z is fixated on measuring themselves against the world as seen through social media. Coaching them will help them begin to turn inward and measure success against their own goals. One of the keys to retaining your Gen Z workers will be in positively coaching them.Coaching should provide positive feedback about employee contributions. At the same time…

Italy's new anti-immigration decree that aims to curtail NGO rescue ships should be scrapped as it violates international law, a top Catholic bishop said, in an unusually blunt attack against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government.The decree, which was introduced in December, forces charity-run ships to request a port and sail to it "without delay" after a rescue, rather than remain at sea looking for other migrant boats in distress, as generally used to occur."The fate of the decree should only be its repeal…

Grant Pecoraro, is the U.S. managing director for naval architecture and marine engineering company Incat Crowther. The Australia-based firm’s Incat Crowther USA arm has been in business for over 10 years, and the broader Incat Crowther group is approaching 50 years in business. To date, Incat Crowther has delivered more than 650 vessels, with 130 vessels currently on the order books.Please give an overview of Incat Crowther’s U.S. presence as well as its offering to the American market.

Shell has awarded a contract to a Singapore-based firm Penguin International Limited, to design, build and operate at least three fully electric ferries which, when operational, will be the first fully electric ferry service in Singapore and a first for Shell globally.Expected to set sail in the first half of 2023, the new 200-seater single-deck ferries will be used to transport passengers between mainland Singapore to Shell’s Energy and Chemicals Park on the island of Bukom,…

The Philippine foreign minister on Monday demanded in an expletive-laced message on Twitter that China’s vessels get out of disputed waters, marking the latest exchange in a war of words with Beijing over its activities in the South China Sea.The comments by Teodoro Locsin, known for making blunt remarks at times, follow Manila's protests for what it calls the "illegal" presence of hundreds of Chinese boats inside the Philippines 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)."China, my friend, how politely can I put it?

Four dead gray whales washed ashore on San Francisco Bay area beaches in nine days, with experts announcing that two of the giant aquatic mammals died from ship strikes and an investigation is ongoing Saturday on the other two.Biologists with the non-profit Marine Mammal Center in California said in a release Saturday that two dead whales washed ashore in the Bay area on Thursday, joining two more that were discovered dead in area beaches since March 31.Of the four animals, two died from blunt force trauma from ship strikes…

Brent Perry, CEO of Sterling PBES is a 40+ year veteran of the marine business, and one of the pioneers in delivering battery solutions to boats and ships at sea. Please give us a by the numbers look at Sterling PBES today?Right now we are sitting in a position where we had anticipated delivering somewhere in the neighborhood of $20-21 million worth of product, which is about 35 megawatt hours. And we’re scheduled to blow past that to almost $40 million. And we’re looking at the following year as a year of over a $100 million…

The inquiry commissioned by the Berejiklian government into the Ruby Princess COVID-19 disaster has laid blame on NSW health officials, who made “inexcusable” and “inexplicable” mistakes. It also exonerated the Australian Border Force.In the report, the federal government was sharply criticized for refusing to allow an official to appear before the inquiry, with commissioner Bret Walker SC saying this belied Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s promise of full cooperation.Some 2,700…

The captain of the U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, in a blunt letter, has called on Navy leadership for stronger measures to save the lives of his sailors and stop the spread of the coronavirus aboard the huge ship.The four-page letter, the contents of which were confirmed by U.S. officials to Reuters on Tuesday, described a bleak situation on board the nuclear-powered carrier as more and more sailors test positive for the virus.The Navy puts the ship’s complement at 5…

As many markets struggle to find their footing in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic, a recent podcast with Martin Muhleisen, director of the IMF's Strategy, Policy, and Review department, helps to lend insight and perspective from the view of the International Monetary Fund.Muhleisen  said the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic will be “quite severe,” but temporary, saying that the overall good health of the world economy and high employment rates should help to provide buffers to blunt the impact“I would think that financial institutions more broadly are in a better shape than…

The Trump administration assured U.S. banks on Wednesday that they can temporarily process U.S. dollar transactions on Chinese shipping companies it had previously sanctioned for allegedly transporting oil from Iran, in a move meant to blunt the impact of the sanctions on global shipping markets.The administration slapped sanctions on Sept 25 on Dalian units of Chinese shipping company COSCO, a move that pushed global freight costs to record highs. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, said in the guidance on Wednesday it "would not expect the intermediary U.S.

From the standpoint of vehicle propulsion physics, an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) is little different from your personal ski boat or a tanker. It shares the Vessel-Propulsor-Drive system model, which allows a Propulsor to convert Drive energy into thrust for the purpose of moving a Vessel. The basic principles of thrust equilibrium and motion are common to all three, as are the translation of rotational energy into axial thrust by the central element of the system – the…

Certain ships are being ordered to reduce speed because of the deaths of at least 10 North Atlantic right whales in Canada's Gulf of St Lawrence during the past two months, the government said on Friday. The deaths have made 2017 the deadliest year for the endangered marine mammal since scientists began tracking their numbers in the 1980s, researchers said. The ministries of transport and fisheries issued a temporary order for vessels 20 meters or longer to slow to a maximum of 10 knots in the western portion of the Gulf, which stretches from Quebec to north of Prince Edward Island.

Maritime Reporter & Engineering News caught up with Frank Coles, the ubiquitous leader of Transas, fresh from his company’s user’s conference in Malta. In typical candor, Coles paints his picture of maritime and shipping’s future. With a captive audience of more than 400 clients in scenic Malta for several days earlier this year, one might be surprised when Frank Coles admits that the meeting was not all about Transas. “I wanted something completely different. I didn’t want to talk about Transas, I wanted to talk about the industry and what we can learn from aviation.

At SMM 2016 in Hamburg Maritime Reporter & Engineering News had the opportunity to sit with Remi Eriksen, the CEO of DNV GL. After his first year on the job in the top spot, Eriksen shares with MR his blunt assessment of the maritime and offshore O&G markets in the near-term, and discusses DNV GL’s role in these key markets as they re-emerge in the coming years. It has now been just more than one year since you took the top spot at DNV GL. What were your expectations and goals coming in, and how have they changed?

In the immortal words of one Kermit the Frog, “it’s not easy being green.” Nor inexpensive. Offshore ship owners managing the demand “fallout” of the past year and navigating myriad environmental strictures say their leap of faith toward greener fuels has taken its toll. The idealism of a decade ago has eroded, they say, in the face of lost offshore business, especially long-term contracts. Oil company clients that once insisted on high-spec, “green” vessels haven’t renewed contracts for those ships.

The emerging trend of marrying the design of an articulated tug and barge (ATB) to a particular propulsion system to maximize efficiencies of that system has, of late, been taking hold in workboat markets. For example, one recent project involving a dynamic partnership between Bouchard Transportation Co., Inc, Guarino & Cox, LLC (GCL) naval architects, Nautican Research & Development Ltd., integrated propulsion unit manufacturers, and VT Halter Marine shipbuilders, aptly demonstrates the concept in practice. What the collaboration produced, is even more important.

Japan has urged Australia to award a contract to build its new $50-billion submarine fleet, reports SMH. Japan, which is offering a variant of its 4,000 ton Soryu submarine, is competing against rival bids from Germany and France for the contract. Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida has delivered a blunt message to Canberra that only its bid to build Australia's new $50 billion submarine fleet can provide the crucial "strategic" element. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) chief executive Shunichi Miyanaga, the bid leader has warned of the “risk” in retro-fitting a nuclear submarine with a diesel engine as proposed by the French bid, and that scaling up a smaller design would create technical “challenges”, says a report in the Australian.

A second Poe-sized Lock is critical to the future of Michigan and the United States, declared Michigan Governor Rick Snyder in his State of the State address on January 19, and he pledged to work with Congress to build it, the Lake Carriers’ Association (LCA) reported. Gov. Snyder noted that 4,000 commercial vessels transit the locks at Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. each year, but most of the tonnage goes through the Poe Lock because it can accommodate the largest and most efficient vessels. “What would happen if that one lock went down?” the Governor continued.

A recent NOAA study, published in the journal PLOS One, shows “living shorelines” — protected and stabilized shorelines using natural materials such as plants, sand, and rock — can help to keep carbon out of the atmosphere, helping to blunt the effects of climate change. This study, the first of its kind, measured carbon storing, or “carbon sequestration,” in the coastal wetlands and the narrow, fringing marshes of living shorelines in North Carolina. “Shoreline management techniques like this can help reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere while increasing coastal resilience,” said Russell Callender, Ph.D., acting director of NOAA’s National Ocean Service. Carbon can be stored or “sequestered” in plants when they take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during photosynthesis.

Nigeria's latest effort to combat theft could imperil its oil income lifeline, compounding the damage the crude price fall has done to its finances, access to dollars and imports. Oil traders and shipping brokers said a newly implemented "letter of comfort" requirement under which vessel owners must sign a guarantee that their ships will not be used for theft has made it more difficult and expensive to load Nigerian crude, putting some buyers off. A copy of the letter draft seen by Reuters asked vessel owners to "guarantee to indemnify" the government and national oil company NNPC against any illicit use of their vessel, which led some owners to reject pending bookings. Traders say others are refusing future requests for now.