FRIDAY UPDATE - NEWS ODDS AND ENDS

Looking out for you!!

This has been a hectic week for NAUTICAL LOG because at the last moment arrangements were made for travel overseas. Next week we leave for two weeks in Ireland to visit fellow seafarers and go to Waterford, my birthplace, for the Waterford Sail Training Festival (there is a link in 'My Link List') over the weekend of June 30, to July 03, 2011.

If any readers are also going to be in Ireland and would like to meet up please leave a message:

Attention of : CAPT. D. Peter Boucher

Royal Marine Hotel
Dún Laoghaire
Co. Dublin.
From: June 22, to 25, 2011.

The Tall Ships Race Office
41 The Quay
Waterford.
or
The Granville Hotel
Waterford.
From: June 25 to July 05, 2011.

Perhaps we can meet up for a 'pint' and "Talk of many things, Ships, Sails, Sealing wax, Cabbages, Kings". Should be a fun trip and NAUTICAL LOG is quite excited going home after all these years.

The next item is the publication of STCW 2011 which we wrote about previously. Setting the requirements for coverage when training seafarers is only a step in achieving the aim, that is to make these people into seamen. The fact is that the training can only be as good as the Instructor. If you are an Instructor you MUST absolutely follow STCW 2011, make sure each and every student clearly understands the subject matter. It may well be that some will have difficulties, remember not all of us have the advantage of a good education. Also your students will have differing levels of comprehension and processing the data you are teaching. It is NOT the students duty to understand you - you MUST understand your students - find a way to make sure they know the class material. As an example NAUTICAL LOG in one cruise ship alone trained 600 seafarers of 35 nationalities, speaking 8 languages and while the ships working language was English it had 600 different levels of usage and understanding !!

USACE Potter

Here in the United States the U.S.Army Corps. of Engineers (USACE) has been charged with maintaining the inland waters of the country since the War Between the States also known as the Civil War. In the 1930's a series of dredges were built known as 'dustpan' dredges to accomplish this mission. The USACE Potter is 79 years old and like NAUTICAL LOG still going strong and doing the job it was made for !! She works on the Upper Mississippi River.

Good Watch

Please remember the seafarers held captive by pirates off Somalia. Frankly NAUTICAL LOG is beginning to lose faith that anything very much is being done for them. Someone out there in the maritime world please prove me wrong!!

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CYCLONES AND SENTINELS

USCG Sentinel-class which are based on the Netherlands Damen Stan-class USCGC opened hull view USCG Sentinel-class interior layout USN Cyclone-class In the NAUTICAL LOG Press Release folder comes news of Bollinger Shipyards in Lockport, LA. The United States Coast Guard has awarded a $166.1 million option to start production of four ' Sentinel-class' Fast Response Cutters (FRCs). This latest award brings a total of eight FRCs under production at Bollinger with a value of $410.7 million. The current FRC contract contains options for up to 34 cutters and is worth $1.5 billion if they are all exercised. Recently the United States Navy limited operation of its 'Cyclone-class' coastal patrol boats stationed in Bahrain and Norfolk, VA. Any vessel operation would depend on sea state and speed restrictions. This was due to structural damage as the vessels reach the 15 year mark which is considered close to the operational limit. This is apparently not a design fault but ...

PAINT LOCKER FIRES

The photographs above are revealing in several ways, lets have a look. Clearly the Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force (JMSDF) vessel JS "Kurama" impacted the Korean container ship MS "Carina Star" just aft of the turn of the fo'cs'le on the Starboard side. Please note that's the Starboard side, thus it appears JS "Kurama" would have shown "Carina Star" the red port sidelight and "Carina Star" would have shown JS "Kurama" the green starboard sidelight. This impact point would tend to suggest that JS "Kurama" was the 'stand-on' vessel and the MS "Carina Star" is the 'giving-way' vessel. Until there is a complete plot of the tracks made good of both these vessels and the position in the Kanmon Strait of the point of collision no determination can actually be made. As a result of this impact there was severe bow damage to JS "Kurama" and in addition a massive f...

LISTING SHIPS

MS Herald of Free Enterprise WSF Chetzemoka A FINAL WORD: Sunday, November 21, 2010. Between this Blog and comments in other maritime blogs we have pretty much discussed this vessel's issues fully. In fact we have beaten them to death!! The sad truth is that this is a politically operated ferry system to serve the public in the State of Washington. Being politicians they were able to convince another highly political federal agency, namely our USCG, to bend to their will. Nothing will be changed in this vessel and any further building will be done in the same way with the same results. The only possible change could be through the ballot box to replace those politicians and proceeding from there. So potential passengers may we suggest that prior to embarking you carefully check the current weather report. NAUTICAL LOG has been informed that the crossing is only 30 minutes and so doors are not an issue. We disagree and would refer you to the MS Herald of Free Enterprise ferry a...

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