At this time of the year NAUTICAL LOG usually looks at the Posts of the past year, the reaction to them and about next year. We will continue to publish and yes we will perhaps be even more aggressive in viewing the maritime world. We shall be looking for websites and subject matter for Posts that are educational in Nautical Science. NAUTICAL LOG feels that seamanship has died and automation taken over to the point of largely unskilled in traditional seamanship officers and crew on the Bridges of all vessels. It seems that most cannot steer a ship in an emergency and cannot properly plot positions on a navigation chart using traditional methods or work sights to check on all that automation. The cruise line vessels in particular are at fault here as observed and quietly reported by Port Pilots as well as other qualified seafarers. Then we have the disgraceful behaviour of the United States Navy which is suspending its Admirals and firing its lower ranked Officers (so-called) every week.
This year we got rather few comments about the various Posts except for a virtual flood of anonymous comments which as we clearly state in our header we do not publish. One has to wonder why persons bother wasting their time doing this but then who cares it is their time not ours as these anonymous comments now get automatically erased. Also our comments to other maritime Blogs are now often ignored so fine we shall not be doing much of that next year instead we will express ourselves in our own Posts on the subject matter and identify the particular maritime Blog so our readers may visit and see it for themselves. This should gradually raise the overall standard of us all not to just be maritime gossip columns but something worthwhile to the maritime industry both professional and recreational. The industry needs all the practical help it can get as it is swamped by rules and regulations which are largely pointless but put in place because of lawsuits, lawyers and misinformed court decisions.
There is an animated strip in this mornings Old Salt Blog which shows the remains of the sailing vessel City of Adelaide being loaded on a heavy lift ship for transportation from England to Australia. There has been quite a saga with this old sailing ship and one has to wonder if the whole affair has been worth it.
From the animated video - which NAUTICAL LOG will not repeat here as it can be seen on Old Salt Blog - it would seem the saga continues. The whole loading operation as shown seems very cumbersome and one has to wonder from a seamanship point of view why this loading procedure was chosen.
First some background NAUTICAL LOG has sailed as a Deck Officer in heavy lift capable ships and we carried two locomotives of 100 tons each with their two tenders of 65 tons each on voyages from Beaumont,TX to Newcastle, NSW in the 1960's. So one has some experience in rigging out and lifting heavy lifts using specialized heavy lift cargo booms fitted on the ships centerline.
The vessel involved in the video is described as the MV Palanpur is shown with two cranes fitted on the port side. The sailing vessel is shown being lifted over the port side and wriggled awkwardly in between these two cranes a heart stopping business to final stowage on the vessels centerline. It would seem to NAUTICAL LOG that the operation would have been simpler and more seamanlike if the City of Adelaide had been lifted cleanly over the starboard side to the centerline stowage position. One has to wonder why not?
Good Watch.
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