NAUTICAL LOG

Tucson, Arizona 1909 For all writers of Blogs and others involved in 'The Media' today is a sobering one after the tragic event in Tucson, Arizona. Most if not all publishers of Blogs receive comments, some Blogs generate more than others due to their subject matter or in response to a particular article posted in them. All of us have received what NAUTICAL LOG chooses to describe as 'intemperate comments'. We are then faced with a decision to make because our U.S. Constitution allows, indeed guarantees, freedom of speech. This freedom of speech however goes together with something that is too often overlooked, that of responsibility in the society of a democratic republic. Here at NAUTICAL LOG we deal with that responsibility by a short statement under our Blog title. Secondly all comments come into our e-mail site and are read prior to being released for publishing. There are two principle sources for the meaning of Arizona, one comes from the O'odham language ...

In the SSCS Press Release this morning came news of an interesting new tactic by the MS Gojira the use of weather balloons. Also we have a new term in use by the SSCS that of "harpo on hooligans" which NAUTICAL LOG really wishes we had thought that one up. But we shall be using it along with "nautical thugs" in our fair and balanced posting describing this seasons whaling and anti-whaling activities. Anyway lets get back to those balloons. The SSCS are using high altitude weather balloons with cameras attached and radar detection capabilities. If this tactic is successful it will increase the surveillance range to about 150 nautical miles. When the JWF use their radars, which operate continuously when underway at sea, the factory ship MS Nisshin Maru with her powerful longer range radar signal will be detected. From this data a position plot can be worked out and the JWF factory ship tracked from a distance. The MS Gojira is not currently under surveillance by ...

In various Press Releases which arrived on the NAUTICAL LOG desk this morning comes news from both SSCS and JWF regarding the same incidents that took place over the last couple of days. According to the JWF version the MS Gojira came close alongside and deployed a wire rope in an attempt to foul the propeller of the MS Yushin Maru #2 . Now the Japanese must know as seamen that when underway at speed it is not easy to foul a ships propeller with a wire rope, regular rope would likely be more effective. Perhaps it was just a rope rope no wire - whatever. On the SSCS side our contact in the fleet says that in actual fact they did not deploy any rope and just gave that impression to have the MS Yushin Maru #2 alter her course - which it appears she did. This is the second confrontation which is all designed to prevent the JWF to catch whales and as such may be considered effective. However what is the factory ship MS Nisshin Maru, which is in company with a catcher vessel MS Yushin M...

With all the recent turmoil in the United States Navy we at NAUTICAL LOG got thinking about the Command situations. It is sadly concerning to read of the latest Commanding Officer being relieved of Command. This time it is for some rather crude humour home made videos which from some extraordinary point of view he considered as being " morale boosters" . In another maritime blog Old Salt Blog there were many comments, most supportive, to a post on this incident of the fly-boy top gun captain when he was an XO. Also NAUTICAL LOG was told there are thousands of support entries on a Facebook page however since we do not follow Facebook we have no personal knowledge of this statement. From the comments to the post we are told amongst other points that the average age of crew in the USS Enterprise is 20 years of age, a fact that we were somewhat shocked by. It appears that the XO thought that his tacky videos would act as a " morale booster" to these 20 year old ki...

On behalf of: Celia Hawson Customer Insight Coordinator Maritime and Coastguard Agency Southampton UK. Those of you who access the MCA "M" Notices may like to partake in a very short survey of five (5) questions. The UK MCA intent to phase out the paper subscriptions as most subscribers opt for electronic service. The survey will close on January 21, 2011. To access this survey the link is: http://feedback.mcga.gov.uk/v.asp?i=29881sflkn Thank you and Good Watch.

Well the hope that 2011 might bring some different tactics in the anti-whaling conflict did not last long! Here we are on New Year's morning ( with a nice clear head! ) and already the nautical thuggery has restarted. The JWF did not, of course, decide to turn northwards and head home so according to SSCS Pirate Group Gojira Captain Locky MacLean ( to whom we have sent an advisory e-mail ). We quote: "What an awesome way to begin the New Year. Our three vessels dancing dangerously through the ice packs locked in confrontation with three harpoon vessels of the Japanese Whaling Fleet. it was both deadly and beautiful. Deadly because of the ice and the fact that these three killer ships are not killing whales while clashing with us". The three JWF vessels are MS Yushin Maru, MS Yushin Maru #2, and MS Yushin Maru #3. They had attempted to block, according to MacLean, the Pirate Group's pursuit of the factory ship MS Nisshin Maru. However that may be the JWF intent...

Continuing our series with Alert 10(b) -10 Simple failures render CO2 system inoperative. However before doing so we should like to draw your attention to the Supplement Note from TSB Canada in the previous post of this series. It refers to another incident all too similar to the incident we are covering here. On further investigation of the MS Carnival Splendor CO2 system the following points saw the light of day. Clearly for the first time by either the ships Safety Officers or the USCG Marine Safety Officers. We quote from Alert 10(b)-10: "Numerous piping and hose connections leaked extensively. When the system was activated, on scene video taken by the firefighters showed numerous leakages into the CO2 room. Post casualty while the pressure was still on the system, some of the leaks continued even after the connections were tightened." "The zone valve for the aft machinery space which admits CO2 from the bottle bank manifold to the space failed. Specifically the b...