NAUTICAL LOG

 Arlington National Cemetery This is the Day we should and do remember the members of the Armed Forces who gave their lives for us.  Growing up in Europe during the Second World War these sacrifices have always been part  of the NAUTICAL LOG education.  All the Senior Merchant Navy Officers who trained me as a Deck Apprentice and Junior Watchofficer had served at sea during WW2 and several had been wounded, sunk in convoy or seen similar action.  These incidents had left their mark and quite a few would not have been cleared for sea duty today.  It is not something one forgets too easily. This is also a good time to remember the seafarers held captive by pirates off Somalia, let us work with the maritime interests and others who are trying to free them.  The hours of meetings that have been held, the volumes of paperwork generated, have produced results which frankly are pathetic - but one lives in hope. So enjoy b...

Within the last couple of weeks some very disturbing information about seafarers shore-leave came across the NAUTICAL LOG desk.  With vessels spending so little time in Ports these days and the Ports themselves particularly container berths being so remote it is difficult to grant shore-leave.  When one discovers it is actually forbidden to certain ethnic groups of seafarers in certain countries then it becomes a humanitarian issue.  This type of second-class treatment of seafarers is absolutely guaranteed to rattle the NAUTICAL LOG cage!! So what is the actual problem?  It seems that countries are taking it upon themselves to refuse entry, transfer of crews, shore leave, and exit if the seafarer holds Seaman's Papers issued by certain countries.  The data received by NAUTICAL LOG referred to Philippine Seaman's Papers and Brazil.  Brazilian Immigration Authorities have issued a Directive enforceable in all Brazilian Ports that states seafar...

Well NAUTICAL LOG  has some thoughts with May ending, wedding anniversary #42 on May 31, and living in South Florida the hurricane season starting.  Already getting weather reports from the National Hurricane Center they are advisories about North Atlantic Tropical Zone formations.  This weekend will see the checking of the 'Emergency Equipment Box', making sure our accordion hurricane shutters are running freely, getting the porch windows and screen door panels down from the storage shelves handy in the garage.  This is an annual requirement and becomes a routine each season from June to November. We had our piracy piece already earlier this week so can give that a rest after all its mostly talk and paper anyway.  We were looking at various ship photos recently and the contrasts between the older and newer vessels are quite striking.  That got  NAUTICAL LOG  thinking are designs and paint schemes done for a purpose or as a marketing an...

General Ratko Mladic in 1990's  Ratko Mladic in court today A Dutch dilemma looms now that Ratko Mladic has finally been arrested by Serbian authorities.  These same authorities knew where he was in the village of Lazarevo, Serbia just as the Pakistanis knew of the Osama Bin Laden residence.   Serbia wants to join the European Union and one of the conditions was the arrest for trial of Mladic.  Ratko Mladic committed many war crimes as a Bosnian Serb General however he is best known for the massacre at Srebrenica.  It is an appalling affair and complicated by the surrender to him of the Dutch Forces charged with the protection of the Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica.  Dutch troops under a UN flag failed to protect the Muslims in 1995, their commander was videoed accepting drinks and gifts from Mladic.  As a result the Mladic Forces then massacred 8000 male Bosnian Serbs males of all ages, raped and murdered the females of all ages and pillage...

MS Brigitte Bardot MS Brigitte Bardot, of  Fremantle , Australia et la marque  La marque  We thought about this as a Post and even as NAUTICAL LOG shudders we decided it was just too good to miss.  The infamous MS Gojira is now the equally infamous MS Brigitte Bardot - we kid you not !!  It is not entirely clear which Flag State has accepted registry, NAUTICAL LOG doubts it is France.  The AMSA now confirms that the MS Brigitte Bardot is registered in Australia, it is listed as a pleasure craft homeported in Fremantle, Western Australia. Once again that nautical con-artist has done it and played on the egos of movie stars, albeit somewhat fading now.   Brigitte Bardot (76)  He has got the Foundation Brigitte Bardot which being French saves wildlife with rather extreme Right-Wing politics (Front National, FN ) to acquire the trimaran and in return named it after her.  It is a tried and true method that he has used...

Once again from one of our European Union correspondents we received news of Piracy.  The banner title this time was "Navies must be given the power to immobilise pirate motherships".   To quote from the article:   "Leading shipowners have called for navies to be given a firm mandate to immobilise pirate motherships used to launch attacks on commercial shipping vessels". Both the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and the International Shipping Federation (ISF) agree by doing this the attacks would be pushed back to the littoral area of East Africa particularly Somalia.  Finally fellow seafarers the maritime powers that be realise that it makes no sense to capture and release pirates to attack another day.  In a joint ICS-ISF statement again we quote: "Members were also extremely critical of the lack of domestic legislation in many nations - including any offence of 'intent to commit piracy'  which led to the absurd situation that pirate...

From time to time NAUTICAL LOG   has found it necessary to remind our readers of the purpose of this maritime blog.  Usually this becomes necessary because of comments we receive and the content of those comments.  Just recently we received some beauties and incredibly ignorant - at least from our point of view. In the header statement we clearly lay out the purpose of this Blog, what we write about and our rules for publishing comments.  The Blog is written to express our viewpoint on maritime affairs and on occasions world events.  While comments are welcomed this is not a Blog where persons can vent their frustration with life.  If things are too much for you - get help - but not from us.  We are seafarers and have had to put up with more bovine scatology than non-seafarers can possibly imagine. If you do not like the content of the Posts we write and opinions expressed - tough !  The a...