Anyone Interested in Ships

[jjb1970]

On Prima, for anyone who likes Singaporean curry noodles and laksa I'd recommend Prima instant noodles. They're sold by Chinese supermarkets in Britain, and I suspect the usual big online retailers will sell them. The noodles are nothing special (though not bad either) but the soup is excellent and really does taste like a proper curry or laksa soup. They're excellent if you just want an easy meal.

[Schooner]

Now you're talking @jjb1970! Raises an immediate quandry, tho:

Edited April 27, 2023 by Schooner
Simples

[St Enodoc]

2 minutes ago, Schooner said:

Now you're talking @jjb1970! Raises an immediate quandry, tho:

 

or

 

?!

Chilli crab every time. If you're not in Singers, Prima is the next best option (usual disclaimer).

[jjb1970]

I like the curry and laksa, but they're all excellent, they really are a step above most instant noodles. Not the cheapest, but properly good.

[KeithMacdonald]

For those that like 1950s ships in Southampton

 

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

I take no pleasure in reporting this.

 

Quote

UK's broken-down £3bn warship HMS Prince of Wales stripped for parts ~ Items from aircraft carrier, whose proposed visit to US was cancelled last year after mechanical failure, used to repair sister vessel

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/23/3bn-warship-hms-prince-of-wales-stripped-for-parts/

[J. S. Bach]

At first, I read and thought that that must have hurt the Prince a bit; a couple of fingers, a foot, a hand?  🥸 Sorry but my mind was somewhere else at the time.

[johnofwessex]

18 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

For those that like 1950s ships in Southampton

 

 

 

 

Thanks.

 

I note that the sailors on the Queen Elizabeth were wearing 'square rig'

 

How common was this or was it confined to the higher end passenger liners and Trinity House?

 

Also when did it end?

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

Sensitive submarine documents found in Wetherspoons pub.

 

When interviewed, the documents said:

"Oh, my dear, I've never been so offended. The shame of it all, and in a public place too! It was an outrage, an absolute disaster darling."

 

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/sensitive-submarine-documents-found-wetherspoons-pub/

[Bon Accord]

On 29/04/2023 at 23:50, KeithMacdonald said:

For those that like 1950s ships in Southampton

 

 

 

 

An excellent film - as per usual BTF standards - and in such good quality too.

Sadly it only demonstrates what we've lost; every ship and tug in that film was built here, was owned here, registered here and crewed by our own people. All now gone and never to return.

For the eagle eyed it did also show the difference in uniforms; Cunard with their original plain stripes and not the faux (Americanised) Norwegian nonsense they use now, UCL (aka the Lavender Hull Mob) had at that time standard MN uniform i.e. diamonds (this before the Clan Line merger in '56) whilst Royal Mail Line had retained their own uniform livery in that instead of diamonds and stripes they used gold braid chevrons to denote rank.

[Bon Accord]

6 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

 

Thanks.

 

I note that the sailors on the Queen Elizabeth were wearing 'square rig'

 

How common was this or was it confined to the higher end passenger liners and Trinity House?

 

Also when did it end?

 

 

 

Square rig or variants thereof was common enough in most companies which carried passengers, in the cargo companies whose ships carried the regulatory maximum 12 pax it often was only used by the Quartermasters as they manned the gangway in port.

In the wider scheme sometimes it only extended to the pork pie hat but was usually accompanied by a company issue navy blue jumper. In that vein it was popular amongst the ferry companies of the day and finally died out in the wholesale sense in the 1970s.

 

[jjb1970]

On 30/04/2023 at 19:09, KeithMacdonald said:

I take no pleasure in reporting this.

 

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/23/3bn-warship-hms-prince-of-wales-stripped-for-parts/

 

That's the way the RN (and in fairness many other navies) work. Ships laid up or not on active deployment become donors for ships on active deployment. The rule of thumb is 3:1, if you want something like a frigate to be on active duty at all times then you need three of them in the fleet, one of which will be in extended lay up or refit. 

 

Recent events indicate it is not just naval vessels, much of the NATO tank fleet also appears to have been used as spare parts donors for those tanks with active units meaning that the number of useful vehicles is nothing like as impressive as tank park figures might suggest. It's especially problematic for Leopard 2 operators as it seems spare parts support is not ideal.

[Pacific231G]

On 29/04/2023 at 23:50, KeithMacdonald said:

For those that like 1950s ships in Southampton

 

 

 

Thanks Keith. That's an excellent find and really well transferred to 4K.

I worked for the BBC in Southampton through most of the 1980s and a little of that atmosphere was still there with fairly regular boat trains for the QE2 etc. passing by our studios. The odd thing about Southampton though was that, unless you had business there (which I sometimes did), the city was almost completely walled off from the port and there were very few places, apart from Mayflower park and the Hythe and IofW ferries  where you could actually watch shipping activity. Nowadays the port handles far more passengers than it ever did in the days of the great liners. Unfortunately most of them now come by car not boat train so the main roads tend to seize up every time there are several cruise ships in at once.

 

I was curious about the Calshot as it was clearly far more than a harbour tug and looked to have had passenger accomodation. I've now discovered that she was a historic ship built in 1929 for Red Funnel (who operate the IofW ferries) and a rare survivor of a Tug/Tender. There are even photos of her working the RMS Olympic I think as a tug. Tenders transferred passengers to and from liners at intermediate ports so they didn't need to dock. I wasn't aware though that much of that ever went on at Southampton but perhaps lines like Holland-America did.     Sadly, having deteriorated badly, efforts to restore the Calshot failed and it was broken up last year. 

[The Johnster]

American friends who visited our family in 1961 came over on the Bremen, and were put ashore at Soton by tender, though I don’t think it was Calshot.  Tenders were also used for mails. 

 

The Plymouth Ocean Liner mail traffic that was featured in CoT’s 1904 100mph run was landed at Plymouth by tender; no liners actually berthed there.  The LSWR took the passenger traffic. 

[Johann Marsbar]

Peel, Isle of Man, yesterday evening......

 

[KeithMacdonald]

• First we laughed at Village People and "YMCA" in 1978 (and enjoy a sing-along karaoke)...
• Then we chortled at their follow-up "In The Navy" in 1979...
• But now folks, by popular demand in 2020, the US Navy brings you the "Digital Ambassador” ...

 

Quote

The Navy brought on an active-duty drag queen to participate in a pilot program aimed at reaching a wider audience through popular social media platforms as the military faces severe recruiting woes, a Navy spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

 

https://dailycaller.com/2023/05/01/us-navy-drag-queen-recruitment/

 

How can the Royal Navy compete?

 

 

 

 

[jjb1970]

When I left school it was quite difficult to join the RN, or rather it may be better to say the requirements were rigorous.

 

My RN career didn't last a visit to the local careers office (remember when each of the three services had their own dedicated careers offices in large towns and cities?) and got told off for wasting their time. I was asked what I wanted to do and I replied engineering. What type of engineering, we have lots of engineers- an engineer on a ship. At that point the old PO running the office kind of exploded and told me he couldn't tell me what I wanted to do, I had to figure out what I wanted in life blah blah blah, surely the whole point of his job was to explain what engineering branches they had and to guide young people through the options to help them decide what was the best pathway?

 

At any rate I was offered a cadetship by P&O Containers at the same time and went that way, I occasional wonder how life might have worked out if I'd gone into the RN, whatever we might say the quality of their technical education and training is first class. My kids are of an age where they'll be doing GCSEs soon and thinking about life after school. I'd be quite happy if they told me they wanted to join the navy or air force as both offer excellent technical training and develop skills that are very useful outside the services. I'm not sure about the Army, over the last 30 years or so politicians of each party have viewed the British Army as a sort of train set to play with. I'd not want to risk my kids being sent to somewhere like Afghanistan or Iraq to face IEDs etc (and in saying that I have no right to expect anyone else's kids to face the same).

Edited May 4, 2023 by jjb1970

[jjb1970]

Two of my former employers finest anchored off marina south pier, Singapore.

 

[J. S. Bach]

What are they? They are the most "unbalanced" ships that I have ever seen. Almost like some removed the aft two-thirds and left the rest.

[jjb1970]

3 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

What are they? They are the most "unbalanced" ships that I have ever seen. Almost like some removed the aft two-thirds and left the rest.

 

They're anchor handling tug supply ships (AHTSS). They tow oil rigs and big things, position them and deploy their mooring systems. They also carry supplies (as well as deck cargo they have tanks for oil, fresh water, drilling fluids and mud, and silos for powdered bulk). I'm a bit rusty but they look like M class, 23,000BHP, DP2 (dynamic positioning with redundancy) and huge winches for working in deep water. Not the best looking vessels but technically impressive, very capable and with a lot of tech on-board.

[Schooner]

 

On 31/03/2023 at 11:23, KeithMacdonald said:

As though these ships will be ghost pirate ships, crashing into other ships, or spewing oil, or something like Exxon Valdez in the Waterworld film, with an apocalyptic ending.

 

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/an-oil-tanker-ablaze-in-the-south-china-sea-is-a-global-problem

 

...?

 

On why the 'dark' bit of the 'dark fleet' matters:

"But for the nearby maritime authorities, the headache has just begun. There is little evidence of the owner, a Marshall Islands-registered company whose fleet contains no other ships, and no trace of insurance. Both are vital for a clean-up to begin."

 

On 31/03/2023 at 11:23, KeithMacdonald said:

FearPorn

...?

[billbedford]

4 hours ago, Schooner said:

On why the 'dark' bit of the 'dark fleet' matters:

"But for the nearby maritime authorities, the headache has just begun. There is little evidence of the owner, a Marshall Islands-registered company whose fleet contains no other ships, and no trace of insurance. Both are vital for a clean-up to begin."

 

It shows the consequences of countries attempting to sanction third-party trade

[jjb1970]

It's a slightly odd article, what relevance does the Paris MoU have for an African registered ship in the South China Sea? The Paris MoU is concerned with Port State Control in Europe, the South China Sea is thousands of miles from the Paris MoU area. The relevant PSC MoU is the Tokyo MoU. Even the Tokyo MoU is only relevant for port state control. A glaring omission is no mention of the IOPC Funds, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia are all parties to the IOPC. So is Gabon.  Insurance for oil spills is already a legal requirement, if the ship is not compliant with the requirements of the MARPOL Convention (another omission) then affected states need to follow it up with Flag State (Gabon). Sub-standard are a real problem, which is why the PSC MoUs exist but this article mixes up all sorts of things and omits a few key things. Given the importance of shipping to Singapore I'd expect a bit more effort from the Straits Times, even if the article is syndicated from Bloomberg.

[Schooner]

That's a staggering combined takeaway from an explosion on an unregulated and uninsured tanker that killed three seafarers.

 

I thought bringing a non-subscription (if non-trade, granted) article to the attention of those here might have been of interest, as it demonstrates that ex-scrap sub-standard opaquely-owned ships are particularly dangerous and helps to explain why. This might have been of use as previously some seemed to struggle with the concept.

 

I don't know how many readers here just like looking at pictures of cruise ships and how many have spent careers at sea or in shipping, so very briefly:

• Maritime legislation almost entirely arrives on the back of owners losing lots of money; governments having to pay lots of money to relieve environmental disasters; too many people dying too publically (crucially the latter, which can also be rather expensive).
• Very roughly, this legislation is international (from UN, via the IMO, like your human rights), national (Flag state, like your citizenship but for a vessel) or local (Port state, like local laws and norms when you're on holiday). As an individual, you have rights under all three in return for which you are responsible to all three.
• responsibility for complying with legislation lies with the owner.
• responsibility for enforcing compliance lies with the Flag state.
• responsibility for checking compliance lies with the Port state.

Vessels which do not comply with the legislation, and whose ersatz owners can not be held responsible, thereby comply with practices which have almost universally already proven lethal. They do so in order that their owners may extract illegal profits from illicit and/or illegal trades. Those who are harmed as a result have little or no recourse to compensation or, crucially, protection from future harm or improvement of their condition. I'll let you draw your own moral comparisons.

 

A good railway analogy shouldn't be beyond us, either.

 

So, on that basis what I find really odd is using mention of international* legislation specifically designed to "...eliminate the operation of sub-standard ships...ensuring that these ships meet international safety, security and environmental standards, and that crew members have adequate living and working conditions." to dismiss an article reporting the dangers of...erm...sub-standard ships, which fail to meet international safety, security and environmental standards and present lethal conditions to their crew and maritime communities.

 

*Paris MoU unites 27 nations covering the seaboard of the European and North American continents; Canada is also one of the 21 members of the Tokyo MoU. The idea is to bring trading areas within a more unified, and so effective, compliance framework. Perhaps we can think of it as a unified body of regional Constabularies.

 

I could note that the article states the explosion could've been much worse if the tanker had been loaded. Of course it couldn't. Had it been loaded there would have been no explosion. But to do so would be pointless. Same with pointing out all the other online-journalism-isms.

 

I had thought the point was obvious: decent public information, like the BBC series, regarding the 450-odd such vessels which fail IMO, Flag and Port compliance to trade illegally is not "FearPorn" but a step toward explaining why such practices are big-boy dangerous and why compliance is important to a public which has near-0 visibility of the maritime world.

 

I'm ashamed that the majority of respondents think lethal working environments in contradiction of international law is excusable.

[KeithMacdonald]

1 hour ago, Schooner said:

I could note that the article states the explosion could've been much worse if the tanker had been loaded. Of course it couldn't. Had it been loaded there would have been no explosion.

 

Of course, exactly right.

 

1 hour ago, Schooner said:

But to do so would be pointless. Same with pointing out all the other online-journalism-isms.

 

Correct. So, we should wonder, why the "journalism-isms" when the author(s) should and could have known better?

 

1 hour ago, Schooner said:

I had thought the point was obvious: decent public information, like the BBC series, regarding the 450-odd such vessels which fail IMO, Flag and Port compliance to trade illegally is not "FearPorn" but a step toward explaining why such practices are big-boy dangerous and why compliance is important to a public which has near-0 visibility of the maritime world.

 

The BBC series was entertaining (for a UK audience) but near-zero importance in actually improving the situation. People in the UK have a great deal of hubris. Thinking the UK is still of any major importance in terms of worldwide shipping. In fact, the UK is a minor league player these days, on the fringes of the current major trade routes.

 

1 hour ago, Schooner said:

I'm ashamed that the majority of respondents think lethal working environments in contradiction of international law is excusable.

 

I'm ashamed you have jumped to conclusions. Where did we say it was excusable?