Anyone Interested in Ships

[drmditch]

On 28/03/2023 at 10:36, jjb1970 said:

It's positive that more naval users are admitting the sensible thing is just to buy off the shelf offshore vessels for sub-sea and dive support work rather than trying to re-invent wheels and ending up with much more expensive, less capable ships.

Might there be issues of durability,  compartmentation, flooding control, electrical continuity, robust systems, resistance to battle damage etc

 

 

 

 

 

[The Johnster]

Wouldn't have thought that a dive support vessel had much of a combat role, but I'm not any sort of expert in such matters.  How often would one expect such a ship to be under attack from an enemy in wartime without it being escorted by frigates or destroyers capable of shielding it from such attack?

[KeithMacdonald]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

Wouldn't have thought that a dive support vessel had much of a combat role, but I'm not any sort of expert in such matters.  How often would one expect such a ship to be under attack from an enemy in wartime without it being escorted by frigates or destroyers capable of shielding it from such attack?

 

They come in handy if you wanted to do something that needs specialist divers and equipment. Like, perhaps, "inspect" an underwater gas pipeline. We've got some like that.

 

Quote

Proteus will be dedicated to safeguarding critical seabed infrastructure and will act as a ‘mother ship’, operating remote and autonomous off-board systems for underwater surveillance and seabed warfare. ... A ‘moon pool’ – a vertical shaft in the centre of the vessel provides a sheltered way for robot submersibles to be launched or recovered in high sea states... Spurred by the serious threat of Russian interference with subsea assets, the MoD has been scrambling to put this project together in a short time frame.

 

https://www.navylookout.com/uk-purchases-commercial-vessel-for-conversion-to-ocean-surveillance-ship/

[KeithMacdonald]

Depressing reading?

 

Quote

Crewless container ships appear on the horizon

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64875319

[Schooner]

24 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Depressing reading?

The reverse, surely?

 

Safer, faster, greener, cheaper shipping takes another small step from the future to the present. Viva la revalution!

[jjb1970]

6 hours ago, drmditch said:

Might there be issues of durability,  compartmentation, flooding control, electrical continuity, robust systems, resistance to battle damage etc

 

 

 

 

 

 

Topaz Tangaroa was DP2 meaning her machinery and propulsion systems can maintain position in the event of a machinery failure with automatic changeover. Meaning there is a high degree of redundancy and resilience. Whether the MoD will maintain that certification I don't know but it would seem silly not to.

 

This is not a warship, it's a light construction vessel which the RFA will use for subsea work, no doubt it will carry small arms and they might fit canon or something but even if built as a purpose built military ship it wouldn't be designed as a combat ship with the sort of radar, combat system and weapons to operate as a warship.

 

The last time the MoD bought a ship for this role was HMS Challenger which was basically an unarmed dive support vessel much closer to commercial offshore vessels than warships. Unfortunately it wasn't especially good compared to designs they could have bought off the shelf. The irony was that RFA Dilligence was a very advanced DSV at that time and was basically a floating workshop.

[jjb1970]

RCL Spectrum of the Seas in Singapore. This is the first time I have ever seen her on this side of the cruise terminal, and the first time I've seen her stern first, cruise ships normally enter Singapore cruise terminal bow first.

 

 

[jjb1970]

10 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Depressing reading?

 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64875319

 

At the risk of sounding cynical this is another article in which a news provider basically regurgitates what it has been fed by someone else. Usually it is from NGOs in the case of the BBC but in this case it's technology providers.

 

There's a good case for increasing automation and autonomy on ships but there's also a lot of oversell.

 

The article doesn't help it's credibility by including a statement that the current regulatory regime is based on a presumption that equipment is manually controlled. Ships machinery and systems have been operated unattended and controlled by computer systems for decades. The deck side has had auto-pilots for at least as long, dynamic positioning in which the ships position control is in a computer system goes back many decades, automated radar plotting assistance etc.

 

China is also testing an autonomous container ship. 

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

dynamic positioning in which the ships position control is in a computer system

A good friend ran an outfit called The Dynamic Positioning Centre. I told him the name reminded me of my rugby days...

Edited March 30, 2023 by St Enodoc

[WessexEclectic]

8 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

There's a good case for increasing automation and autonomy on ships but there's also a lot of oversell.

 

Maybe the crews could be centralised in 'Regional Operating Centers' (ROCs)?

 

Wait, I've heard of that somewhere else....

[BR traction instructor]

An ongoing quiet spell at Silloth…sole occupant of the dock today was the ABP dredger Furness Abbey…

 

BeRTIe

[J. S. Bach]

On 30/03/2023 at 00:45, jjb1970 said:

RCL Spectrum of the Seas in Singapore. This is the first time I have ever seen her on this side of the cruise terminal, and the first time I've seen her stern first, cruise ships normally enter Singapore cruise terminal bow first.

That has got to be one of the, if not the ugliest, piece of ship that I have seen in a long time! I am glad that I was not siting down to eat when I saw that; now for some visual memory bleach!

 

Edited March 31, 2023 by J. S. Bach
To do a minor edit.

[New Haven Neil]

I seriously wonder how they would evacuate a vessel like that.  No way would I sail on that, as an officer or a passenger.

[The Johnster]

I think the brutal truth is that, if the sh*t hits the fan and a passenger ship has to be evacuated quickly, then you are in the lap of the gods.  If the situation develops faster than the evacuation procedure can be accomplished, you cannot possibly get everbody off safely.  As an example, Lusitania sank completely within about eighteen minutes of being torpedoed, and her list to starboard made getting lifeboats away very difficult.  Panic worsened the situation, but even in the best possible outcome of that scenario, many people would have died.

 

Another example would be Costa Concordia; without discussing the actions of the captain of that ship, the accident unfolded very quickly and it was more luck than judgement that ther e were not a much larger number of injuries and deaths.  In the cases of Herald of Free Enterprise and Estonia, disaster overtook the ships too quickly for any evacuation proceedure to have made much difference in any case. 

 

In these sorts of circumstances, all you can do is your best, and it may be argued that the sheer size of a ship like Spectrum of the Seas and similar very big cruise vessels means that they are less likely to be involved in circumstances where they will sink very quickly.  The laws of chance do not recognise such thinking, though, and it is still therefore necessary to conduct drills and familiarise the passengers with the procedures.  It is inevitable that a collision, grounding, or fire will happen on a big cruise liner at some time and lives will be lost, perhaps in large numbers.  A common complaint from the Costa Concordia was that passengers were told to stay where they were rather than muster at the boat stations, and were somewhat left to their own devices.  It is important that officers and crews appreciate the importance of impressing urgency on passengers to muster at boat stations and don lifejackets, and my view is that much more needs to be done in order to establish and practice the chains of command and actions necessary to achieve this.

 

 

[Pacific231G]

There is a programme coming up on 4th April on BBC World Service that looks interesting

Deep Waters: Sanctions and the new 'dark' fleet

"Will the new "dark" fleet of secretive tankers carrying sanctioned Russian oil cause a shipping disaster?"

more here.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct5f3d

[peach james]

On 28/03/2023 at 02:36, jjb1970 said:

It's positive that more naval users are admitting the sensible thing is just to buy off the shelf offshore vessels for sub-sea and dive support work rather than trying to re-invent wheels and ending up with much more expensive, less capable ships.

There is some very substantial overlap between the various us based oceanography institutes and the USN…see Dr Craven’s book for some of the details.

 

[KeithMacdonald]

10 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

There is a programme coming up on 4th April on BBC World Service that looks interesting

Deep Waters: Sanctions and the new 'dark' fleet

"Will the new "dark" fleet of secretive tankers carrying sanctioned Russian oil cause a shipping disaster?"

more here.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct5f3d

 

Hmm, smells like more FearPorn. Anything touched by the "Russian" label must be bad. 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.

[johnofwessex]

17 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I think the brutal truth is that, if the sh*t hits the fan and a passenger ship has to be evacuated quickly, then you are in the lap of the gods.  If the situation develops faster than the evacuation procedure can be accomplished, you cannot possibly get everbody off safely.  As an example, Lusitania sank completely within about eighteen minutes of being torpedoed, and her list to starboard made getting lifeboats away very difficult.  Panic worsened the situation, but even in the best possible outcome of that scenario, many people would have died.

 

Another example would be Costa Concordia; without discussing the actions of the captain of that ship, the accident unfolded very quickly and it was more luck than judgement that ther e were not a much larger number of injuries and deaths.  In the cases of Herald of Free Enterprise and Estonia, disaster overtook the ships too quickly for any evacuation proceedure to have made much difference in any case. 

 

In these sorts of circumstances, all you can do is your best, and it may be argued that the sheer size of a ship like Spectrum of the Seas and similar very big cruise vessels means that they are less likely to be involved in circumstances where they will sink very quickly.  The laws of chance do not recognise such thinking, though, and it is still therefore necessary to conduct drills and familiarise the passengers with the procedures.  It is inevitable that a collision, grounding, or fire will happen on a big cruise liner at some time and lives will be lost, perhaps in large numbers.  A common complaint from the Costa Concordia was that passengers were told to stay where they were rather than muster at the boat stations, and were somewhat left to their own devices.  It is important that officers and crews appreciate the importance of impressing urgency on passengers to muster at boat stations and don lifejackets, and my view is that much more needs to be done in order to establish and practice the chains of command and actions necessary to achieve this.

 

 

 

 

Middle Son (14) is something of a Titanic Buff.

 

As a result I have heard a lot about it!

 

What was fascinating that when she was built the intention was not that the lifeboats would be used to 'save' the passengers but with the number of ships plying the North Atlantic route at the time evacuate them onto the next ship that came along.

 

What I dont know though is how tings are expected to work now because clearly modern ships just dont have the crew or capacity to pick up large numbers of survivors in the way that the Carpathia did with Titanic or indeed Ile De France with the Andrea Doria.

 

That of course and the fact that you can end up in the more remote parts of the world eg The Antarctic.

 

It was interesting to see an interview with a Coastguard Officer who worked in The North of Scotland who said that the night shift were always on edge over the Northlink Ferries and always glad to hear they had arrived safely.  Nothing wrong with Northlink just the knowledge you had a passenger ship on your patch in a remote part of the UK

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

10 minutes ago, johnofwessex said:

It was interesting to see an interview with a Coastguard Officer who worked in The North of Scotland who said that the night shift were always on edge over the Northlink Ferries and always glad to hear they had arrived safely. 

 

That sounds like something worth watching.
 

Quote

 

NorthLink Ferries sail daily from Aberdeen to Shetland and from Shetland to Aberdeen, sailing every evening and arriving the following morning. These ships call in at Orkney frequently, arriving in the late evening before sailing on to Aberdeen or Lerwick.

 

 

https://www.northlinkferries.co.uk/

[The Johnster]

Ships are inherently dangerous.  They are build to keep water out, so the structure is very weak if it is in a collision with anything such as another ship, the land, or an iceberg.  The chance of collision with such obstructions is increased by the surface of the water moving in various directions in a way which is not completely predictable, then further increased by the vessel being subject to windage and suction effects (Ever Given), and human errors in navigation, securing of loads, difficulties in steering at low speeds, and other issues.

 

They are not as inherently dangerous as airliners.  You build these out of highly inflammable magesium alloy, fill them with paraffin, set light to them, chuck them into the sky, and the whole thing works because it manages to go so fast that it stays about six feet ahead of the explosion, most of the time at least. 

 

In most 'incidents', it is probably safest to stay aboard the big thing that sinks slowly and wait for rescue, but not if the stability of the big thing is compromised or it is on fire.  In those cases it is better to evacuate using lifeboats, but if the weather is bad you may not be able to launch them and even if you do they may be difficult to keep together and away from the rocks.  Not always easy to make the best call in some situations and very easy to criticise/blame after the event. 

 

As a passenger, I make a point of familiarising myself with the exits almost as soon as boarding, a quick wander around the ship checking where everything is, and prefer to remain somewhere high up with a good view of things, that's just my nature nobody told me to do it.  On a lot of ships this conveniently coincides with the location of the bar...

[jjb1970]

16 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

Hmm, smells like more FearPorn. Anything touched by the "Russian" label must be bad. 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.

 

Something lost in our media is that most of those ships are doing nothing illegal or wrong other than perhaps being considered morally wrong for trading with Russia. Unlike some other sanctions (eg. those on the DPRK and Iran) the sanctions on Russia were not agreed by the UNSC and are unilateral measures. Which means there is no obligation on any other countries to observe them. As long as ships carrying Russian cargoes comply with the shipping laws of their Flag State and any applicable requirements of the Port State and applicable IMO instruments then they are operating perfectly legally. So it isn't a 'dark' fleet or some furtive contraband operation. Completely different from ships violating UNSC sanctions.

 

This link from Singapore customs helps explain, note the bit at the bottom of the page:

 

https://www.customs.gov.sg/businesses/united-nations-security-council-sanctions/

[Schooner]

@jjb1970 if you'll forgive me, something of a bizarre post. The vessels which aren't referred to as being part of the 'dark fleet'...should not be referred to as being part of a 'dark fleet'? Sounds good to me.

 

19 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

As long as ships carrying Russian cargoes comply with the shipping laws of their Flag State and any applicable requirements of the Port State and applicable IMO instruments then they are operating perfectly legally.

Nailed it 🤣

 

What handy general term should we use for the vessels failing to comply with the above. Those which are currently referred to as being part of a growing (for now)...er...dark fleet?

 

The fraudulently-flagged, identity-laundered, un-insured, opaquely-owned (even by normal standards) vessels operating under false or entirely absent AIS, manifest, crew and voyage information, answerable to no regulatory body - no certification, no hours of rest, no SOPEP, no STS transfer support, no special survey etc etc etc. Y'know, the ones that Singapore is currently quite concerned about. Those which are strongly suspected of doing something illegal (hence all the shenanigans) and are indeed deemed to have substantially increased risk of crashing into other ships and spewing oil @KeithMacdonald. Is India, heavily engaged in the legitimate (YMMV) trade in Russian oil, worried about nothing with their updated tanker age cap? IIRC <7% of global tanker tonnage falls foul of the cap vs >50% of shadow fleet tonnage. I wonder which might be causing them concern.

 

Quite right there's no boogey man hiding in the shadows of the dark fleet; but there are a non-negligible number of owners and vessels breaking IMO and Flag State (actual, nominal or otherwise) legislation put in place for the safety of life and protection of the environment to profit from sanctions-busting trade.

 

Isn't in-depth media engagement with this a positive thing? I remain puzzled by the scepticism above. Not least as the first episode concerns itself with bulkers in the Black Sea grain trade...

 

 

[jjb1970]

13 minutes ago, Schooner said:

@jjb1970 if you'll forgive me, something of a bizarre post. The vessels which aren't referred to as being part of the 'dark fleet'...should not be referred to as being part of a 'dark fleet'? Sounds good to me.

 

Nailed it 🤣

 

What handy general term should we use for the vessels failing to comply with the above. Those which are currently referred to as being part of a growing (for now)...er...dark fleet?

 

The fraudulently-flagged, identity-laundered, un-insured, opaquely-owned (even by normal standards) vessels operating under false or entirely absent AIS, manifest, crew and voyage information, answerable to no regulatory body - no certification, no hours of rest, no SOPEP, no STS transfer support, no special survey etc etc etc. Y'know, the ones that Singapore is currently quite concerned about. Those which are strongly suspected of doing something illegal (hence all the shenanigans) and are indeed deemed to have substantially increased risk of crashing into other ships and spewing oil @KeithMacdonald. Is India, heavily engaged in the legitimate (YMMV) trade in Russian oil, worried about nothing with their updated tanker age cap? IIRC <7% of global tanker tonnage falls foul of the cap vs >50% of shadow fleet tonnage. I wonder which might be causing them concern.

 

Quite right there's no boogey man hiding in the shadows of the dark fleet; but there are a non-negligible number of owners and vessels breaking IMO and Flag State (actual, nominal or otherwise) legislation put in place for the safety of life and protection of the environment to profit from sanctions-busting trade.

 

Isn't in-depth media engagement with this a positive thing? I remain puzzled by the scepticism above. Not least as the first episode concerns itself with bulkers in the Black Sea grain trade...

 

 

 

If ships are breaking applicable laws then enforcement action should be taken.

 

The BBC radio program referenced appears to make explicit reference to ships carrying 'sanctioned' Russian oil as a dark fleet. If that oil is not sanctioned then there are no sanctions to break and ships are doing nothing wrong. So why would ships engaged in perfectly legal activities be called a dark fleet?

 

Sub-standard shipping is much less about'dark' fleets than about poor quality owners and operators combined with flags which will flag anything. Assisted by corrupt (or inept PSC). 

[Schooner]

As I've understood it in the trade press, 'dark' and 'shadow' refer to particular ownership structures and operational practices. It just so happens that this is done to engage in illegal and 'grey' trades or practices - anyone shipping Iranian oil, for example, or European entities trading Russian oil above the legally binding price cap. It's not a new phenomenon, but it has increased to an astonishing degree in the past 12 months or so.

 

You're right to pick up on the conflation of this with other general fearmongering, but perhaps less so to dismiss the concept.

 

Those that are lawfully engaged in legal activites are not called dark/shadow; those who spoof their ownership, management and operations to break the law are. I have always understood it to be a distinct category within sub-standard shipping used to specifically refer to those practices and those trades, and as such it's found quite wide use and usefulness.

 

Corruption in shipping? Heaven forbid...!

[jjb1970]

The issue really became topical because of trade with the DPRK and to a lesser extent Iran, with illicit oil trade (although it goes back much further, for British people a good historic example is Rhodesia). The DPRK trade is especially concerning because quite aside from the legal issues (those sanctions were agreed at the UNSC) it attracts not just the bottom of the barrel of shipping,