The Research Ship

Mostly salt water comprises two thirds of the earth's surface, and the sea might be thought of as the final terrestrial frontier. The fact is that mankind has explored only a relatively small part of its depths. Research ships might be thought of as marine platforms for scientific exploration and the pursuit of knowledge about the sea and its inhabitants.

Research ships come in all shapes and sizes. There are vessels built for polar research, designed to carry scientific expeditions into high latitudes, and which are high powered and well equipped icebreakers, complete with helicopter platforms and aircraft hangars. There are oceanographic research vessels designed to probe the depths with submersibles and capable of retrieving samples from sea-beds many miles down in the oceanic deeps.

There are ships equipped with the most elaborate laboratories and delicate instrumentation, able to tow arrays capable of analysing the sea bottom profile or even determining the geological sub-strata of the ocean bed.

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INS Tabar sinks pirate ship in Gulf of Aden

A week after saving two merchant vessels from sea pirates, the Indian Navy has sunk a pirate 'mother ship' during a fierce battle in the Gulf of Aden near the Horn of Africa.

Indian Navy spokesperson said its stealth frigate INS Tabar, currently deployed in the Gulf of Aden for anti-piracy surveillance and patrol operations, had successfully sorted out the pirates last evening 285 nautical miles south west of Salalah in Oman.

Giving details of the operation, the spokesperson said the frigate encountered the pirate vessel with two speed boats in tow.

"This vessel was similar in description to the 'Mother Vessel' mentioned in various piracy bulletins. INS Tabar closed in on the vessel and asked her to stop for investigation," he said.

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Is shipping too cheap?

No doubt about it, modern shipping represents a tremendous bargain. The realities are awesome, with goods being transported half way around the world for a fraction of their value. All those manufactured goods with "Made in China" stamped on them, the Chilean wine and Tasmanian apples - it is cheap sea transport that makes it possible for us to enjoy them all. Similarly, with the petrol and diesel we pump from the filling stations into our tanks - a tiny proportion of the cost of the fuel is accounted by the price of ocean shipping that moved the crude oil to the refineries or the product to the ports.

For 150 years, as shipping has become more efficient, and infinitely more productive, it has become cheaper and cheaper to use. The cost of shipping cargo in the last century of commercial sail, aboard the crack clippers, was more than sixty times that of moving cargo the same distance from the Far East today. It is scale economies, high volumes, efficient ships, good ports and a lot of advanced technology that has made shipping so cheap that the cost of transport by sea barely features in the price of a unit delivered from a factory in one part of the world to its consumer in another.

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Fatalities in cargo hold fire

On a general cargo vessel undergoing repairs at a yard, a shore worker was gas-cutting the deck plating of the upper tween deck. The hold had only one means of access available, consisting of a common access trunk with fixed vertical ladder sections.

Eight other labourers were engaged in different tasks in the lower hold. Apart from remnants of wooden sheathing on the tanktop and spar ceiling against the side shell, there was an accumulation of flammable debris, consisting mainly of discarded insulation foam both in the tween decks and at the bottom of the hold.

It is thought that falling sparks and carelessly disposed cigarette butts started a fire in the mid-tween deck and was unnoticed by the workers for a considerable time.

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Good health at sea ensures productivity

Seafarers' good health and being 'fit as a fiddle' at sea have become critical factors for ship owners to ensure productivity. Taking a proactive stance the Seabird Health Foundation in association with Bernhard Schulte Ship management embarked on a pioneering role to create awareness among ship manning, ship management, ship owners and corporates by organising a seminar on November 8, 2008 at The Club, Andheri (W) Mumbai, on maintaining good health and fitness at sea.

The event drew a large number of personalities, company executives, representatives from manning and shipping companies as well as captains and marine engineers keen on finding a solution to several 'cases' of death and sicknesses due to health negligence that could deal a severe blow to the shipping trade as stress and fatigue threaten to reach alarming proportions. Presentations that were made brought into focus several revealing facts, at the same time various simple and very easy to follow remedies offered made a deep impact on the participants attending the seminar.

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India's robust maritime sector could weather the financial storm

When will it all happen? How bad will it get? These are queries that are buzzing around Indian players in the shipping field while mulling over the financial meltdown. But as our policy makers would like to depict, the fundamentals are strong and the possibility of the Indian maritime sector feeling the effect of the global financial crisis will witness a quick turnaround coming out of the present financial crisis safe and sound.

Hope is writ large all around, with what is being considered as a positive outcome of the US elections with Barack Obama making history. The US president elect is expected to bolster measures to overcome recession in the world's biggest economy. Significantly, the return of investments into India is expected to benefit the rupee. The strengthening of the rupee and prices of crude oil coming down are their certain expectations.

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The business of ship recycling

Late last year, the world was treated to the sight of a group of elderly ex-US Government ships being towed across the Atlantic from their long layup in US waters to a special recycling facility in Northern England. It was an operation that was to become controversial, as environmentalists challenged the validity of permissions that had been given by the local authority to the recycling company.

But the drama did show the general public that there was indeed a “business” in ship scrap and that properly organised, with due environmental safeguards, an industrial operation to dismantle ships could still be undertaken in a highcost industrial country. Indeed, with more than 150 other members of the US Government “ghost fleet” awaiting disposal, there was clearly a viable industry that was just waiting to start up, once the environmental objections had been overcome.

Ship demolition is necessary as ships become redundant, and provides a large amount of recyclable materials. Some 95% of an average merchant ship will be re-used, from the steel which will be either sheared into smaller lumps to be fed into furnaces for re-rolling, to the non-ferrous metals and pipework of the ship which will be re-used.

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Time to take a call on ship building, maritime activity

The first edition of the Port & Ship International India 2008 conference and exhibition proved to be the most comprehensive setting that brought the industry professionals on a common platform to meet and undertake business in India. The event was jointly organised by Inter Ads Limited and E. J. Krause Associates Inc of the USA.

Sharing his views at the inaugural session, Dr. Stephen Hesselmann, Head, Maritime Department, Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, Government of Germany contended, “India is becoming an economic warehouse. It has many business opportunities as the maritime industry is booming at a very fast pace. The number of containers has increased by 44% from that of the previous year.

Port & Ship International India 2008 is an international exhibition and conference which gave a detailed insight on shipping and ship building, ship technology, maintenance and repairs, ocean engineering, marine offshore technology.

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