To understand the significance of a third umpire in the shipping industry one must first understand what brought about the advent of the third umpire in games such as cricket, tennis, rugby, soccer, etc. In the game of cricket there usually were two umpires on the field who make decisions on the game as it progresses.
The shipping industry is experiencing the biggest dry bulk market recession since the 1980s. The uncertain global economic outlook and the increased imbalance between supply and demand have lead to historical low freight rates . The downturn seems to continue until 2017 if a viable equilibrium is not achieved.
No system is perfect and risk is everywhere, probably nowhere more so than in shipping, with no guarantees that there will never be an accident, nor that a particular accident will never repeat itself.
As the owner or manager of a beautiful new yacht, fuel testing may not be high on your priorities; however it should be at the very top. The ability to sail safely, independently and at short notice is crucial for the modern day yacht owner and having a fuel and fuel system free from any problems at all times is essential in achieving this.
It is a common experience to hear the phrase “We must learn lessons from this” following a major accident, or a more everyday event such as losing in a sporting competition. Indeed this has become such a common phrase that one may feel that learning lessons is an automatic or natural process.
The potential for regulating the discharge of grey water was discussed at IMO when formulating the Polar Code, but, like other times grey water has been discussed, the idea was fairly quickly discarded.
For the month of May 2015 the majority of the incidents occurred in the Malacca Strait where 12 incidents of maritime piracy and/or armed robbery took place involving various types of vessels. In South China Sea 5 incidents occurred with 3 dry cargo vessels and 2 product tankers. In West Africa 3 incidents were reported, the same figure with Indian Ocean. It is worth noting that no incident was reported in the East African area.
The PSC Report that was published in the past by OOW has been updated and from now on will be released on a quarterly basis. The updated report focuses mainly on the locations where the majority of the PSC detentions took place in the past quarter. As it can be seen from the report the majority of the PSC detentions takes place in the Tokyo PSC MoU, followed by Paris PSC MoU. This is something to be expected taking into consideration the amount of merchant vessels that visit Indian/Pacific ocean area as well as the Europe area.
How much US shale oil production is taken out of service will be a key driver of future tanker shipping earnings, according to the latest edition of the Tanker Forecaster published by global shipping consultancy Drewry.
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Officer of the Watch 