Part of my job is performing pilot installations of our systems onboard many types of ships, which is both invigorating and challenging. With any new ship design, the first step is to get as much knowledge as possible about onboard operations. A couple of months ago, I headed out to sail on a modern LNG tanker. As it turns out I was in for a little more than I expected due to some typhoons we got to meet.
As we look at, and try to understand, all the future fuel options, there is one particular fuel that has caught my attention. It is sulphur free, has low emissions, perhaps three to four times cheaper than marine distillate fuel, probably lower in price than LNG, a more beneficial fuel factor for the EEDI than LNG or diesel, it is non cryogenic and is already in widespread production (~50 million tonnes per annum) for a multitude of uses, including combustion. It has great potential for a much higher production and a distribution infrastructure more easily established than LNG.
The Isle of Man Ship Registry has announced that from 1 April 2014 it is introducing new incentives for ship owners to adopt energy efficient ship designs which reduce fuel consumption and air pollution.
A new ICCT study confirms feasibility of implementing new IMO standards for NOx emissions from ships on schedule in 2016. The study is a survey of technical literature and industry reports to assess equipment costs, environmental side effects, urea and catalyst availability and disposal, and overall system costs of SCR in the marine sector.
My sea career lasted for an exciting decade which saw huge growth in ship size. I went through the evolution of shipping from sailing on a 3,500 TEU jumbo container vessel that was built in the year when I was born to an 8,000 TEU container vessel. In 2003, that 8,000 TEU vessel owned by my former employer was entered into the World Guinness Book of Records as the largest container vessel ever built. But although I stopped sailing on the largest ship at the time, the size of ships did not stop growing.
EEDI has (officially) entered our shipping lives: major ship types (tankers, bulk carriers, containerships etc) contracted after 1 January 2013 will need to comply with the new requirement.
Not so long ago, explorers risked their lives and the lives of their crews in search of the fabled Northwest Passage. Now the question is no longer if a route through the Arctic exists but how many ships will use the two routes now open each year along the northern coasts of Canada and Russia. Estimates for the possibility of making truly ice-free transits range from a few years to a few decades, but in the meantime, as evidenced by the hundreds of applications in 2012 and 2013 (495 successful applicants as of September 2013 to transit Russia’s Northern Sea Route, up from zero a mere five years ago), plenty of folks are willing to risk a little ice in pursuit of shorter shipping routes that were the goal of explorers since even before Lord Franklin’s famously lost expedition.
The shipping industry has faced its worst crisis during the last 25 years. The limited liquidity of the shipping market and the trend of banks to limit their exposure have made shipowners to find new methods of financing their investment projects. Traditional lenders such as Germany’s Commerzbank and HSH Nordbank and the UK’s Lloyds and RBS are either exiting the market or trying to reduce exposure.
We had arrived in China at just about the same time as Typhoon Utor. Which was a bit of a problem, since our cameraman Damien Riunaud and I had travelled to Shenzhen to board the Singapore-bound APL Boston container ship and produce video footage documenting life at sea. The trip was meant to coincide with the coming into force of the ILO’s Maritime Labour Convention (MLC, 2006), also known as the Seafarers’ Bill of Rights.
The Spring Festival celebrations are over and the Year of the Horse has been well and truly welcomed in, but our thoughts remain with Asia and the importance of the Asian shipping business, both globally as well as in the Isle of Man.
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Officer of the Watch 