The award ceremony followed the first annual Safety at Sea International lecture entitled, ‘Who cares about safety?’, which was delivered by safety management expert Dr Phil Anderson, managing director of ConsultISM.

 Left to right:

Paul Gunton, executive editor of Safety at Sea International; Lieutenant Commander Daniel Van Buskirk, International Port Security Liaison, US Coast Guard in Europe; Bent Nielsen, inventor and board member, Nadiro; Esben Juul Sørensen, managing director, Nadiro; Henrik Kristensen, senior director for corporate social responsibility, APM Terminals; Peter Blackhurst, head of maritime safety services, Inmarsat; Nick Blackmore, editor of Safety at Sea International; Bjørn Åge Hjøllo, product manager (weather services) at Jeppesen; Dr Phil Anderson, managing director of ConsultISM; Kjell Rein, vice president of the safety, environment and quality department, Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Skipsrederi; Captain Hans Hederström, director of professional marine training and research at CSMART

Safety at Sea International Award for Security

Winner: Jeppesen, for its Piracy Warning system

Citation: This system takes information on pirate attacks and overlays it, along with other data, on an electronic chart in order to identify risk areas. It heightens awareness of piracy threats, the judges agreed.

Shortlisted: Moim Consulting, for its anti-pirate spray system and Thales, for its Gatekeeper surveillance system.

Safety at Sea International Award for Systems

Winner: Inmarsat, for its ‘505’ emergency calling service

Citation: The judges saw this as a valuable extension to the Global Maritime Distress Safety System (GMDSS), providing a free emergency communication service to non-GMDSS-equipped craft, of which there are a large number.

Shorlisted: Datema, for its ENC Track system; and Videotel, for its Web Fleet Training Administrator.

Safety at Sea International Award for Training (sponsored by the UK P&I Club)

Winner: CSMART for its bridge team management

Citation: This course was designed to match a new bridge manning structure introduced by Carnival UK and Princess Cruises. Among the features that impressed the judges was that it included a review of bridge procedures. “It takes ships officers to somewhere other than ‘captain’s assistants’,” said one judge.

Shortlisted: Great Offshore, for its Training and Skills Management; Svitzer, for its Salvage Experience Master Class and Videotel, for its Hazard Series Volume 1.

Safety at Sea International / Amver Award for Seamanship

Winner: SKS Trinity, managed by Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Skipsrederi

Citation: The crew displayed good seamanship to rescue 10 people from a capsized wooden craft off Spain in 2009. Amver (the Automated Mutual-Assistance Vessel Rescue System) is the voluntary global ship reporting system used worldwide by search and rescue authorities to arrange for assistance to persons in distress at sea. SASI’s publisher, HIS Fairplay, sponsors a full Amver award scheme in the United States.

At its 43rd meeting last month, the Paris MoU Committee approved the 2009 inspection results and adopted new performance lists for flag States and Recognized Organizations. These lists will take effect from 1 July 2010.

The “Black List” for 2010 contains 23 flags States, two more than last year. The 2010 “White List” includes 39 flag States, two less than last year.

A “hard core” of flag States remain on the “Black List”. Most of the flags that were considered “very high risk” in 2009 have retained this ranking.  The poorest performing flags are Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Libya, Togo, Bolivia, Albania and Sierra Leone.

Of note, Panama has moved off the Black List and into the Grey List.

Further details can be located at the Paris MOU website:   http://www.parismou.org/upload/pdf/Press%20release%20Target%20Lists%202010.pdf

USCG :  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE COMPANY, headquartered in Greece, pled guilty today in federal court in New Orleans, Louisiana for violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS) and the Clean Water Act, announced U. S. Attorney Jim Letten.

According to court documents, THE COMPANY was charged in a bill of information with presenting a false Oil Record Book to the U. S. Coast Guard, and for discharging lubricating oil from the stern tube of the Vessel into the navigable waters and contiguous zone of the United States and the Exclusive Economic Zone belonging to the United States in the Gulf of Mexico.

According to the plea agreement, THE COMPANY will pay a $700,000 criminal penalty: a $525,000 fine and a separate $125,000 community service payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Fund and earmarked for the purpose of funding habitat conservation, protection, restoration and management projects to benefit fish and wildlife resources and the habitats in the Eastern District of Louisiana. Further, THE COMPANY will also serve three years’ probation and as a condition of the probation, the company must be in compliance with all requirements of an Environmental Compliance Plan.

According to the factual basis, THE COMPANY admitted that from at least as of December 15, 2009, and continuing through May 14, 2010, their Vessel’s oily water separator, a piece of equipment which is used to prevent oil pollution, was not operational. Approximately once a month during this time period, on the voyages between the Caribbean Islands and the United States, the engineering crews regularly discharged oil contaminated waste directly overboard.

THE COMPANY further admitted the engineering crews knowingly failed to maintain an accurate record regarding the illegal discharges of oil. Additionally, THE COMPANY admitted that the Vessel had an oil leak in its stern tube, a problem known to the crew since at least the middle of April, 2010. The knowing discharge of a harmful quantity of oil from the Vessel was not reported to the U. S. Coast Guard or National Response Center as is required, nor were the discharges recorded in the Oil Record Book.

This case was investigated criminally by the U. S. Coast Guard Criminal Investigative Services and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Dorothy Manning Taylor, and Senior Trial Attorney Richard Allen Udell with the Environmental Crimes Section, Department of Justice.

AN INQUIRY in Australia has found that watchkeeping shortcomings that caused a collision between a yacht and a bulker were exacerbated when the ship then failed to stop.

Round-the-world solo sailor Jessica Watson, 16, had been taking a catnap when her yacht Ella’s Pink Lady collided with the China Shipping Development bulker Silver Yang off Queensland in September last year. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s final report also found that Watson had failed to set her collision-alert radar properly, and her yacht had no passive radar reflector. But Silver Yang’s second mate was not keeping a proper lookout, either, and failed to initiate contact or offer any form of aid.

Then, when contacted by Watson via VHF radio, he could not be clearly understood because of poor proficiency in English, the report found.

ATSB chief commissioner Martin Dolan called the incident “a timely reminder that, under UN conventions, ship operators have an obligation to offer assistance immediately to other vessels following a collision”.

The bureau also drew attention to limits in the detectability of Class B AIS transmissions.

FURTHER charges have been laid over the August 2009 sinking of Tongan ferry Princess Ashika, ahead of a criminal trial due to start on 21 July.

The vessel owner Shipping Corporation of Polynesia and four individuals, managing director John Jonesse, ferry captain Makahokovalu Tuputupu, former first mate and Tonga’s acting director of marine Viliami Tu’ipulotu and another SCP representative will appear at the Preliminary Inquiry in the Fasi Magistrates Court, the Matangi Tonga online newspaper reported today.

SCP, Jonesse, Makahokovalu and Tu’ipulotu face charges of manslaughter over the death of 21-year-old Vae Fetu’u Taufa, one of 74 people who died in the sinking. Jonesse ahs also been charged with forgery, while Tuputupu has been charged with five counts of taking an unseaworthy ship to sea, knowing it was unseaworthy.

Additional charges of sending and taking an unseaworthy ship to sea will also now be heard.

A Royal Commission of Inquiry into the sinking found the 37-year-old Princess Ashika was unsafe, overloaded and unfit for the open sea and that its sinking was a “scandalous” and easily preventable tragedy resulting from systemic and individual failures.

SEAFARERS are the missing link in environmental protection because they are rarely trained beyond minimum standards, a leading academic has warned.

Mandatory training and company programmes rarely give them the knowledge they need to exceed bare minimums, said Nickie Butt, senior lecturer in maritime studies at Southampton Solent University.

But Butt also told the Sustainable Ocean Summit in the UK that it was unfair to blame seafarers for their lack of knowledge, pointing out that education should be a fundamental driver to change.

“There is a major group of stakeholders which has very little knowledge [of ISM, MARPOL and STCW], and a very large gap exists between theoretical knowledge and the ability to put theory into action,” she told a workshop on training.

Butt surveyed 161 seafarers from a broad range of supplier nations to gauge their knowledge of marine environment protection requirements.

While 80% had heard of the MARPOL Special Areas, just 22% had heard of Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas; and just a handful had heard of Marine Protected Areas; and even fewer Marine Environmental High Risk Areas (MEHRAs).

But asked to rank them in order, MEHRAs were placed first, despite these being national legislation in use only in Australia and the UK.

“Seafarers have got very limited knowledge of the regulations,” she added. “The clear implication is that unless they gain this through training, we cannot you expect them to understand the consequences.”

A CHEMICAL tanker reportedly has sunk after a collision with a general cargo ship off Japan, but all five crew members were safely recovered.

The 1,139dwt Keiwa Maru sank after colliding with the 199gt Hamako Maru 15 about 2215 local time on 16 June off between the main Japanese islands of Honshu and Shikoku, the AFP news agency reported today.

About 350m³ of magnesium hydroxide from Keiwa Maru, whose operator is listed as Shokuyu Tanker, were dumped into the sea, but the substance should not significantly harm the environment, the Japan Coast Guard told the news agency.

“It’s almost like the coagulator used to make tofu soybean curd,” a Coast Guard spokesman told AFP. “It has no impact on the environment.” he said of magnesium hydroxide, which can be used as a food additive, a fertiliser, and in medicines and construction.

The cause of the collision and damages are still being assessed. Hamako Maru’s operator is listed as Hamada S.

A CARGO ship has sunk after colliding with a chemical tanker off South Korea.

The Chinese-flagged, 3,725dwt cargo carrier Fu Ping Yuan collided with the Panamanian-flagged, 11,347dwt tanker CS Crane yesterday near Palmido Island, Incheon, coastguards said.

Four coastguard vessels were sent to the scene, and all crew members were rescued.

Fu Ping Yuan had been heading to Incheon with 3,300 tonnes of steel from China when it collided with CS Crane, which was travelling to Incheon from Ulsan.

The cause of the incident is still being investigated.

MANILA is considering cancelling the license of a master whose bulker hit a quay wall at a private port in Toledo City.

The Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) said the master should be held liable for the accident since his ship, which was carrying more than 17,000 tonnes of coal, had no permit to operate.

Sycamore Global, which had just been acquired from Japan, also possessed no ship safety security certificate, as required by MARINA. It was registered last June.

The authority said it would also require the ship operator, Orophil Shipping International, to stop operating the ship until the owner secures the required documentation.

MARINA sources said the offense could be grounds for revocation of the captain’s licence and for appropriate penalties to be paid by the operator.

This publication quickly became the industry standard reference work and authoritative commentary on the ISM Code – with copies to be found in the offices of every Ship Operating Company and on board almost every ship in the world. The third edition was published in 1996, two years ahead of Phase 1 ISM implementation deadline. Although there have been a number of amendments to the Code and much learning experience in the intervening period – a decision to bring the Guidelines up to date was eventually taken in 2009.

ConsultISM M.D., Dr Phil Anderson, was commissioned by the ICS / ISF to assist with the updating and the preparation of the fourth edition. The formal launch of the updated and expanded fourth edition took place at headquarters of the ICS / ISF in London on 4th June 2010.

Dr Anderson was invited to say a few words as part of the launch ceremony: he said “…not only was it a very great honour to have been invited to work with the team at ICS / ISF in bringing the Guidelines up-to-date, but also a great responsibility…”

ICS/ISF Secretary General, Tony Mason said at the launch of the new guide, “The essential purpose of the ISM Code is to instil a commitment to continuous improvement and the eradication of behavioural complacency.  It is clear that many companies have benefited significantly from the successful implementation of the ISM Code. Other companies, however, while complying with ISM requirements, may still not yet have realised the Code’s full potential to make their operations safer, cleaner, and more efficient.  The underlying principle of ISM is to help achieve the ultimate goal of zero accidents and zero pollution. It is greatly hoped that the new edition of the ICS/ISF Guidelines will contribute to the fulfilment of this vital objective.”

The new edition will continue to use the Commentary style which had been adopted in earlier editions – but the Commentary has been much expanded to take into account the 14 years’ learning experience since the last edition was published.

Many of the various Annexes and Parts of the Third Edition have been retained, but updated and restructured into a more orderly format – with new sections being included to provide a more comprehensive coverage of the subject.

The fourth edition includes expanded sections on Pollution Prevention and also new material on accident causation and the important role played by the DPA. The hard copy of the new edition of the book also comes with a searchable CD Rom.

Copies of the new Guideline can be obtained online from the Publishers: Marisec at www.marisec.org