Feature Articles

The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is the longest ocean race on the planet and is open to everyone. Now approaching its tenth anniversary edition, what does it take to complete the extreme challenge; and more importantly what are the refit and engineering challenges that go on behind the scenes to ensure the fleet is fit for purpose?

“There is nothing like the intensity of running along the top of a wave in the Southern Ocean and deciding to turn down the front of it into chaos. We ran on adrenaline for days on end.”

Round the world crew member and company director Peter Brumby, 50, left his job before the race, swapping it for the thrill of taking on Mother Nature’s toughest conditions for a year. Sailing through hurricanes, waves the size of several houses and facing threats of cyclones, pirates and icebergs were all part of life on board his team’s yacht Qingdao.

Continue reading “Preparing the Clipper race fleet to sail”

In this article, John Kilhams, (retired IIMS education co-ordinator), discusses the virtues of the BTEC HND and HNC marine surveying qualification, the only externally awarded qualification of its type in the world.

Do I need a qualification?
This is a question frequently asked. You can practice without a marine surveying qualification as the profession is largely unregulated, but it is not in your best interest to do so. Insurance companies may well insist that you are qualified to carry out the work you undertake, even though you may have many years of experience in the field and have lots of practical experience. Without this, or a recognised qualification, it will be difficult if not impossible to get PI cover (professional indemnity). As a small craft member of the IIMS you are required to have this cover in place for every survey you undertake. This can be expensive but with the right qualifications or proven experience it can be available at a more reasonable cost.

Continue reading “The IIMS HNC and HND marine surveying qualification”

By Patrizia Heidegger, Executive Director of NGO Shipbreaking Platform

More than 70 percent of the world’s obsolete tonnage ends up polluting the Indian sub-continent and putting workers’ lives at risk. The Report Magazine invited Patrizia Heidegger, Executive Director, NGO Shipbreaking Platform to give an overview of their work. In this thought provoking article, she explains the issues and problems caused by some of the unsafe methods and procedures utilised to break end-of-life ships on tidal beaches.

Every year, more than 1,000 obsolete cargo and container ships, oil and gas tankers, passenger and ro-ro vessels have to be dismantled as they are not economically viable anymore for their owners. The NGO Shipbreaking Platform keeps track of these global shipbreaking trends: in 2014, out of a total of 1026 ships dismantled globally, 641 – representing 74% of the total gross tonnage (GT) scrapped – were sold to substandard shipbreaking facilities in India, Pakistan and Continue reading “Dangerous and Dirty Ship Demolition and Shipbreaking”

By Capt Andrew (Drew) Frank Korek, MIIMS

Whilst many of us were enjoying the Christmas period in the comfort of our own homes, for one IIMS member and marine surveyor it was a Christmas with a difference. This is Drew Korek’s story and account about the ‘heavy lift’ loading of the Happy Star using extracts taken from his report with his permission.

As The Report magazine went to press, Drew had just completed overseeing the load off the ship in Quebec. The whole project has captured the attention of the media too. This fall you will be able to watch a conclusion of this captivating project and portion of the Happy Star voyage from China on Discovery Channel show entitled Mighty Ship’s.

Continue reading “The Heavy Lift loading of the m/v Happy Star”

IIMS has been granted permission to re-publish Dryad Maritime’s latest maritime crime figures. Dryad Maritime is a maritime operations company with a high-grade intelligence capability.

Gulf of Guinea
The Gulf of Guinea saw an overall reduction in the number of incidents in 2014: a decrease of 18% when compared to 2013. Despite this overall reduction, the year saw a marked increase in the number of attacks resulting in the kidnap of senior crew from support craft and commercial vessels trading in the region. Fourteen vessels had crew taken captive last year, compared to eight vessels having crew kidnapped the previous year.

Just two of last year’s attacks occurred inside Nigeria’s 12 nautical mile (nm) territorial waters, with the remainder further offshore where protection from security vessels is less available. A further 14 unsuccessful attacks took place within the Nigerian exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Analysis suggests that the vast majority of these criminal gang attacks were aimed at the kidnap of crew, especially given the areas and weaponry involved. Effective defensive measures employed by crews and security teams meant that these 14 attacks were aborted and were not added to the already higher statistics for kidnap or cargo theft.

Continue reading “Special report. Maritime crime figures 2014”

Feature article written by Eur. Ing. Jeffrey N. Casciani-Wood, HonFIIMS

The recent loss in mid-Atlantic of the a.s.v. CHEEKI RAFIKI and the sad loss of four lives has brought very clearly to public and professional attention the problem of fin or pendulum keel detachment and consequent capsize of many apparently perfectly good boats. This is a very serious problem from a marine surveying point of view and the author has made a detailed study of a very similar loss that took place in February 2007 in the English Channel.

To put the matter into perspective it was first necessary to look into some published historic data. Because of their concern over the number of reported keel failures, the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) developed a Keel Structure Working Party to investigate and report on the problem. As a starter they produced a data base of known failures and investigated 72 of those that had been reported since 1984 and which involved no fewer than 24 deaths by drowning. The problem with the data, however, is that it records only the worst cases in which the keel had been pulled off or otherwise lost from the hull usually resulting in a capsize and an actual total loss. The marine surveyor investigating such a casualty will frequently find that it is very difficult to establish the prime cause of failure and, in particular, to differentiate between a loss caused by a design and/or manufacturing fault and a casualty resulting from human error such as a collision or a grounding. He must be particularly careful to avoid listening and paying credence to usually ill informed bar room or internet gossip.

Continue reading “A study of a keel failure and the loss of the Cheeki Rafiki”

Feature article by Robert van Tol, Operational Director, Superyacht Builders Association (SYBAss)

The phenomenon of superyachts is known by most people and speaks to the imagination. They are often to be spotted at a tropical holiday destination or on television as back drop of Formula one races in Monaco and the Middle East. Superyachting can be seen as the ultimate leisure activity and is only accessible by the very few in the world.

The global fleet of superyachts sailing the world’s oceans totals some 4,500 with those over 40 metres in length comprising around 1,500 in total . Nowadays the average number of superyachts over 40 metres delivered worldwide per year is 80, whereas only fifteen years ago this average was 30. It is therefore a fairly young industry that has experienced significant growth in demand in a relatively short period of time. Similar growth trends have been seen in the number of Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWIs), the target audience that are able to afford commissioning these vessels.

The superyacht industry is often perceived as small and therefore squeezed between the maritime leisure and professional marine industries. Yet the output of the superyacht building industry is similar in Compensated Gross Tonnage (CGT) to the passenger shipbuilding industry, which is often considered to be much larger . (CGT) is a macro-economic indicator that provides an estimate of the amount of work involved in building a ship of a certain type and size, ultimately expressed in man-hours per gross ton (GT). Currently also a global economic impact study is being conducted to analyse the economic value of this industry.

Continue reading “The challenging and colourful world of superyachts”

Feature article written by Eur. Ing. Jeffrey Casciani-Wood HonFIIMS

As the propeller turns it absorbs the torque developed by the engine at given revolutions i.e., the delivered horsepower – and converts that to the thrust which, in turn, pushes the vessel through the water. According to Bernoulli’s law the passage of a hydrofoil (propeller blade section) through the water causes a positive pressure on the face of the blade and a negative pressure on its back. It is the resolution of the pressures that results in the torque requirement and the thrust development of the propeller. The negative pressure causes any gas in solution in the water to evolve into bubbles similar to those found when opening a bottle of lemonade or champagne. These bubbles collapse and can cause hammer like impact loads on the blades often in excess of 7 kg/cm2. It is the collapse of these bubbles that results in the observed damage to the propeller blade surfaces.

The ratio of the absorbed power or the delivered thrust to the total blade area of the propeller is called, respectively, the power and the thrust loading. If either of these exceeds a certain value which depends upon a complex relationship between the propeller type, the flow in which it works and its mean depth below the water relative to its diameter then the flow pattern of the water over the propeller blades breaks down causing a severe loss of thrust and, eventually, physical damage to the surface of the propeller blades and, also, the rudder and local steelwork of the vessel’s hull. That flow breakdown is called cavitation and is strictly analogous to the water hammer often heard in old plumbing systems. Cavitation is a highly complex phenomenon and the pitting damage it causes usually – but not necessarily – appears on the back of the blade following a clear radial pattern. It can also appear as similar damage on the driving face of the propeller in which case, almost certainly, a further factor has entered the problem in the form of an incorrect pitch distribution along the length of the blade. Most small craft propellers are usually of constant pitch over the blade length and that regime is accurate enough for 99% of boats but on high speed boats with large propeller loading factors the pitch should vary over the length of the blade i.e., the boat should be fitted with a varying pitch propeller. The effects of cavitation including loss of speed and damage to the propeller blades can be minimised by ensuring that the propeller has sufficient blade area relative to the area of the circle described by the propeller blade tips.

Continue reading “An introduction to propeller cavitation”

Article written by Luc Verley MIIMS

The Kra-Canal project, sometimes also called the Thai-Canal, is an ambitious plan that would create a connection between the South Chinese Sea on the East in the Gulf of Thailand with the Andaman Sea in the West by passing through Southern Thailand.

This would shorten shipping distances by 1,200 Nautical miles around peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. Ships would avoid passing through the piracy risky area in the Strait of Malacca. The Strait of Malacca is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, with 60,000 passages annually.

At the narrowest part of peninsular Thailand, in Kra Isthmus the width is only 44 kilometres, the challenge however is a mountain stretch which reaches 75 metres above sea-level. Therefore, most proposals for the Kra-Canal vary with lengths between 50 to 100 kilometres in order to minimise the excavation.

Continue reading “The Kra-Canal Project”

There is an important free resource available to the whole of the shipping industry that makes a major contribution to safety and that surveyors can help to improve. This is the Mariners Alerting and Reporting Scheme (MARS) operated by The Nautical Institute. MARS is a free resource and The Nautical Institute hopes that surveyors will help to make its existence known to the maritime world. The Nautical Institute wants as many mariners and, indeed, as many in shipping as possible, to benefit from lessoned learned from accidents and near misses. Surveyors can spread the word to let mariners and companies know the resource is there.

The background to MARS is known to all; across the major transportation modes and in many other fields, human error looms as the leading cause of both accidents and incidents. In recent years, the definition of human error has been expanded to include concepts such as unsafe supervision and organisational influences (e.g. resource management and operational processes). In the maritime industry approximately 90 percent of accidents can be traced to human error despite the promotion of regulations, training and quality management systems.

Continue reading “Mariners Alerting and Reporting Scheme (MARS)”

Article by Adam Brancher

IIMS invited Adam Brancher, Manager Standards Domestic Vessel Division AMSA and IIMS Vice President, to give an overview and update on the changing face of maritime safety in Australia.

It’s been just over a year since the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), became the national regulator for domestic commercial vessels (DCV) in Australia following major legislative changes. A domestic commercial vessel in Australia is, in simple terms, a vessel used in connection with commercial, governmental or research activity, although there are exclusions.

Previously the states and territories had regulated under their own legislation, which resulted in there being difficulty in some cases when a seafarer or vessel moved between locations, and had to reapply for qualifications or for vessel survey requirements. The move to a single regulator was designed to allow the free movement of people, vessels and to for nationally agreed standards to be used consistently around the country, and when fully realised should have significant safety and economic benefits.

Continue reading “Domestic commercial vessel regulation in Australia”

Article by John Kilhams

Marine surveyor report writing is the ‘key weapon’ in his/her armoury. It is what he/she lives or dies by. It is your intellectual property. It must be accurate, thorough and consistent. But do your reports actually do what they should? Time for a refresher! John Kilhams, recently retired from IIMS head office, who runs the Institute’s report writing one day courses, offers some tips and advice on good, basic report writing techniques and habits.

A good marine surveyor report should give the information to your client to enable him/her to make an informed decision on the condition of a vessel and whether to proceed with the purchase.

Continue reading “Marine surveyor report writing is not a dying art”