Maritime News and Comment

May 2006

   STRATEGIST RIPS INTO NG.  Click here to read another view of Northrop Grumman's performance.  See, it's not just me.  May 30, 2006.

   CHEVRON BAREBOATS DOUBLE EAGLES.  Seabulk Tankers is reported by Tradewinds to have reached an agreement with Chevron Shipping under which Chevron will bareboat three of its five "Double Eagle"-class product carriers for nine years, with the first charter starting early next year and the others kicking in at 18-month intervals.  The three ships are the "Seabulk Mariner", "Seabulk Courage" and "Seabulk Energy" and Chevron has an option on a fourth ship.  This decision indicates that Chevron is giving up on its three 30-year-old ships, the "Arizona Voyager", "Colorado Voyager" and "Washington Voyager".  These ships, although double-hulled, are now 30 years old: built by Gundersons, in Portland OR, they are unusual in being gas-turbine-powered.  May 29, 2006.

   BIG U REACTIVATION STILL ALIVE.  At the christening last week of the "Pride of Hawai'i", Star Cruise Lines managers were asked by someone from Maritime Matters about their plans for the "United States" (built by Newport News in 1952) and the "Independence" (built by Quincy in 1950).   It seems that they still plan to reactivate the "United States": she is still intended to be the fourth ship in the NCL America US-flag fleet.  Pardon me if I don't hold my breath.  On the other hand, they said that the "Independence", (now mysteriously renamed "Oceanic"), is in poor condition and implied that there was no hope for her.  May 27, 2006.

   BARGE SINKS IN MOBILE SHIP CHANNEL.  Traffic in the Mobile Ship Channel has been severely restricted as a result of the sinking of a limestone barge about six miles north of Fort Morgan.  Read the Coast Guard's announcement here.  May 26, 2006.

   BULKER LOST OFF CANARIES.  Yet another dry bulk carrier has been lost, this time off the Canary Islands.  The missing ship is the 30-year-old, Danish-built "Portland".  Two crew members are missing.  May 26, 2006.

   DEEPWATER CONTRACT EXTENDED.  The Coast Guard has extended its contract with Integrated Coast Guard Systems, the joint venture of Lockheed Martin and No Good Ship Systems, by 43 months.  This change means that the contract now runs through January 2011 and prevents uppity outsiders from competing for any contracts not yet awarded.  Well, they deserve it, they're doing such a great job of spending the taxpayers' money, aren't they?  Read the announcement here.  May 25, 2006.

   TWO OLD CUTTERS TO GO.  The Coast Guard has announced its intention to retire the cutters "Storis", (WMEC 38), and "Acushnet", (WMEC 167).  Read the announcement here.  The "Storis" was built for the Coast Guard in 1942 by Toledo Shipbuilding, as the icebreaking stores ship USCGC "Eskimo", (WAGL 38): she was later reclassified as a medium-endurance cutter, (WMEC), and renamed "Storis".  The "Acushnet" was built for the Navy in 1943 by the Basalt Rock Company (what a great name for a shipbuilder) in Napa CA (of all places), as the fleet rescue and salvage ship "Shackle", (ARS 9): she was transferred to the Coast Guard in 1946, reclassified as the oceangoing tug USCGC "Acushnet", (WAT 167), and later reclassified as a medium-endurance cutter, (WMEC).  May 25, 2006.

   MAJOR FIRE ON DDG AT INGALLS.  There has been a major fire on DDG 103, the future USS "Truxton", at Northrop Grumman's Pascagoula Operation (formerly ingalls Shipbuilding).  The ship should be about ready for launching, since it is scheduled to be delivered about this time next year, but it probably isn't, or wasn't.  The company is downplaying the damage but they downplayed the damage from Katrina too, at least until it was time to stick it to the taxpayers for a handout.  They'll probably want us to pay for this too.  Read the reports in the Mississippi Press here and here.  May 24, 2006.  The damage has been described as "quite extensive to the shell plating and structure from the 01 level to the 04 level".  See pictures here, here and here.  May 25, 2006.

   DAVIE TO BE LIQUIDATED.  Another famous name bites the dust as a public auction of all the assets of Les Industries Davie Inc. has been scheduled for June 12 through June 17.  See the brochure here.  Davie has a very long and distinguished history as a shipbuilder but has suffered in recent years from the high cost of doing business in the Province of Quebec and the lack of support for shipbuilding from the Government of Canada.  With Davie's failure, there is no longer even one major shipbuilder in Canada, and very few small ones.  May 25, 2006.

   YET ANOTHER NEW BARGE YARD.  The Inland Waterways Journal reports that a third new inland barge yard is now under construction.  This one, to be called Three Rivers Boat and Barge, Inc., is being developed by the owner of Three Rivers Machine and Fab., inc., on a 38-acre green-field site in Paducah KY, just upstream from National Maintenance & Repair.  Such masochism!  Have these people never heard of business cycles?  May 23, 2006.

   TRAGEDY/MYSTERY AT ABS.  According to last Wednesday (May 17)'s Houston Chronicle:

"Robert J. Bauerle, chief financial officer for American Bureau of Shipping, died after slamming a company Porsche into the back of a logging truck on Texas 105 about 45 miles north of Houston.  Bauerle, 59, who had not been heard from since phoning his office on May 8 to say that he was en route to work, died at the scene Monday.  His whereabouts prior to his death are still a mystery, authorities said."  

"Bauerle was driving west and had passed some vehicles when he attempted to pass another car. But instead, his Porsche collided with a logging truck headed east. There were no skid marks, investigators said.  Bauerle was not only the chief financial officer but also a senior vice president and treasurer for American Bureau of Shipping, a nonprofit group that establishes technical safety standards for international shipping.  He had worked for the company for 15 years.  Three days before he vanished while driving to work, his company had asked him about "questionable expenditures and invoices that had been found," said Trooper Randy Peck.  "He gave no explanation on that Thursday and then disappeared the following Monday after leaving for work," Peck said.  Stewart Wade, spokesman for American Shipping, declined to comment on the expenditures except to say the company has strict auditing review processes that are ongoing."

Questions:

(1) The report is misleading: did he hit the back of the truck or did he hit it head on?

(2) Does "There were no skid marks" imply that the brakes were not applied?

(3) ABS gives its officers Porsches to drive?

(4) What is the role of the State Troopers in this affair?  Is Trooper Peck investigating the accident?  If so, how come he knows about the audit problem?  And vice versa.

What's going on?  A statement from ABS is needed, and not a self-serving, obfuscatory one, either.  May 23/24, 2006.

   CH. ATLANTIQUE RENAMED.  Aker Yards has announced that, once it's deal with Alstom is closed, later this month, Chantiers de l'Atlantique will be known as Aker Yards France.  Read the announcement here.  This will be popular with the workforce.  May 23, 2006.

   V-MAX TANKER OUT FOR MONTHS.  Arlington Tankers has announced that one of its two 314,000-dwt shallow-draft V-Max crude carriers, the "Stena Vision", will shortly "commence a prolonged period of repair due to an engine maintenance program".  Read the announcement here.  The need was identified during the ship's first special survey, but there are no details provided.  Maybe the engine manufacturer (MAN/B&W) will step up and tell us what's going on.  May 19, 2006.  I have now heard that the problem is with the reduction gear, not the main engine: we still need to be told more by the manufacturer.  May 20, 2006.

   BRING BACK OTEC.  That's Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion to you.  A hot topic in the Carter era, we haven't heard much about it lately, but click here to read an excellent SNAME presentation on the subject.  Maybe its time has finally come.  Makes more sense than wind farms, anyway, and I like the duck who sees a need for a paradigm shift.  May 19, 2006.

   LAKES OPERATORS WORRIED ABOUT DREDGING.  The Great Lakes Maritime Task Force is complaining about the Corps of Engineers failure to dredge Great Lakes ports and waterways to the required depth.  Once again, the Congress fails to maintain critical infrastructure.  Read their news release here.  May 19, 2006.

   MORE ATBS FOR MANITOWOC.  U.S. Shipping Partners has revealed in an SEC filing that it has exercised options with Manitowoc Marine Group for two more 160,000-barrel tank barges, at a price of about $66mm each, for delivery in Aug-09 and Nov-09.  There's no mention of the tugs to go with these barges, although U.S. Shipping holds options for additional tugs with Eastern Shipbuilding that are not due to be declared yet.  Read the EDGAR announcement here.  May 19, 2006.

   U.S. SHIPPING AND SENESCO PART COMPANY.  U.S. Shipping Partners also reveals in the SEC filing mentioned above that it has negotiated a deal with SENESCO under which the latter has no further involvement in the construction of the first barge in this series, the one that was originally to be built in SENESCO's Rhode Island yard and then got shifted to Sparrows Point.  Read the EDGAR announcement here.  SENESCO appears to be paying U.S. Shipping $20mm to escape from this deal, but it is not clear how much of this is really a penalty.  U.S. Shipping has hired a consultant to manage the completion of the barge, the delivery of which has slipped another three months.  (Can anyone tell me who this is?  I can guess, but would like to have it confirmed.)  No mention of what happens to the tug that goes with this barge, which was last heard to be under construction by Blount Boats.  Once again, I can't resist saying "I told you so": I brought down on myself all kinds of wrath two years ago by presuming to suggest that SENESCO could not build this barge.  Now look where we are.  May 19/20, 2006.

   HORIZON LINES TRIES AGAIN.  Castle Harlan, the majority owner of Horizon Lines, the grossly overvalued, debt-heavy, asset-poor, Jones-Act shipping company,  is having another go at selling stock to the public.  Read the announcement here.  Will this effort be any more successful than their previous effort, in September last year?  Why would it?  Nobody should buy stock in this company until they can come up with a rational business plan that takes into account the need to replace their ancient ships.  I can't resist saying "I told you so": I got into endless arguments in May 2004, when I criticized the original deal, in which Castle Harlan bought this company from Carlyle Group for at least twice what it was worth, and again in March last year when I dumped on their IPO (read my comment here).  But now look at them.  May 19, 2006.

   MORE ON THOSE JEFFBOAT BARGES.  Reliable sources tell me that JeffBoat's contract with Statia Terminals, reported here on May 4, (see below), is actually for five bunkering barges, of the same design as the ones they built recently for Vane Brothers.  Even more interesting, however, is that these are not Jones Act vessels and the contract was won in competition with overseas shipyards.  Of course, the cost of transportation would favor a U.S. yard in a competition of this type, given that there are no competing yards anywhere in the region.  But still, you would think that ACL would be proud of this achievement, wouldn't you?  May 18, 2006.

   ORISKANY GOES GLUG.  The aircraft carrier USS "Oriskany", (CV 34), which has been rusting away at a pier for 30 years, has been sunk as a reef off Pensacola FL, the first naval ship to be reefed by the Navy rather than by MARAD or a private-sector group.  Read the Pensacola News-Journal's coverage here.  Oriskany was built in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and was incomplete when WWII ended: she was finally delivered in 1950, saw service in Korea and Vietnam, and was decommissioned in 1976.  Read her story here.  May 18, 2006.

   OGLEBAY NORTON SELLS SIX SHIPS.  Oglebay Norton has sold six of its nine remaining ships, but, tantalizingly, doesn't say which ships or to whom they have been sold.  Why are so many corporations apparently so enamored of announcements that only tell half the story?  What's the secret?  Read ON's announcement here.  May 18, 2006.

   PUGET SOUND PILOTS WANT MORE.  Pilotage rates in Puget Sound have been raised 24% to allow an increase in salaries, which are apparently lagging behind those paid to pilots in the Columbia River and San Francisco Bay.  Read about it in the Puget Sound Business Journal here.  Note that "Last year's net target income for pilots was $215,000".  Any comment would be superfluous.  May 18, 2006.

   AKER LAYS KEEL OF SECOND TANKER.  Aker Philadelphia has laid the keel for its second tanker.  Read the announcement here.  Track the yard's progress here.  (Note that delivery of the fourth containership has been delayed by late delivery of the main engine.)  May 16, 2006.

   WESTPAC EXPRESS GETS NEW 5-YEAR CHARTER.  Austal's "Westpac Express" has won a new five-year charter from the Navy, valued at about $14mm a year, plus reimbursable voyage costs.  Read the DefenseLink announcement here.  When will DoD stop messing about and actually buy some of these excellent boats?  May 16, 2006.

   US-BUILT TANKERS GO FOR CONVERSION.  All four of the 188,000-dwt crude carriers built by NASSCO in the late 1970s have now been OPA90-ed out of the fleet and sold not for scrap but for conversion to FPSOs.  ExxonMobil's "S/R Columbia Bay" went first, followed by ConocoPhillips' "Polar Alaska" and "Polar California".  Now we hear that Keystone Shipping has sold the "Denali" for the same purpose, and for the high price, compared to scrap, of $27mm.  The only single-hull crude carrier now left in the Jones Act fleet is the "S/R Long Beach", sister to the ship that started it all.  May 15, 2006.

   PIRIOU TO BUILD YARD IN NIGERIA.  French boatbuilder Chantier Piriou, of Concarneau, (in Brittany, between Quimper and Lorient), plans to build a shipyard in Nigeria that can produce tugs, OSVs and fishing vessels.  Despite the press coverage, which emphasizes their experience in the first two categories, Piriou is really a builder of fishing boats: in the past five years, they have built 23 fishing vessels, three tugs and six crew boats, and are only now going after orders for OSVs.  Good luck!  May 12, 2006.

   BOLLINGER DELIVERS ONE, GETS TWO MORE.  Bollinger Shipyards' Gretna Division has delivered the 80,000-barrel tank barge "B No. 280" to Bouchard Transportation and has been rewarded with contracts to build not only a sister barge, "B No. 282", but also an additional barge, "B No. 233", which will have a capacity of 35,000-barrels and will be built by Bollinger's Amelia Division.  Read Bollinger's announcement here.  May 11, 2006.

   MARINETTE GETS $126MM LIGHTERAGE ORDER.  Naval Facilities Engineering Command, (NAVFAC), has exercised the first option on its August 2003 contract with Manitowoc Corporation's Marinette Marine, for full-rate production of the Improved Navy Lighterage System, (INLS).  This covers over 300 powered and unpowered modular lighters and tugs, and is scheduled for completion in December 2007.  Options for two additional batches may follow.  Read the DefenseLink announcement here and Manitowoc's press release here.  May 11, 2006.

   "NORWAY" TO ALANG.  Cruise industry web sites are reporting that the "Norway" has finally left its lay-up berth in Port Klang for the trip to the breakers' beaches in Alang.  The "Norway" was built in 1962 as the "France", by Chantiers de l'Atlantique - hull # G19 - and was bigger than any other liner apart from the two old Queens.  A fine ship.  What a pity she could not have been converted, Queen Mary-style, into a hotel or something.   May 11, 2006.

   CRUISE SHIPS TO BE BUILT IN GREECE?   Stelios Haji-Ioannou's EasyShips cruise company is apparently planning to build new mid-sized cruise ships in Greece.  Now there's a bad idea.  No Greek shipyard has a record of successful construction of any type of ship, let alone one as complex as a cruise ship.  May 10, 2006.

   ULJANIK MOVES IN ON VIKTOR LENAC.   Croatian shipbuilder Brod. Uljanic has bought out the World Bank's investment in Croatian shiprepairer Viktor Lenac, in a step toward taking control.  Uljanic builds car carriers and other mid-sized merchant ships at its yard in Pula (formerly the Austro-Hungarian Navy's submarine base).  Viktor Lenac is one of the best repair and conversion yards in Europe, possibly the best in the Mediterranean, with considerable experience in drill rigs and cruise ships, as well as cargo ships.  May 10, 2006.

   ROCHESTER FAST FERRY SOLD.  The fast ferry built by Austal Australia in 2004 for a service between Rochester NY and Toronto ON, which has been troubled from the outset, has apparently been sold to a British operator for service between Dover and Boulogne, for a price said to be at least its $32mm original cost.  End of saga.  May 9, 2006.

   METRO BAILS OUT OF PHILLY.  Metro Machine of Pennsylvania is giving up its lease at the former Philadelphia Naval Ship Yard, where it operated Dock No. 3 and the adjacent area as part of its ship scrapping business.  Last ship to be scrapped: the ill-fated USS "Stark".  Metro's original intention in Philly was to operate the facility as a repair yard, together with a a part of the former Sun Ship shipyard in Chester and the former Litton Industries facility in Erie.  Now it is back in Norfolk where it started.  May 9, 2006.

   T-AKE SEA TRIALS SUCCESSFUL.  The recent sea trials of the first of the Navy's new T-AKEs, USNS "Lewis and Clark", were apparently pretty successful, especially for a first-of-class ship.  Read SupShip's trial report here.  Good for NASSCO.  What a contrast to the LPD 17 trial report.  May 6, 2006.

   JEFFBOAT TO BUILD OCEANGOING BARGES.  JeffBoat's parent company, ACL, has announced that the Jeffersonville shipyard has secured a contract worth about $30mm from Statia Terminals to build some oceangoing tank barges.  Read the press release here.  This is a singularly poor press release in that it doesn't say how many barges, of what size or for what service.  In addition, the obligatory quote from management gives the totally misleading impression that building anything other than inland barges is something new for JeffBoat.  May 4, 2006.

   TEXAS TO BUILD ANOTHER FERRY FOR BOLIVAR SERVICE.  The state of Texas has revealed that later this year it will contract for the construction of an additional ferry for its Galveston-Bolivar service.  Read about this service here.  May 4, 2006.

   FINCANTIERI MOVES IN ON LLOYD WERFT.   State-owned Italian shipbuilding giant Fincantieri has bought 21% of leading German shiprepairer Lloyd Werft for roughly $10mm.  In addition, it has acquired the option to buy a controlling interest in the company by the end of 2008.  May 4, 2006.

   27 LOST ON CAPESIZE BULKER.   The 172,000-dwt bulker "Alexandros T" was lost, with 27 of its crew of 33, off South Africa yesterday.    The ship was en route from Brazil to China with a cargo of iron ore.  May 4, 2006.

   FOUR DIE ON VLCC.   Four members of a riding squad died following a flash fire on the 280,000-dwt Bergesen Worldwide tanker "Suva", yesterday.  The ship was sailing in ballast from Singapore to Fujairah.  No statement from BW.  May 4, 2006.

   BENDER TO BUILD TWO TUGS FOR MARITRANS.  Maritrans has ordered two ATB tugs from Bender Shipbuilding, in addition to the three already on order, and has contracted with Bender's affiliated company, Tampa Bay Shipbuilding, for the double-hulling of their only remaining single-hull tank barge, the "Ocean 211".  The total value of these contracts is about $60mm.  Read Maritrans' press release here.  May 3, 2006.

   REEFER SHIP RAMS MIAMI SEA WALL.  The 44-year-old, 1600-dwt inter-island reefer ship "Hybur Star" rammed a sea wall in Biscayne Bay as it was leaving the Port of Miami yesterday.  May 3, 2006.

   KEPPEL FELS DELIVERS "SEADRILL 3" AND "DEEP DRILLER 2".   Seadrill AS has taken delivery of the first of five jack-ups that it has under construction and Sinvest AS has taken delivery of the first of eight.  "Seadrill 3" and "Deep Driller 2" are both Keppel Mk. V B rigs.  Read Keppel's press releases here.  May 3, 2006.

   BOXSHIP SKIPPER CHARGED.  The captain of the containership "Zim Mexico", which knocked over a crane in the Port of Mobile in March, has been indicted for negligence by a grand jury on the basis of a criminal complaint by the Coast Guard, and arrested.  He faces up to ten years in prison.  May 3, 2006.

For links to comment on earlier maritime news, please go to News and Comment

If you have comments or questions, suggestions or complaints, please e-mail me.