Maritime News and Comment

January 2007

   LCS PROGRAM MANAGER REPLACED.  The Navy has relieved CAPT Don Babcock, the LCS Program Manager, "due to a loss of confidence (in his ability) to provide effective program oversight".  He has been replaced by Dub Summerall, an SES officer who is currently one of the two Deputy PEO Ships.  January 30, 2007.

   NEW NSRP PROJECTS APPROVED.  The National Shipbuilding Research Program, (NSRP), has announced 11 new projects.  Read about them here.  January 30, 2007.

   SUB CAPTAIN RELIEVED.  The commanding officer of the USS "Newport News", (SSN 750), which rammed a Japanese VLCC from below recently, has been canned.  Read the Navy's announcement here.  January 30, 2007.

   DEVASTATING CRITICISM OF NSC.  It's no news that the so-called "National Security Cutter" program is all screwed up, thanks to the incompetence of Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, everyone's favorite shipbuilder.  Now comes a report on the subject from the DHS Inspector-General.  Read it here.  It requires no comment from me.  January 30, 2007.

   $1.168 BILLION TO DESIGN A DESTROYER.  The Navy has exercised options on its contracts with No Good Ship Systems and Bath Iron Works for "completion" of the detail design of the DDG 1000.  These provide $525 million in addition to the $643 million awarded to them four months ago, not to mention all the billions frittered away on the preceding DD-21 and DD(X) programs.  Read the DefenseLink announcements here.  What can one say?  How can it take $1,168,000,000 to design a destroyer?  And will this really be enough?  Has the Navy lost its collective mind?  January 30, 2007.

   FUNDS FOR SHIPYARD RECONSTRUCTION.  The Navy has selected six Gulf Coast shipyards that were damaged by Katrina for distribution of the $140 million that was appropriated to help in their reconstruction.  The six yards are NGSS, of course, plus Atlantic Marine, in Mobile AL, Austal USA, also in Mobile AL, Seemans Composites, in Gulfport MS, Swiftships, in Morgan City LA, and Textron Marine, in New Orleans LA.  The actual amounts to be distributed are to be negotiated.  Interesting.  There are at least three, maybe four, obvious absentees from this list.  Read the announcement here.  January 30, 2007.

   SEALIFT MANEUVERS.  In the same week that the Navy exercised an option to buy a 20-year-old sealift ship that it had on long-term charter, it offered to charter out four modern sealift ships.  Read the announcement here.  This is all very unsatisfactory.  When will the Navy stop designing ever-more-expensive MPF(F) ships and actually build something?  January 27, 2007.

   YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK.  A Chinese cargo ship came into Honolulu last week with a crack in her hull.  The Coast Guard - a unit of the Department of Homeland Paranoia - asked the Customs Service - also a unit of the Department of Homeland Paranoia - for a copy of the ship's manifest.  The Customs Service told the Coast Guard to submit a FOIA request.  What a great system.  Read the article in the Honolulu Advertiser here.  January 27, 2007.

   MORE ON THE SPIDER BOAT.  The strange-looking boat that was our mystery ship #2 made an appearance in San Francisco Bay last week.  Read the article in the San Francisco Chronicle here.  January 27, 2007.

   ANOTHER STEP BACK FOR SEARIVER.  Crowley Marine Services has bought SeaRiver's two Bay Area escort tugs, the former "S/R Angel Island" and "S/R Mare Island".  Read Crowley's announcement here.  January 27, 2007.

   FOSS BUYS ACT.  Foss Maritime has bought American Cargo Transport, which operates the ITBs Strong/American and Thunder/Lightning.  Read the announcement here.  January 27, 2007.

   GALVESTON PILOT DROWNED.  A Galveston pilot boat overturned on Saturday and one of the two pilots on board was drowned.  Read the Coast Guard's announcement here.  January 22, 2007.

   RADM GODDARD TO BE PEO SHIPS.  The Navy has moved remarkably quickly to replace RADM Hamilton.  The new PEO Ships is RADM Charles H. Goddard, currently Vice Commander of NAVSEA and, unlike Hamilton, an EDO, which means that he actually understands how ships are designed and built.  January 22, 2007.

   PEO SHIPS TO BE REPLACED.  The Navy's Program Executive Officer for Ships, RADM Charles S. Hamilton, who plans to retire in the fall, has been reassigned as an aide to Assistant Secretary Etter.  No replacement has been named.  The official line is that this is a perfectly normal thing to happen.  Of course it is.  Read the report on CNN here.  January 19, 2007.

   CVN 78 TO BE NAMED FOR FORD.  The Secretary of the Navy has announced that the first of the new class of aircraft carriers, CVN 78, will be named the USS "Gerald R. Ford".  Read the announcement here.  I am inspired to insert here an updated version of my table of ships named for former Presidents.  It's remarkable that we built 2718 Liberty ships, almost all of them named for great Americans, and 13 Presidents didn't even make that list.  Of course, even those 13 got an APL ship named for them.  January 19/23, 2007.

   GLOUCESTER MAN CONVICTED FOR SCUTTLING BOAT.  The EPA and the Coast Guard have successfully prosecuted a Gloucester MA  fisherman under the Refuse Act for scuttling his boat rather than pay for its demolition.  Read the DA's press release here.  January 19, 2007.

   UREA BARGE STUCK IN OHIO RIVER.  An inland barge loaded with urea broke loose from its tow yesterday and is stuck against the McAlpine Lock and Dam, in downtown Louisville KY.  Read the Coast Guard's report, with a remarkable photograph, here.  January 19, 2007.

   OECD REVISES CGT SYSTEM.  The OECD Working Party on Shipbuilding has published a revised system of converting GTs to CGTs.  In a long overdue change, the new system uses formulas in the form CGT = A*GT^B, where A and B are constants unique to a particular ship type, as shown below.  Read the OECD report here.  January 18, 2007.

   OECD MEMBERS BULLISH ON SHIPBUILDING.  While downloading the new CGT system described above, I discovered that the OECD held a workshop on shipbuilding last month for non-member economies.  Read the proceedings here.  There's a whole lot of interesting stuff.  January 18, 2007.

   CONGRESS ENCOURAGING US-FLAG, US-CREWED LNG CARRIERS.  Responding to a congressional mandate, the Maritime Administration, (MARAD), has invited suggestions for a proposed program to encourage the use of US flags and US crews on LNG carriers bringing cargo to U.S. terminals.  Read the announcement here.  Should they not be US-built too?  If we can't trust those rascally Europeans and Japanese to own and operate LNG carriers safely, how can we trust the Koreans to build them safely?  January 18, 2007.

   NAVY BUYS ANOTHER MPS.  The Navy has continued its program of buying in the original 13 maritime prepositioning ships, by exercising an option on the long-term charter of the USNS "2LT John P. Bobo", (T-AK 3008).  The "Bobo" is the first of the five ships that were built by GD Quincy, delivered in 1985.  The seller is a special-purpose corporation controlled by Household Finance Corp.  The purchase price is $48.6 million.  Read the DefenseLink announcement here.  January 18, 2007.

   NUCLEAR-POWERED SURFACE COMBATANTS?  The new Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's Sea Power and Force Projection Subcommittee, U.S. Representative Gene Taylor, of Mississippi, whose district includes Pascagoula, told a meeting of the Surface Navy Association last week that future surface combatants should be nuclear-powered.  Oh, wow!  Can you imagine what that would cost and how badly Northrop Grumman Ship Systems could screw up that kind of program?  January 18, 2007.

   METAL TRADES FILES SUIT AGAINST USCG.  The Philadelphia Metal Trades Council and the Metal Trades Department of the AFL-CIO have now filed their complaint against the U.S. Coast Guard regarding the Philly shipyard's importation of pre-assembled "macro-modules" of hull outfit for OSG's tankers.  Read it here.  It seems to be pretty straightforward to me.  Regardless of the legal small print, we can't have a Jones Act that is rock solid for the operators but not for the builders.  If the US-built regulations can be fiddled and finagled to give U.S. shipyard work to Korean and Chinese shipyards, then maybe we should also allow Korean or Chinese investors in Jones Act shipping and Korean or Chinese crews on Jones Act ships.  January 16, 2007.

   BARGE NAMED FOR MARTY JOHNSON.  Crowley Marine has christened the first of three large, oceangoing, deck barges being built for them by Gunderson Marine.  The new vessel is called the "Marty J", in memory of Marty Johnson, the well-known naval architect who died during the salvage of the "Cougar Ace", in the North Pacific last year.  Read Crowley's announcement here.  January 16, 2007.

   USCG TO INVESTIGATE ANCHOR LOSSES.  The U.S. Coast Guard, the Washington State Department of Ecology and Alaska Tanker Company have announced that a joint investigation of the mysterious losses of anchors from the new Alaskan-trade crude carriers built by NASSCO.  Read the announcement here.  January 16, 2007.

   NAVY STOPS WORK ON LOCKHEED'S LCS.  The Navy has directed Lockheed Martin to stop work on its second Littoral Combat Ship.  The first ship, LCS 1, is in the water and being fitted out at Marinette Marine, and is not affected.  The second ship, LCS 3, is being built by Bollinger Shipyards.  The reason given is "cost over-runs", the extent of which Lockheed Martin is apparently unable to estimate.  This is, obviously, bad news for Bollinger, as well as for Lockheed Martin, but, good lord, if we're going to stop work for cost over-runs, the entire US Navy shipbuilding program would be at a standstill: the cost over-run on LPD 17 alone would pay for four LCSs.  Read the Navy's announcement here and the Washington Post's story here.  January 13, 2007.

   MARAD SELLS TANKER FOR SCRAP.  The Maritime Administration has sold the tanker "Lexington" for scrap.  Read the announcement here.  The 40,000-dwt "Lexington" was built in 1958 by Newport News as the "Esso Lexington": she's been in the Reserve Fleet since 1989.  January 12, 2007.

   BRING BACK THE TAX ON OIL IMPORTS?  The death of President Ford recalls his strong effort to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil.  Read his 1975 State of the Union address here.  In 1975, following the Arab oil embargo of 1973, we imported about 6 million barrels a day, compared to about 14 million today; the price of oil was about $11 a barrel, compared to about $60 today, and the price of gasoline had just gone up to about $1.80 a gallon, compared to about $2.25 today.  President Ford levied a $3 per barrel duty on crude oil imports, in the hope that it would lead to a reduction in imports.  It didn't, but imports didn't get above 7 million barrels a day until the administration of George the First.  Maybe we should try it again.  What would be a good number?  $10 a barrel?  Incidentally, in 1974 the Shipbuilders Council argued, unsuccessfully, for an exemption from this tax for imports carried in US-built tankers.  (Of course this was the old Shipbuilders Council, back when we still had a big-ship shipbuilding industry.)  Not much point in trying that again.  January 9, 2007.

   YET ANOTHER SUB-SHIP COLLISION.  The USS "Newport News", (SSN 750), (built by Newport News in 1989), collided with the 300,000-dwt VLCC "Mogamigawa", owned by K Line and built by Imabari in 2001, in the Straits of Hormuz yesterday.  Read the Navy's statement here.  The submarine was apparently transiting submerged at the time but apparently not submerged enough.  What is it with these sub commanders that they can't detect the presence of a great big ship like a VLCC?  It's not as if VLCCs are rare in that part of the world: there must be scores of them transiting the Straits of Hormuz every day.  January 9, 2007.

   SHIPYARD WORKER KILLED IN BROOKLYN.  A welder was killed on Saturday at GMD Shipyard, in the former Brooklyn Navy Yard, when a section of plating apparently fell from the bottom of a barge in dry-dock.  Read the report in the New York Times here.  January 8, 2007.

   OSV AND PRODUCT CARRIER COLLIDE OFF GALVESTON.  The OSV "Capt. Nick" (built 2002) collided with the product carrier "Panam Caribe" (built 2004) off Galveston on Saturday.  Read the Coast Guard's announcement here.  January 8, 2007.

   AMO OFFICERS FOUND GUILTY.  The National President of the American Maritime Officers, (AMO), Michael McKay, and his brother, the National Secretary-Treasurer, Robert McKay, were found guilty of racketeering yesterday in federal court in the Southern District of Florida.  Sentencing will be in March.  If U.S. merchant marine officers are the best in the world, as they are for ever telling us, why can't they organize their unions better?  January 7, 2007.

   BOLLINGER DELIVERS ANOTHER ATB.  Bollinger Shipyards has delivered yet another ATB combination, the tank barge "B. No. 205", built at Gretna, and the tug "Linda Lee Bouchard", built at Lockport.  Read Bollinger's announcement in the Press Releases section of their web site, here.  By my count, there are now only four single-hull tank barges of over 5000 gt left in the Jones Act fleet and they all go out this year.  See the fleet structure here -  87 double-hull barges in operation and 31 more either under construction or being converted.  January 5, 2007.

   SAVANNAH PILOT GUILTY OF NEGLIGENCE.  A Coast Guard Administrative Law Judge has lifted the license of a Savannah pilot for driving U.S. Shipping's "Charleston" past the Elba Island LNG terminal at "full ahead".  Both the pilot and the ship's master were found guilty of negligence.  Read the report from the local Fox channel here.  January 5, 2007.

   RN DOWNSIZING POINTS WAY FOR USN.  The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the huge costs involved in building new aircraft carriers and submarines having essentially bankrupted Britain's Ministry of Defence, the Royal Navy is to be reduced from the already derisory level of 44 commissioned ships to the totally pathetic level of 25.  Read a report in the Daily Telegraph here.  OK, so the USN is not in straits that are quite as dire as this, yet, but the situation and the signs are all much the same.  January 5, 2007.

   GE CAPITAL ACQUIRES CITI'S MARINE FINANCE GROUP.  GE Capital Solutions, a leading lender to the U.S. marine industry, has acquired CitiGroup's Marine Finance division, which holds $250 million in assets.  Read the announcement here.  January 4, 2007.

   KIRBY BUYS 58 TANK BARGES.  Kirby Corp. has announced the acquisition of 58 tank barges, 37 from Coastal Towing and 21 from Cypress Barge.  Read their announcement here.  January 4, 2007.

   SHIP-BRIDGE ALLISION.  Here's a little background on the movie clip of a ship hitting a bridge that is rattling around the internet.  Again.  The accident happened on August 11, 2001.  The ship is the "Windoc", a 29,000-dwt Canadian-flag bulker owned and operated at the time by N. M. Paterson & Sons, Ltd.  She was originally the "Rhine Ore", built in 1959 by Schlieker Werft, in Hamburg, and is still around, now jointly owned by Algoma Central Corp. and Upper Lakes Group.  The bridge is the Allanburg lift bridge over the Welland Canal, in Thorold, Ontario: it is not an automated bridge and was apparently going up as the "Windoc" approached but mysteriously reversed itself, although it was going up again when the "Windoc" hit it, with the results you see on the clip.  The operator was allegedly suffering from something: you can imagine what.  Amazingly, nobody was hurt and the Canal reopened only two days later.  The most comprehensive report on this incident is on the invaluable boatnerd.com: read it here.  Oh, ok, if you haven't seen it yet, click here. January 3, 2007.

   LIFTBOAT IN TROUBLE IN GOM.  The liftboat "Juan", built by Bollinger Shipyards in 1997 and owned by Montco Offshore, is lying on its stern in the GoM this morning.  Read the Coast Guard's report, with photograph, here.  The Coast Guard calls this a 90° list but I think it's a 90° trim: the release must have been written by someone from the Deepwater project.  January 3/4, 2007.

   TUFTS PROF ATTACKS US SHIPYARDS.  The New York Times today publishes an op-ed column by John Curtis Perry, Professor of History and Director of the Maritime Studies program at Tufts University, in which he appears to call for abandonment of the Merchant Marine Acts of 1920 and 1936, but, if you read on, he is actually only calling for abandonment of the build-American provisions.  Read the article here.  He makes no mention of the high costs associated with US-flag ownership and crewing.  One might think that intellectual rigor would require him to at least address these aspects of the problem, and Tufts is known for its intellectual rigor, so it must just have been an oversight.  These things happen.  I understand.  One might also suspect that his program was funded by US-flag operators and/or unions, but if that were the case, this op-ed article would be grossly dishonest, so it can't possibly be true.  By the way, note that Professor Perry's resume includes the following positions: Past Director, North Pacific Program, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; Senior Advisor, Japan Society of Boston; Director, Japan America Society of New Hampshire; and Consultant, Policy Planning Branch, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea.  But none of these positions would influence his views on the Build-American provisions of the Merchant Marine Acts of 1920 and 1936, would they?  Of course not. January 2/3, 2007.

   THE YEAR IN REVIEW.  Here are some of the more significant events of the past year in the U.S. maritime industry, as seen through my somewhat warped spectacles.  In January, no-nonsense Admiral Thad Allen was nominated to be Commandant of the Coast Guard and the first of the "San Antonio" class of amphibious assault ships was finally commissioned, incredibly late and unbelievably over-budget.  In February, politicians of all stripes displayed a staggering degree of xenophobia, racism, bigotry and plain old-fashioned stupidity in their hysterical opposition to the Dubai Ports World deal.  In March, Kirby took over Dixie Carriers and Horizon Lines announced its plan to build ships in Korea.  In April, the Coast Guard dumped NGSS's plastic FRC design, NASSCO teamed up with Daewoo and Frank Iarossi, who as President of Exxon Shipping, had presided over the Exxon Valdez disaster, retired as Chairman of ABS, after turning it from a non-profit into a very-profitable-for-the-management.  In May, the old carrier "Oriskany" was turned into a reef off Pensacola and Senesco finally gave up trying to build an ATB that was too big for them.  In June, Oglebay Norton sold most of its laker fleet to American Steamship Company and yours truly abandoned the Gulf Coast and moved to South Florida.  In July, J. F. Lehman & Partners bought the Atlantic Marine group of shipyards for much too much money and U.S. Shipping Partners ordered a series of product carriers from NASSCO.  In August, the Coast Guard gave Seabulk Tankers permission to double-hull two tankers in China.  In September, Edison Chouest announced plans to build a new yard in Houma LA, in addition to the new yards they are building in Gulfport MS and in Brazil, the first LCS was launched by Marinette and ADM Bill Kime died.  In October, it was revealed that Matson's plan to convert a containership to a container/roro ship in Alabama was a sham, with most of the work being done in China, Newport News launched CVN 77 and Luther Blount died.  In November, Reinauer Transportation bought Senesco, OSG bought Maritrans and Castle Harlan bailed out of Horizon Lines.  And, finally, in December, all hell broke loose in the Deepwater program as the national media discovered how screwed up it is.  You know what I always say: in the U.S. maritime industry, barely a month goes by without someone doing something stupid.  January 1, 2007.

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