Signet Maritime Corp. has begun construction on the first commercial vessels in the United States developed using a purely 3D design process. The tugboats will be built to the Advanced Rotortug design by Robert Allan Ltd., which places two azimuthing…
Managing ballast water is an indispensable part of maritime operations. How that water is treated before it is discharged will grow in importance as new international rules come into effect. The Ballast Water Management Convention entered into force internationally…
Mariners spend less time online than the average landlubber with constant access to Wi-Fi and 5G cell towers, but they often rely on the internet more for managing their lives. Paying bills, shopping or connecting with family and friends…
An emerging trend before the pandemic, online training has now become a major element in maintaining and improving mariner skills almost everywhere — with consequences that so far seem to be mostly positive. Ukraine-based Danica Crewing Services recently conducted…
Pilots represent a small fraction of U.S. mariners, but their impact — safely guiding up to 90 percent of goods into the nation’s ports — is immense. While experience remains the most valuable component of pilotage, training has evolved to…
Modern PPUs are composed of sensors and a laptop computer (or tablet) typically carried aboard in a backpack. The sensors are placed outside on the ship and the pilot uses the real-time data to improve navigational…
New maritime fuels are coming or are already here, and the associated changes are raising concerns about the readiness of today’s mariners. For example, the rise of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is handled in ways dramatically different from fuel…
Beyond collisions with ships, whales inhabiting the waters of North America are vulnerable to injury or death from another human-related threat: fishing gear entanglement. Research conducted by the New England Aquarium and the Center for Coastal Studies showed that scars…
While humans once stood in awe of the size and strength of whales, the roles have been nearly reversed since the mid-20th century as increasing ship traffic has added insult to the injury done by the era of whaling. To…
It took a decade or two from the invention of the marine propeller in the 19th century for the technology to become widely accepted. Thereafter, adoption has been nearly universal, but progress toward improved efficiencies has come in fits…
