ShipbuildingNews
Eight New SAR Lifeboats Ordered for Canadian Coast Guard
Canada's Public Services and Procurement Canada is acquiring eight new high-endurance search and rescue (SAR) lifeboats for the Canadian Coast Guard. The new self-righting vessels will have the ability to operate up to 100 nautical miles from shore. The vessels will be built by Chantier Naval Forillon in Quebec and Hike Metal Products in Ontario. The two yards are already producing six SAR lifeboats each under existing contracts signed in 2015. Under the amended contracts, each shipyard will build four...
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Two Vietnamese Shipbuilding Execs Arrested on Corruption Charges
Vietnam's Investigative Police Agency has arrested two executives from troubled state shipbuilder Vinashin on charges of embezzlement. Truong Van Tuyen, the firm's former director, and Pham Thanh Son, its current deputy director, stand accused of abusing their positions to transfer funds for their own use. According to prosecutors, Son and Tuyen worked with the firm's former accountant to transfer $4.5 million in illicit deposits to accounts at Ocean Bank, a now-defunct financial institution that has been connected to other corruption...
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IMO Launches Phase II of Bangladesh Ship Recycling Program
The second phase of an IMO-implemented project to enhance safe and environmentally sound ship recycling in Bangladesh was launched at a meeting of stakeholders in Dhaka, Bangladesh, late last month. The 19-month project is being funded under a $1.1 million agreement with the Government of Norway. It focuses on building capacity within Bangladesh to work towards accession to the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships. The Hong Kong Convention, adopted in 2009 but...
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Flettner Rotor Exceeds Expectations
The performance of the EcoFlettner, which is being tested on the MV Fehn Pollux since July, has exceeded the expectations of the scientists monitoring it. 15 companies from around Leer, Germany, have been involved in the development and construction of the sailing system, a project funded by the E.U. and coordinated by Mariko. The rotor is 18 meters high and has a diameter of three meters. After test runs ashore, the rotor is now being tested under real conditions on...
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Ship Recycling Transparency Initiative Launched
The non-profit Sustainable Shipping Initiative has launched the Ship Recycling Transparency Initiative’s (SRTI) online platform, a tool for sharing information on ship recycling to drive responsible practice. The platform comes nine months after a group of shipping companies first announced their collective effort to use the market-drivers that transparency brings to make responsible ship recycling the norm. Demanding transparency holds the shipping industry to account, raising the bar for current practice as well as creating fair competition among shipowners, say...
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Norfolk Naval Shipyard Tests Exoskeleton for Heavy Lifting
Norfolk Naval Shipyard is trialing an exoskeleton suit for heavy-lifting jobs as a way to improve productivity and lower the risk of injury. The Levitate Airframe exoskeleton is already used on the assembly line by BMW, Toyota, John Deere and Vermeer, and Norfolk's Technology & Innovation working group decided to see if it could also help in the shipyard. The system is of particular interest for the yard's Structural Department. “We do lead shielding and a lot of heavy...
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Keel Laid for Canada’s Third Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship
The keel has been laid for the future HMCS Max Bernays at Halifax Shipyard, Canada. Welder Vicki Berg laid a coin on the keel signifying the start of full production of the Royal Canadian Navy’s third Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship. Chief Petty Officer Max Leopold Bernays is a Canadian naval hero who served as the Coxswain of His Majesty’s Canadian Ship Assiniboine during the Battle of the Atlantic. The coin placed was...
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Nautilus Looks to JV to Refinance Seafloor Mining Support Vessel
Nautilus Minerals has announced that it is currently negotiating the terms of an agreement for a joint venture (JV) to refinance the acquisition of the production support vessel for the Solwara 1 seafloor mining project that it had previously arranged to be procured through MAC Goliath. The new JV would own and operate the vessel and charter it to the existing Solwara 1 joint venture between Nautilus Minerals Niugini and the Independent State of Papua New Guinea’s nominee, Eda Kopa...
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Scorpio Orders Scrubbers for Tankers and Bulkers
Scorpio Tankers has announced that it will purchase exhaust gas cleanings systems for 42 of its vessels in 2019 and for 10 of its vessels in 2020. The value of these agreements is estimated to be $79.6 million, but the manufacturers involved have not been revealed. The hybrid-ready scrubber systems that are being fitted will be able to be upgraded to a closed loop configuration at a future date. As part of the same agreement, Scorpio Tankers also has an...
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Rolls-Royce and Wartsila in Close Race with Autonomous Ferries
Within days of each other, Wartsila and Rolls-Royce have announced successful dock-to-dock navigation tests aboard ropax ferries fitted with their respective autonomous-vessel systems. Wartsila described its autonomous trial as an "unprecedented" round of tests, and Rolls-Royce said that it has now demonstrated the "world's first fully autonomous ferry." Wartsila's test (announced November 28) took place aboard the hybrid-powered ferry Folgefonn, which operates a three-stop route in Hordaland, Norway. During the trial, the Wartsila autonomy suite handled all navigational operations along...
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