Guides

As the marine industry keeps adapting to the low oil prices era, the shipping companies face a completely new set of difficult challenges. They have to battle to contain the cost in various offshore operations and projects while, at the same time, they have to compete in a very competitive and increasingly flexible market of onshore services.

This happens along with the ongoing expansion of the LNG industry. This work is backed by over 150 years of the industry experience. In brief, this official DNV GL publication includes following major chapters - Facing up to a new normal - Technology foresight - Focused on the future - Building knowledge with bold ideas - Experts dedicated to making a difference - A broad service portfolio - Technical assurance... In addition to the above, it addresses the risk management advisory, some aspects of the offshore classification, various software solutions for the offshore industry as well as the services for project strategy, concept and feasibility.

The enterprise risk management services, concept and engineering support, safety and environmental risk management services  and technology qualification and assessment have also been dealt with, along with the project verification and certification, project design services, due diligence  and project risk management - as you can see, this small booklet contains quite a lot of useful info.

Rogue waves did always attract rapt attention of the researchers in the offshore and general shipping industries, in marine academia, and media during past years. These waves are also called freak/abnormal waves, or even giant waves, and are considered quite steep and also larger in comparison to the waves surrounding them.

There was a number of serious accidents which involved vessels and offshore installations - those incidents have been reported and discussed, and these waves were considered a reason; however, they not yet been included in the class society rules and recognized offshore standards. This paper was released to summarize the latest available information on rogue waves phenomena and its impact on ships as well as different marine structures. The authors have also focused on recent research projects in which this Class Society has participated.

Hopefully, this booklet will definitely provide readers with some better understanding on this weather phenomenon. In addition to that, the authors have proposed some future research activities required to support the inclusion of the rogue wave effects in the operational and design procedures related to the offshore structures and vessels, in particular. They have also emphasized the need for the warning criteria for such waves.

In the relatively near past, it was the established tradition that the vessels, once they had left the port, were almost completely isolated from any type of communication with the shore. This situation continued to be true until the radio installation on ships have been introduced - we are now talking about the very beginning of the twentieth century. Since that time, the capacity as well as the coverage of communication between vessels and the shore bases has been evolving.

However, it shall be noted that we are currently experiencing significant changes in this field, with the introduction of the digital signals - their advantage is that they are easily transferred from shore to the vessel and in the reverse direction, at quite significant rates and, what is very important, this can be done independent on the location of the vessel. In this document the editors try to describe the technical updates and developments as well as the implications that such developments can have for the shipping industry of the nearest future.

Four major parts of the present DNV GL paper cover historical and current drivers, modern communication and future developments in this field, ship connectivity - how it will be in the future, and opportunities ahead...

Ethane is produced from natural gas (on an industrial scale) and is actually treated as the by-product of oil refining process. The global production of this gas was at about 55 million tonnes level in 2013, the majority being in the United States and Middle East. It is primarily used in the chemical industry, namely in the production of another gas, ethylene. In turn, ethylene is further used in the production of PVC, polyethylene, styrene and ethylene glycol.

Throughout the history, ethane gas has been carried in the small ethane/ethylene carriers that were specifically designed for transportation of ethylene, taking into account its boiling point of -104C, ethane and other LPG cargo. The present report consists of two parts. In part A the authors look at the most important factors influencing the expected future demand for the transportation of the ethane cargoes from the United States.

It is assumed that such increasing demand will require larger ships (with capacity more than 400000 cub.m.) and it means that these ships will most probably be too large for the containment systems that have been in use up to today. This is what the second part of this report is dealing with - what the new containment systems may look like. /span>

This guide book has been specifically prepared and released for the ship managers and masters plus senior ship officers working on the vessels registered in UK. The principal intention of the authors who have compiled the book was to provide above mentioned persons with the easy-to-use info connected with the existing UK Merchant Shipping regulations together with the all relevant administrative procedures.

These procedures and regulations might be significantly differing from ones the readers are familiar with and applicable to the ships flying other flags and the intention of this document is to guide the reader to compliance with the UK requirements. The current release of this guidebook was updated to be brought in line with the MLC coming into force. Twelve sections of the publication address the ship manning and applicable STCW requirements, hours of rest/work, crew lists, employment agreements, log books including GMDSS, health and safety matters, proper reporting of the accidents, requirements applied to the medical stores, surveys and audits, refugees, stowaways, alcohol, cadet training, CSR, i.e. continuous synopsis record, and a full list of UK publications that shall be possessed onboard. The annexes provide informative example of how exactly the RAF, i.e. risk assessment form, should be completed, and the MSF 4605...​

The fourth release of the FAQ to the ILO MLC, 2006 - worked out by the International Labor Office to serve as an integral part of the follow-up to the Action Plan. The MLC was officially adopted by the ninety-fourth session of the ILC in 2006, entered into force in 2013 and ratified by sixty-six countries having more than eighty percent of the world's GT of ships by 2015.

Please note that the answers that have been provided in the present publication shall not be cited as the legal opinions as the precise requirements of the MLC are there in the national laws/regulations. These answers are provided with the intention to give readers the required information in the form of concise and clear explanations that would refer to the MLC together with any other reference materials.

They shall not be considered legal advice. Literally every aspect is covered, including general in for about the MLC, questions about the people working on board the ships, questions related to the titles of the Convention, including minimum age, medical certification, training, qualification, recruitment, placement, conditions of employment, wages, hours of work/rest, leave, repatriation, manning levels, career development and so many other important issues.

Official release by Japanese Class Society, Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK). It has been meant for ship masters and is intended to let them easily check whether their ships are kept in seaworthy and safe condition at any given time. When correctly applied and followed, this set of checklists will play a good role in providing the proper control over the maintenance of the vessel and, subsequently, make shipping safer.

Since the very first release of this booklet was published in 1994 and amended in 1996 to include the updates on the maintenance standards, significant number of comments and new ideas were received from the ship owners and other parties involved. The present edition of the Guide was prepared by NK Class Society based on those ideas and comments as well as NK database of detained vessels. Ship owners and crew members are expected to make all necessary arrangements for proper maintenance of the ships and make sure their ships are kept in a safe and seaworthy condition.

The authors hope that this Guide will be useful for the Masters and owners as the information contained in it is very practical and may contribute in proper maintenance and operation of the vessel; the checklist provided therein may be used not only for the official checks but also for the routine verification.

A very small but very important and useful publication officially released by IMO. In fact, it is primarily aimed at seafarers. The booklet provides the necessary information which will be very helpful to the crew members or any other humans if they fall into the cold water or face the necessity to enter cold water in case of emergency situation.

The book also gives some required guidance to help the fist-aid providers to treat the people who have just been rescued from cold water. The booklet is examining all hazards associated with the exposure of a human to the cold. Such exposure may easily endanger life. In addition, this volume  gives some valuable advice basing on the very latest scientific and medical developments in the field of prevention or minimization of such dangers. Unfortunately, people still die at sea, and one of the reasons is a lack of this knowledge. Go through the information in this book and who knows, maybe the proper understanding of the content of the publication may someday save your (or someone else's) life.

The most important thing to understand and realize is that you shall not feel helpless to affect your survival when exposed to cold water condition. The book provides a good and detailed explanations of cold water hazards and effects they may have, and also lists the actions to take prior to abandoning the vessel, that may improve your chances to survive...