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From South Korea to Kazakhstan via Northern Sea Route.

Sea Princess round the world cruise passengers told to prepare for pirate attack.

SART or Search and Rescue Transponder is extremely vital equipment on the ship as it acts as ship SOS call in an emergency situation. It is a vital machine during distress for it helps in locating the position of the vessel in case it goes off-track and to perform search and rescue at sea. It is portable equipment which can either be carried along by the crew when abandoning a ship on a lifeboat or liferaft and it can remain float in water as it is made of waterproof material. Search and Rescue Radar Transponder is incorporated with a transmitter and a receiver which reacts to the search signal sent from an X-band radar of a ship in the vicinity, typically of 9 GHz. The response is usually displayed on radar screens as a sequence of dots on a X band-radar, which helps rescuers reach the vessels in time.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its lock-down measures have resulted in periods of reduced human activity, known as anthropause. While this period was expected to be favorable for the marine ecosystem, due to a probable reduction of pollution, shipping traffic, industrial activity and fishing pressure, negative counterparts such as reduced fisheries surveillance could counterbalance these positive effects. Simultaneously, on-land pressure due to human disturbance and tourism should have drastically decreased, potentially benefiting land-breeding marine animals such as seabirds. We analyzed 11 breeding seasons of data on several biological parameters of little penguins from a popular tourist attraction at Phillip Island, Australia. We investigated the impact of anthropogenic activities on penguin behavior during the breeding season measured by (1) distribution at sea, (2) colony attendance, (3) isotopic niche (4) chick meal mass, and (5) offspring investment against shipping traffic and number of tourists. The 2020 lock-downs resulted in a near absence of tourists visiting the Penguin Parade®, which was otherwise visited by 800,000+ visitors on average per breeding season. However, our long-term analysis showed no effect of the presence of visitors on little penguins' activities. Surprisingly, the anthropause did not trigger any changes in maritime traffic intensity and distribution in the region. We found inter- and intra-annual variations for most parameters, we detected a negative effect of marine traffic on the foraging efficiency. Our results suggest that environmental variations have a greater influence on the breeding behavior of little penguins compared to short-term anthropause events. Our long-term dataset was key to test whether changes in anthropogenic activities affected the wildlife during the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the last pristine marine soundscapes, the Arctic, is exposed to increasing anthropogenic activities due to climate-induced decrease in sea ice coverage. In this study, we combined movement and behavioral data from animal-borne tags in a controlled sound exposure study to describe the reactions of narwhals, Monodon monoceros, to airgun pulses and ship noise. Sixteen narwhals were live captured and instrumented with satellite tags and Acousonde acoustic-behavioral recorders, and 11 of them were exposed to airgun pulses and vessel sounds. The sound exposure levels (SELs) of pulses from a small airgun (3.4 L) used in 2017 and a larger one (17.0 L) used in 2018 were measured using drifting recorders. The experiment was divided into trials with airgun and ship-noise exposure, intertrials with only ship-noise, and pre- and postexposure periods. Both trials and intertrials lasted ∼4 h on average per individual. Depending on the location of the whales, the number of separate exposures ranged between one and eight trials or intertrials. Received pulse SELs dropped below 130 dB re 1 μPa2 s by 2.5 km for the small airgun and 4-9 km for the larger airgun, and background noise levels were reached at distances of ∼3 and 8-10.5 km, respectively, for the small and big airguns. Avoidance reactions of the whales could be detected at distances >5 km in 2017 and >11 km in 2018 when in line of sight of the seismic vessel. Meanwhile, a ∼30% increase in horizontal travel speed could be detected up to 2 h before the seismic vessel was in line of sight. Applying line of sight as the criterion for exposure thus excludes some potential pre-response effects, and our estimates of effects must therefore be considered conservative. The whales reacted by changing their swimming speed and direction at distances between 5 and 24 km depending on topographical surroundings where the exposure occurred. The propensity of the whales to move towards the shore increased with increasing exp

The South China Sea is one of the world's freest and safest shipping lanes, Chinese Foreign Minister WANG Yi said on Tuesday, arguing that Beijing's control over the disputed waters was justified because it was the first to "discover" them.

The inland waters around southern Vancouver Island and northern Washington State, known as the Salish Sea, host critical habitat for endangered southern resident killer whales (SRKW). This is, however, a highly traversed area, with approaches to industrial ports and coastal cities, international shipping lanes, ferry routes, and considerable recreational vessel traffic. Vessel noise is a key threat to SRKW prosperity, and so conservation measures directed to mitigate its effects have been explored annually since 2017. Here, we describe trials undertaken in 2020, which included spatially limited slowdown zones, exclusion areas as Interim whale Sanctuary Zones (ISZs), and a lateral displacement of tug transits to increase the distance between their route and SRKW foraging areas. To assess each of the measures we first considered the level of mariner participation using data from the Automated Identification Systems (AIS), mandatory for commercial vessels. Knowing this, the changes in soundscape were examined, focused on impacts on broadband (10 Hz to 100 kHz) ambient noise and the frequencies used by SRKW for communication (500 Hz to 15 kHz) and echolocation (15 to 100 kHz). A control period of two-months prior to trial initiation was used to quantify the changes. High levels (> 80%) of compliance were found for each measure, except ISZs, where observance was low. Median reduction in speeds ranged from 0.2-3.5 knots. Resulting sound reductions were most notable in the lower frequencies, although reductions were also recorded in SRKW pertinent ranges. Tug displacement also reduced ambient noise in these frequencies, despite making up a small portion of the overall traffic. The management trials were effective in reducing potential impacts singularly and in concert. Greater awareness and stakeholder engagement may increase compliance and, therefore, the efficacy of measures in the future.

Brexit Impact on Shipping and Sea Trade in UK.

The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its search indefinitely for three recreational fishermen who disappeared after their boat capsized in rough seas over the Fourth of July holiday weekend off Hawaii, an official said on Friday.

The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its search indefinitely for three recreational fishermen who disappeared after their boat capsized in rough seas over the Fourth of July holiday weekend off Hawaii, an official said on Friday.

ASEAN to 'intensify efforts' on China sea disputes.

Iranian Warships Repel Pirates' Attacks on Chinese Cargo Ship in High Seas.

Bound by the laws of the sea to help vessels in distress, shipping companies say Europe's migration crisis has placed unreasonable demands on their crews to act as lifesavers in the Mediterranean.

Bound by the laws of the sea to help vessels in distress, shipping companies say Europe's migration crisis has placed unreasonable demands on their crews to act as lifesavers in the Mediterranean.

Physicists have found an explanation for rogue waves in the ocean and hope their theory will lead to devices to warn ships and save lives. "A device on the mast of a ship analysing the surface of the sea could perhaps give a minute's warning that a rogue wave is developing" said Professor Nail AKHMEDIEV, leader of the research at the Research School of Physics and Engineering. "Even seconds could be enough to save lives."

Physicists have found an explanation for rogue waves in the ocean and hope their theory will lead to devices to warn ships and save lives. "A device on the mast of a ship analysing the surface of the sea could perhaps give a minute's warning that a rogue wave is developing" said Professor Nail AKHMEDIEV, leader of the research at the Research School of Physics and Engineering. "Even seconds could be enough to save lives."

Northern Sea Route's navigation extends by one month in warming climate.

Tracking sanctions-busting ships on the high seas.

Pirates, Slavers and Poachers: Violence on the High Seas.

Egypt rejects Turkey-Libya deal on sea rights, security.

Humans have been sailing across seas and oceans for thousands of years. However, the story of large ships capable of affecting coastal ecology and shelf sedimentary processes is only about 100 years old. Modern large seagoing vessels with a draft of 10-20 m can cause resuspension of seabed sediment, erosion of the channel slope and shoal, enhancement of seafloor sediment activity and thickening of the active layer, thereby having a significant impact on seabed topography and sedimentation processes. However, little is known about the effects of this anthropogenic agent on shelf sedimentation due to limited observational data. Here, two sediment cores were collected from a shipping lane used by vessels of 5,000- to 50,000-ton off the coast of China to analyze their sedimentary properties, with focus on both the grain size and elements. It was found that ship disturbance selectively modified the sedimentary record, with the fine-grained sediment becoming increasingly unstable. In addition, there was a reduction in grain size of sediment finer than 6.25 Φ, which decreased by 11% after the disturbance by ship. Biogenic elements that were closely related to the ecological environment were significantly altered, with Br/Cl, Si/Ti, and Ca/Ti ratios all becoming significantly smaller. This indicated that frequent disturbance caused by ships had reduced the productivity in the waters near the shipping lane. In terms of sensitivity to the effects of ship navigation, the sedimentation response was relatively rapid and began to emerge from the commencement of ship navigation, whereas the ecological response became evident later than the sedimentation response and only appeared after a significant growth in the maritime transportation of China. Following the comparison of the two sediment cores, we propose that the constant rate of supply (CRS- with ship disturbance)-constant initial concentration (CIC- without ship disturbance) dual dating model be used to establish a dati

As the massive boat pulled away from a shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, where it was built on France's Atlantic shore, some 70,000 people watched from along the coast.

Passengers on Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas ship endured a choppy, stomach-churning ride this weekend as the Bermuda-bound cruise liner steered into Post-Tropical Cyclone Hermine.