Group items tagged

Costa Cancels Rest of March China Sailings.

On March 16 2017 the crew of the MT ARIS 13, a tanker vessel, was released from Somali pirate hands due to the efforts of the Puntland Maritime Police Force (PMPF). The entire crew is reported unharmed. Under the care of the PMPF, the MT ARIS 13 is now proceeding to the Somali port city of Bosasso. On 13 March, pirates hijacked the vessel en route to Mogadishu from Djibouti. The ship was seized approximately 18 km off the northern tip of Somalia. This incident marks the first hijacking of a large merchant vessel since the height of Somali piracy in 2012.

The Covid-19 pandemic is the latest example in a growing number of health, social, economic, and environmental crises humanity is facing. The multiple consequences of this pandemic crisis required strong responses from governments, including strict lockdowns. Yet, the impact of lockdowns on coastal ecosystems and maritime activities is still challenging to quantify over large spatial scales in comparison to the pre-Covid period. In this study, we used an object detection algorithm on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images acquired by the two Sentinel-1 satellites to assess the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the presence of boats before, during and after lockdown periods in the French Mediterranean Exclusive Economic Zone. During the French most severe lockdown period (March - May 2020), we observed that ship frequentation remained at the same level from March to July 2020, instead of rising towards the summer peak like in previous years. Then, ship frequentation increased rapidly to a normal level in August 2020 when restrictions were lifted. By comparing morning and evening (7:00 am and 7:00 pm) ship frequentation during this period to pre-Covid years, we observed contrasting patterns. On the one hand, morning detections were particularly high, while on the other hand evening detections were significantly lower and less concentrated in coastal touristic waters than in previous years. Overall, we found a 9% decrease in ship frequentation between the year 2020 and the 2017-2019 period, with a maximum of 43% drop in June 2020 due to the lockdown. So, the Covid -19 crisis induced only a very short-term reduction in maritime activities but did not markedly reduce the annual ship frequentation in the French Mediterranean waters. The satellite imagery approach is an alternative method that improves our understanding of the pandemic impacts at an unprecedented spatiotemporal scale and resolution.

In the battle against invasive species, giant commercial ships are fighting on the front lines. But even when they follow the rules, one of their best weapons is coming up short, marine biologists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) discovered in a new study published in PLOS ONE March 20.

15th May - Earlier today, following the decision taken on 23 March 2012 by the Council of the European Union to allow the EU Naval Force to take disruption action against known pirate supplies on the shore, EU forces conducted an operation to destroy pirate equipment on the Somali coastline.

On Tuesday afternoon, 3 March, the MSC Oscar arrived at the APM1 terminal in Rotterdam. With a capacity of 19,224 TEU (20-foot containers), the 396 meters long and 59 meters wide ship is the largest container ship in the world.

Maersk Line signed a new building order with COSCO Shipyard Co., Ltd in Zhoushan Chinaon 26th March, 2015.

The product tanker Sampatiki reported a pirate attack off of Nigeria in the early hours of March 26. The pirates boarded the ship at 04'20"N 005'10"E, about 35 nautical miles off the coast of Rivers State in the Gulf of Guinea, near Port Harcourt, said the British security advising firm Asket.

The barge Anand 12, the tow of a tugboat hijacked by Islamist terrorists on March 26, was found Monday off of Lahad Datu, Sabah, Malaysia. 

The Coast Guard offloaded approximately 36,000 pounds of cocaine Tuesday, which was seized during a counter-drug patrol in international waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The contraband offloaded by the Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf's (WMSL-750) crew represents 17 interdictions of suspected smuggling vessels off the coasts of Central and South America by five Coast Guard cutters between early February and early March.

Around 50 ships owned by or related to North Korea have reflagged in Tanzania since the United Nations Security Council adopted its strongest-ever resolution on the country in March, in an apparent attempt to circumvent the sanctions.

Watch this amazing 4K construction time-lapse movie of Panama Canal Expansion, showcasing progress from March 2011 to June 2016. Watch over 5 years of progress in just 2 minutes with HD photos and panoramic imagery.

IOM reports that 16,927 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in 2017 through 1 March, about 80 percent arriving in Italy and the rest in Spain and Greece. This compares with 132,743 through the first 60 days of 2016.

On 30th December 2016 PM Modi launched the BHIM app i.e Bharat Interface for Money which aimed at unifying Indian citizens in terms of online cashless payments. Developed by the National Payments Corporation (NPC), the app saw a significant growth in the number of users which has reached a mark of 125 lakh Indian citizens as of March 2017.

The IMO has been closely monitoring the incident involving the MV Ever Given, which ran aground in the Suez Canal on 23 March 2021.

Over the past two years, researchers at Fisheries and Oceans Canada have been running an acoustic monitoring project at multiple study sites throughout Nova Scotia, Canada to investigate baleen whale presence and levels of underwater noise. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a passive acoustic monitor (PAM) was in place in the study site located in the approaches to Halifax Harbor, a major Canadian port. This provided a unique opportunity to determine if changes in vessel noise levels occurred after pandemic restrictions were put in place. To investigate this, we analyzed and compared acoustic data collected from March 28 to April 28 and August 6 to October 22 in both 2019 and 2020. We also investigated possible changes in vessel traffic from February 1 through April 28 and July 1 through July 28 in 2019 and 2020 using terrestrial-based automatic identification system (AIS) data provided by the Canadian Coast Guard and cargo information provided by the Port of Halifax. The acoustic data were analyzed in 1/3 octave frequency bands. For the 89.1-112 Hz frequency band, we found an 8.4 dB increase in the daily minimum sound pressure level (SPL) in April 2020 compared to April 2019 due the presence of a large crane vessel stationed near the mooring site. For the period of August to October, we found an approximately 1.7 dB reduction in the same metric from 2019 to 2020. The most noticeable change in vessel composition was the dramatic decrease in the number and occurrence of pleasure craft in July 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. While this analysis looked at only a single PAM and a limited amount of data, we observed changes in sound levels in the frequency band known to be associated with shipping as well as changes in vessel traffic; we conclude that these observed changes may be related to pandemic restrictions.

Pacific Harbour Porpoise (Phocoena phocoena vomerina) occupy a large range throughout coastal waters of British Columbia. Despite their wide distribution, they remain largely data-deficient regarding abundance and population trends, and as such are listed as Special Concern under the Species At Risk Act. Harbour porpoises are also particularly sensitive to disturbance, especially vessel-related acoustic disturbance. Large aggregations of harbour porpoise have been documented in waters around the entrance to the Port of Prince Rupert during the winter months, however little is known about the annual fine-scale activity of this species in this highly trafficked area. In this multi-year study, we used a combination of land-based visual surveys and passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) devices (C-PODs and F-PODs) to address data gaps regarding density, diel patterns, and seasonality of harbour porpoise around Prince Rupert. Echolocation activity was detected during 96% of the 1086 C-POD deployment days and 100% of the 727 F-POD deployment days, with 86% of visual surveys recording harbour porpoise presence. We detected strong seasonal and diel trends in activity, with echolocation peaks between April and June and during the hours of darkness throughout the year. There was a notable increase in daytime activity of harbour porpoise between January and March, which coincides with the months of large aggregation observations. This study indicates that despite the constant presence of large vessels, harbour porpoise continue to persist within waters surrounding Prince Rupert. This suggests the area is an important habitat for this species and also may indicate some extent of acclimatization to localized disturbance.