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Eight cargo ships beached or sank in typhoon.

Biological invasions often result from transfers of organisms during trade activities. In coastal ecosystems, commercial ships are a dominant source of species transfers globally, and ships' ballast water (BW) is a major focus of biosecurity management and policy to reduce invasions. While trade drives shipping patterns, diverse vessel types and behaviors exist such that the quantitative relationship between trade and BW dynamics is still poorly resolved, limiting both science and management. Here, we evaluated a new method to predict BW discharge using trade data, by explicitly considering known BW practices according to vessel and commodity type. Specifically, we estimated the relationship between tonnage of overseas exports and BW discharge volume for San Francisco Bay (SFB), California, as a model system to demonstrate this approach. Using extensive datasets on shipborne exports and BW discharge, we (a) evaluated spatial and temporal patterns across nearly 20 ports in this estuary from 2006 to 2014 and (b) developed a predictive model to estimate overseas BW discharge volume from foreign export tonnage for the whole estuary. Although vessel arrivals in SFB remained nearly constant from 2006 to 2014, associated tonnage of exported commodities more than doubled and BW discharge more than tripled. Increased BW volume resulted from increased frequency and per capita discharge of bulk carriers from Asia and tankers from western Central America and Hawaii, reflecting shifts in direction of commodity movement. The top 11 export commodities (59% of total export tonnage) were transported on bulk carriers or tankers. In a multivariate linear model, annual tonnage of these top 11 export commodities by vessel type were strong predictors of total bay-wide overseas BW discharge (adjusted R2 = 0.92), creating the potential to estimate past or future BW delivery in SFB. Bulk export tonnage provides valuable insights into BW flux, since most BW discharge to ports is driven by

Belt and Road countries will make or break the Paris Agreement.

Off the coast of Massachusetts, the whales rise, and sing, and leap. I told myself I would not exclaim on seeing one. That I'd be graceful, drinking in the encounter with humble silence. But inevitably someone lets an 'Oh my God' slip out, or two or five, and I realized it was myself, dazzled, spinning from joy.

For a number of years now, the IMO Secretariat has submitted reports to the IMO Legal Committee on several cases related to the fraudulent use of a country's flag, and/or to the fraudulent operation of a registry without the purported flag country's permission or knowledge. The IMO Secretariat studies these cases with the assistance of IHS Markit/S&P Global, who manage the IMO numbering scheme for both ships and companies on behalf of IMO.

Ship strikes are a widespread conservation issue for many cetacean species globally. Population level impacts depend on the occurrence and severity of collisions, which may lead to life altering injuries or fatalities. Such impacts are a major concern for large, long-lived, and reproductively slow species like the fin whale. Since 2014, a seasonal feeding aggregation of fin whales has been monitored from February to June off the Catalan coast (Spain), in the northwest Mediterranean Sea. Oceanographical factors influence the occurrence and high density of krill within submarine canyons along the continental shelf, resulting in high whale abundance within a small spatial area. The study area extends 37 km offshore across a 1,944 km2 marine strip situated between the towns of Torredembarra and Castelldefels. This fin whale feeding ground is exposed to high density marine vessel traffic, given its location between the northern Mediterranean shipping lane, which links Barcelona and Tarragona Ports to the Atlantic Ocean and wider Mediterranean Basin. Ship strikes represent the greatest conservation threat for fin whales in the Mediterranean Sea. At least four fin whales have been found dead in Barcelona Port since 1986 due to ship strikes and seven live whales have been documented with injuries in the study area since 2018. Fin whale distribution was mapped with known high-risk marine vessels' (cargo, tanker and passenger vessels) shipping lanes. Vessel density and shipping lanes characterised by speed were considered. Collision risk was estimated monthly based on the predicted fin whale occurrence and traffic density. Several shipping lanes crossed the fin whale feeding habitat every month with an average speed of 15 kn. Cargo vessels displayed the highest ship-strike risk during April, overlapping with the peak of fin whale sightings in the critical feeding area. Slower vessel speeds (8 kn) in waters <200 m depth or along the continental shelf should be implemented al

Introduction: Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are required to thoroughly scan designated areas during underwater missions. They typically follow a zig-zag trajectory to achieve full coverage. However, effective coverage can be challenging in complex environments due to the accumulation and drift of navigation errors. Possible solutions include surfacing for satellite positioning or underwater acoustic positioning using transponders on other vehicles. Nevertheless, surfacing or active acoustics can compromise stealth during reconnaissance missions in hostile areas by revealing the vehicle's location.

Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) and other vessel tracking data have been used for many years to map the distribution of fishing activities. Mapping areas with low levels of fishing activity can be of particular interest; for example to avoid conflicts between fishing and other ocean uses like offshore renewable energy or to protect relatively pristine ecosystems from increasing fishing pressure. A particular problem when trying to delineate areas that are lightly fished, is the relative sparsity of vessel monitoring data in these areas. This paper explores three novel methods for estimating the distribution of fishing activity from VMS data, with particular focus on lightly impacted areas. The first new method divides the area of interest into a nested grid with varying cell sizes (depending on the density of data at each location); the second new method uses Voronoi diagrams to define polygons around observations and the third method applies a local regression to generate a smooth map of fishing intensity. The new methods are compared with two established methods: applying spatial grids and interpolating fishing tracks. The track interpolation method generally performs better than any of the new methods, however it is not always possible or appropriate to apply track interpolation; in those cases the local regression method is the best alternative.

This paper presents a geometric stochastic channel model designed for analyzing maritime communication and navigation services between moving ships using the C-band or sub-6 GHz spectrum, which aligns with the focus of emerging 5G networks on land. The channel model is validated through channel measurements conducted both on the sea and land. A software tool has been developed to integrate and analyze these measurements, which is included with this publication. The main challenge in developing the channel model for maritime services lies in the dynamic nature of the sea surface, leading to constantly changing reflection conditions due to varying reflectors and scatterers on the water. Additionally, the motion conditions of the transmitter and receiver on ships change in all three dimensions, depending on the sea state. To address these complexities, data from several measurement campaigns in diverse areas were collected. The analysis involved examining the propagation conditions over the sea with variations in sea surface roughness, antenna heights, and used bandwidths. Moreover, additional propagation conditions over nearby land were also taken into account. The study demonstrates that the changing antenna height on the ship, influenced by sea conditions, significantly affects the reflection and scattering conditions. The research aims to develop reliable, high-data rate, and broadband marine communication systems. Therefore, a measurement bandwidth of 120MHz was employed to derive the propagation model. This model not only offers absolute timing information but can also be used for time-based ranging or positioning systems. The proposed geometric stochastic channel model provides valuable insights into the complex maritime communication and navigation environment. By accounting for the continuously evolving sea surface and its impact on antenna height, the model offers a robust framework for studying and optimizing marine communication systems. The availability of

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.

Vessel strikes are one of the main threats to large whales globally and to endangered blue, fin, and humpback whales in California waters. For over 10 years, NOAA has established seasonal voluntary Vessel Speed Reduction (VSR) zones off of California and requested that all vessels 300 gross tons (GT) or larger decrease speeds to 10 knots or less to reduce the risk of vessel strikes on endangered whales. We offer a comprehensive analysis quantifying cooperation levels of all vessels ≥ 300 GT from 2010 to 2019 within designated VSR zones using Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) data. While average speeds of large vessels have decreased across the years studied, cooperation with voluntary 10-knot speed reduction requests has been lower than estimated to be needed to reduce vessel-strike related mortality to levels that do not inhibit reaching and maintaining optimal sustainable populations. A comparison of vessel speeds across inactive and active voluntary VSR time periods show a modest (+ 15%) increase in cooperation from 2017 to 2019. A complementary, incentive-based VSR program that was started in 2014 and scaled up in 2018 within the region likely improved voluntary VSR cooperation levels, as participating container and car carrier vessels traveled at lower speeds during the VSR season than vessels not enrolled in the incentive-based effort. Comparisons of vessel speeds in the incentive-based VSR program across inactive and active time periods showed a significant (+ 41%) increase in cooperation. With cooperation levels for the voluntary VSR hovering around 50%, and the challenge of funding and sustaining an incentive-based VSR program, voluntary VSR approaches may be insufficient to achieve cooperation levels needed to significantly reduce the risk of vessel strike-related mortality for these federally protected whales, suggesting that VSR regulations warrant consideration.

New GIS-enabled analysis by a DUKE University researcher maps what the far-reaching impacts to international trade and shipping could be if any of the world's 11 busiest marine chokepoints, or shipping straits, are closed due to politics, piracy, vessel accidents, or other causes. Knowing in advance what to expect will help businesses and governments better navigate unexpected closures and reduce disruptions to international trade and global supply chains.

Antarctica is experiencing rapid and complex change, and it is critical to have a better understanding of these changes for the region's ocean ecosystems. The costs and logistical challenges to operate scientific research vessels prohibits the scaling of crucial science and discovery in the region. Yet, the tourism industry in Antarctica is growing rapidly, and collaboration between tourism companies and researchers provides important access to the region. While researchers gain from free or discounted ship time, it also provides the travel companies with enrichment opportunities for their guests. Scientists have been conducting research aboard platforms of opportunity (POMs) like tourism or cargo ships for decades, studying oceanographic conditions as well as organisms from phytoplankton to marine mammals, with some of the earliest published research using data collected aboard cruise ships headed to Antarctica. As the number of Antarctic tourism vessels has increased to over 70 boats, more research and citizen science projects are successfully expanding to take advantage of these POMs in Antarctica.

Unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) offer significant value through their capability to undertake hazardous and time-consuming missions across water surfaces. Recently, as the application of USVs has been extended to nearshore waterways, object tracking is vital to the safe navigation of USVs in offshore scenes. However, existing tracking systems for USVs are mainly based on cameras or LiDAR sensors, which suffer from drawbacks such as lack of depth perception or high deployment costs. In contrast, millimeter-wave (MMW) radar offers advantages in terms of low cost and robustness in all weather and lighting conditions. In this work, to construct a robust and low-cost tracking system for USVs in complex offshore scenes, we propose a novel MMW radar-based object tracking method (ROTracker). The proposed ROTracker combines the physical properties of MMW radar with traditional tracking systems. Specifically, we introduce the radar DOPPLER velocity and a designed motion discriminator to improve the robustness of the tracking system toward low-speed targets. Moreover, we conducted real-world experiments to validate the efficacy of the proposed ROTracker. Compared to other baseline methods, ROTracker achieves excellent multiple object tracking accuracy in terms of 91.9% in our collected dataset. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed ROTracker has significant application potential in both accuracy and efficiency for USVs, addressing the challenges posed by complex nearshore environments.

Seafarers Left Without Pay or Warm Clothes.

The Panama Canal expansion: business as usual or game-changer?

Traffic decline in container ports: the exception or the new normal?

The Panama Canal Authority this week addressed the recently-developed crack in one of the new lock chambers making up the expanded Panama Canal, raising new questions over whether or not the bigger locks will open as scheduled in April 2016.

The Panama Canal Authority this week addressed the recently-developed crack in one of the new lock chambers making up the expanded Panama Canal, raising new questions over whether or not the bigger locks will open as scheduled in April 2016.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has launched a campaign to keep commercial fishermen safe, with figures showing 88 people were injured or killed in deck machinery incidents on fishing vessels in UK waters over the past five years.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has launched a campaign to keep commercial fishermen safe, with figures showing 88 people were injured or killed in deck machinery incidents on fishing vessels in UK waters over the past five years.