Feature Focus – Professional Mariner

New fuels bring new training challenges for mariners

In February, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) hosted a workshop focused on oceangoing vessels as the agency considers new or expanded regulations to reduce emissions while ships are transiting, maneuvering and anchoring near California’s ports and marine terminals. CARB said reducing those emissions could improve air quality in portside communities, advance federal Clean Air Act compliance and help the…

AI offers a new path to predicting deadly ship icing

Marine icing is a persistent hazard across U.S. commercial maritime operations, affecting tugs, ferries, research vessels, pilot boats and public-service craft operating in cold, windy waters. Ice accretion on decks and superstructures can degrade stability, compromise propulsion and steering, disable critical equipment and force vessels to slow, divert or suspend operations, often well before conditions rise to the level of…

Pilot boat design’s small steps toward a potential giant leap

Cruising effortlessly at more than 20 knots through the heart of San Francisco Bay, the pilot vessel Golden Gate transited the same waters as dozens of its predecessors — from wooden sailboats to heavy, steel-hulled launches with roaring diesel engines — all charged with moving pilots safely and efficiently across the unforgiving waters off the Northern California coast. Over the…

Is hydrogen fuel in maritime a one-and-done experiment, or will the alt-fuel take root?

July 12, 2024, was an eventful day for just about everyone eager to see maritime vessels move away from traditional bunker fuel and finally chart a course linked to an endless supply of non-fossil fuel — and even better, one that could be produced using renewable energy. That fuel? Hydrogen (H2). The 2024 event featured a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the…

A modern maritime service can deliver what the nation needs

By Rear Adm. Mark Buzby and Capt. Doug Burnett, U.S. Navy (Retired) In 2020, Proceedings published the fictional story “Losing the Great Pacific War for Lack of Ships and Mariners.” The article included an image of laden ships stranded in U.S. ports because there were no available crews. Unfortunately, that image represents reality today. On Nov. 21, 2024, the Navy confirmed the removal…

Test site for wave energy is nearly open for business off the coast of Oregon

A university in the Pacific Northwest has completed installing electrical infrastructure that will serve as a test site for wave-power generation devices. The project, which spanned two years of design and engineering and about 90 days of on-the-water work, required mobilizing specialized vessels and dozens of mariners. The project highlights the need for West Coast marine fleets and infrastructure to grow…

The status of decarbonization in the maritime industry

From the editor’s desk at Professional Mariner, it might seem as if the maritime industry is well on its way to a “green,” zero-emission future. As regulatory demand and fluctuations in fuel prices have driven the development of alternatives, many of the headlines we run announce the commissioning or launching of a new low-emission vessel, a pilot program for a…

Facing a demographic cliff, maritime academies brace for the future

You’d never know the California Maritime Academy has been dealing with chronically low enrollment based on the number of people attending an open house in mid-February. On a chilly gray morning, prospective students and their parents shuffled around the school’s 92-acre Vallejo, Calif., campus tucked against the Carquinez Strait on San Francisco Bay. Young people collected pamphlets and swag branded with the “Keelhauler”…

Battery-electric propulsion: Pros talk pros and cons

Modern mariners now know that electrical propulsion-based storage batteries, or in some cases, fuel cells, is growing rapidly. There are plenty of similarities between these emerging technologies and combustion-based systems that have ruled the waves for nearly two centuries. But unsurprisingly, there are many differences — and those differences come with challenges. From the vantage point of Corvus Energy senior…

Training ice pilots in virtual reality

On Dec. 9, 2024, Alexandra Jahn, a climatologist of the University of Colorado, presented research she had made with a Swedish colleague to the American Geophysical Society in Washington: Depending on seasonal factors, the projections of the two researchers showed that the first “ice-free day” may occur in the Arctic by the end of the current decade, which conventionally means…