Former mariner and cruise line executive named head of NTSB marine safety office
29 Apr

Former mariner and cruise line executive named head of NTSB marine safety office

Professional Mariner StaffMaritime News, Publication > Professional Mariner
Tracy Murrell was a newly minted third mate aboard a 700-foot tanker when she found herself in a front-row seat for a real-life lesson on marine safety off Miami. It wasn’t a catastrophic collision. The pilot aboard the inbound tanker and the pilot aboard the outbound containership “somehow miscommunicated” just after midnight in a sloppy seaway in the late ’90s.…
Read More
29 Apr

Regs on upgrading survival craft delayed for Coast Guard study

Professional Mariner StaffMaritime News, Publication > Professional Mariner
The deadline for U.S.-flag vessels to upgrade their survival craft has been pushed back to allow time for a U.S. Coast Guard study of the issue. Under the 2010 Coast Guard Reauthorization Act, survival craft that do not keep occupants completely out of the water were to have been replaced with inflatable buoyant apparatus (IBA) by Jan. 1, 2015. However,…
Read More
29 Apr

Coast Guard reviewing plan to ship fracking waste by barge

Professional Mariner StaffMaritime News, Publication > Professional Mariner
The booming Marcellus shale gas play could mean additional barge traffic if the U.S. Coast Guard grants approval to move the drilling industry’s wastewater on the inland waterways. GreenHunter Water LLC, a wastewater hauling and disposal company headquartered in Grapevine, Texas, currently transports waste liquids by truck from the controversial hydraulic fracturing process in the Marcellus shale fields in eastern…
Read More
A new bird heads north to Southeast Alaska for Olympic Tug & Barge
29 Apr

A new bird heads north to Southeast Alaska for Olympic Tug & Barge

Professional Mariner StaffPublication > Professional Mariner, Tugboats & Towing
In late November 2012 the crew of Kestrel was preparing their brand new tug for its maiden voyage to Alaska. Olympic Tug & Barge, a division of Harley Marine Services, had taken delivery of the 94-foot, 3,000-hp ocean-towing tug on Oct. 5. Olympic had sent a four-man delivery crew to Halimar Shipyard in Morgan City, La., where they had gone…
Read More
Working in shallow N.Y. creeks, towboat and barge find a niche
29 Apr

Working in shallow N.Y. creeks, towboat and barge find a niche

Professional Mariner StaffPublication > Professional Mariner, Tugboats & Towing
Sunrise on a cold February morning found the towboat and barge surrounded by so little water that they hardly seemed afloat. The barge was light: 10,000 barrels of heating oil had been transferred into the steel tanks of the Sprague Energy terminal before daybreak. The terminal in this industrial zone of Mount Vernon, N.Y., was quiet now, the only sounds…
Read More
29 Apr

PortVision announces grants to spur port and waterway safety

Professional Mariner StaffPublication > Professional Mariner
PortVision, a maritime software and communications company, has created a $500,000 grant initiative that it hopes will lead to safer, more secure waterways and more efficient ports. The grant program, called PortVision Connect, offers nonprofit maritime organizations including harbor safety committees, trade associations, marine exchanges and other similar groups access to free and discounted technical services and support, the company…
Read More
Infrared gear, oil collection system provide new tools for spill response boats
29 Apr

Infrared gear, oil collection system provide new tools for spill response boats

Professional Mariner StaffPublication > Professional Mariner
Clean Gulf Associates, a New Orleans-based organization formed in 1972, is a nonprofit cooperative of 125 oil and gas companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico. Clean Gulf recently took delivery of Breton Island, the third in a series of 95-foot oil spill response vessels. They form the first fleet of all-aluminum OSRVs with overnight accommodations in the country. Breton…
Read More
Although it has redundant engine rooms, cruise ship lost almost all power due to fire
29 Apr

Although it has redundant engine rooms, cruise ship lost almost all power due to fire

Professional Mariner StaffCasualty News, Publication > Professional Mariner
An engine-room fire caused a blackout aboard a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico, leaving 4,200 people adrift and suffering without power for lights, cooking or toilets for five days. The Feb. 10 fire aboard Carnival Triumph was caused by a leak from a fuel line near one engine, the U.S. Coast Guard said. Although the blaze was extinguished…
Read More
Tow strikes Miss. bridge, spills oil; river closure delays 1,000 barges
29 Apr

Tow strikes Miss. bridge, spills oil; river closure delays 1,000 barges

Professional Mariner StaffCasualty News, Publication > Professional Mariner
Two barges carrying crude oil on the Mississippi River struck a railroad bridge at Vicksburg, Miss., breaching a tank on one of the vessels and causing an oil spill that prompted the U.S. Coast Guard to close a 16-mile stretch of the waterway. The 82-foot towboat Nature’s Way Endeavor, owned by Nature’s Way Marine LLC of Theodore, Ala., was pushing…
Read More