Page 39: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 1991)

Viking Ship Skipper

Chooses Robertson

For Vinland Voyage

Robertson Tritech, Norway, re- cently announced that their navi- gational and communications sys- tems have been selected to equip the three Norwegian Viking ship repli- cas for the "Vinland Revisited" voy- age.

The satellite and communications systems—which include Robertson's

Robchart chart systems—onboard the flagship of the voyage, the Gaia, will allow the progress of the voyage to be followed round the world. Its exact position will be fixed onboard with the help of a GPS satellite navi- gator. The exact position will also be transmitted by satellite-operated telex from the Viking ships to the home base in Norway.

For the past 15 years, Ragnar

Thorseth, the skipper of the voy- age, has devoted a great deal of time to the study and development of the three ships he will lead down both the Norwegian and North American coasts, and across the North Atlan- tic. He has worked closely with experts from the Danish Viking Ship

Museum in Roskilde, and the Nor- wegian Viking Ship Hall in Oslo researching and testing the Viking shipbuilding and navigational tech- niques.

For further information and free literature on Robertson navigational and communications systems,

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Daewoo To Build

Two Huge Tankers

For World-Wide

South Korean shipbuilder

Daewoo recently signed a contract with World-Wide Shipping, based in Hong Kong, to build two 280,000- dwt crude oil tankers, with options for two additional ships.

The two 2-million-barrel-capac- ity VLCCs will be built at the company's Okpo yard and are sched- uled for delivery in the second half of 1993. If the options are exercised for the third and fourth vessels, they would be delivered in 1994.

It is not clear at this time whether the tankers are of single- or double- hull configuration. Current prices for single-hulls are in the neighbor- hood of $87 million to $90 million, with double-hulls about 15 percent higher.

Sealift Head Predicts

More RO/RO Ships Will

Be Built In American Yards

Navy Vice Adm. Francis R.

Donovan, head of the U.S. Military

Sealift Command, recently told 120

Massachusetts Maritime Academy graduates, on the 100th anniver- sary of the state college's charter, that an unspecified number of roll- on/roll-off ships will be built in

American shipyards to meet the nation's military cargo needs.

In the past two fiscal years, some $1,275 billion has been appropri- ated for new sealift ships, with an- other $1.3 billion possible in the fiscal year that begins October 1, 1992.

Depending on results of a sealift mobilization study due next fall, the

Navy will decide whether to own and operate the new ships, or lease them out to liner companies.

Admiral Donovan said U.S.-flag vessels carried 80 percent of all mili- tary cargoes, including some 40,000 forty-foot containers during the peak

December-February buildup during the Persian Gulf War sealift.

Among lessons learned from the sealift, he said, are that reserve ships of similar type should be kept to- gether in outports near repair yards, and that the fleet needs more exer- cise. He said the reserve fleet needs more roll-on ships than the 17 avail- able for Desert Storm, and he agreed with Defense Secretary Richard

Cheney that such ships might be for sale on the commercial market.

Admiral Donovan defended rates the military paid to charter privately owned vessels, noting that the General Accounting Office, Con- gress' investigations arm, had found the prices fair and reasonable for the conditions we were dealing with.

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August, 1991

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