Page 53: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2004)

Building on the foothold gained with the new generation of high capacity

DFDS trailerships from the Flensburg yard, and in keeping with its staged approach with SPS to ship design.

Intelligent Engineering is targeting the

RoRo new construction market. The sys- tem is held to offer important benefits in

RoRo projects as regards the costs of build and ownership, crew and passenger comfort, safety and environmental pro- tection, and space utilization.

More recently, IE announced that Teco

Ocean Shipping — following a success- ful tank top reinstatement on the bulk car- rier Gayle Eustace — has elected to use the technology on another of its vessels, the Doris Guenther. Two tank tops with a total surface area of 981 sq. m. was to be overlaid at Chile's ASMAR Shipyard in mid-October.

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Extra Value in Chinese

Construction

While the Chinese shipbuilding indus- try is exhibiting expertise across a widen- ing range of ship types and sizes, it is also taking care to enhance its technical com- petitiveness in the most populous cate- gories of mercantile trader. As a micro- cosm of the whole, New Century

Shipbuilding of Jianjiang is producing an export series of cargo-optimized Bulkers in the Handymax category at some 56,000-dwt. Victoria Steamship adopted and modified a type developed by the

Shanghai Merchant Ship Design and

Research Institute (SDARI), to achieve a

B-60 load designation. The original design was a 'B' freeboard ship. "Discussions with both SDARI and

Lloyd's Register Asia paved the way toward an upgrade which improved car- rying capacity by adding a poop deck and adjusting the hold lengths to minimize deck immersion in the event of flooding of the holds and adjacent tanks," reported

LR. The B-60 designation is regarded as a striking achievement considering that only Panamax and Capesize Bulkers qualify under the 1966 Load Line

Convention, as a result of their greater number of holds and their shorter hold lengths, typically of 25- to 26-m. With hold lengths of 29- to 30-m, a Handymax potentially has a more severe problem if its forward hold becomes flooded, since this cargo space is bigger in relative scale than that of a Panamax or Capesize. The 56,000-dwt design has been adopted for six vessels for Victoria Steamship and two for Halcoussis at New Century, while a further two such Bulkers have been contracted by Pacific Basin from Xiamen

Shipyard.

Engineering for the

Human Factor

Although there has been a steady decline in maritime accidents leading to loss of life, property and environmental damage over the past decade or so, statis- tics point to the human element as the key factor in the vast majority of cases involving collisions and groundings.

Lack of situation awareness and errors in situation assessment are primary areas of concern, where casualties can be attrib- uted to the human factor, as are fatigue and task omission.

When bridge activities rely on inter- faces that are awkward for the mariner, human errors relating to judgement and vessel control can occur, underscoring the importance of a holistic approach towards human interactions at the design stage. In that context, a notable new addi- tion to the knowledge base is American

Bureau of Shipping's 'Guidance Notes on

Ergonomic Design of Navigation

Bridges.'

The document provides criteria for the effective ergonomic design and layout of interfaces located within the navigational bridge area. The criteria are aimed at pro- viding designers and engineers with prac- tical guidance and work processes to use from the concept stage to better ensure functional integration of ergonomics and engineering. Human-system interfaces are considered to include controls, dis- plays, alarms, video display units, com- puter workstations, labels and the overall workspace arrangement.

Ulsteinvik Plays to

Strengths

Perseverance has paid off for

Norwegian shipbuilder Ulstein Verft, which has landed two contracts in quick succession to kickstart newbuild produc- tion again at Ulsteinvik after a lean spell.

The yard recently logged one of its sin- gle largest projects to date, in the shape of an order to build an offshore construction vessel of m length, quickly following the landing of a contract for an 86.2-m plat- form supply ship. The platform supply vessel, worth around $29 million and booked to the account of an investment company linked with locally-based

Island Offshore, will encapsulate

Ulstein's own PI05 design. The offshore construction ship, incorporating a moon- pool, anchor-handling winches, an 'A' frame, a heave-compensated, 250t crane, and some 24,000-kW of power, is valued at some NKr650-million, and will be owned by a joint venture of Norwegian offshore support specialist Solstad Rederi and Monaco-based, FPSO owner and operator Single Buoy Moorings.

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November 2004 Circle 344 on Reader Service Card 53