Page 8: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (March 2013)

8 MARITIME REPORTER & ENGINEERING NEWS ? MARCH 2013 BLOGSMARITIMEPROFESSIONAL.COMMR DIGITAL When you leave the page and head to the screen, Maritime Reporter offers the most digital and online news offerings. Here are select stories from last month on MaritimeProfessional.comHow big is big enough for a cruise ship, and is putting 4,000 people out to sea really worth the risk?Nowhere in the glossy marketing bro-chures and sun-soaked ads promoting Carnival Cruise Lines is the Carnival Triumph described as a ? ß oating toilet.? Yet as the stricken ship is towed into the port of Mobile, Alabama, that is what it has become, and that is the focus of media headlines. The only thing worse for the Carnival Cruise Lines public re-lations staff would be if a ship belong- ing to one of its companies sank off Italy with 32 dead. Yes, sure enough, the Costa Concordia that ran aground and capsized in January last year was oper- ated by a subsidiary of Carnival Cruise Lines. The PR people must dream about handling traditional problems like food poisoning or long Customs delays rather than trying to function under the brutal scrutiny of the world?s media. For reporters, the passenger accounts of life on the Carnival Triumph while under tow are harrowing and an absolute delight. No ß ushing toilets, using basins and showers as restrooms, or even hav-ing to go in a plastic bag. Sewage in the companionways, ?liquids? seeping from walls. Wonderful stuff. Dockworkers must have been able to smell the ship long before it tied up alongside.All facetiousness aside, at least no one died in this latest cruise ship disas-ter. But what the incident does is illus- trate, yet again, the danger of placing so many people on a ship and sending it out to sea. After the Concordia sank, we raised the same point: No matter how well drilled the crew is, how impossibly free of panic the passengers are and how functional and accessible the lifeboats are, if a ship is going down fast it will be a monumental task to safely evacuate more than 4,000 passengers. It would be interesting to Þ nd out whether the risk models for the large lin- ers have a certain number of ?acceptable losses? in the event of a sinking at sea.Fortunately no one died this time around, but the ship was in a perilous po-sition following a Þ re that knocked out the engine. Talk about nightmare scenar- ios. With no power the Carnival Triumph was at the mercy of the Gulf of Mexico swells, unable to deploy its stabilizers. Passengers have described it as listing alarmingly from time to time. Had the weather turned, the headlines would not be focusing on the toilets.The size of ships is certain to increase in line with demand. Hong Kong?s new cruise terminal opens this year, and sev- eral other ports in Asia will have ex- panded cruise terminals, all geared to capturing rapidly growing China interest in passenger ship travel. This insatiable appetite will drive the cruise market for years, and cruise lines will keep looking at building bigger and bigger vessels. The question is how big is big enough?Just like the growing size of container ships and bulk carriers, it is all about re-ducing unit cost and increasing yields. The difference is that when a passenger ship runs into disaster, the unit cost is measured in human lives.Posted by Greg Knowler on MaritimeProfessional.com ?Floating Toilet?Carnival Liner Raises the Lid on a Growing Problem Damen Shipyards Group introduces its newly designed Damen AHTS 200, a versatile deepwater Anchor Handling Tug Supplier able to operate in water depths in excess of 3,000 m. The AHTS 200 is the latest addition to the ongoing Damen Offshore Series. Following the company?s ambitions to increase its market share in the off- shore industry, Damen heavily invests in designing state of the art vessels for several offshore sub-markets, noticeably the offshore support, offshore wind, (seismic) research and transport & installation industries. Backed by ample R&D and engineering capacity, its own construction yards, specialized partner yards and a rapid expanding service organisation, Damen feels con Þ dent that the chosen approach will be successful. The typical Damen design philoso- phy, featuring values like safety, functionality, standardization, modularization, ease of maintenance and overall quality, can also be found in the Damen AHTS 200. An extensive research analysis was executed on hull optimization, sea keeping qualities, noise and vibration reduction, fuel oil consumption reduc-tion, changing rules and regulations and client-needs and lessons-learned from other Damen designs. The Damen AHTS 200 includes a new and innovative winch arrangement which is quite decisive for the overall dimensions and lay-out of the vessel. For the development of this extensive winch package Damen teamed-up with Huisman Equipment (The Netherlands), which specializes in heavy lift and deepwater cranes, winches and drilling equipment. The electri- cally driven winches resulting from this cooperation may be considered an innovative approach, as the market is traditionally dominated by low-pressure hydraulics. The electrical-drive winches provide a clean, green, economical, functional and safe solution for the anticipated operations. The vessel is suited to generate 200-250 t Bollard Pull and is Þ tted with engines in a father-son layout featuring twin-in single-out gearboxes driving CP propellers in a nozzle. High performance ß ap-type rudders Þ tted to rotary vane steering gears facili- tate a high degree of maneuverability supported by ample side thrust capacity, including tunnel thrusters as well as retractable thrusters in fore and aft ship. Posted by Peter Pospiech on MaritimePropulsion.com Damen New Deepwater AHTS DesignMR #3 (1-9).indd 8MR #3 (1-9).indd 83/2/2013 7:29:51 PM3/2/2013 7:29:51 PM