IMarEST Marine Professional Issue 1 2021

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Issue 1 2021

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to G N -L o i b m o r F its needs to solve

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MARINE PROFESSIONAL

INSIDE: ROGUE WAVES / WIND -ASSISTED SHIPPING / SAFET Y STANDARDS FOR FISHING

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Contents 5 Comment What we learnt about our sector during a difficult 2020

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IN DEPTH Beneath the surface of maritime industry trends

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7 Fishing safety standards As fishing’s importance to the global economy grows, the sector is in need of a modern regulatory environment 11 Grey matter Too many notices on board vessels are there to ‘tick a box’ 12 Troublespot How a series of small issues collectively led to the total failure of Bulk India in 2018 14 Vessel focus Designing a vessel for a pioneering offshore wind project in Japan 16 Influencers Debate: In spite of copious training and awareness campaigns, why do avoidable accidents still occur?

FEATURES 18 Sustainability How ship technology will – and must – change in the next 30 years 22 Emissions solutions Why a collective effort is urgently needed to address shipping’s climate responsibility 23 Decarbonisation survey What marine professionals think about the sector’s climate targets 27 Rogue waves Reassessing cost-effectiveness and risk when designing ships to withstand freak waves 30 Ship efficiency Maersk’s road map to achieving carbon neutrality 32 Air pollution Measures are in place to mitigate the public health and environmental impact of the shipping sector 34 Propulsion technology Can wind-assisted shipping ever satisfy industry expectations?

Regulations celebrated on their entry into force as landmarks for global sectoral GHG control have been shown to be impotent Page 22

40 INEC 2020 What we learnt at the first virtual International Naval Engineering Conference and Exhibition 42 History Passengers and effluent shared a space on the historic sludge boats 47 Crew culture How entrenched marine working practices can be overturned 50 Insurance Shouldering the burden of machinery malfunction 52 Pseudo-direct drive Resolving the tension between mechanical and electrical propulsion 53 Navigation GPS is not the only tool in the navigational arsenal 66 The big questions Q&A: Commodore Rakesh Kumar Rana, veteran of the Indian Navy

INTERACTIONS The IMarEST’s shared knowledge hub 55 Passenger ships Exploring the Safe Return to Port SOLAS regulation 57 Branch spotlight Lessons from the IMarEST’s US Gulf Coast branch 58 Fellow Q&A Mike Plaskitt says it’s vital that engineers work as part of a team 60 SIG update The latest research on plastics in aquaculture 63 Offshore wind Applying lessons learned from offshore wind farms to tidal power 64 Member update News from your Institute, including the latest content on IMarEST TV MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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EDITORIAL TEAM Editor Carly Fields Group art director Jes Stanfield Managing editor Mike Hine Content director Matthew Rock Account director Anna Vassallo

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ADVERTISING SALES Michael Coulsey 020 3771 7232 michael.coulsey@thinkpublishing.co.uk Samantha Tkaczyk 020 3771 7198 samantha.tkaczyk@thinkpublishing.co.uk Scandinavian representative Örn Marketing +46 411 18400 roland@orn.se

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CONTACT Marine Professional Think Publishing, Capital House, 25 Chapel Street, London NW1 5DH marineprofessional@thinkpublishing.co.uk 020 3771 7200 FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIA @themarinepro facebook.com/themarineprofessional youtube.com/imarest All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Copyright © 2021 IMarEST, The Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology. Information published in Marine Professional does not necessarily represent the views of the publisher or the Institute. While effort is made to ensure that the information is accurate, the publisher makes no representation or warrant, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness or correctness of such information.

It accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any loss, damage or other liability arising from any use of this publication or the information which it contains.

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Without doubt, 2020 was a year of sharp contrasts. There were unexpected winners, who swiftly pivoted to meet the pandemic head on, and catastrophic losers, who were suddenly caught between a rock and a hard place.

Whichever camp IMarEST members and their businesses fell into in 2020, they will hope that 2021 does not bring more of the same. Even those that came out fighting last year found that it came at a cost – whether it be the toll on mental health, rising debt and increasing operating expenditure, or shelved R&D projects. Burn out – on many levels – will go down as a defining feature of 2020.

What will this year bring? Hopefully a return to trade growth and a more stable operating environment. A return to in-person business travel and networking would also be good. A renewed focus on sustainability and all that it entails is also on the wishlist. But there also needs to be an honest reflection of the sting of some decisions taken in 2020. Cutbacks that impact safety going forward and the long-term effect of the crewing crisis on seafarers immediately come to mind, but there will be plenty more. As the new year turns, I encourage members to make getting on the front foot a defining priority for 2021.

Carly Fields, editor

THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS Felicity Landon Felicity is an award-winning freelance journalist specialising in the ports, shipping, transport and logistics sectors.

Amy McLellan A freelance journalist, Amy has been reporting on the highs and lows of the upstream oil and gas and maritime industries for 20 years.

Charlie Bartlett Charlie is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in a range of leading international titles. He specialises in both the technical and commercial aspects of shipping and offshore energy.

Dennis O’Neill Dennis is a freelance marine journalist and editor with 20 years’ experience across consumer and business titles. He is a former editor of Superyacht Business and Marine Professional.

Keith Ray A Cambridge graduate with decades of experience in management consulting, Keith has a passion for the history of technology. He has written for Marine Professional since 2007.

Tryphonas Petrou Tryphonas is a mechanical engineer at Brookes Bell, with over 15 years’ experience in marine and offshore industries. He previously worked in yacht design for Lateral Naval Architects as a senior mechanical engineer.

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COMMENT

2020 proved our sector can adapt and embrace new tech

BY KEVIN DAFFEY

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s my time as president of the IMarEST draws to a close, it seems fitting to reflect on the past 12 months and what a ride it has been. It seems a lifetime ago that I officially took up my position in April at a point when the world was still first grappling with what went on to become one of the greatest public health challenges of modern times.

The impact of COVID-19 was almost immediately felt in the shipping industry, with seafarers on the frontline facing the brunt of the crisis. Many have been stranded on their ships for months on end, long after their employment contracts expired, as travel restrictions made it virtually impossible to organise crew transfers. Almost a year on, disruption persists.

In other areas, the engineers and organisations that work behind the scenes demonstrated considerable ingenuity in adapting to the ‘new normal’, with the pivot to remote surveys and rapid uptake in the use of drones for safety inspections being particular highlights. Such innovation demolishes the commonly held but inaccurate myth that shipping is an industry stuck in the past.

In 2020 we also saw encouraging progress – in spite of everything – in the development of autonomous technology for ships. In December I was invited to provide a shipping perspective in a discussion on autonomous transport held by the UK’s Parliamentary &

Scientific Committee. I was keen to emphasise that the adoption of autonomous tech does not necessarily imply the demise of the seafarer. A paradox of automation is that as certain tasks, procedures and processes are subtracted from the human workers’ roster, the ones that remain become more critical to safe operation.

That said, it may bring about a reconfiguration of traditional roles.

Watch-keeping, for example, could likely be carried out from shore.

Watches on ships these days are mostly uneventful, which makes them monotonous and creates

For the foreseeable future, humans will remain front and centre of vessel operation, even if they are not physically at sea problems with mental fatigue.

Transferring this task ashore offers new ways to ensure alertness does not flag – perhaps through greater team working.

For the foreseeable future, humans will remain front and centre of vessel operation, even if they are not physically at sea.

The challenge is to pair the unique aptitudes of human workers with the benefits of technological solutions so that they complement and reinforce one another.

Of course, no new technology is entirely without risk. The question is whether those risks can be identified and managed. It is also necessary to compare those risks against the systems and practices already in use – the embedded

risk that we’ve deemed to be acceptable. For example, are the cameras, LIDARs and other sensors that give autonomous ships their sense of sight as sensitive as the human eye? Which are more reliable? Cameras are less likely to get tired or distracted by their smartphones – both of these are real issues on modern ships.

Probably the hardest risk to quantify is cyber-risk – both intentional and unintentional.

How attractive a target would an autonomous vessel be to hackers or state actors? How would the ship behave if its operating system malfunctioned or crashed?

It is important to remember these questions aren’t restricted to future self-driving ships. They apply equally to ships in service today, which are increasingly online and fitted with all manner of automation systems. It probably hasn’t escaped your attention that in January new IMO guidance came into effect bringing cybersecurity under the remit of ship safety management systems.

Before signing off as president, I would like to extend a warm welcome to my successor Alastair Fischbacher, who will take over the reins at the next AGM. With a career that has ranged from managing a fleet of ore carriers for Rio Tinto to being chief executive of the Sustainable Shipping Initiative, I can think of no one more qualified for the position and wish him every success.

Kevin Daffey is president of the IMarEST MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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Beneath the surface of maritime industry trends In this section:

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7 Safety standards in the fishing industry 11 An excess of notices on vessels 12 Communication and procedure failure 14 Vessel design for a Japanese offshore wind project 16 Debate: why do avoidable accidents still occur?

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The last unregulated marine frontier The fishing sector needs to brought in line with the rest of the industry when it comes to safety standards

BY AMY McLELLAN

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t’s the healthy, tasty, low-fat protein we can’t seem to get enough of. Whether it’s baked, fried, flaked or rolled raw in seaweed, fish is increasingly on the menu.

Between 1990 and 2018, global consumption increased by 122%, and worldwide per capita fish consumption has reached a new record of 20.5kg per year. And there’s no sign of our appetite waning: total fish

production is set to grow by another 15% by 2030, translating to annual per capita fish consumption of 21.5kg a year.

This is a valuable industry: global fish production is estimated to have reached about

179 million tonnes in 2018, with a total first sale value estimated at $401bn, according to figures in SOFIA, the flagship publication of the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Across the world, the MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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Across the world, the fishing industry is a major employer, with almost 40 million people working in fisheries in 2018

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fishing industry is a major employer, with almost 40 million people working in fisheries in 2018 and the global fishing fleet tallying 4.6 million vessels. Asia dominates, accounting for the bulk of the workers and 68% of the global fishing fleet.

Yet despite the importance of fish in the global diet and economy, it’s an industry that rarely makes the headlines – unless embroiled in Brexit negotiations – and its workers are among some of the most marginalised voices in the world.

“Fishing is out of sight and out of mind for many people,” says Dr Kate Pike, associate professor emeritus, Solent University, and FISH Safety Foundation associate (UK). “In large parts of the world, fishers are poor, marginalised and just not seen or heard. Even in countries where fish is the main source of food protein, the safety and pay of those who catch the fish are often appalling.”

While other marine industries, such as commercial shipping and offshore production, are tightly regulated, with reams of legislation governing working practices and environmental standards, fishing stands apart – the last unregulated marine frontier, with the highest fatality rate of any industry.

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“Figures from the FAO estimate that there are 32,000 fishing-related deaths a year – around 80% of which are related to the vessel being lost, from sinking or perhaps fire – but this is likely to be an underestimate,” says Dr Pike. “We just don’t know the real number and need much more research to be able to update these figures.”

World’s riskiest job Despite the data deficit, it’s very clear this is one of the riskiest jobs on the planet.

Even in the UK, where there’s mandatory basic safety training covering sea survival, firefighting, first aid and health and safety, fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs: six fishermen from a workforce of 12,000 died in 2019, which is a very high fatality rate compared with other UK industries.

“Before you go on a fishing vessel in the UK you need to have had health and safety training,” says Karen Green of Seafish, a public body that is funded by a levy on fish landed in the UK. “We also provide all fishermen with a free buoyancy vest, so there’s no excuse not to wear one.”

This is in stark contrast to conditions in many other fishing nations.

“Many artisanal vessels in South Asia do not have even basic safety equipment on board, such as life jackets or communications systems, and there is a lack of safety training,” says Dr Pike, who points out that the alarming death

The fishing industry is at risk of organised crime that includes corruption, tax avoidance, drug smuggling, human trafficking and modern slavery

rate is the tip of the iceberg of negative health outcomes for fishers.

“People can be seriously impacted by health problems from working at sea,” she explains. “In the smaller artisanal fishing vessels, there is often constant noise and pollution from the vessel’s engine.

Cramped conditions and lots of moving equipment, alongside the potential of extreme weather such as cyclones, makes fishing in these small boats very dangerous.”

Regulation progress For these nations, the slow creep of international

regulation and governance – from the IMO’s International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Fishing Vessel Personnel in 2012 to the International Labour Organization’s Work in Fishing Convention (C188) in 2017, which set minimum requirements for working conditions, and the 2016 Port State Measures Agreement, which set out measures to prevent illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing – has yet to make a meaningful impact against a tide of poverty, marginalisation and apathy.

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FISHING’S DARK UNDERBELLY Health and safety hazards aren’t the only risks facing fishers. There’s also the dark underbelly of organised crime, ranging from corruption and tax avoidance to drug smuggling, human trafficking and modern slavery. There’s growing awareness of these problems: the Blue Justice Initiative is looking to build capacity to address transnational crime in the fishing industry through close dialogue with the countries most affected, while the UN highlighted the problem through a 2018 Ministers’ declaration.

There’s also the huge issue of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, which the UN’s FAO describes as “one of the greatest threats to marine ecosystems”.

IUU fishing is one of the main drivers of over-fishing, which can lead to the collapse of local fisheries and deprive nation states of much-needed income and tax receipts.

According to the FAO, IUU represents up to 26 million tonnes of fish caught annually, valued at $10–23bn.

Technology is now helping agencies crack down on IUU by using satellite imagery and vessel-tracking data to monitor activities. Global Fishing Watch (GFW), for example, helped uncover what it calls “the largest known case of illegal fishing perpetrated by a single industrial fleet operating in another nation’s waters”. Using light-sensing satellite data, it tracked China’s giant distant-sea ships, which had turned off their transponders as they trawled for squid in North Korean waters, an industrial scale activity that has seen a 70% decline in the Pacific flying squid species in South Korean and Japanese waters. The near collapse in the squid colony may have pushed ill-equipped North Korean boats out of their usual hunting grounds, says GFW, putting the crews in grave danger and thus explaining the so-called ‘ghost ships’ of dead crew that routinely wash up on Japan’s shores.

GFW is also helping monitor transshipment, whereby fishing vessels transfer fresh catches to hundreds of carrier ships – which bring fish to ports – out at sea.

This makes fishing more efficient by saving on fuel costs, but it often takes place out at sea, beyond the view of authorities, allowing illegally caught seafood to enter the food chain. GFW and The Pew Charitable Trusts have launched the carrier vessel portal, a public website designed to increase the transparency of transshipment, crack down on IUU and improve fisheries management.

The creep of regulation is now converging with technology advances that will give increased oversight of what really goes on out at sea Further legislative change is inching forward.

Last year, 48 countries – including important fishing nations China, South Korea, Indonesia, the UK, Peru, Chile and Argentina – signed a public declaration that they intend to bring the Cape Town Agreement on vessel safety into force

by October 2022. This long-trailed agreement

addresses safety aboard fishing vessels 24m or longer, with stipulations on vessel construction, stability and seaworthiness, machinery and electrical installation, safety equipment and fire protection. While some countries already have regulations that exceed these requirements, the new standards will act as a baseline for the global industry.

IMarEST fellow Eric Holliday, CEO of the FISH Safety Foundation, welcomed the new impetus behind the agreement, which has been kicking around in various forms since

1977, but cautioned that progress is still glacially slow. “It has been 40 years to get one piece of legislation through, and even then, it only applies to vessels over 24m, which is a mere 2% of the world’s fleet,” he notes.

Useful technology There is some good news, however. The inch-byinch creep of regulation is now converging with technology advances that will give increased oversight of what really goes on out at sea. Big Tech players, such as Google and Microsoft, are applying artificial intelligence to vast real-time data sets

from satellite imagery and vessel-tracking systems to build an accurate picture of commercial fishing across the globe.

Organisations such as Global Fishing Watch (GFW), which uses Google technology for data processing, offer free near real-time tracking of fishing vessels, helping to support marineprotection zones, and tackle overfishing and illegal activities.

It has already secured some big wins. In 2016, the Indonesian government launched a programme with GFW to make data from its vessel-monitoring MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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Increased focus on the oceans means there’s also increased public scrutiny of what goes on out in the deep blue

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system publicly available, tracking around 5,000 vessels and providing analysis to support control and enforcement efforts. As a result, foreign fishing in the country dropped by more than 90% and total fishing dropped by 25%, jumpstarting a recovery in their waters.

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But it doesn’t take Big Tech and satellite imagery to transform the industry.

The FISHER Project is using a simple app and website to create an accident database management system.

This no-blame accident reporting system is a confidential channel for anyone to report incidents, such as vessel problems, unsafe practices, near-miss situations or occupational health issues so that the industry can learn lessons and work on preventing reoccurrence. It’s a model already used to great effect in the aviation and maritime industries, says Holliday of FISH Safety, one of the NGOs behind the FISHER Project.

“The average fisherman sits on the fringes of the legal and social system in many countries and tends to keep away from the authorities,” he says.

“Confidential reporting is a way to engage

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them and encourage information sharing.”

“Some of the most difficult aspects are the cultural issues,” agrees Nick Lambert of NLA International, a blue economy solutions company. “We have to be able to demonstrate to the fishers that if they put trackers on their vessels, for example, then the business model will either improve or get better for them. And the agencies overseeing all of this have to change too, and get better at sharing information. It’s a massive challenge, but it’s doable.”

Increased focus on the oceans, whether due to climate change or plastic pollution, means there’s also increased public scrutiny of what goes on out in the deep blue – and that includes the people behind the catch.

“Environmental sustainability has been talked about for years, but it’s now increasingly being linked to social sustainability,” says Green.

“It’s about the environment and people.”

Abandoned fishing nets at the bottom of the ocean cause environmental problems and damage to marine life

HARMFUL FISHERIES SUBSIDIES FUEL OCEAN DEPLETION

BY ANDREA RIPOL

Our ocean is in a dire state, with fish populations declining, many of the fish stocks in European waters overfished and marine species facing collapse. The European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) has ring-fenced €6m of taxpayers’ money to help fishers to transition to sustainable fishing.

However, an investigative report by Seas at Risk has highlighted that subsidies under the ‘young fishers business start-up’ scheme are being used to buy second-hand vessels for pelagic and bottom trawling. These destructive fishing techniques use non-selective gear, destroying habitats and threatening protected species.

Right now, like every winter, thousands of dolphins in the Bay of Biscay are being caught and killed in French and Spanish pelagic trawls. The report shows that France has used EMFF money to perpetuate this harmful fishing practice.

In light of our ocean crisis, failure to properly manage EU fisheries subsidies is more than a missed opportunity – we risk being trapped in a vicious cycle of overfishing and environmental damage.

The green transition promised by the European Commission must include stopping harmful fishing practices. Public money should shift away from recognised harmful fishing techniques towards investing in low-impact fisheries. This move would reverse the decline in marine ecosystems and fish populations, and provide long-term benefits for society as a whole. ● Read the Seas at Risk report at seas-at-risk.org/ 16-fisheries/1081-report-harmful-eu-subsidiesfueling-ocean-depletion.html Andrea Ripol is fisheries policy officer at Seas at Risk

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GREY MATTER

Making ‘information’ usable Too many of the notices posted on board ships are there to simply tick a box and are incomprehensible to those that need to understand them

BY MICHAEL GREY

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f all the professional attributes required to fit an individual for the role of master or chief engineer of a modern merchant ship: leadership, tact, patience, prudence, decisiveness… speedreading skills must be high on the list. Vast amounts of important information descend daily on these senior officers.

Much of this will be safety related, so you might suggest that there can be no objection to its dispatch, whether in the form of directions, regulations, recommendations, notices to mariners or advice.

Like one of the world’s great rivers, it flows from multiple sources: from government agencies, flag states, classification societies, coastal and port states, port authorities, the owner, the manager, the charterer, the P&I clubs and other insurers.

It means well, and in the eyes of those who dispatch it, its importance cannot be denied.

If you were a bit cynical, you might suggest that an awful lot

of this valuable wordage is designed not for the edification of those aboard ship, but to protect the reputations of the dispatchers. And as for the recipients, they know that if they do not read the stuff, it may well be held against them in the event of some regrettable incident aboard ship.

The trouble is that there is just so much wordage a person can digest amid this tsunami of information.

Some years ago, I spent a few days aboard a gigantic crude carrier as it made its way up the Channel into Rotterdam.

The ship had been initially built by an oil company, which had fitted it out with taste and style, its saloon and recreation spaces elegantly panelled, almost like a country house. However, the ambience of these spaces had been somewhat diminished by almost the entire surface of these bulkheads being covered by safety notices taped over the faux-wood panels.

Thousands of words, exhortations, regulations and advice were displayed for the benefit of the crew.

If only all notices on ships were as easy to understand

I asked if anyone actually read this stuff and was told it was put there as ‘insurance’ in the event of an accident. In such an event, the agency or individual who had directed these bills to be posted was able to say, with a clear conscience, that duty had been done, and if the notice had been read and the advice followed, the accident would not have occurred.

Safety summary It is a problem, collating and collecting this information in a form that doesn’t drive those who might actually benefit from it crazy. Which brings me to a book I have recently read: Safety and Health at Sea by Arne Sagen, who has more than half a century’s experience of keeping ships safe.

Michael Grey MBE is an honorary IMarEST fellow and a former editor-in-chief of Lloyd’s List

Sagen has taken on board the sheer volume of safetyrelated information and collected an astonishing amount of information in a markedly manageable form. It is easily digested, practical information, designed specifically for busy people.

He rapidly shoots down those who might suggest that ‘accidents happen’, suggesting that it is both possible and practical to reduce them and make a meaningful improvement in the shape of safer ships, fewer tragedies and a more constructive attitude to safety. He also brings from a long experience in maritime safety a conviction that what we call the ‘human element’ is the real key to any improvement in the shape of both culture and individual attitudes.

The book covers safety systems, tools for the improvement of safety, the improvement of health on-board ship, safety and health training, how this can be ‘self-assessed’ by crew members and a guide to the most important IMO and EU regulations. Find out more from info@ witherbys.com MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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A sobering reminder of how a series of small issues can collectively lead to the total failure of a ship ART

BY KEITH RAY

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he grounding of the Bulk India in 2018 is an exemplary example of how a series of, individually, fairly small issues can result in the total failure of a vessel.

Fortunately, there was no loss of life or damage to the vessel in this instance, but the outcome could easily have been much more serious.

Bulk India is an iron ore carrier of 88,490 gross tonnes and 177,640 tonnes dead weight, 289m in length, operated by Southern Route Maritime S.A. and Nissen Kaiun Ltd, and operating under the Panamanian flag.

The ship main engine is a Mitsui MAN B&W 6S70MC delivering 16,860kW at 91rpm. The vessel has a crew of 23, all Philippine nationals, and all reported to be highly experienced.

On 11 March 2018, the vessel departed Dampier, Western Australia, bound for China, under the control of two experienced local pilots.

Unexpectedly, the vessel suddenly experienced a total electrical failure, resulting in the loss of

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both propulsive power and steering. With the rudder fixed at 20 degrees to port, the ship drifted out of the navigational channel and grounded. The vessel was subsequently pulled clear by tugs and taken out to anchor for inspection, but no damage was detected. The incident was investigated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), whose report forms the basis of this summary.

Total blackout The electrical ‘blackout’ leading to the loss of power and control was caused by the failure of the auxiliary diesel generators. Those generators stalled because their cooling water overheated as a result of the failure of the cooling water temperature controller.

The problem was not immediately identified by the vessel’s engineers and as a result they were unable to manually operate the cooling watercontrol valve in time to prevent the shutdown.

It transpired that the problems in the engine room started around

13 minutes before the blackout, but because the crew did not notice at the time, the two pilots on the bridge were not notified of the issue and hence had no opportunity to prepare for the loss of power and control.

The cooling water temperature controller was pneumatically operated and controlled the flow of cooling water to maintain the desired temperature.

The controller included fine nozzles, orifices and pathways for air flow, the blockage of which would cause malfunction.

Reliable operation of the controller therefore depended on the quality of the air supplied and regular maintenance.

At the time of the incident, Bulk India had a planned maintenance system, which included

Had the delivery of a replacement fan belt for the emergency generator been made known to the crew before departure, this incident could have been completely avoided

maintenance tasks for the main control air system, but not for individual systems such as the auxiliary cooling water.

The International Safety Management (ISM) Code requires ship operators to identify equipment and systems, the failure of which may result in hazardous situations. At the time of the incident, the ship’s owners did not have in place systems and procedures to monitor and maintain the reliability of identified critical equipment, including maintaining a spare parts inventory.

A mandatory marine requirement is that there should be an emergency generator on board, which should automatically cut in should the main generators fail to ensure continuity of electrical supply for the purposes of propulsion and steering.

However, on investigation, the emergency generator on the Bulk India was found to be unfit for purpose. When the main generators shut down, the emergency generator did start and run for a short period, but then cut out as a result of overheating.

It transpired that this was not the first problem with the emergency power plant; a few months

Troublespot, 1

Auxiliary diesel generator engine’s cooling fresh water system

2FV –124

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2FV –905

COOL.F.W. INLET

2FV –130

COOL.F.W. OUTLET NO.1.GEN.O.ENG

2FV –119

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The master and chief engineer knew that the emergency generator could only run for a short time before overheating, but no officials in any of the ports visited were aware of this

(100)2F–123

2FV –116 AUX.F.W.CLR

2FV –118

(100)2F–115

earlier, the radiator fan belt had failed but was not replaced as it was believed there was no spare available.

The ATSB investigation established that there was no adequate procedure to ensure critical spares were always available on board. In fact, a spare belt had been delivered to the ship two days before the incident while the vessel was in port, but neither the master nor the chief engineer were aware of this, as the normal

To/from auxiliary machinery cooling system

(55)2F–130

(100)2F–117

To/from expansion tank

MAXINE HEATH

(40)2F–46

(15)2F–151

Auxiliary diesel generator engine

TC 230

(100)2F–119

PS

5

(80)2F–124

PAL 223

(100)2F–116

COOL.F.W.PUMP

From auxiliary diesel generator engines

To expansion tank

(100)2F–122

(100)2F–119

To auxiliary diesel generator engines

To main engine cooling system

Auxiliary fresh water cooler From main engine cooling system

procedure had been to check newly delivered packages once out at sea.

The master and chief engineer knew that the emergency generator could only run for a short time before overheating, but no officials in any of the ports visited were aware of this.

Consequences As a result of this incident, the ship’s operators have initiated some important changes. The first is that spare parts management

has been improved so that in a similar event a replacement radiator fan belt will always be available, and its existence known to the crew. The second very important change concerns towage arrangements. At the time of the incident, only one tug remained in attendance after the ship had cleared the wharf. Attendance by a second tug at Dampier has since been extended beyond the point where the incident took place, so

that if a similar situation happens in future, two tugs will be available to manoeuvre the drifting vessel to a safe location.

Thirdly, a comprehensive manual for vessel towage in the port area has been developed.

It is sobering to think that had the delivery of a replacement fan belt for the emergency generator been made known to the crew before departure from Dampier, this incident, thankfully without loss of life or significant damage, could have been completely avoided. Also, had communication between the engine room and the bridge been much quicker at the time, it is possible that emergency action could have been taken to move the vessel to safe water and avoiding grounding.

EMPOWERING world leader in electric underwater robotics

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Japan’s wind farm first

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Designing a vessel for a pioneering offshore wind project in Japan required BMT to work to new rules

BY ROB CLARK

T

ART

he Akita Noshiro Offshore Windfarm Project, situated off the coast of Akita prefecture in Northern Japan, is a first-in-kind commercial offshore wind project in the country and is expected to provide a combined output of approximately 140MW from two sites. The windfarms at Akita Port and Noshiro Port will be operated by the Akita Offshore Wind Corporation (AOW) and are scheduled to come online towards the end of 2022.

The wind farm service vessel (WFSV) designers at BMT were tasked with the challenge of developing a vessel for this new regulatory and operating environment, providing a platform to enable fast transit of technicians and spares to the turbines offshore.

WFSVs are predominantly required to enable rapid personnel transfer, but also usually have the capability to undertake additional utility works such as the delivery of spares.

Personnel transfer from the WFSV to the turbines on this project was planned to use the

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‘bump and jump’ method whereby the vessel uses its propulsive power to hold itself against the turbine access ladder (an operation called push-on), allowing technicians to step across.

As a general rule, a WFSV will be designed to strike a balance between operational efficiency, operability and reliability while also balancing out crew and payload requirements. In addition to operational considerations, the principle design challenge identified

by James Lewis, BMT’s specialised ship design sector lead for offshore energy, “was to develop a vessel which would adhere to the Class NK rules along with Japanese flag regulations”.

These were both new rule sets for BMT for this vessel type, and influenced all aspects of the vessel’s structure, systems and general arrangements, right down to details such as window calculations.

Wind farm service vessels are predominantly required to enable rapid personnel transfer

Hull considerations BMT’s design looked to address the initial efficiency question through the use of a catamaran design. This type of hull typically offers improved resistance and motions in heavier sea states.

The catamaran platform itself offers good stability in waves and excellent manoeuvrability for wind farm transfers.

Waterjets were specified for propulsion.

These offer better redundancy, with the additional benefit of providing enhanced manoeuvrability compared with other propulsion types. Each of the four engines and its associated waterjets are completely independent, allowing the master to shut down two or even three drive trains while the vessel is moving at slow speeds in the field.

Operability of a WFSV tends to be governed by the maximum wave environment in which the vessel is capable of safely holding station while pushing-on against the turbine. It is therefore heavily reliant on motion response while undertaking this operation. In its design,

27.5m CREW TRANSFER VESSEL PARTICULARS Length overall: 27.5m Length waterline: 24.3m Moulded beam: 8.9m Design draught: 1.41m Passengers: 12 Maximum deadweight: 30 tonnes Service speed: 25kn Main engines: 4 x Yanmar 6AYM-WET Propulsion: 4 x Hamilton HM521 Class: ClassNK Flag: Japan Launch due: spring 2021

BMT looked to maximise the vessel’s utility by introducing a fine forward entry at the bow, reducing bow volume and moving the location of forward buoyancy pick up aft. This theoretically results in a bow with reduced pitch response which would therefore be pushed off the turbine by waves less readily.

As is often the case, design optimisations targeted at a specific outcome do, however, result in compromises in other areas. In this instance, the reduced buoyancy at the bow reduces the load carrying

Vessel focus, 1 BMT

BMT’s first design of a WFSV for operation in Japan

capacity of the forward part of the hull.

The criticality of the push-on operation led to the design of a wide range of fender systems, each providing different solutions for maintaining contact between the vessel and the turbine in the variable marine environment while also reducing risk of damage.

BMT specified its own Active Fender System in this design, with the aim of reducing the risk of damage to turbines during push-on by reducing loads experienced on contact.

BMT looked to maximise the vessel’s utility by introducing a fine forward entry at the bow

This is enabled through increasing the distance over which the vessel decelerates.

Systems spec Regarding reliability, the design focus here falls on the vessel systems, their spec and any built-in redundancy. Focusing on the main engines and propulsion system as an example, BMT chose to specify four completely independent drive lines to reduce the risk of maintenance downtime for the operator. If one drive line is down, the vessel can continue to operate off the remaining three drive lines.

Maintenance simplicity has also been considered in the engine supplier decision. In Japan,

Yanmar engines are a popular choice because operators can benefit from access to local maintenance services, further decreasing downtime over the vessel’s service life. Redundancy considerations have also been applied to the electrical system, with the vessel’s two generators each located in a different hull to provide physical, as well as system, separation.

The new design by BMT has drawn on its previous experience with mid-range crew transfer vessels and WFSVs to deliver a 27m-long catamaran powered by four engines and four waterjets, capable of transit speeds of up to 25kn. The vessel has capacity for a total of 15

persons on board (three crew and 12 technicians) and a cargo carrying capacity of up to 30 tonnes. The design is fully classed and being built to Class NK rules.

Two WFSVs are currently under construction at Cheoy Lee Shipyards.

With the first of the WFSVs due to be launched in December and delivery to AOW due for early 2021, the design is still to be tested. Thanks to the Akita Noshiro Offshore Windfarm project’s first-in-kind status, the industry will be watching the vessels’ performance with interest.

Rob Clark is a Chartered Naval Architect with experience in a range of technical and project roles MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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Influencers VERSION

INFLUENCERS

REPRO OP

In spite of copious training and awareness campaigns, why do many avoidable accidents still occur?

SUBS ART PRODUCTION CLIENT

Michelle Grech, PhD, MSc, CEng, BMechEng, MRINA

Capt Panos Stavrakakis, PhD, CEng, FIMarEST

Manager, vessel operations, at the Australian Maritime Safety Authority

Head of the Centre of Organizational Health & Wellbeing at the HSE Science and Research Centre

Accidents are complex events. Training and awareness campaigns alone are not enough to stop accidents from happening.

More often than not, when something goes wrong, complexity is reduced to a few simple causal factors – mainly associated with human failures. I have seen this mono-dimensional explanation of failure time and again. The use of ‘human failure’ as a possible cause of accidents is old, but somehow still pervasive in the maritime domain. This often leads to the conclusion that follow-up interventions should be directed towards individual behaviour on ships (e.g. more training, more awareness or even a change of people), ignoring critical systemic issues.

The reality is that when accidents happen the system has failed and a systems approach is required to The reality is that rectify the situation. If we when accidents wish to understand how to happen the system improve safety, we need to has failed and a focus on systems concepts systems approach is in preference to a focus required to rectify on individual failures. It the situation is the organisations and surrounding environment that create the conditions for success or failure. The erosion of human performance is brought about by a complex combination and interaction of work factors, organisational factors, onboard conditions and individual factors.

Once we understand and accept the reality of this, it is easier to understand how someone did the wrong thing at the wrong time, despite being well trained, highly aware, well motivated and competent.

Poor safety culture contributes to many major incidents and personal injuries and can be just as influential as an organisation’s safety management system, if not more so, on safety outcomes. Safety culture is a combination of the attitudes, values and perceptions that influence how something is actually done in the workplace, rather than how it should be done. Many companies talk about ‘safety culture’ when referring to the inclination of their employees to comply with rules or act safety or unsafely.

However, the culture and style of management is even more significant, e.g. a natural, unconscious bias for getting the job done over safety, or a tendency to focus on the short-term and be highly reactive.

Symptoms of poor culture can include: widespread, routine procedural violations; failure to comply with the company’s own safety management system; and management decisions that appear consistently to put production or cost before safety.

Maritime companies undertaking safety culture improvements can experience measurable benefits, including: reduced accident and injury rates; increased productivity, workplace morale and staff retention; an improved organisational reputation; and a greater competitive edge.

There are reliable solutions such as the UK Health and Safety Executive’s Safety Climate Tool, which assesses the attitudes and perceptions of employees towards health and safety and delivers an objective measure of safety culture – the ‘way things are done’ in an organisation.

This is a significant part of achieving safety culture excellence for any organisation.

NEXT ISSUE’S QUESTION

Where are the job and career prospects for young ocean professionals in the blue economy?

If you would like to contribute, please email marineprofessional@thinkpublishing.co.uk

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VERSION

SUSTAINABILITY

REPRO OP

Fuel economy, and fuelling economies

SUBS

How ship technology will – and must – change in the next 30 years

BY CHARLIE BARTLETT

ART PRODUCTION

There is a good reason why MAN Diesel & Turbo changed its name to MAN Energy Solutions: it is unlikely that traditional methods for powering deep-sea ships today will be the same in the future. Indeed, four-stroke diesel-electric vessels will most likely not be able to reach the IMO’s 2050 target of at least a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions from shipping over 2008 levels, or, taking into account expected fleet growth, an 80% reduction on a per-vessel basis, without some massive upgrades.

One thing is absolutely certain: meeting these targets will involve closer collaboration between the shipping industry and the companies supplying their fuel. Completely new types of partnerships will have to be made in many cases. Kaj Portin, general manager, sustainable fuels at Wärtsilä Marine Power, is confident that many of the necessary steps can be taken using four-stroke dual-fuel engines identical to those in use today. “If you have a diesel engine today and you change to [liquefied natural gas, LNG], then you would get a 20% CO2 reduction. If you were to then add in bio-LNG, you would get another 20% – without having to improve anything, technology-wise.”

Sustainable bioenergy could help, if certification of sustainability and life-cycle emissions are obtained, but the supplies will be limited, and any strategy that assumes availability needs to accept the prices are at best uncertain and at

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worst likely uncompetitive to more scalable zero-carbon options. BioLNG and other drop-in biofuels such as biodiesel can represent quick wins for the environment, since some make use of existing waste products – such as the methane given off by decomposing trash or used cooking oils. There does not appear to be any technical reason why bio-based drop-ins cannot completely replace a tank of conventional marine diesel or LNG, Portin indicates. However, there is a sizable commercial unknown to overcome. “It is not a problem to use drop-in fuels on bigger ships,” he

Others claim that ammonia is the easiest synthetic fuel to make with lower losses and no dependence on sourcing carbon says. “There is no difference whether you get it in one tonne or 100 tonnes.

It is, however, several times the cost.

Of course, this cost will come down.”

On the other hand, synthetic fuels grant the ability to recycle atmospheric carbon to make new fuels – though, there is certainly an energy bill. Hydrogen is the

most basic synthetic fuel; to make it sustainably, it would have to be electrolysed from seawater, a process with only around 50% efficiency.

A second production pathway comes from adding carbon capture to steam methane reforming or gasification.

Synthetic fuels Portin claims that synthetic natural gas (SNG) is the “easiest to make”, citing the Sabatier reaction in which electrolysis produces hydrogen, which is then reacted with CO2. “You make hydrogen, you add in carbon and you have fuel that is perfect for an LNG vessel. This would be pure methane, and the same quality would be achievable worldwide,” he says.

“That is a real ‘drop-in’. You would not have to change anything in terms of the systems, engines or training.”

Others claim that ammonia is the easiest and cheapest synthetic fuel to make with lower losses and no dependence on sourcing carbon.

There are ways and means to generate hydrogen – the key element in ammonia, SNG and synthetic methanol – which would not involve hamstringing new renewables capacity by immediately tying it up in 50% efficient electrolysis. It is being proposed as a load-levelling measure, to absorb excess input at times of high supply and low demand, and could ultimately make wind turbines and solar energy more financially viable, if done right.

“It will not be a sudden switch,” says Portin. “That’s why we have made our engines flexible, dual-fuel; gas fuels and liquid fuels in the same

Sustainability, 1 MAN Energy Systems’ ME-GI engines for Eastern Pacific Shipping’s boxship series (the first, Tenere, chartered

by CMA CGM, shown here), feature the newly developed pump vaporizer unit.

Left: Wärtsilä Marine Power’s Kaj Portin. Below left: MAN Energy Solutions fuel unit

engine. We are fuel agnostic, we are looking into all fuels, but we cannot decide what the future of fuel is because we are not making it.”

MAN ENERGY SOLUTIONS

Regulatory capture When it comes to conventional ship fuel, there is one scantly plausible pathway by which vessels might reduce carbon emissions 70% by 2050 while still using residual refinery muck as fuel. That is, the borderline miraculous and overnight unrolling of massive carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure, as well as sufficient development of that technology to allow it to be installed on ships.

This might, in fact, be possible.

In August, K-Line announced that it has embarked on a project with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) to build and test a small-scale CCS plant throughout 2021, and conduct a hazard identification evaluation

of the plant and its deployment on ships with help from ClassNK. If it succeeds, the plant will be installed on K-Line’s 2016-built, unfortunately named (in hindsight) Corona Utility, an 88,000dwt coal carrier.

MHI has taken the notion of shipborne-CCS seriously enough to have made calculations for

“We are fuel agnostic, we are looking into all fuels, but we cannot decide what the future of fuel is because we are not making it” installing the technology on a very large crude carrier (VLCC), back in 2018. An investigation into the principle estimated that such a system on board a VLCC would offset cargo capacity by 2%, adding four cooling towers, a liquefaction plant and carbon storage tanks in a configuration known as CC-Meth

(carbon capture-methanation cycle).

It would require hydrogen generated on board by wind-turbine-powered electrolysis and would add $45m to the cost of a newbuild.

“I think we would... need to ask industries beyond ours to help bear the costs, because shipping may not be able to do this alone,” says Kazuki Saiki, MHI deputy manager, Ship & Ocean Engineering. “We need both a political and a technical approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“The costs can be reduced dramatically with competition, and I am confident that shipbuilders can overcome the technical challenges of scaling down the carbon capture unit,” he adds.

In theory, if it works, there would be nothing to stop ships using CCS in combination with LNG. But for this strategy to be effective, there is another problem that needs to be addressed.

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VERSION

WEIGHING THE NUCLEAR OPTION REPRO OP

As well as containing three-quarters of the world’s Arctic-facing coastline and almost the entire Northern Sea Route (NSR), it appears Russia has the only government willing to deploy nuclear reactors for non-military transportation – a potentially massive commercial advantage. Today, it operates the only nuclear-powered cargo vessel in service: icebreaking LASH carrier Sevmorput.

This year, the Malachite Design Bureau in St Petersburg has developed a concept for an LNG-carrying submarine dubbed ‘Pilgrim’, more than twice the size of the next-largest nuclear submarines ever built – the Soviet navy’s Project 941 Akula class.

With a capacity of around 240,000m3, it would be comparable with the largest LNG carriers, but the ability to travel under ice would give it an edge, since it would not be tied to the NSR. Even the specially built Arc7 vessels, which currently serve the Yamal LNG project, require icebreaker assistance in winter. Speeds of 17kts would be achievable thanks to 90MW of propulsion power generated by three nuclear reactors; crew requirement would be comparable to a conventional vessel, at between 25 and 28.

It is not the first time Russia has considered submarine freight for the purposes of getting under Arctic ice.

“Our Arctic fleet was, remains and will be the most powerful in the world,” said President Vladimir Putin in an early-2018 national address.

“The Northern Sea Route will be the key to the development of the Russian Arctic and the regions of the Far East. By 2025, its traffic will increase tenfold, to 80 million tonnes.”

Growth has increased in the first half of 2020, with a 14.5 million tonne increase in volumes, around 1%, over the same period in 2019. Despite this, however, Rosatom, in September, officially requested Russia’s Ministry of Transport to lower the 80 million tonnes expectation by 25%.

Even so, it is clear that the political will exists to leverage Russia’s geography and nuclear knowhow for commercial gain – and with this, the likelihood that nuclear energy could make its way into the merchant marine, potentially leading to a large carbon offset – though not without bringing risks of its own.

SUBS ART PRODUCTION CLIENT

No slip-ups IMO released its fourth greenhouse gas (GHG) study this year, taking into account the effects not only of CO2 but also of methane. According to the report, methane emissions increased 150% over the past six years, because of methane slip – exhaust emissions of unburned gas – from LNG-fuelled ships.

The ‘G’ in LNG, methane is around 30 times as potent a GHG as CO2 on a 100-year timescale. On a 20year scale, this rises to 84 times. This is because, eventually, atmospheric

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One of the ways emissions could be whittled down further, Portin has suggested, is through combining an engine with a battery methane degrades to form CO2 – but not before it has made a substantial contribution to the warming of the planet. For the 20% CO2 reduction not to be completely moot, methane slip needs to be brought under control. Methane emissions also come from the supply chain for LNG as well as its use on board, a costly

problem that could take billions of pounds to address.

Battery bank Earlier this year, under its 2020 Marine Engine Program, MAN Energy Solutions announced that it “will, for the complete twostroke programme, be prepared to guarantee a maximum methane slip of 0.35g/kWh”. Wärtsilä, similarly, has committed to 1g/kWh for its engines.

One of the ways emissions could be whittled down further, Portin has suggested, is through combining an engine with a battery.

The notion of large battery systems is seldom discussed in a shipping context, since they are expensive, wear out and take up space. But a hybrid system charges continuously, and so does not need a large battery bank. It can perform ‘load levelling’, allowing the engine to get the maximum performance of which it is capable, by remaining at its most efficient RPM range (80–90% load) continuously, without having to accelerate or decelerate to compensate for changes in propulsion demand. Hybrid gensets used in this way could also do away with gearing, eliminating more efficiency losses, although there is a question mark over their efficacy on larger cargo ships, which go for a given power output for weeks at a time, and currently operate well below engine design points.

“If your engine is running at 90%, and you need 110% for a short time,

Sustainability, 2

waste engine jacket water and exhaust heat. This sidesteps the much more involved process of using ultraviolet lamps or electrolysis, both of which use large amounts of energy. The system was US Coast Guard type-approved in March.

you can use a battery to get to that higher load without having to switch on another engine. If you only need 30% load, the battery, if it is charged, can provide this too.”

Crucially, lower RPMs are where most methane slip occurs, hence the seriousness of the issue in deep-sea shipping. If engineers could eliminate the need for ship engines to run at this range, methane slip would be reduced, as well as nitrogen oxides emissions, and overall fuel burn – a win-win.

The challenge is that with only one propulsion engine, ships need low power output for efficiency and the upper power output range for safety margin. Also, there needs to be a change in owners’ attitude to the engine room. “I think we should start to think more like a power plant than a vessel,” Portin says.

This approach will allow ships to leverage some of the technologies that allow power plants, such as Avedøre in Denmark, to exceed 90%

Wärtsilä HY is a fully integrated hybrid power module combining engines, an energy storage system and power electronics

efficiency. “Power plants use waste heat for district heating. Ships also need heat for various purposes, so using waste heat recovery from exhaust and jacket water, we could expect to get 50% of our power from the fuel, and supply another 30% of our energy needs with waste heat.”

On the many vessels that require auxiliary heat for various purposes, this would meet their energy requirements without having to burn even more fuel. Bawat, for example, has devised a ballast water system that uses heat exchangers to pasteurise seawater uptake, using

n t a l ly

While it is conceivable that niche technologies such as fuel cells will power the ships of the latter half of the 21st century, engines are certainly here to stay around until at least the 2050s. New types of fuel, however, will give the maritime industry a chance to wean off the crude oil habit that got it into this mess, displacing it, little by little, with recycled and even completely clean alternatives.

It is only a chance, however; cooperation will be needed with governments, oil majors and other vested interests the world over; the maritime industry cannot and will not save the world by itself.

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Sustainability, 3

VERSION

SUSTAINABILITY

REPRO OP

No time left for interim emissions solutions

SUBS

Collective effort tied to the long-term trajectory is urgently needed to address shipping’s climate responsibility

BY TRISTAN SMITH

ART

The 2020-published Fourth IMO GHG Study is a useful source of information to understand shipping in the near- and mid-term future.

The recent and near-term trends in emissions provide insight to the short term and are combined with future scenarios out to 2050.

These can then be contrasted with what we know from climate science about the rates of greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction that are necessary – for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and UN message of us needing to achieve 45% emission reduction by 2030 (on 2008), followed by reaching zero in 2050, across all sectors. Failure to reach the 2030 target brings the 2050 zero date forwards. Failure to achieve this overall trajectory means crossing the threshold, which will cease the ‘viability’ of many countries and significantly risk fundamental ecosystem collapse.

The news from the study is not good, but it is also not surprising.

Looking over the past decade, the slow steaming trend that immediately followed the global financial crisis in 2008 has lingered and ships have continued to increase in size with some improvements in design and wider operation.

The study also reveals that these improvements are not ‘locked in’, but can be reversed.

Regulations celebrated on their entry into force as landmarks for global sectoral GHG control have been shown to be impotent – despite the Energy Efficiency Design Index, average technical efficiencies in the fleet improved less than 3% by

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should not expect anything besides trade growth outstripping efficiency improvements and rising emissions.

Looking to the future

The lesson from history is that we should not expect anything besides trade growth outstripping efficiency improvements 2018 with very few exceptions. The implementation of the Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan in 2013 was followed by flat-lining average carbon intensity – no improvement – out to 2015, and in 2017/18, the rate of per annum improvement was just 1–2% per year. In the meantime, demand for shipping was growing fast. By 2019, we had 50% more tonne-miles of global trade than in 2008. So, while a 20–30% carbon intensity is good news, the trend over the period studied is one of increasing emissions. In this next decade, the impacts of Covid-19 will no doubt be an important and as-yet-to-crystallise feature. But if they are anything like the shock experienced from the financial crisis, the lesson from history is that we Tristan Smith is a Reader at the UCL Energy Institute and is the director of the Research Council UK-funded project Shipping in Changing Climates, a multi-university and industry research project, and leads the modelling work on supply and demand interaction and evolution

Out into the future, the scenarios are also bad news. Under current policies, the long-term GHG forecast is at best approximately constant emissions, or growth (130% of 2008 emissions). This is in sharp contrast to the ‘at least 50% reduction’ and 45% (by 2030) and 100% (by 2050) reduction of IMO Initial Strategy and IPCC/UN positions respectively.

Besides this predictable bad news, domestic emissions were a surprise result. An improvement in the inventory method revealed that emissions that national governments have responsibility for are twice the quantity estimated previously. They now account for approximately 30% of total emissions, something that will hopefully increase the attention paid by national governments to a sector many thought better to leave the IMO to regulate. Methane emissions growth at rates far greater than LNG’s growth in use as a fuel are an unsurprising unintended consequence of a complete absence of policy on wider GHG emissions beyond CO2. Black carbon, a climatechange inducing species, was shown to be the second most potent climate impact of shipping, but remains unconsidered in policy.

There is no time left for interim solutions that are not fully aligned to the long-run trajectory. These are at best a distraction from the real job at hand we collectively remain in denial about, and at worst a damaging diversion of investment and effort.

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Survey, 1 VERSION

DECARBONISATION SURVEY RESULTS 2020

REPRO OP

CUT THE CARBON A new survey from the IMarEST and Marine Professional has found widespread support for decarbonisation targets, but less certainty about how to achieve them

SUBS

FUEL FOR DEBATE

ART

WHAT ALTERNATIVE FUELS ARE LIKELY TO DISPLACE CONVENTIONAL HFO BY 2050?

PRODUCTION

LNG

BY JOE FLAIG

CLIENT

Record-breaking Siberian heatwaves, devastating wildfires in the US and Australia, severe flooding around the world – the effects of climate change are increasingly obvious.

With temperature records being broken each month, there is growing conviction behind decarbonisation efforts.

Shipping must play an active part – a 2014 IMO study estimated that international shipping contributed 2.2% of man-made CO2 emissions in 2012, with that number set to grow 50–250% by 2050 without action.

HYDROGEN produced from renewable power sources

AMMONIA METHANOL BIOFUELS OTHER SYNTHETIC FUELS produced from renewable power sources

BATTERIES

Scaling up production Seven years later, there is an increasing belief that things must change, but less certainty about how it should happen. Low-carbon fuels, such as methanol and ‘green’ hydrogen produced with renewable energy, are promising options, but a new survey of almost 550 industry professionals by the IMarEST and Marine Professional has found production remains a barrier to their uptake. Two-thirds (66.8%) of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that the shipping industry cannot realistically pivot to lowcarbon fuels until their production has been scaled up.

NUCLEAR POWER

WHAT WOULD HELP ACCELERATE DECARBONISATION?

MARKET INCENTIVES

SUBSIDIES FOR R&D

LESS COMPLEX REGULATION

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DECARBONISATION SURVEY RESULTS 2020

REPRO OP

Over half (52.8%) of people who responded felt that the IMO timetable to halve shipping’s annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 is achievable, but the industry’s mindset was seen as the biggest obstacle. A lack of supporting infrastructure was considered the second biggest obstacle, followed by insufficient support from government and commercial risk.

SUBS

Slow progress

ART

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) and green hydrogen were viewed as the most likely replacements for conventional heavy fuel oil (HFO) by 2050. Respondents felt that nuclear energy was the least likely alternative, while batteries were also viewed as unlikely.

Only a relatively small amount of green hydrogen is currently produced, however, compared to ‘blue’ hydrogen from steam methane reforming. Production and distribution need to be “massively scaled” before it is feasible as fuel, one respondent said.

Other options were viewed less favourably. Almost half (47.3%) felt biofuels could never be considered sustainable, likely due to their own environmental impact from land use.

More than a third (35.2%) disagreed or strongly disagreed that carbon capture was a legitimate way of offsetting emissions.

Whatever the choice, switching fuel type has been prioritised in the decarbonisation drive. It was the top priority for 41.1% of respondents, above technical measures, operational measures and leveraging digital technology. Market incentives were seen as the most important way to accelerate decarbonisation, followed by subsidies for R&D. Despite widespread support for change, progress towards lowand zero-carbon technology has so far been slow. Forty per cent of respondents said they had not conducted research to assess options, more than the 39% who had.

There was also a feeling that carbon-neutral fuels or power

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53% of people who

IN NUMBERS

40%

OF RESPONDENTS SAID THEY HAD NOT CONDUCTED RESEARCH TO ASSESS OPTIONS TO PROGRESS TOWARDS LOWAND ZERO-CARBON TECHNOLOGY

responded felt that the IMO timetable to halve shipping’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is achievable

67%

OF RESPONDENTS EITHER AGREED OR STRONGLY AGREED THAT THE SHIPPING INDUSTRY CANNOT REALISTICALLY PIVOT TO LOWCARBON FUELS UNTIL THEIR PRODUCTION HAS BEEN SCALED UP

79% either disagreed or strongly disagreed that the

transition to low-carbon fuels cannot be enforced by regulation and should be left to market forces WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST OBSTACLES TO DECARBONISATION?

1

2

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4

INDUSTRY MINDSET

LACK OF SUPPORTING INFRASTRUCTURE

INSUFFICIENT SUPPORT FROM GOVERNMENT

LACK OF EXPERTISE

sources are some way off – 34.8% said it would be 2040, and 38.3% said it would be 2050, before half the SOLAS fleet is using them.

‘Chicken and egg’ Many who answered the survey gave the same example when asked about low-carbon fuel production. “It’s a chicken and egg situation,” said one science officer. “With no uptake, why would the fuel production be scaled up? They need to happen together.”

Others stressed that shipowners will only make the shift – and pay the price – once the fuels are proven and available at the right price. They will need to be widely available, and some technological upgrades might be needed.

“The shipping industry – for the most part – is highly competitive,

and with fuel costs forming such a significant part of operational running costs, the cost and availability of clean, efficient fuels such as hydrogen must be very similar to those of carbon-rich fuels currently available,” said a former university lecturer.

“The oil majors – working together – need to provide financial support to those governments currently funding R&D relating to methane cracking and fourth generation molten salt reactors.”

Overwhelming support The market cannot be relied on for such widescale changes, according to most survey respondents. Just under 80% either disagreed or strongly disagreed that the transition to low-carbon fuels cannot be

Survey, 2

LEVERAGING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

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REGULATORY UNCERTAINTY

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enforced by regulation and should be left to market forces.

“It is only through regulations that low-carbon fuels can be enforced, otherwise some companies could take advantage by using standard fuel and thus undercut others,” said one respondent.

Despite the concerns, there was broad support for the industry’s decarbonisation efforts. There was overwhelming support for shipping’s inclusion in the COP Paris climate accord, with 88.3% supporting its inclusion.

A complete transition A slightly lower level (77.1%) believed discussions taking place at IMO are heading in the right direction. In October, the organisation agreed new draft mandatory measures to cut the

STRONGLY AGREE

OPERATIONAL MEASURES

“The transition to low-carbon fuels cannot be enforced by regulation and should be left to market forces”

AGREE

WHERE ARE YOU PRIORITISING EFFORTS TO IMPROVE SUSTAINABILITY?

TO WHAT EXTENT DO YOU AGREE WITH THE FOLLOWING?

NEUTRAL

SWITCHING FUEL TYPE

DISAGREE

TECHNICAL MEASURES

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carbon intensity of existing ships. The amendments would require ships to combine a technical and operational approach to reduce carbon intensity.

“The IMO target for reducing total annual GHG emissions from international shipping by at least 50% by 2050 compared to 2008 cannot be achieved without a complete transition to low-carbon fuels,” said one manager. “A balanced mix of market forces and regulation is key to ensure transition. In addition to pushing the industry towards IMO’s 2030 target [a reduction of 40%], a robust technical regulation like the EEXI coupled with a market impacting measure like the CII rating system should ensure a transition with a level playing field, where no sector or geographical region is left behind.”

WHAT OUR RESPONDENTS SAID: “Like most things, it’s all about cost versus environmental concerns.

Shipowners and fuel suppliers will only part with money when necessary.”

“The pivot of the shipping industry to the use of lowcarbon fuels will not occur overnight. Like the increasing shift to electric/hybrid vehicles, proof of concept will be required prior to complete industry buy-in.”

“It’s a chicken and egg situation – with no uptake, why would lowcarbon fuel production be scaled up? They need to happen together.”

“Production and distribution need to be massively scaled up before green hydrogen is feasible as a fuel.”

“Significant investment and incentivisation at a government level is necessary to drive the green production, distribution and stock holding of these fuels.”

“Owners won’t foot the cost of changing or upgrading their power plants/engines if they are not pressured into it by international legislation.”

“Without enforcement, no change will occur.”

“Regulation can do more than just outright ban a fuel; a tax on heavily polluting fuels provides a financial incentive for shipowners to consider low-carbon fuels.”

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Balancing the rogue risks Reassessing the pay off between costeffectiveness and risk when designing ships to withstand freak waves

BY DAVE BENYON

In recent years mathematicians have expanded what we know about rogue waves, but the engineering implications are harder to come by.

Rogue waves catch the public imagination like scenes from Hollywood blockbusters. But whenever there’s a real-life serious accident at sea, the focus turns to the structures involved and how to MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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Equipment recorded a 26m wave, way above the maximum heights considered possible, conclusively breaking the mathematicians’ models

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make them safer, particularly the designs of ships and cargo stowage.

However, coming up with useful design conclusions for freak waves is not easy. Many seafarers who have encountered rogue waves have simply not lived to tell the tale.

Researchers believe rogue waves – a rare sight, but not as rare as previously thought – caused the loss of more than 20 supercarriers and hundreds of lives in the second half of the 20th century.

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‘Beautiful mathematics’

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Freak waves have been known about but not well understood for decades. In 1978, MS München, a West German cargo ship, vanished in the Atlantic along with its crew of 28. An investigation failed to explain the sudden sinking, but an empty lifeboat was discovered that had been ripped from its fittings 20m above the stern.

In 1995, the ocean liner QE2 suffered damage from a rogue wave off Newfoundland in rough seas caused by Hurricane Luis.

Officers on the bridge, roughly level with the wave’s crest, estimated its height at around 28m. Another freak wave hit the Draupner North Sea oil platform the same year; laser equipment recorded a 26m wave, way above the maximum heights considered possible for the sea state, conclusively breaking the mathematicians’ models. Satellite data, used for projects such as the EU’s Max Wave study in 2004, have added to the weight of evidence.

“For me it’s about the beautiful mathematics,” says Tobias Grafke, an associate professor researching rogue waves at the University of Warwick. “People know the equation that describes the features of waves in the ocean, but it gets much more complicated when trying to work

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out the likelihood of forming a high amplitude rogue wave. For any given sea state, wind speed and wave height, what is the likelihood of encountering a wave train to topple your ship?”

By definition Oceanic rogue waves are commonly defined as surface gravity waves whose wave heights are much larger than expected for the sea state. The common operational definition requires them to be at least twice the size of the significant wave height, itself the mean height of the tallest third of waves. In the past couple of decades mathematicians have

“It’s a fairly young field in comparison with marine engineering... tolerances for ship builders are based on simple models that are decades old”

developed rival linear and nonlinear theories for how rogue waves form, and in 2019 a unified theory incorporating elements of both models was published.

But beyond the academic studies and wave tank experiments, little has changed in the way that vessels are designed. “It’s a fairly young field in comparison with marine engineering,” says Grafke.

“Tolerances for ship builders are based on simple models that are decades old. Rogue waves have been considered for the past 50 years, but there’s been a surge in research into them in the past decade.”

Grafke’s mathematical focus is on fluid dynamics and how ships respond to them. Rogue waves are dangerous to ships because they are so tall, he notes; too tall and the ship struck may capsize.

“The way a ship behaves, it wants to be stable, but if the wave

Ocean environment, 2

OCEAN ENVIRONMENT and marine engineer at Brookes Bell, says: “That’s the classical extreme wave, but this is not The Poseidon Adventure, and freak waves are much more than that.

One of the criteria that matters most is their steepness, and cross seas have a particularly large effect on ship accidents.”

While super carriers have high freeboards, tall waves can break over tankers without necessarily damaging them. Shorter but steeper waves can be more damaging for overhanging features such as lifesaving equipment, for example.

Wave target

A rogue wave of 18m in height hits a tanker near Valdez, Alaska

is so high and the vessel tilts too much, it wants to completely topple over,” he says. “We want to design safety criteria to prevent ships capsizing under certain conditions.

They are only stable against small perturbations, which can be large waves, but if wave train targets weaknesses of design, you do observe ships toppling over without necessarily sustaining a hull breach or being severely damaged.”

For ship designers the height of a wave is not necessarily the primary consideration. Gurpreet Grewal, managing naval architect

Where a wave hits the ship is also crucial. “The bow is very strong, so a hit is unlikely to cause fatal damage unless it hits high up near the bridge,” says Grewal. “If it hits the side, the ship might not be strong enough to take the damage.

However, as a wave comes in it reflects off the ship, so it cannot impact the vessel easily. Cross seas can allow a more serious impact to happen and that’s when it gets dangerous for the ship.”

The whole ship cannot have the same strength as the bow. “The forepeak has a lot of curvature so it is strong because of its shape as well as the structure behind it and the thickness of the steel,” says Kieran Dodworth, director of naval architecture at Brookes Bell.

Ships are designed to resist significant wave heights, but not rogue waves. “I’m not aware of any impact in vessel design, and designing a ship to take any impact is cost-prohibitive,” Dodworth says.

“Even our traditional models say a wave of any size can theoretically happen, but there has to be a

Left to right: Gurpreet Grewal, Tobias Grafke and Kieran Dodworth

“Even our traditional models say a wave of any size can theoretically happen, but there has to be a balance between cost-effectiveness and risk” balance between cost-effectiveness and risk, and it’s impossible for any engineering system to be designed for any event.”

Extreme weather, including abnormally large waves, is being debated in the context of climate risk. Last year, the World Meteorological Organization partnered with IMO to host an International Symposium on Extreme Maritime Weather. The event touched on the topic of vessel design. Questions were raised over whether ship construction can withstand deteriorating weather conditions amid climate change.

North Atlantic winter storms are the traditional benchmark for safety standards.

Extreme outliers But rule-setting is not a quick process. Class societies produce common structural standards for ships, with criteria, goal-setting and oversight of standards agreed at IMO level. For example, IMO’s Sub-Committee on Carriage of Cargoes and Containers is reviewing amendments to its Code of Safe Practice for Cargo Stowage and Securing. These relate to “weatherdependent lashing”, aimed at securing cargo against extreme weather conditions. However, its safety assumptions deal in maximum significant wave heights well below the extreme outliers considered rogue waves.

“The real question is what will happen in the future if a ship suffers a structural failure due to extreme weather,” says Peter Hinchcliffe, a consultant and chairman of the executive board at the Nautical Institute. “The rules would be reappraised, so IMO will examine it and establish fresh criteria for classification societies to meet.”

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Maersk’s road map to carbon neutrality

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Since 2015, the blue line has engaged more than 50 engineers each year in developing and deploying energy-efficient solutions

BY FELICITY LANDON

CLIENT

Maersk has set itself the ambition of running CO2-neutral marine operations by 2050. Ole Graa Jakobsen, head of fleet technology at AP Møller–Maersk, says that requires a dual agenda.

Maersk has already delivered some significant statistics – reducing emissions from its fleet by 41.8% between 2008 and 2019, approximately 10% better than the industry average across major global trades based on the Clean Cargo CO2 benchmark. It has also cut its fuel consumption from 12 million tonnes in 2018 to 11.2 million tonnes in 2019, while delivering the same transport.

Speaking to Marine Professional, Jakobsen says that is the result of a continued focus on improving efficiency, in terms of optimising the fleet and network, and improving voyage execution.

“Our ambition is to get to 60% by 2030 and our long-term ambition is to have CO2-neutral marine operations by 2050,” he says. “Efficiency measures are not enough to decarbonise – they merely keep emissions flat as global

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trade continues to grow. While we will continue to drive efficiencies through optimising designs and leveraging digital technology, we must introduce carbon-neutral propulsion technologies to get to zero. So, for the coming 10 years, we really have a dual agenda as we focus our efforts both on further reductions in our current use of fuel and the actual transition into running our fleet on the net-zero fuels of the future.”

“Our ambition is to get to 60% by 2030 and our long-term ambition is to have CO2-neutral marine operations by 2050” Among a group of nine international companies, Maersk is a founding member of the Transform to Net Zero initiative. To decarbonise by 2050, some big breakthroughs are needed in the next 10 years, says Jakobsen. “Massive innovative solutions and fuel transformation must be found and implemented – and massive investments must follow along. All parties in the transport ecosystem – cargo owners,

regulators, investors, researchers and tech developers – must collaborate, so we value this initiative and the fact that our customers intend to take part in shaping the future towards a net-zero target.”

Meeting targets Maersk sees two ways of getting fuels that are not based on fossil sources, Jakobsen says. One is through biomass, the other from power generated through sustainable sources such as solar and wind.

“It is too early to announce any particular future fuel as the winner in this race – and we believe it is very likely that more than one fuel will exist alongside each other in the future – as we see today with liquefied natural gas, heavy fuel oil, ultra-low sulphur fuel oil and marine gasoil all being options for shipowners. Most importantly, however, we need to hurry if we are to meet our goal, since carbon neutrality in 2050 effectively means we will have to phase in the new netzero emission vessels by 2030.”

While some of the future carbon-neutral fuels will require a fair amount of investment in existing ships, Jakobsen says the key challenge is actually on land: “developing these new fuels and, not least, building an industry across the entire value chain to deliver them”.

“There will be a transitional phase where we will most likely have the new fuels as a more expensive option than the fossil fuels we know.

We need incentives to make the new fuels competitive in this transition phase.”

A future fuel project called LEO is being run in a coalition between Maersk, Wallenius Wilhelmsen and the University of Copenhagen, joined by a number of large customers including the BMW Group, H&M Group, Levi Strauss and Marks & Spencer. The LEO coalition is exploring a blend of lignin and ethanol as a carbonneutral fuel. “Lignin is a structural biopolymer, which contributes to the rigidity of plants and is isolated

Ship efficiency, 1

EFFICIENCY technology for more than 400 vessels in our fleet. StarConnect is our performance improvement platform to drive fuel efficiency – it enables better, data-driven decision-making from providing a real-time view of the fleet performance. This reduces information flow lead time and helps create shared reality between ship and shore.”

Communication app

AP Møller–Maersk’s head of fleet technology Ole Graa Jakobsen (left); Maersk container ship TRAPANI (above)

in large quantities as a by-product of lignocellulosic ethanol and pulp and paper mills. It is currently often incinerated to produce steam and electricity,” says Jakobsen.

In June 2019, Maersk noted that over the previous four years it had invested around $1bn and engaged more than 50 engineers each year in developing and deploying energyefficient solutions, with the focus on solutions specific to ocean transport.

ABB; MTU

Design plans Among projects tackled has been the retrofitting of existing ships where Maersk’s fleet technology team has pioneered concepts

“Time stamps received in our operations centres provide better process visibilities and are used for better planning and execution” involving replacing bulbous bows and propellers with more efficient designs optimised for the current operational profiles of the vessels.

“Retrofit activities also included elevating the vessel bridge and strengthening – for example, lashing structures to enable higher container loading per tonne of fuel,” says Jakobsen.

“Also, we have invested significantly in hardware and

Maersk has also introduced the ‘Pit Stop app’, which is used to aid communication between its vessels and shore operations. “It divides the port stay into a number of individual events and collects data for each,” says Jakobsen.

“Time stamps received in our operations centres provide better process visibilities and are used for better planning and execution.

Performing more than 90,000 port calls in nearly 400 ports every year, our fleet generates a lot of data that can be used to highlight and remove waste in our port calls from waiting, reworking or sailing too fast due to inaccurate information.”

He describes the new Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller Centre for Zero Carbon Shipping, launched earlier this year, as a key player in the global transition to carbon-neutral shipping operations. The founding partners in the initiative are ABS, AP Møller–Maersk, Cargill, MAN Energy Solutions, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, NYK Line and Siemens Energy. The centre is based in Copenhagen.

“Very importantly, the centre is set up as an independent neutral player that enables it to work with all entities and facilitate innovation that can benefit the entire industry,” says Jakobsen. “We think it could have a crucial role to play in bringing together the right stakeholders from across the entire supply chain – such a broad coalition will be very important in creating the right environment for innovation and adoption of new technologies and future fuels in our industry.”

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Mitigating the health impacts of ship pollution

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A mix of voluntary and mandatory programmes are in play to curb emissions

BY DEBASISH BHATTACHARJEE

ART

Nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx) and particulate matters (PM) are three pollutants that the shipping industry has been tasked to reduce.

Emitted from ocean-going vessels, NOx, SOx and PM axiomatically impact the air quality of major port cities and coastlines along shipping lanes. SOx and NOx exasperate the respiratory system, reacting with ammonia to form sulphates and nitrates, two important components of ambient PM2.5.

Long-term exposure to PM2.5 has been associated to detrimental public health outcomes, including increased premature deaths from heart and pulmonary diseases, and worsened respiratory diseases (Friedrich, Heinen,Kamakaté and Kodjak, 2007).

NOx is also an important precursor for ground-level ozone, an air pollutant that causes decreased lung function, respiratory symptoms and aggravation of asthma.

An International Council on Clean Transportation working paper

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published in 2015 found that oceangoing vessels emitted 104 kilotonnes (kt) of SOx, 14kt of PM and 150kt of NOx. Container ships alone emitted about 60% of all air pollution from ocean-going vessels. Bulk carriers and oil tankers were also important contributors to total emissions.

The report found that about 9% of total emissions were emitted at berth. This share increased to 63% at the 12nm boundary and then continued to increase mildly moving further away.

Mitigation choices Emissions mitigation options for ocean-going vessels can generally be classified in three broad categories: 1) through technology improvements, which can reduce both local and global emissions by replacing or upgrading older, higher-polluting engines with more efficient and lower-emitting propulsion systems; and the use of alternative fuel and renewable energy, hull improvement, fitting propulsion improving devices, improved hull coating and so on; 2) operational changes can be made to reduce local emissions by modifying how vessels operate while entering and docking in the harbour, slow steaming, just-in-time arrivals, etc; and 3) market-based programmes, such as variable port fees and emissions trading programmes, can spur both operational and technology changes if they are well designed and implemented.

The short-term strategy to mitigate emissions adopted by most manufacturers has been the modification of engines to reduce engine NOx emissions and meet the

The short-term strategy to mitigate emissions adopted by most manufacturers has been the modification of engines to reduce engine NOx emissions IMO standards. For example, all new two-stroke slow-speed engines like MAN B&W’s are outfitted with slide valves that optimise spray distribution in the combustion chamber and thus reduce in-cylinder temperature and NOx formation.

Other engine modifications have included, but are not limited to, optimising injection and valve, timing, turbocharger improvements and implementing common rail (Entec, 2005b). These engine technology upgrades will allow in-production marine engines to attain emission levels 20–30% lower than the current IMO NOx standards within the next five to 10 years.

Improving efficiency Other NOx, SOx and PM emissionreduction strategies call for expansion of the use of gas turbines to replace diesel engines and for the use of land-based, on-road and nonroad diesel fuels instead of marine fuels. Research and development (R&D) programmes in Europe, the US and Japan are currently investigating fuel-cell applications for marine vessels, principally for hotelling power applications. R&D on life cycle

Air pollution, 1

AIR POLLUTION

Research and development programmes in Europe, the US and Japan are currently investigating fuel-cell applications for marine vessels

Container ships account for about 60% of all air pollution from oceangoing vessels; MAN B&W two-stroke slow-speed engine outfitted with slide valves (below left)

analysis have explored the potential for reducing ship fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions at several phases of the vessel life cycle.

For example, during the design process, optimising the hull design to minimise resistance can lead to reduced fuel consumption (Hayman et al, 2002). That optimised hull form can be expected to improve fuel efficiency by around 5–20%.

Choosing the right propeller type can also provide additional efficiency gains of 5–10% (IMO, 2000).

Diesel-electric propulsion, such as pod propulsion, is another emerging advanced propulsion concept. Pod propulsion is currently available from several manufacturers and has been demonstrated in cruise and ferry applications to reduce power requirements by approximately 10–15% (ABB, 2006; Rolls-Royce, 2006). Further ship maintenance can ensure that the vessel operates efficiently throughout its life. And there are several alternative coatings and active removal systems available to replace the traditional toxic inorganic anti-fouling paints that are currently being phased out (Ahlbom and Duus, 2006).

Voluntary initiatives There are three categories of voluntary initiative: one aimed at benchmarking environmental performance; a second aimed at identifying and promoting specific policies; and a third that focuses on demonstrating and implementing technologies. Benchmarking initiatives involve the development and use of metrics for comparing environmental performance.

Most of these initiatives are constructed on the framework of established environmental quality and management certification programmes such as the ISO 9000 and 14000 series. Typically, performance metrics reflect current and proposed international environmental regulations. Current emissions regulations for marine vessels, however, seldom require implementing the best available control technologies and strategies.

The Green Award Foundation was one of the first voluntary programmes to recognise ship environmental performance. Started in 1994 by the Port of Rotterdam and the Dutch Ministry of Transportation, the Green Award is

granted to oil tankers and bulk cargo vessels that meet various safety and environmental criteria. Currently, 202 vessels from 38 different owners are certified, representing about 7% of the targeted vessel fleet. The Blue Angel programme, meanwhile, is an environmental-labelling programme created by the German federal environmental agency Umweltbundesamt. The criteria for ocean-going vessels was finalised in 2002, and since then, four vessels have received the Blue Angel certification. There is also the DNV GL environmental classification system, which focuses on ship performance.

A second type of voluntary initiative focuses on advancing specific policies. For example, the Shipping Emission Abatement and Trading (SEAaT) group was formed by shipowners to promote emissions trading as the main mechanism for obtaining emission reductions.

A third type of voluntary initiative focuses on promoting, demonstrating, and/or implementing specific emission-control technologies. Such initiatives, whether they are set up by government or industry, require strong cooperation between public and private interests.

In the end, collaboration between public and private sectors with stakeholders will be fundamental to forge support for sustainable long-term measures to mitigate the public health and environmental impact from the shipping sector.

Debasish Bhattacharjee B.E (Marine), Ch.Engg, MBA, PGDip (Marine Energy Management)WMU, Malmo, MIMarEST, MIE(India) is director of Sushe Marine Services Pvt Ltd, based in Kolkata, India.

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Blowing propulsion in a new direction

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In the drive to reduce emissions and fuel costs, windassisted shipping promises to be a game-changer – but can it ever be effective enough to satisfy industry expectations?

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BY DENNIS O’NEILL

PRODUCTION

The push towards wind-assisted commercial vessels continues to gather pace, with widespread claims that innovations and new techniques will help shipowners reduce their fuel costs and emissions by anything up to 30%.

The outlook certainly looks promising. New, but as yet untested and unproven, concepts are being launched, it seems, almost every week, and improvements in weather routing software are adding to hopes that clean auxiliary wind power is about to take shipping propulsion into a new era.

But how realistic are the claims for these new systems? And how close are we to achieving the promised environmental and commercial benefits?

“Wind propulsion solutions are a very important technology

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segment for the decarbonisation of shipping,” insists Gavin Allwright, secretary general of the International Windship Association. “The propulsive energy now being provided is substantial, and it’s delivered directly to the ship with no need for any kind of new infrastructure – securing a significant portion of a shipowner’s fuel requirement at zero cost, and creating an element of certainty in an increasingly volatile and insecure market.”

Rotating cylinders The most mature modern windassistance technology for shipping to date is the Flettner sail, which takes advantage of the so-called Magnus effect.

Originally developed and trialled in the 1920s, the concept has now been updated, modernised and retrofitted onto four commercial vessels by the Finnish engineering firm Norsepower, and there’s strong evidence – verified by ABB, NAPA and Lloyd’s Register – that shows how the concept is able to offer significant reductions to fuel costs and emissions.

Made from lightweight composite materials, the Norsepower rotor sail is a fully automated set-up that uses large cylindrical mechanical ‘sails’ that spin to create the aforementioned Magnus effect – a phenomenon named after German physicist

Heinrich Magnus. In the late 1850s, he observed that when a spinning object – such as a ball – moves through the air, it experiences a sideways force due to airflow accelerating on one side and decelerating on the opposite side.

The first rotor sail, measuring 18x3m, was installed in 2014 on board the ro-ro cargo vessel Estraden, with a second unit added a year later.

“The propulsive energy now being provided is substantial, and it’s delivered directly to the ship with no need for any kind of new infrastructure” Monitoring verified by NAPA – an authority in software and data analysis for the maritime industry – showed that fuel consumption was reduced by 6.1%.

Four years later, in April 2018, Norsepower installed a larger 25x4m rotor sail on board the LNG-fuelled high-speed cruise ferry Viking Grace.

During the first year of its operation, a measurement campaign was carried out to identify the system’s long-term fuel saving potential.

Three independent research parties – ABB, Chalmers University of Sweden and NAPA – confirmed reduced power consumption equivalent to around 300 tonnes of fuel every year, well within the original hopes for the project.

Propulsion, 1 It is expected that the installation of a rotor sail aboard Viking Grace could reduce its annual fuel consumption by between 231 and 315 tonnes

Addressing decarbonisation

“When the measurement campaign began, we had some technical challenges but quickly fixed them, and since then the technical availability of the rotor sail has been around 97%,” explains Tuomas Riski, CEO of Norsepower.

“It confirms that our technology works with high-speed cruise ferries and that favourable results can be achieved with service speeds of around 21kn. The rotor sails were used in extreme weather conditions including icing events and high wind speeds, so based on those

harsh weather experiences we know the system can be operated yearround without any issues.

“With increasing international regulatory and public pressure on the maritime industry to decarbonise, it’s essential the industry now starts to recognise the value of one of the oldest forms of propulsion,” he adds.

“The market for wind propulsion is increasing – and installations like ours demonstrate how combining all methods of vessel optimisation is going to be key to progress.”

Lloyd’s Register approved the structure and risk assessment related to the installation, which was conducted to ensure the Flettner rotor wouldn’t adversely affect the safe operation of the ship or the safety of the crew.

“As an independent performance verifier, we see our role as being a trusted independent expert, assessing the return on investment for new technologies that address decarbonisation challenges,” explains Dr Chris Craddock, Lloyd’s Register’s ship performance manager. “Wind power technologies are part of the solution, and the rotor sail has proven that it can save fuel and reduce emissions.”

The test trials included a strain gauge analysis, where forward thrust of the rotor sail was measured and converted into propulsion power.

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consumption due to the rotor sail was verified to be between 231 and 315 tonnes on an annual basis – equalling an average propulsion power of between 207kW and 282kW. The analysis also found that the rotor sail delivers more forward thrust on open sea legs.

In August 2018, two 30x5m rotor sails were installed onto the crude oil tanker Maersk Pelican and tested for 16 months at sea in conditions that ranged from tropical to Arctic.

Again, independent experts from Lloyd’s Register’s Ship Performance Group analysed and validated the performance data to ensure an impartial assessment, and confirmed savings of 8.2% during the first year of operation – equivalent to approximately 1,400 tonnes of CO2.

The savings were calculated by comparing detailed performance information to a baseline model established with full-scale measurements and computational analysis of the vessel prior to the rotor sail installation.

“We have now tested a number of technological solutions that can contribute to reducing fuel consumption and emissions, and we see wind technology as something that can provide a real breakthrough in reducing CO2 and help us to achieve our emission reduction target of 30% by 2021,” says Tommy Thomassen, chief technical officer at Maersk Tankers.

Gyroscopic forces A different version of the Flettner rotor, developed by German engineering firm Eco Flettner, was retrofitted onto the cargo ship Fehn Pollux in 2018.

Made of lightweight composites, the 18m-tall, 3m-diameter Eco Flettner unit rotates around a stationary mast using specially designed high-performance bearings at two critical heights, which allow it to spin at very high speeds.

A version of the Flettner rotor was fitted to Fehn Pollux in 2018. Above: In January 2020 a Ventifoil ‘suction wing’ was fitted to Ankie

The system is monitored by a series of sensors aboard the ship that are able to gather large amounts of data about its operational effectiveness.

“Apart from wind and navigational data, we are also able to collect data on transmission and bearing oil flow and temperature, rotor vibration, ice accumulation and rotational speeds,” explains Ralf Oltmanns of Eco Flettner.

“The crew have been trained to document every aspect of the system, take measurements and record observations, with all of their monthly reports transmitted directly to the Emden/Leer University for scientific evaluation.”

After the first six months, enough operational data was

Another benefit discovered by the crew was that the gyroscopic forces from the spinning rotor sail significantly reduced the ship’s rolling action

available to draw key conclusions about the Eco Flettner rotor sail’s operational effectiveness.

All of the performance data exceeded predictions made by the team at the Emden/Leer University – based on wind tunnel measurements and calculations – by a wide margin.

At Beaufort 4 to 5, the rotor sail is 20% more effective than calculated, and at Beaufort 7.5 to 8 its efficiency is up to 40% better than predicted.

To make the comparisons the crew took measurements with the rotor sail switched on and off in identical sea and wind conditions.

An additional benefit discovered by the crew was that the gyroscopic forces from the spinning rotor sail significantly reduced the ship’s rolling action.

WASP project The EU has been paying close attention to developments in the wind-assisted shipping sector, and in 2019 provided €5.4m in funding to set up the Wind Assisted Ship Propulsion (WASP) project, with the aim of bringing together universities, wind-assist technologists and shipowners to research, trial and validate the operational performance of a selection of wind propulsion solutions in order to create a greener North Sea transport system. It is MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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By installing a rotor sail, Scandlines hopes to reduce Copenhagen’s CO2 emissions by 4–5%.

Inset: the first two tilting rotor sails are due to be installed aboard SeaCargo’s SC Connector

ART PRODUCTION CLIENT

hoped that the systems developed through the project will eventually deliver average fuel savings and CO2 reductions of up to 5% – along with savings of more than 20% in optimal wind conditions.

In January 2020 – as part of the WASP project – a Ventifoil was retrofitted to the North Sea general cargo vessel Ankie.

The Ventifoil system – developed

by Dutch firm eConowind in collaboration with Delft University of Technology and MARIN (Maritime Research Institute Netherlands) – is a ‘suction wing’ composed of two 10m vertical towers.

While it looks similar to a rotor sail system, the main difference is that the Ventifoil’s towers are nonrotating and instead have vents and an internal powered fan that draws air through a boundary air layer, creating a difference in pressure that promotes forward movement.

“We expect that the reduction in fuel costs over a three-year period will offset the cost of installing the Ventifoil system and help us to fulfil our dream of using the wind again in modern shipping,” says Jan van

Dam of Van Dam Shipping, which owns Ankie.

Hybrid ferry The team at Norsepower has also been collaborating with the WASP project.

In May 2020, a 30x5m rotor sail was retrofitted onto Copenhagen – a Scandlines hybrid ferry that operates between Germany and Denmark.

The installation was completed in a matter of hours during an overnight stop in Rostock thanks to several months of careful pre-planning by engineers.

“We see huge value in investing in wind-assistance technology with the ultimate goal of reducing emissions,” says Søren Poulsgaard Jensen, CEO of Scandlines. “This solution – sitting alongside our hydrodynamic hull optimisation and hybrid electric propulsion system – will certainly improve our efficiency and profitability.”

With so much momentum behind its commercial success, Norsepower has also now gone on to develop new tilting rotor sails, designed to allow vessels to use them and yet still be able to pass under bridges and power lines.

The first two 35x5m tilting rotor sails are due to be installed aboard the 154m North Sea ro-ro cargo ship SC Connector and are predicted to help reduce the vessel’s emissions by around 25%.

“We’re seeing tremendous momentum in wind-assisted propulsion,” concludes Gavin Allwright of the International Windship Association, who argues there are just two challenges that need to be resolved before wind assistance is finally brought into the mainstream of commercial ship design.

“The first would be the inclusion of wind-assisted systems in a shipyard’s equipment list, because at the moment everything is fully bespoke,” he says.

“And the second measure would be to include wind-assisted propulsion in discussions about ways to meet IMO’s goal to decarbonise shipping by 2050.

Currently, the focus on decarbonisation is very much on the use of alternative fuels, such as ammonia, for propulsion when it should be on all alternative propulsion sources – including wind power.”

Watch a video animation of how Norsepower’s tilting rotor sails will work at youtu.be/WbGX2EettbI

ANTON FLETTNER German engineer Anton Flettner built the first ship to use the Magnus effect for propulsion in 1925. Buckau – a schooner retrofitted with two 15x3m cylindrical rotors – sailed from Poland to Scotland before continuing on to South America and New York. Although the system proved technically successful, it was eventually abandoned because it offered no economical advantages at a time when fossil fuels were both abundant and inexpensive, and environmental concerns were still far from high on the global agenda.

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Feeding the natural curiosity of engineers

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INEC 2020 delivered a global view of naval engineering

BY CARLY FIELDS

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When the UK Ministry of Defence’s Commodore Stuart Henderson closed the 2020 International Naval Engineering Conference and Exhibition (INEC), he singled out curiosity as a defining characteristic of the engineering trade. Bringing together 1,000 delegates from 55 countries to learn from and debate with over 200 authors presenting in 26 panel sessions, INEC can certainly lay claim to nourishing that curiosity.

As conference chair, Cdre Henderson observed that engineers “love spotting” that leak or discrepancy in pressure, voltage or temperature and following the

technical trail to find and fix the fault. “Curiosity is the basis of our professional standards and our learning and development, so nurture it and encourage it in others. It starts by encouraging questions without fear of ridicule,” he said.

Cdre Henderson highlighted the increasing need for naval engineers to be polymaths, rather than being too specialised. “We need knowledge of mechanical, electrical and control systems,” he said. “We need to understand naval architecture instructions.

Increasingly, we need to understand chemical engineering, software and computer science, communications and environmental science. Once

This first virtual INEC offered greater accessibility for the internationally dispersed attendees

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we have mastered that, we need to understand naval operations and any potential adversaries.”

Joining the Commodore on the closing session panel, Rear Admiral Klaas Visser, assistant professor of marine engineering at the Delft University of Technology, added that the naval and marine engineering profession cannot be described as “boring” in the 2020s.

“Given the changed maritime security theatres at sea, the maritime energy transition, the need to reduce or even eliminate crews, and the dominant technological developments from crossover areas in automotive and aerospace, we are – with a breathtaking, disruptive pace – developing towards a complete transition of ship design and ship systems.

Alternative fuels, electric ships, fuel cells replacing internal combustion engines, modern navies revitalising their fleets – we’ve discussed all of these subjects this week,” he said.

Collaboration call The need for greater collaboration was raised by many keynote speakers, with the challenges of the pandemic exacerbating the pitfalls of siloed working.

Engineers need to ensure that the innovations and improvements seen in the sector over the past 12 months become the norm, said Rear Admiral Paul Marshall, senior responsible owner for ship acquisition in the Royal Navy.

“This is our time and we should be confident in our ability,” he said. “Engineers, scientists and academics must come together as a naval engineering community to enable that exciting adaptation and make it work effectively.”

Fellow keynote speaker Vice Admiral Arie Jan de Waard, director of the Netherlands’ Defense Materiel Organisation, agreed that partnerships need to move beyond the military to include academia, research institutes and industry. “I call this a golden ecosystem in the

Naval tech, 1

INEC 2020 for processes and policies to catch up. We’ve got to start doing it now.”

AUTONOMOUS OPERATIONS HUMAN ELEMENT

SIMULATION

DIGITAL SKILLS

AUTONOMOUS WARSHIP

THINK DIFFERENTLY

TRANSITION SHIP

FUEL CELLS

ALTERNATIVE FUELS

SUBMARINES

RELIABILITY

CYBER

AUTONOMY

CLOSING

SUSTAINABLE

ENERGY STORAGE BATTERY TECHNOLOGY

wider society. And with these partnerships we can begin to solve the challenges for future generations,” he said.

Disrupting norms In her keynote speech, BMT chief executive Sarah Kenny urged naval engineers to capitalise on pandemic-enforced change, reflect on how the sector has adapted and learn from how other engineering sectors have innovated during the pandemic. She pointed to how organisations with very different backgrounds have come together to design, develop, acquire and rapidly deploy solutions.

She also encouraged engineers to disrupt long-established structures and the norms of defence engineering, which potentially deny competitive advantage. Citing a fundamental challenge for today’s naval engineers, Kenny observed that they need to design solutions that

The sector needs to address the fact that processes from the 1980s are still in use, or else face disruption from outside

DATA

COLLABORATION

CLIMATE CHANGE MORE DATA

AIP

REALISM

SURVIVABILITY

SOLID STATE TECHNOLOGY

UNDERWATER DOMAIN

can accommodate and successfully integrate rapidly emerging and disruptive technologies throughout their life. Such solutions must be regularly updated and adapted to new forms of warfare, to counter existing and emerging threats.

“As naval engineers, we need to innovate in how we design and develop solutions. We must make use of emerging technologies that can aid collaboration and accelerate product development, such as digital twins. At the same time, we must adopt advanced acquisition and manufacturing solutions to accelerate routes to exploitation, reduce the cost base and ensure that safety and regulatory aspects are developed alongside those technologies.”

For her, agility and adaptability are keywords. “As engineers, you will be at the forefront of change, envisaging, creating and developing innovative solutions in this complex technological environment that will make a real difference to naval capability and potential opportunities.

“The rewards are vast, but we cannot be slow; we cannot wait for someone else to do it. We can’t wait

Out-dated processes Rear Admiral Lorin Selby, chief of naval research for the US Navy, said in his speech that the sector needs to address the fact that processes from the 1980s are still in use, or else face disruption from outside.

He stressed the importance of “reimagining” naval power through all strands, including acquisition, contracting and adoption of technology.

The need for change was echoed

by Vice Adm Jan de Waard, who said there is a need to alter the way ships are designed to ensure maintenance of technological advantage and to shift from doctrine to informationdriven operations.

Speakers also agreed on the need for a shake-up of recruitment and training, with an eye to the future.

Rear Admiral Paul Marshall noted that the generation of the future does not think like the generation of today, and therefore recruitment and training must emphasise the “maritime of tomorrow rather than yesterday”. He added that the industry must “think differently, think better and think younger” to empower the talent, vision and diversity within it and address the challenges ahead.

The workforce is changing, with greater digital skills and greater comfort in multidisciplinary environments. Today, that workforce comes from a demographic with far more complex and diverse notions of culture, identity and loyalty, and different expectations of meaningful and purposeful work, concluded Kenny. The sector needs to embrace that change.

VIEW ON DEMAND All the sessions from INEC are available to view on IMarEST TV: www.imarest.org/tv

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Unlikely cargo combination on the Clyde

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Passengers and effluent shared a space on the historic sludge boats ART

BY KEITH RAY

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The Steamship Shieldhall, originally one of the River Clyde’s ‘sludge boats’ and now listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, is the largest steam-powered vessel still working in Britain. Unusually, while working as a sludge boat, the ship hosts up to 80 passengers at a time – free of charge – for a cruise down Glasgow’s River Clyde. It’s an unusual combination of duties for any vessel.

The sludge boats came about because of serious pollution in the Clyde. The rapid growth of industry and population in Glasgow in the mid-Victorian era had a devastating effect on the river. At the time, the infrastructure for handling industrial and human waste was limited to gravitation, with all the untreated waste being dumped in the river, which in turn became little more than an open sewer.

The issue was studied throughout the 1850s and 1860s, but it was a parliamentary report by Sir John Hawkshaw in 1876 that focused attention on practical solutions.

His study suggested a new system based on intersecting sewers which directed the effluent to areas on the margin of the city, where treatment works could be built to process the sewage and allow the sludge to be safely discharged into the river. However, this was deemed impractical as it would

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still pollute the river, albeit further downstream. The disposal of the effluent in deep tidal waters was suggested as a more suitable solution instead.

Rising to the challenge Concern over the indiscriminate discharge of untreated sewage into the Clyde led to three sewage treatment works being built: one at Dalmanack in 1894, a second at Dalmuir in 1904 and the third at Shieldhall in 1910. All three loaded their treated effluent into sludge boats for disposal out at sea. The first purpose-built sludge boat, the SS Dalmuir, was commissioned in 1904 and built by William Beardmore & Co. to carry sludge from the Dalmuir treatment plant, 1,200 tons at a time, and dump it off Garroch Head. The Dalmuir was 71m long and carried 1,220 deadweight tons.

The second vessel, the first Shieldhall – now referred to as Shieldhall (1) – entered service in 1910. It was slightly larger than the Dalmuir and could carry 1,500 tons.

Both the Dalmuir and the Shieldhall had twin screws to aid manoeuvring in the narrower sections of the Clyde and to assist in approaching the wharves for loading the sludge.

The twin screw approach survived until the 1970s, when bow thrusters and variable pitch propellors were incorporated into the sludge boat design to assist handling.

In 1922, the Dalmuir was sold to AGWI Petroleum, which later became part of Esso, for conversion to an oil bunkering vessel, and was eventually scrapped in 1960.

The SS Dalmarnock (1) was introduced in 1925 and was a very similar design to Shieldhall (1). Up until 1955, the service was maintained by these two vessels, with a break during World War II when the Shieldhall was loaned to the Manchester Corporation to replace its own vessel, which had been sunk by a German mine off the Mersey Bar.

Shieldhall (2) completed 21 years of service carrying Glasgow’s waste and was replaced by the amusingly named SS Gardyloo

History, 1 Shieldhall (2) now operates in the Solent and is being preserved as part of the National Historic Fleet

The second Shieldhall In 1955, Shieldhall (1) was replaced

by Shieldhall (2), the present vessel, and Shieldhall (1) was broken up.

Shieldhall (2) then completed 21 years of service carrying Glasgow’s waste. It was replaced in 1976 by the rather amusingly named dieselpowered SS Gardyloo, which had been built by Ferguson Brothers of Port Glasgow for the Lothian Regional Council, and from whom it was chartered. In 1977, the SS Garroch Head was added to the sludge boat fleet, a vessel of 3,671 deadweight tons built by James Lamont & Co. This new vessel continued the tradition of carrying organised parties of passengers in the summer months, which several of its predecessors, including both Shieldhalls, had done. This tradition started late in World War I when

convalescing soldiers were carried on excursions – a concession later extended to other groups, including the elderly and those who could never have afforded a normal fullday river cruise.

Upon retirement from the sludge trade on the Clyde, Shieldhall (2) was purchased by the UK’s Southern Water Authority for similar sludge duties on the south coast and underwent a major refit at Lamont’s yard. The refit included enclosing the bridge wings and a complete remodelling of the passenger accommodation. In November 1977, the ship arrived at Southampton. However, as the previous vessel’s contract had not expired, Shieldhall (2) didn’t enter proper service until June 1980, so the ship was effectively mothballed for nearly three years. Once the

previous boat’s contract came to an end, she started regular duty lasting for five years until she was finally withdrawn from service. She was saved from the scrapyard in 1988 by a group of enthusiasts who formed a preservation society to restore the vessel. Since the completion of the preservation, she has been carrying up to 3,000 passengers a year on day trips from Southampton.

Titanic proportions Shieldhall (2) was built in 1954 by Lobnitz & Co. of Renfrew. The same company constructed the two vertical 800 indicated horsepower triple expansion steam engines which power the ship. These had traditional open crankcases, unusual in the 1950s, as by that time most steam engines of this type had enclosed crankshafts. Although on MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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The engines of the Shieldhall featured in the Titanic film, but with ancillaries such as walkways and ladders scaled down to make them appear larger than life

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He also said that once the dumping ground was reached, the valves were opened as the boat took a wide sweep, and the only sign was a trail of brown/grey water with no unpleasant smell. However, the passengers were advised to remain inside during the short discharge period.

As part of the National Historic Fleet, and indeed a regional flagship for the Fleet, Shieldhall (2) sits alongside HMS Victory and the Cutty Sark, which is quite an achievement for a humble sewage carrier. The Clyde sludge boats uniquely combined an essential public health duty with the social service of providing free river excursions to thousands of Glaswegians who would otherwise never have had the opportunity of a day on the river.

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a much smaller scale, these looked very similar to the engines that had powered the Titanic. In fact, the similarity was so great that the engines of the Shieldhall featured in the Titanic film, but with ancillaries such as walkways and ladders scaled down to make them appear larger than life.

An important legacy The passenger excursions may seem something of an oddity today.

It might not be most people’s first choice to go on a river cruise with 1,800 tons of sewage. However, according to the man who was second mate in 1974, there was never any smell of sewage once the vessel had left the treatment works, and the ship was so spotless that he is quoted as saying, “You could have eaten your breakfast off the deck”.

SS SHIELDHALL PARTICULARS Gross tons: 1,792 tons Deadweight: 1,840 tons Length: 81.69m (268 ft 0 in) Beam: 13.56m (44 ft 6 in) Draught: 4.11m (13ft 6in) Propulsion: Twin screws Installed power: 2 x 800 ihp triple expansion engines Speed (service): 9 knots (17 km/h, 10 mph) Speed (maximum): 13 knots (24 km/h, 15 mph) Capacity: 1,800 ton of sludge, 80 passengers Crew: 12 Cost: £291,000 (£7.7m in today’s value) Laid down: October 1954 Completed: July 1955 Launched: October 1955

Sludge boats continued on the Clyde until 1998, when EU environmental legislation banned dumping sewage at sea. The Seafield Waste Water Treatment Works was extended to perform secondary treatment on the sludge, which then went to a landfill site. The last Clyde sludge boat, the diesel powered Garroch Head built in 1977 by James Lamont & Co, was retired in 1998 and eventually ended up working in Nigeria. However, during its service, the Garroch Head had continued the tradition of carrying passengers free of charge until the very end, carrying around 6,000 in its final year of service.

The SS Shieldhall has had a fascinating history, combining exceptionally mundane freight traffic with pleasant river cruises for many deserving people. Now owned by the Solent Steam Packet Ltd, a preservation society, the ship continues giving cruises from Southampton down the Solent in Hampshire. Given its mundane main function of transporting sewage sludge, the vessel has a very attractive appearance and today could easily be mistaken for a pure passenger vessel.

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PGS’s Ramform Tethys can tow a full spread of multi-sensor recording equipment using just two of its three 6000kW controlled pitch propellers

CLIENT

Investing in crew culture How entrenched marine working practices can be overturned

PGS

BY PAUL COURTENAY

In the seismic exploration business, an incident or accident can cost the contractor or customer tens of millions in lost revenue, damage to equipment and delays, not to mention damage to reputation.

PGS is a Norwegian high-end seismic contractor operating a fleet of highly specialised Ramform design vessels. The company embarked on a project to better align the various functions and professions on board to reduce downtime, insurance claims and operational and capital costs. It also sought a reduction in significant events by up to 70%.

The vessels tow massive arrays of hydrophone/accelerometer sensor cables that collect high-resolution seismic data used to create images of the deep layers beneath the sea’s surface and help oil companies

locate potential oil and gas deposits.

The technology is not unlike ultrasound, but using much lower frequencies in the 4–100Hz range and at a much larger scale of 2,000–4,000km2.

The seismic gear towed behind the Ramform vessels has a value of US$50m–70m and must be towed continuously at speeds between 3kn and 5kn, while the tow itself can be up to 120 tonnes, with the array of sensor cables 1.5km wide and 10km long. Any interruption or rapid change in the speed or heading can have disastrous consequences.

PGS adopted an offshore crew structure traditional to the offshore

Unlike a cargo vessel or a cruise ship, a loss of main propulsion for 10 minutes would result not in a short delay, but mission catastrophe

seismic industry. This structure historically comprised a vessel operation split roughly down the middle between seismic (back deck and instrument room) and maritime (engine room, hotel and deck) activities.

Short delay or catastrophe?

In this tradition, processes were arranged around line-reporting structures, and performance was, in the main, focused around individual department technical up-time, or rather the allocation of ‘punishment’ downtime: both lagging indicators that are not always useful in predicting future performance.

Only senior management had an overall view of performance and this often resulted in direct interaction between senior management and field crews on board the vessels.

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and have been in use since at least the 1950s, with apparently acceptable results. The challenge comes when we start to consider the sensitivity of a seismic operation to the robustness of the maritime systems.

Unlike a cargo vessel or a cruise ship, a loss of main propulsion for, say, 10 minutes during a voyage, would not result in a short delay, but a catastrophe: a total loss of the in-sea gear plus weeks, if not months, out of production on vessels with operating day rates in the US$250,000 range. One-hundred per cent uptime is a fundamental requirement for the main maritime systems of propulsion and steering, just as it is with aircraft in aviation.

SUBS ART

Breakdown data PRODUCTION PGS

CLIENT

During 2010, accumulated and substantial opportunity losses triggered some deeper analysis of a number of apparently unconnected maritime breakdowns. Although no obvious link between breakdowns was seen, they often involved the running and maintenance of the main machinery, so PGS engaged maritime consultant PROPEL to dig deeper into the available data. That analysis led PROPEL to the hypothesis that the failures, although technical in nature, were more than likely due to decisions and, moreover, the attitudes of those on board.

A confidential employee survey confirmed the hypothesis and highlighted areas of the seismic operational structure that created these attitudes and behaviours: ● outsourced maritime technical management on some vessels, where the maritime management company shared no contractual consequences of the losses in performance; ● highly compartmentalised (siloed) structures between both maritime and seismic operations; ● conflicting goals between different functions and responsibilities, which were not being managed for the overall or long-term best outcome; and

Inline bunkering depends on close cooperation between support vessel and PGS maritime crew

The improvement in results was significant and swift, with technical downtime for combined maritime and seismic operations reduced by up to 50% ● short-term planning of operations with a high bias towards lagging indicators and a focus on collecting data on past performance.

With these insights, PGS embarked on a programme that would change the on-board management processes, the onshore management structure, and the communication and decision-making processes.

Traditional barriers The highest priority was to dissolve the traditional work-practice barriers between the vessels’ departments, and for this reason the participants in the early workshops chose the banner ‘One Vessel, One Culture’, which evolved to become simply ‘One Culture’. The use of the term emphasises that culture alludes to ‘the way we do things around here’ and not to formal documented policies, procedures or standards.

The route to a more collaborative working mindset began with the formalisation of a number of team constructs that would define and give a clear identity to groups of individuals who should collaborate, clearly stating their responsibility, accountability and authority.

These teams were defined as follows: ● For each vessel, the officers and seismic department chiefs form the On-board Management Team, and the interface between the onshore and offshore management is the Vessel Management Team (VMT).

● The Senior Vessel Management Team manages fleet-wide and more significant issues. ● The highest-level interface between the main internal lineorganisations is the VP Team, comprising the heads of the main line-organisations represented offshore.

The VMT meetings were guided by a prescribed agenda ensuring a forward-looking and risk-focused approach. This helped move on from the old ways of prioritising actions based on the ‘here and now’, and shifts the focus to future events for which planning could reduce the risk to performance, safety or project timeline.

Almost unrecognisable The roll-out was supported by many workshops, including onshore conferences involving the on-board management, which took a significant effort. However, the improvement in results was significant and swift, with technical downtime for combined maritime and seismic operations reduced by up to 50%, significant incidents reduced by 70%, and insurance claims and the severity of incidents reduced to low and sustainable levels not seen before in the seismic industry.

And, crucially, with the overall improvement in coordination and cooperation on board, One Culture has now become the norm, and vessel operations are almost unrecognisable.

One clear measure of success is that, for a visitor, it is often very difficult to distinguish between the seismic and maritime functions, which is not something we could have said just a few years ago.

Paul Courtenay is senior vice president, acquisition projects, at Norway-headquartered PGS, a data-driven business that provides seismic images and 3D data to describe the subsurface beneath the ocean floor MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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Shouldering the burden of machinery malfunction

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The technical manager is a linchpin in the quest to reduce catastrophic machinery failures

BY ANSUMAN GHOSH

CLIENT

The majority of casualties at sea are caused by a chain of failures occurring at the same time. Due to the nature of shipping and the heavy-duty equipment on board, these casualties often involve some form of catastrophic machinery failure. Factors that can affect the performance of a piece of machinery include design, build quality, periodic maintenance, operators’ handling, the quality of energy source and the operating environment.

A technical manager has control over the maintenance and handling of machinery, but their control is limited. They can only manage remotely and rely on the crew on board to carry out the necessary tasks. While technical managers are responsible for managing vessels, they don’t have autonomy over the design or build quality of the machinery, meaning the operating environment can be a constant challenge. Also, the fuel on which the ship’s engines run comes from the lowest rung of the crude oil-refining process, creating additional burdens.

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Further complicating the role of the technical manager are the substantial technological changes occurring within the maritime sector that mean decision-making is constantly shifting ashore. With machinery and systems becoming plug-and-play black boxes, technical managers are fast becoming a channel between the ship and the manufacturers.

The adoption of new technology and appropriate crew training is also of significant concern.

Major incidents have occurred due to lack of understanding of new technology introduced on a ship, for example, changes from paper charts to electronic charts or conventional diesel engines to electronic engines. For a seamless transition, it’s imperative to have a workable framework to adopt the changes well in advance, taking a very cautious approach and utilising risk-assessment tools.

Technical managers should offer guidance on crew selection to support the crewing company, who would not know the demands of a particular vessel

Tales of the unexpected The role of the technical manager has always been to manage the unexpected, and this is increasingly the case. In these circumstances, the only way to handle the enormous uncertainty is to have well-trained, motivated staff, robust procedures and management systems to mitigate the risks.

Investing time and resources in hiring and retaining the right crew is essential to support the long-term success of a ship’s management and prevent catastrophic failures.

The industry can often associate retention rates with safer ships and cost-efficient operations. The most crucial are the top four ranks on board a vessel, as they are the eyes and ears of the technical manager.

They are the leaders who can carry and convey the technical manager’s message to all on board. The crew selection should not be left solely to the crewing company, who would not know the demands of a particular vessel. Therefore, the involvement of the technical manager in the selection of crew is vital.

Working practices and attitudes on board require careful and regular assessment. Transparent and

Insurance P&I, 1 A marine engineer inspecting his ship’s engine in the engine control room

A system of regular checks and routines for these standby machines is necessary clear management procedures are essential. Strategies need to be vesselspecific, especially for the plant maintenance systems and reporting functions. If they are too generic, the crew tends to follow individual methods and experience, and this can lead to problematic situations.

A challenge that technical managers often face is the addition of a ship to their existing managed fleet. Usually, there are minimal records for the new takeover vessel, and unless the managers have a thorough takeover plan, problems and failures can occur. A robust system of feedback, data and incident sharing between different vessels and fleets will help preempt significant breakdowns, and this aspect is a cornerstone of good technical management.

Another essential aspect of safe ship operation is to ensure the standby and emergency machinery are available when they are needed most [see this edition’s Troublespot, page 12 – Ed]. Availability of

emergency machinery is vital to mitigate a failure on board and to ensure that the incident does not lead to a catastrophic failure.

Therefore, a system of regular checks and routines for these standby machines, as well as firefighting and life-saving equipment, is necessary.

Practical and realistic drills on board can prepare crew for the unexpected, and a significant part of a technical manager’s resources needs to be made available for this particular aspect.

Maintaining standards The standards of technical management vary from providing a skeleton infrastructure that fulfils the minimum class and statutory requirements to advanced quality control, where a manager has the freedom to provide the highest standards of ship management.

A technical manager’s budget allowance plays a pivotal role in maintaining different standards and can be affected by charter hire for a particular ship or ship type.

Technical managers also face challenges in managing ships from different shipyards as the quality standards, maintenance approach

and reliability standards vary. An established technical manager is better prepared to handle such issues, as they have more flexibility to mould their operation to the needs of the vessel and take additional measures to prevent failures. A separate budget might be required to deal with lower-quality ships, and this needs to be agreed and negotiated with the shipowner.

The technical manager’s role is significant, and it sometimes requires a precarious balancing act to keep the shipowner happy, but to also take charge when the safety of the vessel is under threat. Managing vessels despite having no control over the machinery used is difficult enough, while the greater influence of technology means the role itself is in a state of flux. Talented and effective technical managers must be adept at fitting all the composite pieces of this demanding job together, allowing crew to flourish, while maintaining high standards and establishing consistent and safety-conscious procedures on board.

Ansuman Ghosh is director, risk assessment at UK P&I Club MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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Harnessing the pseudo-direct drive PROPULSION

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Magnetic gears and the tension between mechanical and electrical propulsion Dr Stuart Calverley Chief engineer, hybrid drives division, Magnomatics

PRODUCTION

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ny analysis of the future of propulsion must recognise the challenges of uncertain and rising fuel pricing coupled with increasing regulation.

While electric propulsion systems are widely seen as a credible answer to these challenges, we need a historic perspective.

This propulsion method has deep roots, with the earliest examples dating from 1903. Then, the lack of reversibility of diesel systems led to the use of a more controllable ~100kW diesel-electric system on the merchant vessel Vandal in St Petersburg. Such systems were made redundant by the inclusion of reversibility in diesel systems in 1905.

The tension between electric and ‘conventional’ propulsion continued, with transatlantic passenger liners of the 1920s–1930s favouring the power afforded by electric systems.

However, these high-power systems never translated to other classes of vessels until the war, when the US Navy built 300 electrically propelled vessels, only for efficiency advances in mechanical drive to once again render the electric systems commercially uncompetitive.

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The history of magnetic gears also begins with a series of faltering solutions, and it wasn’t until 1968, when Thomas Martin filed his ‘Magnetic Transmission’ patent, that the systems we see today were first envisaged. This development laid dormant until the turn of the new century, when magnetic materials and analysis methods allowed the technology to leap to the fore.

Creating the gear effect High-power magnetic gears are similar in concept to an epicyclic gear, with a high-speed sun gear in the centre, a low-speed ring gear on the outside and a series of connecting planets coupling these two sides. In the magnetic gear, however, instead of gear teeth, a series of north/south magnetic pole pairs provide the interlock, and instead of rotating planets a series of steel segments are used to modulate the magnetic fields to allow the coupling of the sun and ring rotors.

This modulated magnetic coupling gives a rotation of the two rotors at differing speeds and hence the gear effect is created.

The magnetic nature of the gearing allows the torque to be transmitted without any contacting or wearing parts and therefore without lubrication, but critically the magnetic elements can be fully integrated into an electrical

machine, and the pseudo-direct drive technology is reached.

A new opportunity The pseudo-direct drive is a conventional synchronous permanent magnet machine with a magnetically and mechanically integrated magnetic gear. The machine operates at high speed, giving a compact package. However, the magnetic gear element is an integral part of the machine and does not give the uplift in cost and size that comes with the addition of a conventional gearbox.

The inner high-speed rotor is driven directly by the field from the stator coils in a conventional manner. This rotor also serves as the sun gear in the magnetic planetary, within which the high-speed rotation is geared down and torque output geared up. The output rotor is thus well suited to the propeller’s requirements. By essentially using the high-speed rotor twice (first to accept stator-induced rotation and second to provide drive to the output rotor), the cost and size penalty of having a gear system is avoided, but

While electric propulsion systems are widely seen as a credible answer... we need a historic perspective the cost and space advantages of the small propulsion motor are retained.

By reducing size, cost and complexity, the pseudo-direct drive therefore presents a new opportunity in marine propulsion to break the tension between mechanical propulsion and much more flexible and efficient electrical propulsion. The newer, much larger environmental goals will be achieved along the way.

Comment, 1

COMMENT

GPS is not the only tool in the navigational arsenal Technology can aid, but should not replace, the art of skilled navigators

NAVIGATION

Training needs to stress the capabilities and limitations of modern navigation systems Rear Admiral Nick Lambert Co-founder and director, NLA International

W

e mariners have embraced GPS as our sole positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) solution, so much so that experienced bridge teams are in disarray when the GPS comforter is denied. A tanker approaching Cyprus late one evening in September 2019 experienced such a denial and called for assistance from the pilots’ office at Vasiliko oil terminal. Fortune magazine breathlessly reported: “The pilot on duty recognised the gravity of the situation right away. In daylight, an experienced ship captain can manoeuvre using paper maps, markers and the coastline as guides.

But at night, GPS becomes a critical tool in unfamiliar waters.”

How can this be? A ship in sight of shore equipped with ECDIS systems, radars, visual aids to navigation, echo sounders, a bridge navigation team and lookouts, unable to navigate after dark without GPS and obliged to wait offshore for daylight and a pilot? We used to navigate safely before GPS; why can’t we navigate safely without it?

Have we lost the ‘ordinary practice of seamen’ from the COLREGS, our roots in the art of navigation perfected over hundreds of years,

long before Sputnik first entered low earth orbit?

The answer is simple. It lies in training, a deep understanding of the capabilities and limitations of our modern navigation technologies, and the COLREGS’ “due regard to the observance of good seamanship”.

Sadly, we’ve had the lesson so many times before.

Confirmation bias On passage from Bermuda to Boston, the Royal Majesty grounded off Nantucket in June 1995. In short, the GPS reverted to dead reckoning (DR) mode shortly after sailing, probably due to an antenna failure. It remained in DR mode and was the principal PNT source plotted on the paper chart and fed to the autopilot for the next 48 hours or so. As the ship proceeded northwards, she drifted some 17 miles off track to the west. Visual navigation marks and buoys were misinterpreted and made to “fit the picture” corroborating the bridge officers’ confidence in the ship’s assumed position and progress, such that they believed the incorrect GPS information. Secondary aids to navigation such as Loran-C, radar and the depth sounder were not

used to corroborate GPS. This is “confirmation bias”, whereby people seek data that confirms expectations and, if it fits the picture, do not question its veracity.

Royal Majesty’s bridge systems were ‘integrated’ by the standards of the day. The ship had plenty of sensors and aids to navigation; its bridge team was suckered into the GPS comfort zone and allowed it to determine their situational awareness. Sound knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of GPS, cross-checking GPS with Loran-C, inquisitive interrogation of visual navigation marks and a persistent questioning of positional information would have saved the day.

Modern technology can help too.

Navigation sensors can be integrated into a single system that sounds or displays alarms when they contradict. eLoran and other terrestrial systems can enhance global navigation satellite systems – as concluded by MarRINav’s Maritime Resilience and Integrity of Navigation report – but all remain aids to navigation. They will never surpass an alert, inquisitive, well-trained, professional deck officer, pilot or shoreside operator.

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The IMarEST’s shared knowledge hub In this section:

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55 The Safe Return to Port SOLAS regulation 57 Branch spotlight: US Gulf Coast 58 Fellow Q&A: Mike Plaskitt 60 SIG update 63 Applying lessons learned from offshore wind farms to tidal power 64 Institute news

ART PRODUCTION CLIENT

New regulation underlines systems complexity New thinking required to understand passenger ship systems’ vulnerability

BY TRYPHONAS PETROU

The Safe Return to Port (SRtP) SOLAS regulation is the latest step change in regulatory requirements for passenger ships.

The core concept is that the ship is its own best lifeboat. This is currently applicable to passenger ships of 120m and more in length, or passenger ships that have three or more main vertical zones (MVZs). The requirements according to SOLAS II-2/21 & 22 cover two scenarios: ● All the essential systems as defined by SOLAS

shall remain operational upon loss of a space or compartment due to fire or flooding, except in the affected area(s). ● A more limited number of essential systems for orderly evacuation shall remain operational upon loss of an MVZ. The systems of concern are classified into four main groups: power and propulsion, safety (firefighting and detection, flood detection and bilge), navigation and communication and safe areas. The full list can be found in the regulation.

The SRtP regulation introduces four new concepts. First is ‘Safe Areas’, referring to internal spaces focused on providing passengers and crew with basic services.

Additionally, they shall provide food and access to a medical facility.

Second is ‘Casualty Thresholds’, which defines the extent of a casualty (fire or flooding) for which the ship shall remain operational. The most critical thresholds are to be identified at an early design stage and discussed with

class and owners/ operators, and should be properly recorded in an SRtP Design Philosophy document.

Third is ‘Manual Actions’, which covers any crew intervention activity required to isolate, restore or maintain system functionality.

Last is ‘Critical Failures’, where SRtP system functionality cannot be restored after a casualty threshold occurs. They are identified during the overall assessment of systems and arrangements related to SRtP operation.

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INTERACTIONS CONCEPT

DESIGN

OPERATION

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Overall SRtP philosophy designed

Provides casualty by casualty crew manual actions

Modifications to the systems model quickly performed

High-level system check

Able to support crew with system information

Reassessment of system redundancy model efficient

Able to look at casualties beyond SRtP limits

Generates documentation for approval post refurbishment

SUBS

Able to look at redundancy issues caused by system maintenance

Design considerations ART

SRtP regulations have added a further layer of safety to passenger vessels. They work as a bridge between design and operational requirements where a specific set of systems need to attain a specific redundancy level.

This is achieved through duplication and separation with an allowance for manual actions, but these need to be pre-planned and documented, with manual interventions kept as simple as possible. The decision to what extent manual actions are minimised is based on the different stakeholders’ interests and is significantly influenced by the available crew.

The level of redundancy to be adopted for SRtP resembles that of a Dynamic Position Class 3 (DP3) vessel design. Some of the key areas of focus in both are power distribution, control, automation and communication.

The tendency to reuse existing or off-the-shelf solutions is no longer fit for purpose because they do not comply with the regulations. The designer working with the supplier’s needs to consider

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specific aspects such as the location of several controllers, substations, switches and how they interact with each other.

This is crucial when a component is lost due to short circuit, earth fault or signal failure. Moreover, the wiring routing and its protection should be planned carefully.

Attention should be given to the valves, breakers and switches as far as

Current designs tend to adopt a methodology whereby the vessel is split into dedicated zones their type, location and protection are concerned.

Similar considerations apply to pipe routing and protection against fire with the current regulation interpretations providing guidance.

It is recommended that these aspects should be acknowledged and dealt with during the basic design phase together with the allowable time for action. Contrary to the DP requirements and design philosophy, SRtP regulations allow time for restoring affected systems functionality: two hours for systems related

to safe areas operation and one hour for the rest of essential systems, according to the Bahamas Marine Notice 03.

Current designs tend to adopt a methodology whereby the vessel is split into dedicated zones that are used to guide the duplication and separation. The machinery spaces can be broadly divided into two main areas (separated by a watertight bulkhead) forward and aft – with each dedicated to a particular POD, thus ensuring one propulsion unit is always available. The hotel spaces can be divided by MVZ so that only one MVZ is non-operational at a time, thus ensuring sufficient safe areas in the nonaffected areas.

Compliance assessment The complexity of assessing a system design against SRtP regulations should not be underestimated. To put it in context, this task requires circa 20 different interconnected systems to be assessed against hundreds of differing potential casualties.

The traditional method of Failure Mode and Effect Analysis, commonly

used in the offshore industry, is a paper-based exercise relying solely on the experience of the engineers. It has, however, several limitations: it is not repeatable or easily verifiable; its results are not readily reusable; and it does not take fully into consideration the interconnectivity of the systems.

An alternative methodology is to create a digital twin systems model, coupling location information with a system dependency model. With appropriate software, this methodology can provide a vast amount of benefits to all stakeholders: the calculation is able to consider the interconnectivity of all systems, each casualty can be assessed in a repeatable and verifiable way, and what-if scenarios in design can be performed. We firmly believe that system design and assessment performed in this manner can benefit all stakeholders in this industry and any industry that requires a deep understanding of system vulnerability.

Tryphonas Petrou MSc CEng MIMarEST is a senior mechanical engineer at Brookes Bell

IA lead / branch, 2

BRANCH SPOTLIGHT

Preparing for the clean energy switch Nick Tinsley looks forward to expanding relations and capitalising on energy-transition opportunities on the US Gulf Coast INTERVIEW BY CARLY FIELDS

What’s the one standout branch event in 2020, and why was it so memorable?

In 2019 we changed our venue for technical meetings to the Houston Maritime Museum and had started a technical meeting programme.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, we now rely on webinars for which the speakers have proven to be captivating and the topics interesting. The standout event this year was the Polar Expedition Diving & Antarctica’s Underwater World webinar presented

by Lindblad Expeditions’ Shaylyn Potter.

What plans do you have for further development of the Branch?

Short term, we plan to expand access to our webinar programme to other branches and regions. Long term, we plan to cultivate our relationship with the Houston Maritime Museum and promote the recognition of Houston as one of the busiest ports in the US and the centre for worldwide offshore oil and gas production and development.

As the oil and gas industry giants morph

into the type of companies needed by the energy industry, we should be gearing ourselves up to represent the engineering, science and technology professionals that work for them directly and as suppliers through contractor/consultant relationships. Engineers are the people who will create solutions for tomorrow’s world.

We plan to organise more women speakers for our virtual programmes, start a local mentoring programme for professional members and local college students, increase our gender diversity, continue to develop our student programmes and strengthen collaborations with universities on the US Gulf Coast.

What are the three main topics that keep your branch members awake at night and why?

Future industry, economical, regional and environmental stability.

Members are asking: Will I have a job tomorrow?

Can I pay the bills? How can I best educate and prepare my children? Am I (and my family) at risk from a hurricane, storm surge and environmental

Shaylyn Potter’s Polar Expedition webinar was a highlight of the branch calendar in 2020

damage? They are also concerned about ocean pollution, geopolitical and safety issues, alongside diversity and inclusion, and opportunities for low-income students.

What are the big regional opportunities on the horizon for your branch and members?

The expansion of the port of Houston and the subsequent increase in maritime activity is a significant opportunity.

There is scope to support members in the switch to a cleaner energy industry, first with blue, then green hydrogen, and then with carbon capture and storage.

In today’s increasingly polarised world, IMarEST is in the position to take a bold, apolitical stance on climate change. As a Branch we are able to provide our members with a true, fair, reliable and authoritative view on critical issues that we cannot as individuals easily gather through other sources.

We also plan to expand our virtual programme, and enable professionals in all regions of our large constituency the opportunity to participate and contribute. One of

our biggest aims is the Branch’s continuing and developing relationship with Houston Maritime Museum, to establish our Branch and the Institute as a major force in the Gulf Coast maritime industry.

What one thing would you change about your region in relation to the marine environment?

The Gulf Coast’s vulnerability to environmental effects and climate change.

I would also like to make the offshore oil and gas industry safer and make marine processes safer and more reliable, leading to a cleaner environment with lower emissions.

Additionally, I’d like to change the perception that the IMarEST is not as relevant as other societies within the US. Any other comments?

The Gulf Coast Branch would like to help the IMarEST develop its response to the many opportunities brought to the surface by the disruptive effects of the 2020 pandemic.

Nick Tinsley CEng CMarEng FIMarEST is chair of the IMarEST’s Gulf Coast Branch MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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FELLOW Q&A

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“Engineering is fun, enjoy it”

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IMarEST Fellow Mike Plaskitt explains why it’s vital that engineers work as part of a team and why complex systems design cannot be done from home

ART

How did you first get into the marine industry?

I did a student apprenticeship with English Electric, but after graduation I saw an advert for the Royal Naval Engineering Service and, coming from a ‘dockyard’ family, I was attracted by the prospect. They sent me to learn about marine engineering at the Royal Naval Engineering College and then to sea for six months on a large steam ship.

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You have focused on submarine design for much of your career. Talk us through the design successes and failures over that time.

It is difficult to talk in detail as many of the submarine designs that I worked on are still in service. Most of the failures have been in the detail and required remedial action to internal systems.

I remember the hydraulic relief that discharged into the captain’s cabin, the fresh water tank vent that discharged onto the gyro compass, and the relief that shattered its seat the first time it closed and pumped a tankful of oil into the electronics store. But these were all minor problems that could easily be dealt with

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have involved someone ignoring the advice from the engineer because, for some reason, it was inconvenient.

and came from not being able to have a prototype.

The biggest success must be the Vanguard class.

Designed and built largely in the 1980s, Vanguard – the lead of the class – went on patrol two weeks ahead of schedule in March 1992.

In your view, where should the design focus for naval engineering be tomorrow?

I believe we will see improvements in unmanned vehicles above, on and below the surface, but we will need some sort of mother ship to give those UVs the range for deep-ocean operation.

These ships will need to use the technology that is developed to power commercial shipping, as the money for radical solutions is unlikely to be available. Note the HMS Queen Elizabeth, which is mainly diesel-electric drive with gas turbines for high-power demand, a concept that was developed for the cruise industry, where similar power requirements exist.

Do you think enough consideration is given to safety when bringing in new technologies or processes?

Adequate safety is a key element in the design of

The best efforts of the best designers cannot guarantee that nothing will ever go wrong any system. However, there is no such thing as absolute safety.

The best efforts of the best designers cannot guarantee that nothing will ever go wrong. The trick is to judge what ‘adequate’ means and to achieve that level in the design.

The techniques for evaluating the level of safety in a new technology have been refined in recent years and should ensure that the agreed safety level is achieved.

This does not mean that failures won’t happen; where humans are involved, there is always the chance of error, as Boeing found out with its 737 Max. Many high-profile accidents

Tell us more about your involvement in the development of a marine engineering centre of excellence for the MOD. The Royal Naval Engineering Service was formed to provide ‘continuity of progress’ and overcome the fragmentation of knowledge that resulted from individual naval engineers seldom spending long in any one role if he (and they were all ‘hes’ in those days) wanted to maintain his prospects of promotion. We moved in different circuits, gaining experience to bring a different perspective to the design and support teams. This has gradually been eroded as the emphasis has turned to project management and the engineering has largely been outsourced to industry. My view is that you cannot manage a project if you do not understand the technology, but it is expensive to maintain the knowledge when new designs do not come along that often.

Ask a fellow, 1

GET IN TOUCH Are you an IMarEST Fellow with an insight to share with the wider community? If you would like to appear in a future Fellow Q&A, email the editor at marineprofessional@ thinkpublishing.co.uk

Naval vessels of the future, Mike believes, will need to use the technology that is developed to power commercial shipping, as in the case of HMS Queen Elizabeth (pictured, rear of formation)

CV MICHAEL PLASKITT BSc CEng FIMarEST FIMechE RCNC (Ret)

UK MINISTRY OF DEFENCE 2019

2003 to date Member of Lloyd’s Register Naval Ship Technical Committee 2007–2011 Consultant 2003–2007 Assistant director, marine engineering, responsible for mechanical engineering throughout the Warship Support Agency, UK Ministry of Defence 1993–2003 Vanguard-class mechanical systems design authority, then class support manager, then head of platform design authority, then warship project manager 1988–1993 New submarine project programme manager, then mechanical system design manager 1982–1987 Management of submarine atmosphere control equipment and compressed air equipment for all Royal Navy ships 1979–1982 Royal Naval Physiological Laboratory facilities development engineer; submarine escape and rescue, diving development 1974–1979 HM Dockyard Devonport, production facilities and ship repair 1971–1974 Development engineer on aeropower gas turbines 1970–1971 Royal Naval Engineering Service trainee, assistant engineer 1965–1969 Student apprentice with English Electric

How important is mentoring and peer review capability in this industry? Do you think we are in danger of losing expertise on that front?

It is very important for all engineers to work as part of a team. I cannot see working from home as a viable method of design

for complex systems, despite the improvements in technology for communication and visualisation. Mr Dyson may have been able to develop his cleaner in his shed, but most complex systems need people working together to develop solutions.

Young engineers need to be nurtured to realise their potential, and older engineers need the fresh ideas brought by new team members.

Mentoring younger engineers is the most important part of any job, as it is the main thing that you leave behind.

What is the biggest challenge facing the marine industry today?

Power production; the days of fossil fuels are limited and it is difficult to replace them for long sea voyages. The number of technologies being promoted both for sea and land hold a lot of promise, but none are sufficiently developed to be the solution. It is an interesting time for any young engineer to be in the industry, but that has probably been true since someone found a better way of hollowing a log.

With everything you have learnt through your career, would you still encourage engineering as a career to school leavers?

I would strongly encourage any young person who has any interest in engineering to follow this as a career path. You are unlikely to become very rich – like someone in the financial district – but you can have an interesting and varied career that will provide a comfortable life.

I have not enjoyed every minute, but there are far more positive things than negative.

Above all, engineering is fun; enjoy it.

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SIG UPDATE

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Plastic culture The IMarEST’s Ocean Plastics and Marine Litter SIG took part in a virtual roundtable looking at ways to reduce the usage of plastic in aquaculture

SUBS

A

ART

quaculture is booming. The industry now brings more protein to the table than fisheries, according to some estimates. However, amid growing public concern about the impact of plastic litter in the marine environment, academics and regulators are focusing their attention on the industry.

The UN estimates that 80% of plastic debris in the oceans originates from land-based sources.

The remaining 20% is thought to come from marine sources, including lost fishing gear, shipping and aquaculture.

However, the data is patchy. Most of it comes from beach clean-up operations, which only take place in a handful of locations and with no agreed way of classifying collected waste.

Nevertheless, if aquaculture continues on its current growth trajectory, the industry will come under increased scrutiny and pressure to reduce its impact on the environment. In 2018, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council

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stressed to its members the importance of understanding the extent of plastic usage and urged for clearer procedures for its management and disposal.

Plastic is used at every stage of aquaculture production: for tanks, nets, feed bags, liners, piping, polystyrene boxes and chemical storage. On top of these are incidental sources such as plastic drinking water bottles accidentally discarded by workers.

Inventories While some of these items are indispensable, farmers who have carried out inventories are often surprised by the sheer volume of plastic involved. By categorising how much, where and how plastics are used, inventories are essential in identifying actions to reduce usage or, where that’s not practicable, procedures to minimise accidental discarding.

By breaking one big problem into lots of smaller ones, drawing up a dedicated waste management plan and defining procedures for handling different end-oflife plastic items becomes far less daunting. An inventory can also shed light on where alternative materials, such as wood

or concrete, might feasibly be used.

At the very least, inventories serve as an awareness-raising tool – but they are not mandatory. They are often triggered by external requests, e.g. from investors carrying out internal audits to show they are meeting corporate social responsibility goals.

Waste management plans are mandatory only in a limited number of countries. Where they are required, they tend to be framed as exercises in reducing local populations’ exposure to risk from hazardous waste materials, rather than as a means of encouraging industry to adopt less wasteful modes of operation.

Stormy waters Inventories are an important stage in the development of pre- and post-storm checklists – a strategy commonly employed to prepare for and assist in the clean-up after extreme weather events. Cages and ropes, for instance, are specified to be only so strong or sturdy, and these tolerances can be exceeded in severe storms.

It is notable that, as storms grow more

frequent and intense due to the effects of a warming climate, manufacturers of gear for commercial fishing have started employing colour-coding and other methods to make it easier to relocate lost gear (and distinguish it from that belonging to others).

There is little to stop aquaculture farmers from doing the same.

Recycling limited Options for recycling plastics are still quite limited. Many plastic products used in aquaculture operations contain additives that cannot be handled by all recycling facilities.

In some cases, they are severely contaminated by biofouling, which may further reduce the number of facilities willing to accept them.

Many countries simply don’t have the capacity.

Even where facilities do exist, they may be located far inland, reducing

SIG update, 1

This article was compiled from a roundtable jointly held by the World Aquaculture Society and the IMarEST. Participants included farmer’s associations, feed and feed additive manufacturers, testing and inspection organisations, NGOs and academia. Discussions will continue at World Aquaculture 2020, which will take place in Singapore in June 2021. The full report is available on request from technical@imarest.org

accessibility and adding to transportation costs.

What is recycled mostly ends up as construction material. Regulators should realistically appraise the availability of suitable facilities before imposing new regulations compelling local aquaculture operations to recycle a certain percentage of their total annual plastic waste.

A long-term answer to reducing the amount of plastic polluting the oceans – and not just from aquaculture – may come in the form of biodegradable plastics.

Much R&D is taking place to develop plastics that biodegrade more easily. Some of these are based on nonfossil fuel feedstocks, produced instead entirely from organic materials, including soy/okra or seaweeds.

Most efforts focus on finding suitable alternatives for single-

use plastics used in consumer packaging.

While materials designed to biodegrade over a few months in an ocean environment, e.g. to make a disposable coffee cup, would delight ecoconscious consumers, they would hardly be suitable for aquaculture equipment destined for use in exactly that setting. Nevertheless, longer term, as manufacturers become more experienced at coming up with plastic alternatives, it seems inevitable that they will hit on formulations that are viable in an aquatic setting.

Microplastics So far, we have talked mostly about macroscale waste. Tackling the microplastics finding their way into the ocean poses a much harder challenge. In some respects, aquaculture is as much a victim as a culprit of this waste. This is

because microplastics can accumulate in the guts of farmed organisms.

Routes by which microplastics enter farmed species fall into two broad categories.

The first is exposure from within the environment, i.e. microscopic particles floating in the water or stirred up from the seabed. The second is exposure from feedstocks.

Only a few studies have investigated the effects of microplastic ingestion, but they indicate such accumulations can hold back organism growth and impair immunity – both negative outcomes that hit aquaculture farmers in the wallet.

Stunted growth results in a smaller product, which will sell at a lower price than a larger, healthy product.

Impaired immunity can lead to higher die-off rates during farming, which from a cash-flow perspective implies money wasted on feed for organisms that never reach market.

While it is unclear which route predominates, measurements of microplastics in fish meal paint a rather bleak picture. Up to 60 pieces of microplastic per 10g of fish meal have been detected in samples from some suppliers.

Feed providers are not unaware of the problem and its possible repercussions on their reputation, but the incredibly small size of the particles involved makes it fiendishly difficult to track and identify where they enter the production process on a routine basis.

In fact, it is still unclear whether some of these particles are emerging from the raw material used producing the feed or from the degradation of the bags in which the finished product is supplied to customers.

With an estimated 1.2 billion feed bags annually going to the Asian market alone, this could introduce a significant risk.

Aquaculture provides a livelihood for 20 million farmers worldwide, and cooperation on a more sustainable, less environmentally destructive food production system is a necessity. Even if aquaculture, fishing and shipping decided to stop discarding all plastic waste into the ocean overnight, the problem wouldn’t disappear. But such defeatism is not a justification for inaction.

Seemingly small improvements, when repeated many times over, can make a big difference.

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Turning the tide with wind knowledge

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OFFSHORE WIND

BY ED WALKER

Can lessons learned from the upscaling and improved efficiency of offshore wind farms be applied to tidal

O ART PRODUCTION CLIENT

ver the past 10 years, the UK has become a global leader in offshore wind. How has that upscaling taken place and what lessons – if any – can be applied to the underdeveloped field of tidal generation?

In 2019, the UK offered up contracts for around 5.5GW of new offshore wind capacity, with prices as low as £39.65 per MWh. That’s around 65% cheaper than just four years earlier. As the UK industry has grown from a little over 4GW to a whopping 10GW (forecast to increase to 19.5GW by the mid-2020s), complex technical, financial and environmental lessons have been learned.

Offshore wind has enjoyed good levels of governmental support, with the Contracts for Difference scheme heading for its fourth allocation round as 2020 drew to a close. In order for tidal power to progress in the UK, comparable support must be cultivated.

For a while, tidal will certainly rank poorly alongside cheaper, more mature methods of generation. However, we must collectively appreciate the bigger picture: tidal presents

an excellent long-term opportunity. Research has found that it has the potential to reach a levelised cost of energy of £80 per MWh by 2GW installed. That’s not a million miles away from recent rates of £70 per MWh for offshore wind.

Shared benefits Just as our extreme offshore environment and excellent wind resources have underpinned the offshore wind sector, the UK’s tidal range presents an almost unparalleled natural resource. In the case of offshore wind, strategically selecting sites to support very large wind farms has been advantageous when it comes to exploiting resources effectively.

Can a similar approach be adopted for tidal?

Aside from efficiencies in offshore development

and generation, strategic project development may offer additional benefits (e.g. shared cable routes to bring electricity ashore).

As well as lowering overall costs, this would reduce the environmental impact of landfalls around our sensitive coasts. This strategic approach is young in offshore wind and has taken years to spawn. Now that it’s maturing, this is the perfect time to crosspollinate with tidal.

As offshore wind has expanded, UK regulators have had to learn what the technology is, how it may impact the marine environment and how it should be regulated. This has not been a smooth ride; in the past, the uncertainty associated

with regulatory bodies has been cited as a primary concern for the industry.

However, the consent process for offshore wind farms is now a welltrodden path. It’s only right that the technical and environmental lessons are reviewed to boost the commercialisation of tidal power.

In September 2020, the UK Government concluded a call for evidence asking a number of questions on tidal energy, including what the most effective route to commercialisation may be. In the UK, we have approximately 22 tidal developers and around 10MW operational capacity. We are also swiftly moving beyond the perceived trappings of demonstration sites.

For example, the MeyGen tidal power plant in the Pentland Firth, Scotland, recently reached a total export of 25GWh and revenue of £7.1m (and all of this just 10 years on from the Crown Estate lease award for the site).

Stepping up The seeds of this exciting tidal industry were sown some time ago, but they have yet to flourish. As a professional community, we must now tap into the technical, environmental, economic and regulatory lessons from offshore wind. They may be highly valuable in growing this important component of our lowcarbon energy mix.

Ed Walker MEI MIEMA CEnv MIMarEST CMarTech MCIWEM C.WEM is a senior environmental consultant in AECOM’s Environment and Planning Team MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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Your Institute

The latest initiatives and member benefits from the IMarEST

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Welcome to our new Marine Members

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Despite each and every organisation within the marine sector facing its own unique problems during 2020, it is a great comfort to know that we all still believe in working together to move forward.

This is reflected in the many new partnerships the Institute has forged in the past year. We will be providing these organisations with access to membership benefits, learning, networking and professional development resources.

In the past year we have welcomed: Maersk Decom, Avantis Marine Limited, CleanSubSea, Dalian Maritime University, Harbin Engineering University, IMI Truflo Marine, Jiangsu University of Science & Technology, LuminUltra, MAATS Tech, Raja Ali Haji Maritime University, The Ocean University China, Shearwater Marine Services Ltd, and Ultra Maritime PMES.

PRODUCTION CLIENT

● We look forward to building many new partnerships in 2021. To join as a Marine Member, visit www.imarest.org/ marinemembership

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IMarEST and ITN team up for Ocean Aware Our short film Ocean Aware, co-produced with ITN Productions, was premiered in November and shone a light on the IMarEST’s role – through the expertise of you, our members – in shaping intergovernmental regulations on safety, environmental protection and sharing ocean resources equitably. With a variety of industry contributors, the film also outlines IMO’s efforts to tackle biofouling and the threat of invasive species; a project by insurer AXA XL to protect communities from sea-level rise by restoring mangroves; and S&P Global’s analysis of the relationship between commercial imperatives and environmental goals. Fuel-testing expert VPS explores the quest to run vessels efficiently and sustainably, and Seaflo reveals how enhanced simulator and digital technologies are set to improve the delivery of training to people working in the sector.

The online premiere saw more than 500 people watching as IMO secretary general Kitack Lim gave the opening remarks. A panel session followed, chaired

by IMarEST president Kevin Daffey, with experts discussing topics such as climate resilience, new frontiers in regulation and how we can expand ocean literacy. Members unable to attend the live launch of the premiere of Ocean Aware can now view the full programme on IMarEST TV (www.imarest.org/tv). ● A sequel will be filmed later in 2021. If you have a story to contribute,

please email marketing@imarest.org

DIARY DATES JUNE 2021 IMarEST Annual Conference Online – dates and times to be confirmed

NOVEMBER 2021 Engine as a Weapon Symposium IX Venue, dates and times to be confirmed

Marine Electrical and Control Systems Safety Conference 2021 Venue, dates and times to be confirmed

Your institute, 1

MEMBER UPDATE

IMarEST launches mental health and wellbeing initiative

The latest from IMarEST TV IMarEST branches made the switch to digital presentations en masse in 2020, and there is now a wealth of virtual meetings and events available to view on IMarEST TV. Following the 60-plus presentations posted from the International Naval Engineering Conference and Exhibition in October, IMarEST branches used November and December to cover a wide variety of topics. These include: IMO greenhouse gas targets for 2050; naval design and innovation; repairs using a sandwich plate system; a cool hot work solution; engineering on, in and under the sea; and the impact of new fuels on engine management.

Moving beyond the technical agenda, the Aberdeen Maritime Joint Branch of IMarEST and RINA invited Craig Moir from Enterprise Europe Network to present a webinar on the current innovation opportunities for maritime organisations.

This included a variety of funding streams from organisations such as Innovate UK and Eureka, support available for funding proposals, relevant events and ways of finding new business partners in the UK and globally for projects.

The US Gulf Coast Branch chose to focus on continuous professional development with its webinar ‘Public Speaking and Storytelling for IMarEST Engineers and Leaders’. The branch explained that, while professional and technical expertise can open a vast number of doors early on in careers, expertise in public speaking and storytelling can open more elusive doors – right away, and later on in careers.

Meanwhile, the UK’s Western Joint Branch of IMarEST and RINA focused on accident investigation procedures, inviting Danny Harwood, deputy chief inspector of marine accidents at the UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), to present. The MAIB investigates all marine accidents affecting UK ships worldwide, and other ships in UK territorial waters.

The webinar explored the role of the MAIB, the powers of an MAIB inspector and the process they follow from notification of a marine casualty to the publication of the report.

The Australian Capital Territory & New South Wales Branch of IMarEST, in partnership with the local RINA branch, concentrated on ‘Cruise Ships and the COVID-19 problem’ in its fourth quarter webinar. The session focused on understanding and solving technical, management and operating problems on cruise ships and other vessels due to the pandemic, and examined how microscopic COVID-19 pathogens brought the international cruise industry to a standstill. ● Visit www.imarest.org/tv to view lectures, conferences

The marine industry is constantly striving to improve safety levels and its own standards, be it in design or operation, to ensure sustainable and successful business. However, it often fails to recognise that success in any workplace is reliant on three crucial elements: the overall happiness of the workforce, staff who feel supported and people who feel valued.

Studies have revealed that an alarming number of seafarers have considered self-harm or suicide, or suffer from varying levels of depression and work-related stress. Now more than ever, workers may feel isolated, depressed or stressed about their financial future or the health of their families, all while confined to home-working spaces that are often unsatisfactory.

The effects of COVID-19 extend beyond the shoreline, with seafarers stranded on ships after being denied entry into ports due to local quarantine or lockdown rules.

Crew changes have been minimised to adhere to social distancing guidelines.

This has come with the consequence of extended tours of duty, stress, fatigue, and mental health issues from being separated from family.

The IMarEST has launched a marine mental health and wellbeing initiative to help address these complex issues. It has created a Nexus group where members can share their experiences, views, ideas and best practices in a safe environment.

The Institute will also be hosting a series of mental health and wellbeing webinars with experts who will propose interventions as the industry transitions to the post-COVID era. It will discuss with regulators, employers and employees to gather views and bring a positive change to the profession.

and webinars ● Please join the initiative at bit.ly/3gGj0AI MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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Big Qs, 1 VERSION

THE BIG QUESTIONS

REPRO OP

“Never dilute your professional integrity during your career” Commodore Rakesh Kumar Rana reflects on the lure of the Indian Navy and how joining it delivered a firm springboard for his subsequent career

SUBS

INTERVIEW BY CARLY FIELDS

ART

Tell us about your current role Based on my 33 years of service in the Indian Navy, as well as nearly four years of global experience as South Asia naval lead at Lloyd’s Register, the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi has appointed me as an honorary senior advisor at its Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FIIT). I serve as a conduit between the start-up community, the Institute and the military, allowing them to leverage each other’s strengths. I also consult for start-ups outside FIIT.

PRODUCTION CLIENT

What is it about your role that excites you most?

The start-up community is always aspiring to do things differently.

Since I have always been a huge advocate of new technologies and innovations, my present role provides me with an opportunity to learn about and be part of the ongoing innovation ecosystem.

The challenge of dealing with the different stakeholders in this network is what really excites me the most.

What first inspired you to get into the marine environment?

The charm of the crisp white uniforms lured me into joining the Indian Navy. So when they came to my college for campus recruiting, I happily signed up. I topped my professional training programme in the Navy and was deputed to the Royal Naval Engineering College at Manadon in Plymouth, UK, from 1984–85.

My tenure in the Navy opened up opportunities for me to wear

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multiple hats. I led marine machinery operations and maintenance teams on board Indian naval ships; trained junior team members at sea; conducted research on marine gas turbines; managed a large civilian workforce for planning refits of warships and repairing main propulsion radial engines in a naval dockyard; introduced a new course on marine propulsion control technology and taught postgraduate students at the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology; designed warships (the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier and corvettes); and initiated indigenous product development.

It was gratifying to be part of the design team of the corvette and then to see all four of the vessels commissioned in the Eastern Fleet of the Indian Navy.

I strongly believe that the sector is the lifeline of the planet and will always remain so What has been the most challenging situation that you’ve worked on?

Each day comes with its own challenges, especially at sea, where you have limited time to react and ensure the war-fighting platform floats, moves ahead and is always combat-ready. There are several incidents that I can recall, but there is one that is particularly etched in my memory. It was a dark monsoon night and our ship was out on war patrol in a sea state of 6. I had to go out on the upper decks to investigate the source of a leak onto the main power-generation source in the engine room. I remember

getting swept by a strong wave from the catwalk. Basic naval training and instinct helped me hold onto the stanchion and I was able to pull myself back onto the catwalk.

All these years later, here I am participating in your interview.

What advice would you give to someone entering a marine profession today?

Whatever position you occupy, never dilute your professional integrity during your career if you are convinced that it is for the larger benefit of your community at sea.

What does the future hold for the marine sector?

I strongly believe that the sector is the lifeline of the planet and will always remain so – be it trade, shipping, sourcing oil and gas, diving deeper into the ocean to seek minerals, sourcing food or sourcing renewable energy. And as the marine sector continues to grow, adapting newer technologies to reduce the carbon footprint, limit contribution to greenhouse gas production and make ships more autonomous, there are huge opportunities waiting to be tapped. All stakeholders in the maritime environment must therefore enhance their skill set appropriately.

Commodore (Dr) Rakesh Kumar Rana, Veteran, PhD (IIT-M) MScMarine Engg (UK) BSc-Mech Engg (DU) ME† CEng (UK) CMarEng (UK) FIMarE (I) FIMarEST (UK) MASNE (USA) is an honorary senior advisor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi

MARINE PROFESSIONAL

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BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN

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