BC Shipping News - December 2014/January 2015

INSIDE: EXPORTS — UPDATE ON WOOD PELLETS

BC SHIPPING Commercial Marine News for Canada’s West Coast.

Volume 4 Issue 10

www.bcshippingnews.com

NEWS

December 2014 / January 2015

Industry Insight

Frans Tjallingii, President, Saam Smit Towage Canada

Tugs & Workboats

Tug industry hopes the worst years are behind

Cargo Logistics

Containers: Self verification may not achieve goal of new IMO regulation

DEC

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Can tugboats protect the B.C. coastline?

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@rupertport | www.rupertport.com 4 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

BC SHIPPING

Contents

NEWS

Cover Story

20 7 8 12

18

Editor’s note

By Jane McIvor

20 Tugs

Tug industry hopes the worst years are behind

By Ray Dykes

In brief

Industry traffic and news briefs

Industry insight

Think global, act local Frans Tjallingii, President, Saam Smit Towage Canada Tjallingii highlights the benefits of being connected to a global organization while operating indpendently at a local level to provide harbour towage and escort services.

History lesson

The lost library: Books on board HMS Erebus and Terror

By Lea Edgar

26 Barges 27

New skimming system for WCMRC largest on West Coast

28 Tugs

Can tugboats protect the B.C. coastline?

By Robert G. Allan, P.Eng.

32

Model tugs

33

Biomass exports

12

Spill response

Meander model restored

By Robert G. Allan, P.Eng.

Update on the wood pellet industry

By Syd Heal

36

Cargo logistics

Container weight verification: Self verification may not achieve goal of new IMO regulations

By Colin Laughlan

December 2014 / January 2015 Volume 4 Issue 10

39

Cargo logistics

40

Legal affairs

42

Historic ships

45

Mercy ships

Industry recognition — nominations are open

By John Gilder Potential problems with vessel ownership

By Catherine a. Hofmann Historic ships offer a glimpse of the past

By Captain Stephen Brown Maritime engineer helps keep the world’s largest charity hospital ship running

47 Technology

Considerations for marine UPS integration

By Alvin Alfano AScT RTMgr

49

Maritime security

51

Marine engineering

Building the fleets of tomorrow Babcock Canada delivers on key Navy/Coast Guard projects...and much more

45

On the cover: The SMIT Apache berths a vessel in Vancouver Harbour (photo: Dave Roels - www.daveroels.com); above: the Seaspan Raven (photo credit: Heather Moffat, courtesy Seaspan ULC); right: The Africa Mercy (photo courtesy Mercy Ships Canada); left: Frans Tjallingii (photo: Dave Roels - www.daveroels.com).

December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 5

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December 2014 / January 2015 Volume 4/Issue 10 Publisher McIvor Communications Inc. President & Editor Jane McIvor

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Contributing Writers Alvin Alfano Robert G. Allan Captain Stephen Brown Ray Dykes Lea Edgar John Gilder Syd Heal Catherine A. Hofmann Colin Laughlan Frans Tjallingii Michelle White Advertising and Subscriptions Phone: 604-893-8800 Jane McIvor (jane@bcshippingnews.com) Advertising only: Lesley McIvor (lesleymcivor@shaw.ca) Erik Furstrand (efurstrand@shaw.ca) ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION Canada Three Years $108.95 Cdn*

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6 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

EDITOR’S NOTE

Photos by Dave Roels, www.daveroels.com

No surprises here

S

top me if you’ve heard this one…I was given a recent edition of 24 hrs Vancouver — a local morning “newspaper” handed out at Skytrain stations. The headline screamed in a bold black font: “Beware of ‘red flag’ tankers: researcher” accompanied by a photo of a duck drenched in oil. The story quoted a Dr. Dana Miller — the reporter doesn’t identify Dr. Miller except to indicate she is the lead author of “research” at UBC (no idea which department). Bottom line of the article is that Dr. Miller’s research has

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discovered that vessels that fly under “flags of convenience” and “skirt safety regulations” are much more likely to be involved in spills. The resulting recommendation is that we should be doing inspections at port for foreign vessels, particularly tankers.

And that was the whole story. No mention of existing regulations; no counter balance to the one opinion that was the sole basis of the article.

“I’ve never seen such irresponsible journalism”...is what I’d like to say, however the sad reality is that the shipping industry has become a whipping boy for media and stories like this are now the norm.

The obvious case in point being the Simishur Russian cargo ship incident.

It was good to see Captain Stephen Brown’s editorial response to the Simishur

Russian cargo ship incident in The Vancouver Sun (November 1), as well as Robert G. Allan’s feature in The Province (November 6). Both clarified the facts and detailed the resources we have on the B.C. coast that were more than capable of responding. We need more voices like theirs to start speaking up and to start calling out the media — and politicians — who pander to and stoke the public’s fear.

Given the focus of this edition of BC Shipping News and a number of articles on B.C.’s tug industry, we hope you enjoy reading a counter balance to the hype and fear mongering. You won’t find hyperboles or sensationalism here, just the facts from the experts.

Jane McIvor

Reinvesting for the future

estshore Terminals has just completed one of the biggest equipment upgrades in its history. This five-year, $110 million work has lifted capacity from 23.5 to 33 million tonnes a year; streamlined the way we handle coal; improved our carbon footprint; and greatly enhanced efficiency.

Now we have begun a $275 million, five-year Terminal Infrastructure Re-Investment Project to replace three of our major coal moving machines, as well as a shiploader and relocate our administration, workshops and warehouse into one complex at the northern end of our site. This will give us a strong future and bring wealth and opportunity for our community and our country.

www.westshore.com

Investing to better serve our customers December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 7

INDUSTRY TRAFFIC Lloyd’s Register bids farewell to retiring Nigel Hastings Photo credit: BC Shipping News

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orkmates and industry colleagues gathered at the Coast Coal Harbour Hotel on October 29 to extend well wishes to Nigel Hastings, Principal Surveyor in Charge, Lloyd’s Register Canada Limited, Vancouver office, who is retiring at the end of October. Nigel joined Lloyd’s as Engineer Surveyor in 1994 and, in 2000, was appointed Senior Surveyor and then Principal in Charge of the Lloyd’s Register Canada Ltd. Vancouver office.

Responsible for the area covering B.C. out to Manitoba/Hudson Bay and up to the Arctic Circle, Hastings’ qualifications include a Combined Steam and Motor Chief Engineers Certificate of Competence as well as being a Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineers, London.

Prior to joining Lloyd’s, Nigel was a marine inspector for Transport Canada Marine Safety in Vancouver, ultimately being appointed as the Acting Senior Inspector. He was also the Western Canadian member for the Regulatory Amendment Committee in Ottawa for the commencement of the Canada Shipping Act overhaul.

Nigel and Glenna Hastings Born and raised in Leicester, England, Nigel completed an Apprenticeship Program with Birmingham Small Arms before joining the British Merchant Navy as a junior engineer in 1965. He sailed on general cargo, chemical tankers, passenger vessels with the British Merchant Navy for 23 years, British India Steam Navigation Co. Ltd., Maritime Overseas, and Princess Cruises. After coming to

Canada in 1983, Nigel sailed on Arctic Supply Tugs and Class 3 Ice Breakers with Canmar Marine and then became a marine instructor at Thebatcha College in the Northwest Territories as well as the Pacific Marine Training Institute in North Vancouver.

Nigel married Glenna Cooper in 1982 (onboard the Pacific Princess) and has two sons, Richard and Robert.

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8 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

06/03/2014 19:26:33

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Dear Editor, I am writing in regards to your article, “New SAR Vessels boost crew safety,” which was written by Rob Duffus and appears on page 28 in your November 2014 issue.

The article features a TYPE 1 rigid hull inflatable with Shockwave Integrated Controlled shock-absorbing console.

Due to an oversight, the article does not mention who designed or built these vessels.

There are four vessels in existence, each of which was designed by Ivan Erdevicki and built by Liquid Metal Marine Ltd.

Second Surface Transportation Annual Review survey launched

B

C Shipping News has teamed up with Wave Point Consulting to undertake the second Surface Transportation Annual Review (STAR) Survey. The survey provides vital information on what industry insiders are thinking about the business outlook for maritime commerce and the performance of Canada’s Asia Pacific Gateway and British Columbia’s ports.

In addition to a summary of findings in the February 2015 edition of BCSN, an enhanced analysis of the survey results will be presented at the 2015 Cargo Logistics Canada conference during the session entitled “Gateway Logistics Performance & Challenges.” Industry experts Mark Hemmes, President Quorum Corporation; James Frost, President MariNova Consulting Ltd.; and Charles Birt, President of Birth Consulting, will join Darryl Anderson, Managing Director, Wave Point Consulting to discuss survey findings.

The STAR survey, which takes about 15 minutes to complete is grouped into three main topics: 1. General economic outlook/business confidence, growth prospects, and international trade developments.

2. Logistics performance perceptions and assessment.

3. Management priorities in regards to international markets, logistics/transportation and sustainability initiatives.

BC Shipping News encourages all businesses to complete the survey and share their opinions. “The STAR Survey is an important tool that can give industry an accurate read on market trends and then consider how those trends could affect their business,” said Jane McIvor, publisher.

To participate in the survey, please visit: https://starsurvey2015.questionpro.com.

The Shockwave ICE consoles were built

by Professional Components.

RCM SAR stations who operate the Type 1 vessels are: Delta SAR, Semiahmoo SAR, Ladysmith SAR, and Port McNeill SAR Liquid Metal Marine Ltd. has been thrilled to have the opportunity to work with RCM SAR and to be able to build them such an amazing rescue vessel and we look forward to working with them on future projects.

Lauri Gordon, Office Manager Liquid Metal Marine Ltd. Dear Jane, My father served in WWII. I have observed Remembrance Day at 1100 hours on November 11 since I was eight years old. When Corporal Nathan Cirillo was fatally shot at the WWI National

War Memorial on Wednesday October 22, the shock was overwhelming. Joshua Johnston, co-owner of Atwill-Morin, a stone masonry company, was hailed as a hero after he shepherded as many as 25 Parliament Hill workers to safety.

Two days earlier, two members of the Canadian Armed Forces were run down by a car outside Montreal. Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent died in hospital.

He had started his military career in 1986 and served at eight Canadian Forces Bases during his career, including North Bay. I would like to take this moment to thank all of the soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for our freedom, and the civilians who heroically step up to protect their fellow human.

Pauline O’Malley Pauline O’Malley Enterprises Inc.

Nigel S. Greenwood

MA, BSc, Master Mariner, FRIN, MNI Rear-Admiral, RCN (Ret’d)

www.greenwoodmaritime.com nsg@greenwoodmaritime.com / 250-507-8445

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December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 9

INDUSTRY TRAFFIC

In memoriam: Terry MacDonald

T

he marine community is mourning the loss of long-time ILWU member and manager of Stevedoring Operations for Ceres Corp. Terry passed away on November 2, 2014, at the age of 72, after a very short illness. He was an easy-going, no-nonsense, fun-loving person. His work with the cruise industry kept him busy and happy. He was a member of the ILWU for many years and recently was the manager for Stevedoring Operations for Ceres Corp.

Terry was a member of Champlain Heights Lions Club and served as President and Council Chairman. He was a Dedicated Lion. He Loved to cook for the club’s Christmas Parties and enjoyed “The Chip Up.” Terry is survived by his

wife Shirley and her sons, David, Brian, Ken, Tom and Craig as well as stepchildren Daryl, Cheryl, and Sharlene and numerous grandchildren.

Industry tributes

“Terry MacDonald! Referred to as God by his fellow ILWU members for his knowledge of the cruise business. In fact, the difference between Terry and God is that God knows he’s not a Longshoreman. Terry was a tremendous and hardworking guy who loved the cruise ships with a passion. On occasion, ships have some issues and have to come into Port very early, always on a last minute basis — so, many times on getting one of these situations I would call Terry at home and he would take control — organize linesmen and labour to handle the ship and then would be the first guy at the terminal to make sure everything went as he wanted. He will be greatly missed!”

Stan Webber, Intercruises Shoreside and Port Services (Ret’ d) “I was saddened to hear of Terry’s recent passing and agree that he was a pillar of the waterfront community. I have the following reflection of Terry: I first met Terry 35 years ago as I began my career on the waterfront in an entry level position with Casco Terminals / Canadian Stevedoring. At the time, Terry was one of the Operations Foreman for the company and was larger than life. He was clearly one of the leaders within the Foreman ranks and was affectionately addressed as “God.” He had quite a sense of humour as he mentored me early in my career, by having me unsuccessfully chase “sky hooks” and other uniquely branded equipment like “peavey” and “canaries” on the waterfront. Terry will truly be missed from the waterfront, because of his passion for the job and the great pride in doing it well.”

Kerry Lige, President, Fibreco Export Inc. “I believe you Terry, there are seven sides to the dock. You can hear the stories and laughter being shared now and always as a piece of Terry’s legacy lives in all of us. To Shirley and family — Thank you for sharing Terry with us all on the waterfront for so many years.”

Lanna Hodgson, Manager, Port Logistics & Administration, HAP / Princess Cruises On behalf of the Executive and Staff of Empire Stevedoring (TSI-Global Container Terminals), where Terry was an integral part of our team for many years, we wish to pass on our heart-felt condolences to Shirley and all of Terry’s extended family members. Terry was a dedicated and hard-working colleague who always took the time to remember those in need.

RIP our friend!!

Mike McLellan, Vice President, Terminal Operations (Deltaport), TSI-Global Container Terminals Terry was a good friend and colleague to so many of us in the cruise industry, and a warm and colourful person. You will be greatly missed and long remembered my friend.

Greg Wirtz, President, Cruise Line International Association - North West & Canada

10 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

NEWS BRIEFS

ClassNK releases new guidelines for exhaust gas cleaning systems

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lassNK (Chairman and President: Noboru Ueda) announced that it has released Guidelines for Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems. These guidelines cover class safety requirements as well as safety requirements stipulated in the IMO guidelines.

The MARPOL Convention Annex VI has placed phased limits on the maximum allowable amount of sulphur in fuel oils used by vessels globally, as well as stricter requirements in geographically defined emission control areas. Under the regulation, more stringent limits will be enforced over time.

In the face of these more stringent limits, the industry has begun to look towards alternative solutions to the expensive lowsulphur content fuel oils currently required by the regulations. Exhaust gas cleaning systems, which reduce the amount of sulphur in vessel emissions, are one such technology.

The use of such systems requires approval from relevant authorities in accordance with guidelines issued by the IMO, and today, a number of such systems are being developed and installed in line with the IMO guidelines.

In order to support industry efforts to install and operate IMO guidelinecompliant exhaust gas cleaning systems, ClassNK joined with Japan’s National Maritime Research Institute (NMRI) to develop the new Guidelines for Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems, which offer comprehensive explanations of the contents of the IMO guidelines. The easy-to-understand guidelines also compile the relevant safety requirements and other essential information.

The Guidelines for Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems are available free of charge via ClassNK’s website: www. classnk.com.

Guidelines for Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems.

December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 11

INDUSTRY INSIGHT

Think global, act local

Frans Tjallingii, President, Saam Smit Towage Canada

A

s part of a global company like Boskalis, SMIT Marine Canada — now branded as Saam Smit Towage — is afforded a number of benefits, most notably, access to market knowledge and international best practices and standards. However, listening to Frans Tjallingii, President of Saam Smit Towage Canada, the ability to operate independently at a local level to provide harbour towage and escort services to incoming and outgoing vessels on the West Coast allows for efficiencies in responsiveness and customer relations. The fact that Saam Smit Towage Canada is operating within the West Coast market, speaks to the recognized importance of activity on the coast of British Columbia.

BCSN: While the history of RivTow on the West Coast is fairly well known, I’ d like to provide a brief refresher for people on the background of SMIT and the parent company Boskalis as well as the evolution to your most recent rebranding as Saam-Smit.

FT: Yes, RivTow, which was an amalgamation of Straits and River Towing, has operated on the West Coast for over 60 years at least and the owners, the Cosulich family, can trace operations back to as early as the 1930s. When SMIT acquired RivTow in 2000, John Cosulich remained with the company for a number of years.

While the purchase of RivTow occurred in 2000, we didn’t actually start to rebrand the company until about 2007 and we continued to be Tiger Tugz and

Photo credit: Dave Roels (www.daveroels.com)

...as of July 1 of this year, the joint venture of Saam Smit Towage is formed by Canada, Mexico, Panama and Brazil.

Westminster Tug Boats, so it took quite a while for SMIT to become ingrained in the local community.

By 2010, a few things had occurred that would shape our current business activities: First, SMIT had been acquired by Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. early in 2010 and Boskalis refined their strategic direction to focus primarily on offshore energy activities and dredging. SMIT’s core business, which compliments the overall Boskalis strategic direction, fell into four divisions: SMIT Salvage, SMIT Transport and Heavy Lift, SMIT Terminals, and finally, SMIT Harbour Towage Division of which SMIT Marine Canada fell under. For SMIT in Canada, it meant making a decision to sell our barge operations to Seaspan, which changed the look and feel of the company but we also bought Minette Bay Towing in Prince Rupert to create additional synergies.

Looking at the overall structure, when Boskalis acquired SMIT, they integrated the terminal services into an existing joint venture with the Rezayat Group called Smit Lamnalco which had a presence in Africa and the Middle East. The SMIT towage operations in the Far East were integrated into another Boskalis

12 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

partnership with Keppel — one of the largest shipbuilders in the world — and Keppel Smit Towage covered the region of the Far East, including China, Taiwan, Brunei, Indonesia, etc. So, now that there were partnerships with terminal towing companies in key regions around the world — Keppel Smit Towage in the Far East, and Smit Lamnalco in Africa and the Middle East, attention was turned to how to manage the Americas. That’s where SAAM comes in.

SMIT had previously been in discussions with SAAM and when Boskalis identified their strategic direction, they saw a partnership between SAAM and SMIT as being beneficial to be able to gain a stronger foothold in Latin America.

It further followed that North and South America should fall under the same banner. So, as of July 1 of this year, the joint venture of Saam Smit Towage is formed

by Canada, Mexico, Panama and Brazil.

BCSN: How does the new structure impact on local operations and your role?

FT: First and foremost, I still remain responsible for the Canadian operations and ensuring that it is successful. Now though, instead of reporting to the office in the Netherlands, I’m part of a management team that is centred in Mexico City

INDUSTRY INSIGHT Photo courtesy Frans Tjallingii

and reports to the new CEO of the joint venture. In addition, the joint venture board has been divided into portfolios and I have been asked to look at ways to develop joint capabilities on the commercial side. Strategically, we will share information on market knowledge and work together in various capacities — for example, learning best practices from each other. The challenge is in creating something that is more than the sum of the parts.

For local operations, while we will be branded with the Saam Smit Towage identity, we remain a stand-alone company as we’ve always been. When Boskalis underwent an internal evaluation to determine their strategic direction, they recognized that their strength was in doing contract work — less into long-term businesses with a local presence and focused more on a centrally led model which took on a project, executed it and then moved on to the next project. Harbour towage operations don’t fit that model — you have to be run locally. So to manage the businesses that are locally inclined, such as our operations here, the decision was taken to develop joint ventures.

BCSN: Let’s look at local operations — what’s the size of your fleet and what are your primary services?

FT: Our main services are in escort and ship docking. Right now, we have 23 tugboats with eight in Prince Rupert, two in Kitimat, eight in Vancouver and four on the Fraser River. We’ll also be stationing one in Squamish where we just built a new tug dock. We’ll be moving one of the Vancouver tugs to Prince Rupert and we’re going to be scrapping two of the oldest tugs from the Prince Rupert fleet. That will bring the fleet back to 21 tugs.

We have three new tugs being built by ABD Boats. The first will be delivered next summer and then one a year following. They will be very similar to our SMIT Tiger Sun — 60-tonne bollard pull with two MTU engines and Rolls Royce thrusters. They’re very agile vessels and very good for ship docking tugs.

BCSN: Would you ever consider expanding to include barge operations again?

FT: Perhaps in the future. Boskalis is very interested in performing work at the LNG terminals being planned in B.C. and as part of that, they could be looking at tug-barge operations to support terminal construction.

Frans stands with graduates from the first training session organized for SMIT staff in Gabon together with the Gabonese Navy.

BCSN: What about current activity? Are you seeing any trends on the West Coast in terms of escort or ship-docking activities?

FT: Work has been very steady since I started here in 2011. Escort work is not currently a growth area, but if some of the proposed projects (for example, the TransMountain pipeline) go ahead, then it will be. We’ll have lots of time to relocate assets from elsewhere in our

fleet or take other actions to meet those demands. We have one escort tug right now and that is enough to do our share of the work for current tanker escorts.

We also do our share of “chemical” tankers, but typically those are quite small and more maneuverable. They’re also generally parcel tankers with much smaller compartments and lots of redundancies and rigour so they’re very safe.

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December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 13

Photo courtesy SMIT Marine Canada

INDUSTRY INSIGHT

SMIT Towage Canada —now Saam Smit Towage Canada — recently achieved the highest international safety, quality and environmental accreditations issued by Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance.

14 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

Nonetheless, they are still escorted through Second Narrows. When someone says “chemical” tankers, the perception is of toxic cargo. That’s not really the case — the product can be something like canola oil or glycol which are readily biodegradable and clean.

BCSN: What about ship-docking activities?

FT: Looking at each location, Vancouver has been somewhat steady.

We’ve seen a bit of reshuffling due to changes in alliances amongst container liner companies and this has shifted some calls to Robert Bank. A new liner has set up shop also. A resulting trend for us is that we see larger vessels and fewer calls for containers. The grain industry however has been very strong this year.

In Prince Rupert, coal shipments are at about half of what they were last year.

The closing of the Tumbler Ridge mines has had a big impact. Container activity has been slightly slower but grain has been strong albeit not enough to compensate for the loss of coal. We’ve had a couple of changes in Prince Rupert — we just set up a new office and the manager of operations up there for over 40 years, Captain Mike Stevenson, will be retiring at the end of this year. Jeffrey Melegrito will take his place and will head up operations in both Prince Rupert and Kitimat.

Kitimat has been slow. We have a small office there with two shore staff. It’s a matter of hanging on at the moment to see what happens with some of the proposed projects.

BCSN: While we’re on the subject of regional capabilities — the media made a big deal about an American tug, the Barbara Foss, coming to the rescue of the Russian cargo ship, the Simushur, which lost propulsion capabilities off Haida Gwaii. Could you give us some background about what really happened?

FT: Yes, we have tugs that could have done the work. We received a call from the ship owner but it wasn’t an emergency call, it was just a general commercial enquiry. If we had been called upon to intervene in the case of an emergency, of course we would have responded. The company chose to engage a Foss vessel because they have a pre-existing relationship with Foss and it was much more a matter of commercial convenience as opposed to capabilities. We had three large tugs in Prince Rupert that could have done the work — and we just added

another so currently there are four tugs with the capability.

BCSN: You mentioned that Captain Stevenson was retiring which prompts me to ask about the supply and stability of your workforce. Are you seeing a turnover due to retirements?

FT: Not yet but we are seeing some trends — for example, people are working longer because there is no mandatory retirement age anymore. As a company, we do have some advantages that help keep our labour needs satisfied. We have a number of crew who are currently in the deckhand position but have masters tickets and can move up relatively quickly as the need arises. Another advantage is that we have a good reputation in terms of offering a competitive compensation package, and ship docking is always a highly sought after job in the industry.

Perhaps a stronger source of losing people at this point might be those choosing to join the pilots. But we don’t have a problem with that. We encourage people to pursue opportunities that allow them to grow professionally and pilotage is a good vocation. The downside of a tugboat company is that the number of internal options for professional growth are limited. Masters that decide to join the pilots, allow people who want to get into that Master’s role to step up and have their turn. From my perspective, it’s good to have a flow and hire new people with new energy. Currently, crew numbers are steady at about just over 70.

BCSN: Do you actively recruit staff?

FT: We have been hiring more First Nations crew, primarily in Prince Rupert and Kitimat. We have a training program for First Nations and when we hire, we like to hire those we know and have already trained. While there are no guarantees that they’ll get a job, our aim is to have at least four interns per year. When a position comes up and they’re available, they stand a good chance of gaining a job.

BCSN: What sort of training do you provide to crew?

FT: We have a formalized training policy which has certain requirements for people to go through before they can be considered for the next position. We use simulators at both the Marine Campus of BCIT and the Pacific Marine Institute in Seattle and we have on-the-job training.

Very often, we’ll train with the BC Coast Pilots and Seaspan, for example, when we train at PMI in Seattle where we do more December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 15

Photo: BC Shipping News

INDUSTRY INSIGHT

Frans joined industry representatives, including Captain Fred Denning, BC Coast Pilots, and Captain Stephen Brown, Chamber of Shipping of British Columbia, at the naming ceremony for Grieg Star’s Star Lima (October 2012). of the escort training. We also have the benefit of being able to bring training masters in from other locations within Saam Smit.

We’ve trained all our staff on our new Integrated Management System and we do refresher training frequently. While we already have a great safety record, a large part of the training involves learning from past incidents. We’ll do internal audits or investigate any near misses and integrate lessons learned into the training.

BCSN: What trends do you see in the technology and capabilities of today’s tugs?

FT: If you look at the technology in our industry, the trend has to do with requiring more power. The deep-sea vessels are getting bigger and there’s a definite trend in increased power requirements for ship docking. So when we look at fleet renewal, using our fleet as an example, we’ll get rid of the smaller tugs at the bottom of the fleet and add tugs at the top of the fleet. We’re adding 60-tonners and replacing the smaller vessels so the average capability of the fleet increases, but not the number of tugs.

The other trend in ship-docking tugs is that standard, conventional twin-screw tugs are being replaced more and more by tractor tugs with Azimuth stern drives. ASD tugs are an economical way of doing ship docking and they are more maneuverable.

BCSN: What about propulsion? Have you considered LNG, dual-fuel or fuel-cell energy?

FT: LNG has been fitted on two tugs that are at work in Norway and this is something Boskalis watches closely, but for this market, they are currently much more expensive than a regular diesel-fuel tug because of the additional storage space that would be needed. Unless we have a customer who requests a tug with an alternative fuel, we wouldn’t build one without some sort of support. For example, it would be great to see government assistance to stimulate development of the technology here.

With the proper support, we would definitely consider investing in alternative power sources. On a global scale, Boskalis follows all of these technologies and, each time the need for a new build comes up, they continually evaluate whether it makes sense to switch over.

BCSN: Seems like a natural lead-in to discuss environmental standards for tugs. My understanding is that the industry already exceeds many of the regulations.

FT: Yes, the industry is already far ahead compared to deep-sea shipping — for example, we already use low sulphur fuel all the 16 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

time, so we are well within Emission Control Area regulations. The other thing we do is cold ironing — that is, plugging into shore power or using boilers (which use minimal fuel) so that the engines keep warm and we’re ready to go without a long heating-up process.

At Saam Smit Towage Canada, we’ve gone even further. We’ve been members of Green Marine for the past three years and just recently, we received certification from Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance to recognize our high safety, quality and environmental standards as well as our Integrated Management System.

The process involved quite a bit of work, including education and training sessions, internal audits and the creation and implementation of a quality documentation system.

BCSN: How does your Green Marine membership help?

FT: Green Marine allows us to benchmark against industry standards on a number of different aspects. Sometimes, it’s not always comparable because they might be doing something slightly different but still you have a good sense as to how you compare. It provides ideas on ways to improve and areas that could use attention. Basically, it’s a matter of being more aware — thinking about things like waste management or more energy-efficient lighting and how we can improve our operations. Green Marine comes out and audits the company and we’ve seen consistent improvement in our audits, so we know we’re on the right track.

BCSN: What other government regulations are relevant to the tug industry, for example construction standards or delegation to class for surveys?

FT: In terms of construction standards, we purposefully choose to build a hull that works for us operationally and is safe — we apply the principles of the ISM Code (International Safety Management Code) on all our vessels and from that perspective we basically act as though all of our vessels are above 500 gross tonnes, which none of them are. In the past, tugs would sometimes be built with the idea of trying to fit within a certain tonnage category. Our new tugs are all being built under Lloyd’s Register. The advantage is two-fold — we have extra supervision while they are being built, and the other advantage is that at some point, these tugs might work elsewhere. Building to a global class standard provides that ability to protect the investment of our shareholders. We have the flexibility to move assets.

BCSN: What benefits are provided by having an Integrated Management System (IMS) in place?

FT: We’ve always been quite safe, but IMS has really improved the way we address issues such as maintenance and my feeling is that we are more aware of the safety aspect of operations. Our management system gives us the opportunity to make sure we’re at the highest level that we can be. We measure everything to global standards, not local standards. For example, we have a maintenance plan which goes on a four or five-year cycle depending on the vessel and whether it’s under class or Transport Canada (TC has a four-year inspection cycle and class is five).

This allows us to plan a maintenance schedule — we’re able to schedule in other maintenance activities to coincide with an inspection that requires the vessel to be in dry-dock. It provides a rhythm and a more efficient and effective management plan.

BCSN: The last question concerns future plans for Saam Smit Towage. For example, has any consideration been given to operations in the Arctic?

FT: While we’re not there right now, it is a market we’re following. We’ll watch developments closely while we decide at what point it makes sense for us to have a presence there.

INDUSTRY INSIGHT BCSN: What about offering other Boskalis services here on the West Coast – for example, heavy lift, subsea, and salvage?

FT: Dockwise performs module transport and is interested in providing this service to the LNG terminals that will likely bring in parts of their plants from Asia. Salvage will remain being supported by SMIT Salvage’s Houston office — they’re in the same time zone and an easy phone call away. We do have expertise to

About Frans Tjallingii

B

Photo: Dave Roels

y training, Frans is a marine biologist with a Masters in Marine Biology (University of Groningen, The Netherlands) and an MBA in International Business Management from the Rotterdam School of Management. “My first job was as a hydrologist doing water management consulting. The engineering firm where I worked at the time asked me to set up a new department for the shipping industry for consultations on environmental matters. That led to a number of exciting opportunities within this industry.”

Those opportunities included working for the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, The Netherlands, as Co-ordinator for International Affairs.

Responsibilities under this appointment involved working on international treaties and conventions on shipping, and leading an 11-member team on negotiations and development of co-operative initiatives with the North Sea Directorate.

Frans joined SMIT in 2004 as Business Development Manager for SMIT Salvage B.V. and for SMIT Transport & Heavy Lift B.V. (both in The Netherlands). While in this role, he set up a joint venture in Kazakhstan for SMIT Transport & Heavy Lift as well as assisted in the start-up of a joint venture in the United States for SMIT Salvage for providing OPA 90 vessel response services.

In 2007, Frans was tasked with assessing a future strategy on the reorganization of SMIT International (Gabon) S.A. in West Africa. Following a valuation of part of the business and negotiating the sale of assets, he went on to become General Manager for the Gabon operations in 2008 which included 10 vessels active in offshore supply, rig moves, berthing/unberthing, personnel transport, cargo transport and diving support. He led a team of 150 of 12 nationalities.

Frans has been in his current position with SMIT Marine Canada (now Saam Smit Towage Canada) since 2011. His responsibilities include the management and operation oversight of 23 vessels active in berthing/unberthing of seagoing vessels and tanker escorts from four different locations. He also supports business development opportunities for the Boskalis Group with respect to the proposed LNG projects in Northern British Columbia.

Frans speaks seven languages; he enjoys a number of outdoor activities including skiing, sailing and cycling and is kept busy raising nine-year-old Mees and seven-year-old Vera with his wife Fenneke.

react locally for things like firefighting or to interact with a vessel — to put a tow on it, etc.

Boskalis is intending to station a couple of people in our Vancouver office as early as the beginning of next year, primarily to offer offshore services like dredging, cable laying and ground work required for putting a pipeline in place as well as other activities, but we will only be moving assets here as needed. BCSN

About Royal Boskalis Westminster and Saam Smit Towage

S

tarting with a look at Boskalis, main activities are segmented into three divisions; Dredging & Inland Infra; Offshore Energy; and Towage & Salvage.

Serving primarily the energy and ports segments of the industry, principal customers are governments, port operators, international project developers, oil companies, shipping companies, insurers and mining companies. As a truly global entity, Boskalis has close to 20 business units and companies under its purview, including Dockwise, SMIT, Cofra, Fairmount Marine and many others. Boskalis is also involved in a number of joint ventures around the world such as Smit Lamnalco, Keppel Smit Towage and, it’s most recent partnership, Saam Smit Towage of which, SMIT Marine Canada Inc. is a part.

The harbour towage network linked to Boskalis now consists of Smit Harbour Towage Northwest Europe, Keppel Smit Towage and Saam Smit Towage. These entities are all involved in assisting incoming and outgoing sea-going vessels, including ro-ro ships, LNG carriers, oil and chemical tankers, container ships, reefers and mixed cargo vessels. These companies operate in the Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, Panama, Singapore, Malaysia, Mexico, Indonesia, Brunei, China, Taiwan and Australia. The harbour towage network operates a versatile fleet of over 250 tugs in 15 countries. In addition, operating under the brand of Smit Lamnalco, the company offers a full range of services for the operation and management of onshore and offshore terminals and provides support for the berthing and unberthing of oil and LNG tankers as a core activity of this business.

SMIT Salvage is the world leading responder to marine emergencies and for wreck removal. With a global network of response capabilities and an unparalleled track record, it is also a leader in R&D and innovation in the field of salvage.

Saam Smit Towage, SMIT’s new joint venture with the Chilean company SAAM, creates new opportunities for SMIT in Caribbean and Latin American countries. SAAM currently has a fleet of over 125 tugs providing services through Central and South America. The joint venture will be a strong combination allowing both shareholders to grow.

December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 17

HISTORY LESSON The lost library Photo credit: Dave Roels (www.daveroels.com)

T

he Vancouver Maritime Museum has recently received an exquisite donation of first edition and rare books and charts which document the search for Sir John Franklin. This exciting acquisition inspired me to ponder the books taken on board the Erebus and Terror themselves. What books did these brave and adventurous sailors enjoy reading? With the exciting discovery of the wreck of the Erebus by Parks Canada archaeologists, will we finally see some of those treasured tomes resurface after spending over 160 years in the ice?

Our first clues as to what was taken along on the journey to find the once elusive Northwest Passage are in the surviving records of the crew and the British Admiralty. The records show that each ship did in fact have a library. They also mention that Franklin had bookcases constructed for each of the vessels. Sir Francis McClintock wrote in his work Fate of Sir John Franklin that the surviving letters sent home mention 1,700 books in total on board both ships. It is known that every crew member was issued a prayer-book from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Besides that, phrasebooks for the Inuit language Inuktitut (referred to as “Esquimaux” at the time) and works from the previous

Books on board HMS Erebus and Terror

By Lea Edgar Librarian/Archivist, Vancouver Maritime Museum

“I’ve here got a catalogue made out of all the books, public and private there are on board (and the Terror is doing the same) and we find there is scarcely a book that we can think of as being required that is not in the list...”

Arctic expeditions were provided. In addition, it is likely that the officers — and potentially some crew members as well — brought along their own personal book collections. A few other works are known from the records to have been brought on the journey, but no extensive list seems to have survived.

Commander James Fitzjames, on board the Erebus on June 18, 1845, wrote: “Today we set to work, and got a catalogue made of all our books, and find we have amongst us, a most splendid collection.”

Perhaps this catalogue will be one of the artifacts found amongst the remains of the ship. From an illustration of Fitzjames’ cabin published in the Illustrated London News, we can see what seems to be bookshelves lining the walls. Who knows what books and records archaeologists could find if they penetrate this cabin.

Lieutenant J. W. Fairholme, also of the Erebus, wrote in a letter home on July 1, “I’ve here got a catalogue made out of all the books, public and private there are on

18 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

board (and the Terror is doing the same) and we find there is scarcely a book that we can think of as being required that is not in the list. We shall supply each other with these lists, and thus, when a book is wanted, the Librarian (Goodsir) will at once know which ship and what cabin it is in.” Having Harry Goodsir, the assistant surgeon, act as librarian does warm this librarian’s heart. What recommendations would he have made to his fellow sailors one wonders?

Concrete evidence of the books taken on board the ships, and their value to the crew, was discovered by McClintock during his search for Franklin in 1859. His party discovered a small boat filled with personal items as well as two skeletons.

Among the personal items were five or six small books including a small prayer book, the cover of a book called Family Prayers, Christian Melodies, The Vicar of Wakefield, a small bible, and a New Testament written in French. All of these books are now housed in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England. Christian Melodies had the initials G. G. written inside. This may mean that the book belonged to Lieutenant Graham Gore. Another book that was found was A Manual of Private Devotion by C. J. Blomfield. This book had an inscription on the title-page that read, “G. Back, to Graham Gore. May, 1845.” One of the bibles that survived has many notations in its margins. Some think this could have belonged to Henry Le Vesconte, although handwriting comparisons have proven inconclusive. It is known

VANCOUVER MARITIME MUSEUM that the Inuit also discovered some books of the survivors, but not knowing their worth to the English, gave them to their children to play with. The fact that these desperate men packed away these books amongst their other personal items and provisions to drag across the ice, means these small books meant a great deal to them. Perhaps the religious works were taken along to keep their connection to God so that He may help them to reach civilization once more, or perhaps they were taken simply to keep the men’s sanity intact. All we do know is that they were cherished and considered worth saving.

Books, for so many of us, mean a great deal more than just the information they impart. The editions acquired by the Vancouver Maritime Museum reflect some of the first attempts to understand the disastrous loss of Franklin’s expedition, and the books taken on board — those found and those yet to be found — are our last link to the sailors who sadly lost their lives in the name of adventure, discovery, and science.

A special thank you to Dr. Russell Potter and William Battersby for providing research assistance and transcriptions.

References: 1) Potter, Russell. “The Library of the Erebus and Terror.” Visions of the North: The Terrors of the Frozen Zone, Past and Present. Web. October 14, 2014. 2) M’Clintock, Sir F. Leopold. Fate of Sir John Franklin: the voyage of the ‘Fox’ in the Arctic seas in search of Franklin and his companions. 4th ed.

London: John Murray, 1875. Print.

Lea Edgar started her position as Librarian/Archivist for the Vancouver Maritime Museum in July 2013. She can be contacted at archives@vancouvermaritimemuseum.com.

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Commander James Fitzjames’ cabin on board the Erebus — note the bookshelves lining the walls. (From the Illustrated London News, May 24th, 1845.)

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December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 19

2/7/2013 1:14:42 PM

TUGS

Photos by Dave Roels, www.daveroels.com

Tug industry hopes the worst years are behind

By Ray Dykes

W

There is excitement, albeit contained, about the prospects of the many major developments scheduled, or at least talked about up and down the coast...

“We’re probably 30 per cent down on activity but coming back up again although not fully to where we were five years ago,” says Nelson. “Most people seem to be pretty busy and my gut feeling is the industry is going to improve.

“There are a lot of companies that have diversified into areas where traditionally they haven’t ventured.”

Cautiously optimistic

At the helm of the largest tug and towboat fleet on the West Coast — Seaspan and its 35 tugs and 111 barges of various sorts — Jonathan Whitworth, CEO of

Seaspan ULC, says he is “cautiously optimistic” about the future of the industry.

No doubt sobering to Whitworth is that he has an idle or non-operating fleet of 14 tugs and 26 barges stored away without work and that would probably qualify as the second largest fleet on the coast.

He sees “exciting times” ahead with opportunities in the north, almost all of which have a marine component. And he knows that tugs and barges are the “most cost-effective, efficient, and environmentally friendly way to move goods along the coastline.” That’s the way a “tremendous amount” of forestry business moved

Photo credit: Dave Roels (www.daveroels.com)

hat a difference a year or two can make when it comes to the fortunes of British Columbia’s tug and towboat industry.

Only a couple of years ago, some in the industry were down and almost out, struggling for survival as the lifeblood forest industry in the province took what seemed to be yet another fatal nose dive.

Today, there is much tougher competition but also more optimism about the present and the future of the tug industry and its 300 or so boats that operate on the B.C. coast and up and down some of its major rivers. They no longer rely solely on the forest industry and many have diversified into new areas. Forestry — plagued in recent years by the closures of pulp mills and saw mills — is also going beyond log booms and wood chips into wood pellets and other bio waste.

There is excitement, albeit contained, about the prospects of the many major developments scheduled, or at least talked about up and down the coast, from hydro developments to green power and the host of liquefied natural gas plants that could need tugs to move their heavy equipment, construction items and other supplies to the building sites.

And then, there is the lucrative contract yet to be filled to tow barges of coal from Fraser Surrey Docks for transhipment to ocean bulk carriers at Texada Island when that approved coal export project finally gets under way and free of legal challenges.

Plateau

For Phill Nelson, President of the Council of Marine Carriers, to which many of the tug boat firms belong, the industry has reached a plateau of sorts after the crippling years of the economic recession.

ABD Boats works on the first of three new tugs for Saam Smit Towage Canada.

20 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

TUGS along the coast over the last 30 years until business decreased dramatically with the closures of pulp mills and saw mills throughout B.C. The decline has forced some of the players out of the wood chip barge business, although the fleet is “not too dissimilar to eight years ago.” Seaspan had 45 barges dedicated to the now closed Catalyst Elk Falls Pulp Mill just north of Campbell River, for example. At least two other customers have sought CCA protection or gone into bankruptcy.

While he is not prepared to call the future all “butterflies and rainbows,” Whitworth says his cautious optimism stems from the fact that “customers are moving product and we are getting paid.”

The game changer for a brighter future for the tug industry will come when customers start reinvesting in their facilities again “as that will give us confidence to reinvest in ours.” Several tug companies have invested in new builds as customer confidence grows.

Whitworth also says the industry as a whole needs to raise the bar on public safety and environmental stewardship.

Both are much better than 10 to 20 years ago, “but there is still room for all in our industry to deliver an absolutely safe working environment.”

(7), Fraser River (5), Prince Rupert (7), Kitimat (2) and newer boats will allow some of the older vessels to be retired.

As part of a massive worldwide fleet, Saam Smit can call on other vessels from its own fleet of 200 tugs across the Americas as well as the much larger asset base from both shareholders. Locally, two 2009-built tugs have just arrived in Vancouver. The SMIT Saba was mobilized from Panama and the SMIT Venta from Brazil and these two tugs will replace the SMIT Skeena and the SMIT Nass in Prince Rupert.

Tjallingii also has his own new build program to talk about — three harbour

tugs which will add to the fleet, the first next summer and one each over the following two years from North Vancouver’s ABD Boats.

Catherwood busy

For Catherwood Towing, business is “pretty busy with about as much to do as we can just about handle,” according to Erv Mihalicz, Manager of Operations for the 13-tug and four-barge fleet and its general towing and line haul work around the South Coast, Vancouver Island, Prince Rupert, Haida Gwaii and Stewart.

Once, Catherwood relied on log boom work on the Fraser River, but today

Now hiring a Marine Regional Sales Manager

Saam Smit

At SMIT Marine Canada Inc., President Frans Tjallingii, says there is a lot happening in the tug industry, which is “relatively stable in terms of business at a time of thinning margins.” Not the least is the just-announced rebranding of SMIT Marine Canada and its subsidiaries in a joint venture with Chilean company Saam S.A. to form a new entity known as Saam Smit Towage.

The rebranding by the former 100 per cent owner of SMIT, Boskalis of the Netherlands, will allow the towage segment of the business to manage itself separately. The new entity will “remain a major player in its existing markets and expand into Central America and the Caribbean,” says Tjallingii. (See also Page 12).

As well, there are new players entering the industry competing for the same pie, but with lower cost points. Meanwhile, for many companies, their tug boat assets are not getting any younger.

Tjallingii says SMIT’s West Coast fleet of 21 tugs from 600hp to 6,700hp is spread among duties in Vancouver

Photo credit: Janet Schmidt

Cummins Northwest has an immediate opening for a Marine Regional Sales Manager.

The initial focus will identify sales opportunities, determine customer requirements and develop effective solutions that position Cummins and its product solutions for success in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada marine markets.

This position is responsible for the coordination of marine sales management in Western Canada. Effectively to cultivate relationships with Cummins Western Canada’s sales and service organization, vessel end users, fleets, marine dealers, marine boat builders and/or shipyard organizations. The successful candidate will also be responsible for aggressively pursuing new business development opportunities in new engines, ReCon, parts, and service to strengthen revenue and profit contributions for the corporation.

Qualified candidates will have a Bachelor’s degree or industry-applicable technical training with a minimum of eight years of related job experience in British Columbia (related experience considered); Marine industry sales; Machinery or engine power; Channel development and management; Marketing and sales leadership; Accountability for business results; Customer “facing” relationship building and negotiation experience.

To apply, please send your resumes directly to: Stefanie.Thomas@Cummins.com

www.cumminsnorthwest.com December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 21

TUGS Mihalicz says the company does “a little bit of everything” from logs to veneer and also freight to the Sunshine Coast. The last of Catherwood’s new builds entered the fleet in 2009 in the form of Sea Imp IX and two other tugs are being refitted to deliver more horsepower.

Content to fill the gaps between the bigger companies, Mihalicz is excited by the construction going on in the Lower Mainland — Catherwood does a lot of work for Fraser River Pile and Dredge — and the need for aggregate, the Fairview Container Terminal expansion in Prince Rupert and the buzz over potential LNG work.

He says he hopes “the boom cycle will continue for some time.”

North Arm, owned by the Stradiotti family, has three tugs up to 6,000hp and over 10 barges (including a double-hulled fuel barge) and these days diversification is the key. It has a reputation for being specialists in fuel supply, freight handling and other marine services and repairs, plus it runs a twice-a-month freight service to the B.C. North Coast, particularly Haida Gwaii. The

Island Tug & Barge

At Island Tug and Barge (part of the ITB Marine Group), President Bob Shields reports business is in a “steady state” with a package of business that is consistent and reliable year after year with no growth and no shrinkage.” Island Tug bills itself as the largest supplier of oil cargo transport on the West Coast and that accounts for about 90 per cent of its work. The company has a fleet of seven tugs, two cable ships, a survey vessel and nine tank and cargo barges.

No new builds are planned and the focus is more on maintaining the fleet for work which stretches as far away as the Arctic.

While business is steady, Shields says he “hopes we have come through the worst domestically, yet I can’t say that internationally.”

Photo courtesy Catherwood Towing

Catherwood’s Sea Imp IX.

North Arm Transportation

In business in one form or another since the fishing in the 1930s, North Arm Transportation has been diversifying away from servicing the forestry industry over the past few years. Forestry is still important, but it is a far cry from what it was in its heyday.

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22 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

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Island Tug & Barge’s Island Monarch.

TUGS company also does shortsea shipping bringing containers from the DP World operation at Duke Point in Nanaimo to the Lower Mainland.

Sales Manager Mike Gillis shares the “cautious optimism” of others in the tug industry and says the company is keeping a close eye on the LNG developments as they mature and bring new opportunities.

North Arm is also doing logging and helping remove waste and recyclables for the Haida Gwaii.

Hodder

The Hodder Tugboat Co. Ltd. in Richmond had a couple of rough years in 2010-2011 and was forced to lay off valued employees. Those layoffs regretfully became permanent, says President and part-owner Ben Wendland, but business is now “pretty solid and our customers seem optimistic.”

With eight tugs working the waters between Washington State and Alaska, Hodder is a reliable choice, adds Wendland, keeping the tug company “very busy for the last three or four months.”

Hodder recently bought a former Squamish 950hp tug to augment its logtowing and barge-handling capacity. The future “looks good,” he says, and that’s a sentiment happily felt by Hodder’s customers as well.

Harken Towing

Diversification has helped the Port Coquitlam-based Harken Towing cope in recent years and today the workload is split 50/50 between log towing and barge work. Operations Manager Captain John

Mackenzie says “there is a lot of work out there, but you have to be willing to go outside your traditional line of work, and sometimes think outside the box in order to make yourself attractive to customers and be competitive.”

As a family-owned company with 10 tugs and seven deck barges, Harken takes pride in treating its employees and customers with “respect and fairness” and, with safety as a major focus, often runs its coastal tugs with two masters instead of one master and a mate. This increases

Alongside all the way, now with you for most of the Western Hemisphere

VANCOUVER * NEW WESTMINSTER * PRINCE RUPERT: 604.255.1133 December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 23

Photo credit: Dave Roels (www.daveroels.com)

TUGS

Bracewell Marine staff busy at work on a new tug for Ledcor. utilization, says Mackenzie, plus productivity and has boosted morale about concern for safety in the company.

Extensive refits have kept the company’s tugs “in many ways as equally safe and efficient as a new build.”

Ledcor

Three new builds will boost the current Ledcor fleet of six tugs and 13 barges. Much of the work is ship assist, barge and vessel towage, occasional ship berthing, marine towing, plus emergency

marine services. One tug operates in Victoria.

The first new build, the Storm Titan will be delivered from Shanghai in November along with two new barges, while two other tugs are being built by the Bracewell Marine Group in Richmond for delivery mid-2015.

Ledcor Marine Group Director of Special Projects Grant Mebs says another six new barges are being built in China for delivery in late summer 2015.

In 2011, Ledcor took ownership of 13 barges, 12 of which were built in China, and entered the industry at what others considered a difficult time. Today, Ledcor is doing well and is busy serving clients in forestry, bio-energy and industrial sectors towing barges carrying aggregates, woodchips, hog fuel, bunker fuel and cement.

Mebs says Ledcor has just signed a 10-year aggregates contract with Mainland Sand & Gravel which begins in 2016.

Diversifying

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TUGS opportunities. Director and part-owner Jim Wilson says the nine-tug (four in Vancouver and five in Port Alberni) and seven-barge fleet is looking at other business opportunities “unrelated to marine towing.” Two tugs are idle and likely heading for scrap.

He sees the towing market as “very competitive” and feels the industry is “still in tough, difficult times with lots of competition.” The company is making the switch from union to non-union and admits it is “struggling to survive.” It currently hauls scrap and aggregates and sawn lumber in the Vancouver area.

Wilson sees the industry as having too many vessels and predicts it is “ripe for consolidation.”

In fact, there were up to 80 Canadian and U.S. tug boats of more than 2,000 horsepower transiting the area from southern Alaska down to southern B.C. that could have rescued the freighter if asked, according to Seaspan CEO Whitworth.

Just a week before the Simushir incident, a 100-foot U.S. fishing trawler lost propulsion and the Seaspan Pacer came to its rescue. Whitworth says the Pacer tucked the barge it was towing safely into Port Hardy and headed north and was able to rescue and tow the idled fishing boat to Alaska.

ITB President Shields called the reporting of the Simushir incident “the most pathetic I have ever seen,” noting there were at least five 4,000hp tugs, all southbound and in the area, that could have dropped their log boom loads and responded if asked. The irony was, he adds, the rescuing tug probably carried more fuel oil than the 400 tonnes reported to be on board the stricken freighter.

Ray Dykes is a journalist who has worked his way around the world as a writer/photographer.

Ray can be reached at prplus@shaw.ca.

Shrinking

With a shrinking fleet down to two tugs, a water taxi and a crew boat, Squamish Marine Services, as it is now known, used to be a bigger company servicing pulp mills, saw mills and a chemical plant.

The greater use of wood fibre locally in future could mean escort tug duties, but these days the company is mainly towing logs.

Perplexed

Meanwhile, the B.C. tug and towboat industry is perplexed over the news media fuss in late October about the disabled Russian container ship which safely reached Prince Rupert for repairs after it was towed there by the Barbara Foss, a U.S. tug.

The Simushir had been drifting, disabled by a power outage off the north British Columbia coast near Haida Gwaii.

A Canadian Coast Guard ship tried three times to take the container ship under tow but snapped the tow line each time, adding to the media frenzy. The Barbara Foss was apparently idle and waiting for cargo in Prince Rupert and responded.

The incident ended without mishap.

That’s not how the environmentalists saw it.

“The failure (for Canada) to provide tug capacity on the North Coast puts these incredibly sensitive marine ecosystems at unacceptable risk from shipping,” Karen Wristen, Executive Director of Living Oceans Society is reported as saying. “The Simushir was following the same course intended for oil tankers leaving the proposed Kitimat terminal of the Northern Gateway project.”

December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 25

BARGES Looming deadline may pose challenges for small oil barge operators

W

hile it’s been in the regulations for years (almost 20), the January 2015 deadline to eliminate single-hulled fuel barges is posing problems for some. Despite the long lead time, owners of small, single-hulled barges that carry oil (and oil products) lacked the ability to get approval for equivalencies as no standard were in place.

Transport Canada Marine Safety has now developed a draft policy on double hulling for small oil barges (150 to 5,000 gross tonnes). At the time of printing, the policy was still in draft format however had been developed in consultation with the Canadian Marine Advisory Committee and was expected to be approved with wording drafted based on those consultations.

Background

The Vessel Pollution and Dangerous Chemicals Regulations stipulate that “an oil tanker of less than 5,000 gross tonnage must ensure that it has a double hull or a double containment system determined by the Minister to be as effective as a double hull for the prevention of a discharge of oil. However, this requirement does not apply before January 1, 2015.” (Section 46/3).

“The issue has the potential to affect delivery of fuel to operations like logging camps and remote communities along the NA wm1/4pg BCSN_1/2 pg horz 11/5/14 9:43 PM Page 1 coast,” said Mike Gillis with North Arm Transportation.

ON THE MOVE

northarm.bc.ca

2582 Kent Avenue S.E. Vancouver, BC V5S 2H8 Office & Dispatch: 604.321.9171, Fax 604.322.5010

24 HR Dispatch 604.321.9171

NORTH ARM TRANSPORTATION 26 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

So far, North Arm Transportation is the only company on the West Coast — in fact, the first in North America — that has a double-hull fuel/freight Class A barge in operation. The Genesis, built by Seabridge in China in 2012 and outfitted here in B.C. by North Arm, is a 216-by-60-foot-wide barge designed

by Mark McAllister with a capacity of 11,000 barrels in 12 segregated compartments with four separate systems. The design also includes a 60-foot ramp.

The Genesis is the only classed (by Lloyd’s) double-hulled, Class A fuel and freight barge. There are a couple of barges in Alaska certified by U.S. Coast Guard but they are not Class A, and there are a couple (for example, shallow-draft barges owned

by Island Tug & Barge) that can carry freight or fuel (albeit not all fuels, for example, diesel) but not both at the same time.

As Transport Canada works to get the appropriate standards in place, they have been studying the plans of the Genesis and could potentially adopt these for the industry.

New policy

In the meantime, Transport Canada has issued a draft policy which provides for an equivalency to double-hull protection.

Existing barges that use any one of the following practices will be considered to have met the equivalency to double-hull protection: • Decommissioning of side and wing tanks, carrying cargo only in tanks located along the centreline of the barge that have had extra plate fitted along the bottom of the tanks to strengthen the bottom of the hull; • The addition of new bulkheads or reconfiguration of existing bulkheads in tanks so that a continuous bulkhead runs along the length of the cargo spaces that is of at least 760mm from the inside of the outer hull along with extra plate fitted along the bottom of the tanks to strengthen the bottom of the hull; • Fitting into cargo spaces pre-fabricated tanks that are approved for the storage or carriage of oil by a recognized organization or by a standards issuing organization — but to recognize that such arrangement does not compromise stability, has proper ventilation of the tanks and cargo spaces and are verified by a recognized organization or naval architect.

• An alternative arrangement approved by class to be equivalent to double-hull protection – for example, an oil-resistant foam applied to the inside of the outer hull along the sides and bottom, or an oil-resistant membrane liner fitted inside the tank along the sides and bottom.

The policy also notes that an existing oil barge of single-hull design that complies with standards for construction and maintenance may be used as a fixed facility on shore to store oil however, must not be used to transport oil cargo. Under these circumstances, the vessel would be considered an oil handling facility and subject to those requirements.

Transport Canada is aiming to have these as approved options by the new year. However, even if the options are confirmed and put in place by January 1, 2015, tight timelines will present challenges. Bottom line though is that single-hull fuel barges cannot carry oil in their hull after January 1, 2015.

SPILL RESPONSE

New skimming system largest on West Coast Photo courtesy of Aqua-Guard

T

he Western Canada Marine Response Corp. (WCMRC) received shipment this month of Aqua-Guard‘s RBS TRITON™ 150 OS skimming system — the largest on Canada’s West Coast.

The complete system will be mounted on the WCMRC storage and working platform barge, the 4,0000-tonne Burrard Cleaner No. 18, currently stationed in Burrard Inlet.

The system is deployed by crane over the side of the barge and can be controlled by one operator via wireless remote control. The skimmer head is maneuvered hydraulically by powered thrusters directly into areas of concentrated oil and can recover 150 tonnes (30 tonnes derated) of product per hour at a 96 per cent recovery rate.

The RBS TRITON™ consists of three major components: a high capacity oil skimmer head, a hydraulic power pack, and a floatinghose reel system. Other features include an interchangeable brush/ disc/drum modules recover virtually any viscosity of oil; mid to high volume capacity skimmer and pump combinations; floating umbilical hose deploys and recovers the system; and a free-floating skimmer is recovery-ready as soon as it enters the water.

WCMRC acquires Aqua-Guard’s RBS TRITONTM 150 OS skimming system.

More news from WCMRC WCMRC awards three Post-Secondary Scholarships

WCMRC has announced the recipients of three $1,000 postsecondary scholarships: Heather Crawford, Matthew Huk and Clementine Hiltner. Out of the numerous eligible candidates whose applications were received, these three individuals demonstrated exemplary academic performance, career goals and community involvement.

Heather is a Dean’s Honour Roll student graduating this May from UBC’s Sauder School of Business with a Bachelor of Commerce — specializing in Transportation Logistics, International Business, and Sustainability. Post-graduation, her focus is to fuse her passions for logistics and environmental sustainability to make a difference in supply chain and marine industries. To achieve this ambitious goal, she hopes to become a Director of Operations for a marine terminal and lead the industry in developing, as well as enforcing, environmentally sustainable operating practices.

Matthew is in his final year of a Bachelor of Forestry in Resource Management at UBC, where last year he made the Dean’s List for outstanding academic performance. After completion of his undergrad, he hopes to be accepted to the Environmental Law program at UBC. His goal is to help environmental groups and businesses work together to ensure appropriate environmental regulations are in place.

Clementine is currently enrolled at the University of Victoria and plans on graduating this December with a BA in Geography

WCMRC scholarship winners Heather Crawford, Matthew Huk and Clementine Hiltner.

and a concentration in Environmental Sustainability. Throughout her studies she has been employed part-time at BC Ferries, where she was trained in marine emergency response. By gaining qualifications through the Federal Work Experience Program her goal is to eventually work for BC Ferries’ Environmental Department, where she plans on helping B.C. maintain its diverse and biologically abundant terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

Geographic Response Strategies in Haro Strait tested

In late summer, WCMRC field tested their Geographic Response Strategies (GRS) for the waters of Haro Strait.

Booming strategies for Sidney Island, Mayne Island, Morsby Island, Saltspring Island and Pender Island were tested. The field work involved multiple spill response vessels deploying boom in the water along the shoreline to test pre-developed strategies.

The field team included biologists who assisted in developing and documenting protection strategies for identified sensitivities.

GRS’s are developed to protect sensitive shoreline features. A GRS is an immediate plan for the initial response in an emergency situation. The goal of a GRS is to protect sensitive natural and cultural features and reduce decision-making time in the event of an actual spill. They are designed to provide all the necessary information required to carry out an efficient and rapid response.

The completed GRS’s are uploaded to WCMRC’s digital Geographic Mapping Program. WCMRC plans to update their strategies for the entire West Coast, which is in line with the federal government’s move to a risk-based spill response planning model. The government recently announced area response planning partnerships for the southern portion of British Columbia; Saint John and the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick; Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia; Gulf of St. Lawrence, Quebec. Oil spill prevention, preparedness and response in these four areas will take into consideration the area’s geography, environmental sensitivities, and oil tanker traffic volumes.

December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 27

RESCUE TUGS

Can tugboats protect the B.C. coastline?

By Robert G. Allan, P. Eng.

Executive Chairman of the Board, Robert Allan Ltd.

T

he ports, communities and people of coastal B.C. rely almost exclusively on ship-borne traffic for their livelihoods and as the means by which they obtain the majority of their daily needs for food, housing and transportation. To totally ban all shipping in B.C. waters might eliminate the risk of pollution to the coastline but would, in effect, kill the provincial economy. Virtually EVERY ship sailing these waters carries oil in one form or another as fuel, and in almost every case, a single steel membrane (the ship’s shell) separates that fuel from the surrounding ocean. In spite of that fact, the number of oil spills is thankfully almost negligible.

All tankers in service after 2010 carry their entire cargo capacity within double-hulled, protective structures.

The recent incident with the Russian container ship Simushir gave many an opportunity to voice their concerns about the sanctity of the B.C. coastline. It is a pity however that the majority of news agencies seemed incapable of distinguishing between a small container ship and a large tanker. Ultimately, oil is oil (albeit in many varieties) and the potential for any incident to spoil any segment of our coastline must be of concern to all British Columbians. Politicians and pundits of all stripes are also always keen to weigh in on subjects about which they know little and they will seize such opportunities to criticize present governments, either provincial or federal for the situation. The truth seems immaterial to the storyline, for example, “Tanker Adrift” shamelessly screamed the CBC’s “National” newscast headline on October 17.

So in the interests of the truth about such incidents, both real and potential, it

The truth seems immaterial to the storyline, for example, “Tanker Adrift” shamelessly screamed the CBC’s “National” newscast headline on October 17. is useful to understand some basic facts about shipping and the potential for shipping incidents on the B.C. coast; and what type of tugboat capability would actually be required to provide a reasonable degree of response capability; and at what cost.

In the days of sail, the west coast of Vancouver Island was known as the “Graveyard of the Pacific,” a vast, rocky lee shore upon which foundered many a sailing ship in the 19th century. With the advent of steam and later diesel propulsion, ships were no longer entirely at the mercy of the weather. The safety record of shipping on the B.C. coast has subsequently been excellent for generations; not completely incident free, but nonetheless still excellent. Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) statistics, while difficult to interpret with regard to reported large-vessel groundings, indicate that, in the entire western region, there have been potentially one to two vessel groundings per year for the past 16 years. The majority of these will be vessels touching bottom at their berths (generally a non-critical incident) but without examining every incident in detail it is impossible to determine. Anecdotally, one would be hard-pressed to recall more than two or three serious groundings on the outer West Coast in the past 40 years.

In the summary to his report, Stafford Reid (Major Marine Vessel Casualty Risk and Response Preparedness in British Columbia” for Living Oceans Society, 2008) states accurately:

28 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

“The 1988 Nestucca oil barge rupture off of the west coast of Vancouver Island, followed soon after by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker grounding in Alaska galvanized public attention on oil spill prevention, preparedness and response along the Pacific West Coast. The public and government focus after these events was on the oil spill consequence of the vessel casualties, not the casualty itself. More recent vessel casualties have drawn attention to other environmental consequences, notably the grounding of two freighters: the New Carissa in Oregon (1999) and the Selendang Ayu (2004) in Alaska.

These incidents raised awareness in the United States to the need to address all aspects of a major vessel casualty, and not just the oil spill impact or threat. This includes measures to salvage the vessel, to off load its cargo and fuels, and to remove wreckage so as to prevent or minimize environmental damage.

Along Canada’s Pacific coast there have only been a few near-misses (emphasis added). Therefore, vessel casualty risk and their impact management have not garnered the same level of public and government attention as in the United States. It has been recent vessel and barge accidents in British Columbia that have caught public attention to both oil spill risk and the problem of addressing sunken ship wrecks; notably the 2006 sinking of the Queen of the North ferry in Wright Sound, and the 2007 LeRoy Trucking barge equipment dumping into Johnstone Strait.”

RESCUE TUGS

Figure 1 — CCG Type 1050 OSV Style Nav-Aids Vessel with Towing Gear and Large Buoy-Handling Crane There are no groundings or strandings of larger ships on Canada’s West Coast upon which one might develop a statistical model. However if one looks at the entire west coast of Canada and the U.S. as the regional base for data, then one can cite approximately 12 incidents in the past 40 years that were or had the potential for a serious grounding incident.

This number of real or potential serious incidents has to be compared to the actual number of large vessels plying these waters. The Chamber of Shipping of British Columbia reports that there are about 3,800 ship calls per year at B.C. ports; parallel to this is shipping to major U.S. west coast ports which may transit B.C. waters. Reid cites the West Coast Offshore Vessel Traffic Risk Management Project (WCOVTRM) Report: “The study estimated over 19,000 vessel transits from Alaska to California during the year. The majority of vessels are large commercial vessels such as container ships and bulk carriers...after deducting unknown “ last port of call” vessels, 12,646 vessel arrivals in Pacific West Coast ports were considered coastwise transits.”

Therefore, one can safely and conservatively assume 12,500 ship calls on the west coast of North America which may transit B.C. waters. Each of those ship calls likely has both an inbound and an outbound “move” so a number of 25,000 ship moves per year in these regional waters seems a reasonable estimate of total traffic volume (approximately 70 moves per day over the entire coastline). Note that this number deliberately does not include smaller vessel movements such as fishing vessels, tugs and barges, and ferries.

The probability of a serious “potential” incident is therefore about one in 100,000 (0.001 per cent). Note this only refers to an incident which may occur and which then might lead to a potential grounding or similar event.

The B.C. coastline measures just under 1,000 km long north to south, as the raven flies, but when all the inlets and islands are considered, it represents 25,725 kilometres of coastline.

The absence of a dedicated rescue tug anywhere on the B.C. coast has been cited as a major issue, but how does one realistically develop a rescue tug system to protect such a vast and intricate coastline? What is a suitable response time? Should tugs be able to respond in the absolute worst case conditions? What is the real probability of an incident? Who will pay for the rescue service?

Where will a tug be when an incident occurs? Unfortunately

“Murphy” has the right answer to the last question and one can safely assume that any single tug will be very remote from an incident when it occurs. So how many tugs would be enough to provide sufficient response capacity to the whole coast? Many of the above questions were asked when the Tanker Exclusion Zone (TEZ) was prescribed to protect the B.C. coast from the regular transits of American oil tankers from Alaska to the refineries in Puget Sound: “The purpose of the TEZ is to keep laden tankers west of the zone boundary in an effort to protect the shoreline and coastal waters from a potential risk of pollution. The zone boundary follows the Canada/Alaska border to a point approximately 115 miles west of Langara Island, thence southward to approximately 73 miles southwest of Cape St. James, thence to 40 miles southwest of Amphitrite Point and thence due east to just off Cape Flattery. [CCG website: http://www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca/e0003909)] A similar “shipping exclusion zone” strategy could be employed for all shipping, which presently only has to be 12 miles offshore to be considered outside Canadian waters. The farther offshore a ship is, the more response time a rescue vessel will need.

This is by far the simplest method by which to improve coastal safety and is not a new idea, having been recommended by both David Brander-Smith (Final Report of the Public Review Panel on Tanker Safety and Marine Spills Response Capability, Transport Canada, 1990) and David Anderson (Report to the Premier on Oil Transportation and Oil Spills, November 1989) concerning oil2014 WM & BC Ship.pdf 1 06-26-14 12:51 PM spill preparedness on the B.C. coast. Typical large ships will drift

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December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 29

RESCUE TUGS at about three to four nautical miles per hour in the more severe wind and tidal ...the days of having salvage/rescue tugs stationed around the world’s busiest conditions on this coast. If a response time shipping lanes hoping to rescue a disabled ship (and get paid well for doing of say no more than 24 hours is required to any location on the outer coast, then so) are largely gone. traffic must be kept effectively 100 miles Large tugs of the type described above offshore. (Note: The present TEZ var- no less than 45–50 metres in length with ies from more than 100 miles wide in a towing capability of not less than 120 are not uncommon, but the days of havthe north to about 40 miles wide at the tonnes, corresponding to an installed ing salvage/rescue tugs stationed around entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait.) Then power of about 10,000 horsepower. the world’s busiest shipping lanes hoping one must consider where any response (Note: The Barbara Foss which towed the to rescue a disabled ship (and get paid well vessels should be based. At a probable Simushir has less than 65 tonnes of tow- for doing so) are largely gone. Modern ships are safer and more reliable than their average response speed of no more than ing capability.)

The many thousands of kilometres of forbears. Communications and tracking 12 knots in severe weather, a rescue tug can cover only 288 nm in a day — say “inner coast” must be considered as much devices are far more accurate. Protocols 250 miles to allow for mobilization time safer, as they are largely protected from for monitoring and controlling vessel and uncertainties. That 1,000 miles (by the ocean forces. There are many inshore traffic in near-coastal situations are very 100 miles wide!) of outer coastline could areas exposed to severe winds but there well-established.

So it IS practical to consider a rescue then be covered by four relatively fast and are also many places of refuge and more capable ocean rescue tugs — one each at local traffic, especially a range of barge- tug system on the B.C. coast but only Victoria and Prince Rupert at the far (and towing smaller tugs which could be called in conjunction with a system of traffic busier) ends of the coast; one at Bamfield; upon for support, even if only marginally control and limiting offshore distances and one somewhere near the north end adequate. The inside passages are also to ensure appropriate and sensible times of Vancouver Island. These would have not widely used by large ships other than for response. But who pays, and what to be large, powerful and very seaworthy cruise ships and ferries (although those do the crews do to combat the boredom tugs to cope with the North Pacific win- are certainly not immune to accidents, of being “on call” 99.99 per cent of the time? Tugs that do nothing but wait for but ter conditions and to able to10:36 towAM the Page BCSN Nov 1_Layout 1 be 10/28/14 1 result from bad judgement and not an emergency are not viable. Coastal largest ships anticipated in these waters, bad weather!)

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30 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

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Photo source: Robert Allan Ltd.

RESCUE TUGS

Figure 2 — RASalvor Class Rescue Tugs 60 metres LOA, 10,000 kW Power, 150 Tonnes Bollard Pull. safety is a federal responsibility administered by the Canadian Coast Guard.

Their ships are typically configured for multi-tasking, with the primary role of maintaining aids to navigation, and, secondarily supporting Search and Rescue and Fisheries Patrol operations. Most of their ships are primarily buoy tenders and have very modest towing capabilities but nothing suitable for towing large ships at sea. The CCGS Gordon Reid (designed by this company) is a primary SAR vessel with towing gear designed to tow disabled fishing vessels and yachts (their most typical rescue target) so under the circumstances, she did remarkably well to tow the Simushir as she did in such difficult sea conditions. The most practical solution would be to reconfigure the west coast Coast Guard fleet to comprise primarily rescue towing vessels which are equipped with suitable gear for the other nav-aids and SAR missions. Such vessels exist even with CCG’s own fleet as the Type 1050 Class Nav-Aids tenders (Figure 1) which were designed by our firm in the mid-1980s. These are based on a typical offshore supply/towing vessel (OSV) platform, equipped with a large buoy-handling crane. These are relatively shallow draft ships intended primarily for the Great Lakes, but the basic concept is well-proven. These vessels already have substantial towing systems but not really sufficient for open ocean tows.

A newer generation ocean-going tug, such as the RASalvor Class tugs recently developed by this firm (Figure 2), could easily be equipped with heavy duty, deepsea towing gear without compromising

any other CCG duties. Such vessels would cost about $25–$30 million each on the international market, and about 50 per cent more if built in Canada. So a fleet investment of at least $100 million is required, with attendant annual operating costs.

The rescue towing concept as described addresses the risks from current levels of general shipping on the West Coast and would certainly provide an increased level of security for any foreseeable growth in west coast shipping, regardless of whatever deep-sea vessel type one considers.

All of the various oil transportation and LNG tanker projects proposed for the B.C. coast to date have been or are presently examining in depth the specific tugboat capabilities required to safely escort and berth the tankers involved in each specific project. Until such time as some of these projects materialize, it is difficult to say what synergies might exist amongst those projects to share tug resources. However, Enbridge in particular has certainly identified the most

capable class of escort/rescue tug available in the world today as the type of tugs required for, and which would be dedicated to the Northern Gateway Pipeline project. These tugs however would have, as a primary responsibility, ensuring the safe passage of tankers using the Enbridge facilities and only after any such tankers were safely anchored out of harm’s way could these tugs potentially respond to a general ship-in-distress emergency on the outer coast. A non-private, Coast Guard tug capability seems the only logical answer for broad-based coverage.

In conclusion, it is certainly feasible to consider a system of large rescue tugs to aid in the protection of the B.C. coastline, but the economics of that operation are not trivial and the probability of an incident is very low. The existing CCG fleet mix has been demonstrated as capable in moderate conditions with a small ship but is not sufficient to deal with a large ship towing emergency in more severe conditions.

Therefore, such a rescue tug capability should most sensibly be considered as an integral and primary part of an overall revised Coast Guard plan for all their required vessel operations on the B.C. coast.

Robert Allan is the Executive Chairman of Robert Allan Ltd., the most senior and most experienced Naval Architecture consultancy business in Canada, begun by his grandfather in Vancouver in 1930, and currently in its 84th year of continuous operation. He has published numerous papers and articles on the subject of tug design and performance as well as on several other topics abd has authored two major chapters in the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers’ textbook, “Ship Design and Construction” — one on “Small Commercial Workboats” and the other on “Tugs and Towboats”. For more information, please visit: www.ral.ca.

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December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 31

MODEL TUGS

Meander model restored

By Robert G. Allan, P. Eng., Executive Chairman of the Board, Robert Allan Ltd.

A

s well documented in BC Shipping News (February 2013), the Motor Yacht Meander was built by W.R. Menchions boatbuilders in 1934 for Mr. George Kidd of Vancouver, to a design

by Robert Allan B.Sc., also of Vancouver.

Also mentioned in that capsule of the yacht’s history was the fact in that same year, 18-year-old Robert F. (Bob) Allan built a 1/24-scale model of the yacht and sold it to Mr. Kidd, helping to pay his university tuition!

After my father’s death in 1981, I spent a fair amount of time trying to track down that model. At one stage I had seen it in the basement storage area of the Vancouver Maritime Museum, but it then disappeared from there. However recently I took up the task again and I was able to track the model down in the home of Mr. Peter Kidd, great-nephew of George Kidd. After some discussions about the concept of restoring the model, as it was somewhat the worse for wear after 80 years, Peter and his family very graciously agreed to turn the model over to me for that purpose, then to be permanently on display in the offices of Robert Allan Ltd. We engaged the talented Mr. Lucian Ploias, model builder at the Vancouver Maritime Museum, to do the restoration work. This work was completed in

The model under the gaze of original designer and original model builder.

early October and on October 17 a small “launching party” was held at our offices to celebrate the renewal of the model.

Lucian did a wonderful job of carefully bringing this beautiful model back to life, and it is now preserved in a fully enclosed case to ensure its longevity for hopefully another few generations. The work was toasted with a few glasses of champagne amongst these families and friends who are so united through this beautiful,

historic B.C. yacht (and its little friend!).

The photo below shows the restored model, reflecting the craftsmanship of both the young original builder and the restorer. The left-hand photo shows the model under the gaze of original designer and model builder alike. All present agreed that both of them, and George Kidd, would have been very pleased to see this historic model in its new home in such pristine condition!

The fully restored model of the Meander.

Everyone connected with this story: (from left to right): Ken Harford (President,Robert Allan Ltd., sponsors of the restoration); Teodor Ploias (son of the model restorer); Dana Ploias (wife of Lucian); Lucian Ploias (model restorer); Arden Kidd (wife of Peter Kidd); Peter Kidd (great-nephew of George Kidd); Susan Shield (daughter of Peter & Arden); Jan Iliffe (co-owner of the “real” Meander); Paul Shield (back) (Susan’s husband); Dennis Feroce (owner of the “real” Meander); Enneke Allan (wife of Rob Allan); Rob Allan (grandson of the designer and son of the original model builder); Also involved in the restoration project but unable to attend were David Kidd and Jennifer (Kidd) Rees.

32 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

BIOMASS EXPORTS

Update on the wood pellet industry

By Syd Heal

S

ince I last wrote about the B.C. Biomass industry (BC Shipping News, June 2013) and its great export potential, the industry has seen many significant new developments which indicate a much larger international business in the making. At the time I last wrote on this subject, much of the attention of the industry was focused on Canada (B.C. in particular) and the United States as prime sources of biomass fuel for the power-generating industry in Europe.

Now, new players are entering the field as sellers and buyers of pellets, or suppliers of basic equipment, and they are making their presence known on the Internet.

The burning of biomass for energy is catching on in a big way. Current world-manufactured pellet production is estimated to be 15 million tonnes and it is estimated in some quarters that, by 2020, it will reach 50 million tonnes. If it took until 2030, which seems more likely, it might be more believable. The biggest producers (in order) are Sweden, Austria, the U.S. and Canada. In most instances, the primary sources of raw material are sawmill waste, forest salvage and lower-grade standing timber. One can look at our forests and think we have an unlimited resource here, but forest waste needs much more extra handling and higher collection costs which are reasons why, at least in B.C., it has centred almost exclusively in the beetle-killed forests of the near coastal region through the Cariboo where dead wood can be processed before it rots and at a very lowacquisition cost in terms of recovery and processing, and the government is only too anxious to get rid of this dead lumber.

The presence of large brokerage firms and strong industry associations of producers, capable of organizing markets

The presence of large brokerage firms and strong industry associations of producers...is now enabling the market to enter into a new phase where more productive marketing can be pursued. for product and developing standards for grading and pricing, is now enabling the market to enter into a new phase where more productive marketing can be pursued. At the outset, manufacturers (who initially were all small outfits) had to be persuaded that it would be worth their while to enter the business in the absence of a strong marketing structure. However, once supplies started to come into the marketplace, market organizers in brokerage and other forms of intermediaries started to develop in parallel fashion to grow with the business.

The marketing firms are growing up as consolidators of the product streams of a number of producing pellet mills.

Sometimes they have their own port facilities, like Fibreco in North Vancouver, which gives them much power in dealing with producers. Fibreco is certainly a consolidator but how far it goes beyond that is uncertain.

The market consolidators can also become the arrangers of the shipping who put a suitable ship in berth so that the handling and transportation chain is complete. At the moment, the East Coast producers are believed to be wholly a small bulker market relying on voyage charters, although this will soon change.

The West Coast exports handled entirely through Fibreco and Pinnacle Group’s (the largest Canadian manufacture with six mills) Prince Rupert terminal should be capable of being served through contracts of affreightment in some instances.

Together, they handle the entire seaborne export volume of B.C producers.

In Canada, Ontario — with its increasing dedication to green renewable energy — is encouraging the growth of the industry in that province. A number of closed-down wood manufacturing facilities have potential for conversion to pellet mills and this is underway at Rentech’s new projects at Atikokan, with projected annual capacity of 150,000 tonnes on the north shore of Lake Superior, and Wasa to the west of Thunder Bay with a projected capacity of 500,000 tonnes, both mills are planning to be on stream during 2014.

San Francisco-based Rentech is a significant producer of nitrogen-based fertilizer through Rentech Nitrogen Partners. It also became a recycler of wood waste when it purchased Fulghum Fibres, a provider of wood chips based in the Eastern states. This evidently brought wood pellets into their plans when they bought New England Pellet Company and then turned to Canada for additional opportunities to expand their output of pellets. In addition to Wasa and Atikokan, Rentech is now reported to be in discussions with the Newfoundland government to possibly take over and operate a plant built by Holsom Forest Products. This fell into the realm of misbegotten projects, having been built with much government assistance, only to find that additional challenges had been overlooked. These were dry storage at the plant and inadequate port infrastructure at Botwood, which if a deal is to be negotiated, will probably involve much additional taxpayer outlay.

December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 33

BIOMASS EXPORTS Photo courtesy of Fibreco Export Inc.

Like several other American and Canadian interests, Rentech was quickly alerted to the rapidly expanding European market for pellets and moves like that of the U.K.-based Drax Power complex toward biomass power consumption.

Drax made its first overtures to a much smaller American manufacturing base than exists today, as the U.S. appeared to be the most reliable source and it has awarded 10-year supply contracts to several American producers, amounting at this point to 10 million tonnes over the contract period.

Drax is the largest power undertaking in Western Europe. Conceived as a coal burner, its intake of coal totalled some 16,000 tonnes daily. Because of this, it also was the biggest contributor to the entire U.K. carbon footprint which was a major concern to its European partners.

It is primarily the reason why Drax has become the biggest individual consumer of carbon-neutral wood pellets and the full conversion of its facilities from coal to wood still has some way to go.

A Canadian company that appears to have a good sense of the potential is Viridis Energy Inc., with its home base in Vancouver. Viridis is a public company with its shares quoted on the Toronto

Aerial view of Fibreco Export Inc. in North Vancouver (between Vancouver Wharves at the top of the photo and Vancouver Shipyards at the bottom) — the largest terminal handler of wood pellets in the world.

Venture Exchange. It is enjoying fast growth, having started by building a distribution network and sourcing the product of other manufacturers. It then acquired its own first plant and renamed it Okanagan Pellet Company in Kelowna with a capacity of 50,000 tonnes per year.

In 2012, it acquired a bankrupt mill at Massapadoquoit, Nova Scotia, renamed it Scotia Atlantic Pellet and redeveloped it to an annual projected capacity of 200,000 tonnes, some of which it has delivered to the European market. The pending acquisition of a third plant has been hinted at recently in an interview.

Season's greetings!

From the team at IMS Marine Surveyors & Lab

34 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

In the meantime, and in moves reminiscent of historic icon, H.R. MacMillan, Viridis Energy has established Viridis Merchants with the aim of developing the export markets and in the process securing substantial tonnages from manufacturers elsewhere in North America for trading purposes. In the process, it has appointed S. Ekman AB, a large Swedish firm well established in marketing forest products, as its European agents. Viridis has broken new ground in supplying South Korea and is actively working on the Chinese market. China is faced with enormous challenges with pollution and is actively seeking ways to reduce this through co-generation with other fuels.

Other notable developments in B.C. include the announcement by the SBG Asset Group, based in Vancouver, of their plans for floating a new ‘state-of-the-art� high-capacity mill at Mission, B.C. that will be particularly slanted to the South Korean market and other Oriental countries in addition to Europe. The mill has the backing of the town council but at the time of writing is still faced with gaining all approvals from the Provincial Government, particularly those to do with air quality and emissions.

Other indications that manufacturing may be about to spread beyond to new areas well outside the limits of the mountain pine beetle-killed wood, is an announcement by Timberwest that it is testing the feasibility of building a new pellet plant in the Nanaimo area. This is potentially a major step forward in Vancouver Island economic development that should open up great possibilities for large areas of the island from Port Hardy south to the Duncan area and beyond. If investment is made in heavy duty modern conversion machinery for use in the

BIOMASS EXPORTS woods, a large harvest of wood granules ready for the manufacturing process should be harvestable for delivery to a big facility at Nanaimo and without a doubt, one new, well-conceived mill on the island would encourage others at strategic spots such as Port Hardy, Beavercove, Menzies Bay, Duncan Bay. Beavercove may offer a site for a major plant complete with storage silos, a large barge dock and capability of taking in raw material deliveries by road and water with its potential for another large mill that could also receive deliveries of finished pellets by road tankers to load out by barge for North Vancouver or even a new load out at Nanaimo. The latter seems possible if Timberwest’s plans come to fruition on a big enough scale.

A second notable announcement concerns a joint venture between Canfor and the second largest B.C. manufacturer, Pacific Bioenergy of Prince George, with the development of new large-scale production facilities in northern B.C. Canfor is already in one joint venture with the Pinnacle Group at Houston, B.C. It is perhaps natural to conclude that the huge distances involved in B.C. alone

work against many possible locations for new plants. On the contrary, consider the deal that Rentech has concluded with CN, by which wood pellets originating at or near the head of the lakes at Thunder Bay are to be delivered by rail to an export loading facility in Quebec, a greater distance by far than any journey by rail between two extended rail points in B.C. This load out is now under construction and is designed to handle Panamax bulkers.

By way of contrast and giving thought to the shortage of industrial sites in and around Port Metro Vancouver, consider the possibilities presented by the port of Squamish and the corridor that its rail line up to Prince George represents.

This corridor has locations and biomass resources that can contribute to the overall output of the B.C. industry with delivery to Squamish by rail for transshipment by covered barges possibly to a load out facility in the Nanaimo region.

Decentralization of port facilities include U.S. coal transshipped in Surrey to barges to utilize the Lafarge loader on Texada Island. Maybe it could happen with a

similar facility in shipping interior wood pellet production through Nanaimo via Squamish.

Other countries that are taking an interest in the potential for pellet production from their own national forests range from New Zealand to Chile. Possibly the most active new country is India which is making strides through small manufacturing companies to develop new lines of machinery. The Indian machinery developers are competent and their industry is becoming far more sophisticated, but Indian-made machinery is usually rugged and functional without the finishing touches and style that is present in European, Japanese and North American manufactures.

Where it wins out is usually because it is cheaper than the competition which will greatly appeal to pellet makers in the countries in the tropical belt of Asia and Africa that have rich sources of biomass in their tropical forests and are advertising mahogany and varieties of tropical woods in pellet form on the Internet.

Syd Heal, a veteran of the marine industry and a prolific writer and publisher of marine books, can be contacted at richbook@shaw.ca.

December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 35

CARGO LOGISTICS Container weight verification:

Self verification may not achieve goal of new IMO regulation

By Colin Laughlan Director of Communications, Logico Carbon Solutions Inc.

“

Weighing in” is about to acquire new meaning for the global shipping industry — sort of! Despite long-sought changes to the international convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), achieved in November, some signatory states, including Canada, may have difficulty enforcing limits on the weight of laden containers before vessel loading. The new regulations come into effect in July 2016.

New IMO requirement for container weight verification

For the past seven years, shipping associations around the world, along with Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), worked ardently to make container weight verification an international legal requirement. With the breakup of the MSC Napoli in the English Channel in 2007, the problem had reached catastrophic proportions. Misdeclared container weights were identified as a factor causing structural failure of the 900-foot containership. The following year, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and the World Shipping Council (WSC) jointly issued Guidelines, endorsed also by the Global Shippers Forum, advising shippers to ensure that container weights were accurate and verified. The voluntary measures, however, had “no discernible effect” according to the WSC, and in 2011 an IMO sub-committee observed that “the shipper’s obligation to provide correct container weight is often not met.”

In 2012, another containership, MOL Comfort, broke in two and sank off the coast of Yemen.

“The loss of the containership Napoli gave the UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch an almost unique opportunity to compare actual container weight with the manifest, and

Despite long-sought changes...some signatory states, including Canada, may have difficulty enforcing limits on the weight of laden export containers before vessel loading when the new regulations come into effect in July 2016. serious discrepancies were discovered,” Peter Hincliffe, Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Shipping, told BC Shipping News. “ICS and WSC picked up the need for ships to be assured of the actual container weight and produced first a guidance publication and then supported the IMO in the development of what is now a mandatory requirement for the shipper to declare a weight for each container that can be verified. It is worth noting that if the actual weight differs from the declared weight then safety and security concerns should be raised.

Recent press coverage on the loss of the MOL Comfort also indicates that misdeclared container weights may have been a contributory factor.”

opting to use the calculated method will be required to comply with accreditation schemes subject to enforcement by national maritime safety administrations.

GSF is currently working with a number of governments and maritime stakeholders on developing an accreditation scheme blueprint which the GSF hopes will be adopted more widely by maritime safety administrations. Similarly, the GSF is working with stakeholders in developing a suggested container weight calculation method which the GSF hopes will be adopted universally by shippers. The best practice advice will be adopted by early 2015, giving shippers time to plan for implementation of the weight verification rules.”

Options for compliance

Canada’s approach

The new IMO requirement stipulates that one of two methods may be used to verify a container’s weight, either (1) by weighing the packed container, or (2) by weighing all the packages, including cargo items, dunnage and pallets, and adding the container’s tare mass which is stencilled on the outside of every container.

Chris Welsh, Secretary General of the U.K.-headquartered Global Shippers’ Forum (GSF), told BCSN, “The Global Shippers’ Forum supports the compromise proposal recently adopted by the IMO Cargoes and Containers Committee. The so-called ‘method 2 calculated weight option’ proposed by GSF will provide considerable flexibility for regular shippers to comply with the new rules which will enter into force on July 1, 2016. Shippers

36 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

In Canada, the shipper’s declaration of the container weight is accepted as the verification. There is no obligation on the terminal to weigh the container, and Transport Canada has advised that under the amended SOLAS, the obligation will remain solely with the shipper. The efficacy of Canada’s policy, however, cannot be assessed by its inspection practices.

Transport Canada data since 2009 suggest there are limited resources for proactive verification. The average number of inspections each year was only 314 on an average of 2.2 million TEUs exported each year.

Statistically, the expected value of misdeclaring an overweight container instead of using two containers was 0.999154. That is, for each $1,000 saved by using one rather than two FEUs, the risk was $8.46.

CARGO LOGISTICS Looking to the U.S. for a comparison, Dr. Geraldine Knatz, Professor of Policy and Engineering at the University of Southern California, disagreed with the policy of self declaration. “The whole point of the SOLAS amendment was to have an international, uniform regulation. If the shipper has to declare — well they`ve always had to declare — so it sounds like there`s not going to be much change in Canada,” she told BCSN. Knatz, who formerly held the positions of Executive Director of the Port of Los Angeles, and President of the International Association of Ports and Harbours (IAPH), said, “In the United States, it`s been required by law for a long time: containers for export have to be weighed so the container terminals have scales, and the process can be right in the terminal – that’s verification! I’m not aware of any problems with this method of verification. It doesn’t cause cargo to back up in the port or anything like that.”

Bob Ballantyne, President of the Freight Management Association of Canada agreed. “I haven’t heard anyone say that misdeclarations should be tolerated,” Ballantyne told BCSN. “I think it’s fair to say the most complete verification is to weigh the loaded container, and so long as it doesn’t cause any significant delays, that’s probably the preferable way to do it.”

According to the IMO Sub-Committee on Dangerous Goods, Solid Cargoes and Containers, “substantial discrepancies between declared and actual container weights are not uncommon, and they create safety and operational issues for the vessel, other cargo, the crew, and the shoreside operations in ports.” Additional issues were identified by the WSC including chassis damage, liability for accidents and fines for overweight on roads, collapsed container stacks, as well as diminished fuel efficiency in the liner industry.

“There is little or no reason to believe that future enforcement of a SOLAS requirement applicable only to the shipper to ensure container weight verification would be more effective,” the IMO committee stated.

“If the shipper has nothing to lose, nothing is going to change,” agreed Maksim Mihic, General Manger of DP World’s Centerm terminal at Port Metro Vancouver. However, Mihic pointed out that a declared container weight may be perfectly legal but nonetheless inaccurate. “It is the discrepancy between the

declared and the actual weight that causes the biggest problem. For example, on paper you may get 15 tonnes declared. It’s still within the legal limit of the container so it has nothing to do with the terminal.

The terminal is not the verifier. But, if you had 2,000 containers and an average misdeclaration of three tonnes, that’s 6,000 tonnes discrepancy – that’s huge.

The cumulative overweight is the biggest problem,” Mihic told BCSN. Noting that the primary goal of the new SOLAS regulation was to prevent more catastrophes at sea, Mihic felt that its enforcement was meant to be consistent around the world. “It’s a global market and it has to be the same for everyone,” he said. Mihic thought this will be achieved eventually because the new regulation would spur on a large international terminal company, or possibly some countries, to create a standardized audit system which in turn would motivate all governments to adopt more rigorous verification methods. “Verification has to be a global system that is audited and accurate,” he said. “I think that Transport Canada will have to follow suit instead of leaving it to shippers to interpret the rules.”

Addressing the Issues

Rowena Lo, System Development Manager at Vancouver, B.C.-headquartered Canaan Group, has worked for several years on the verification issue, first from the perspective of a large shipping line and now from that of a leading transload and freight forwarding company. “It’s a safety issue,” Lo told BCSN. “Yes, keep the onus on the shipper. It’s their cargo,” she said, “but logistics is not about one party. It’s a chain of obligations. It needs buy-in by terminal operators and the carriers, rail and truck, the parties responsible for the physical moving, because it has to be safe on the road and on the vessel.” Lo said her experience with supply chain stakeholders has taught her that “we always talk about global, but at some point it always becomes regional, so it’s hard to get agreement. The one big question is: ‘Who can determine what is the best method’?” For Canada, Lo suggested, it would be an important topic to deal with under the federal government’s current review of the Canada Transportation Act. Indeed, the Canada Transportation Act Review Secretariat agreed. “The Panel would welcome submissions concerning

how changes to SOLAS could impact Canadian marine policy and regulations,” the Secretariat told BCSN. Submissions can sent to: secretariat@reviewcta-examenitc.gc.ca

Useful tools

T

he new SOLAS requirement for container weight verification has spawned technological innovations to assist shippers in accurately declaring the weights of loaded containers.

1) From Logico Carbon Solutions Inc., Sidney, B.C. — Logico’s load planning tool XacPac monitors cargo weight while optimizing cubic space utilization in containers.

XacPac will not violate declared cargo weight limits, nor exceed load density capacities of the container or stacked goods. Cargo is positioned to achieve balanced loads and the electronic manifest that is generated declares total cargo weight, the centre of gravity and weight distribution within the container. If cargo is loaded according to an XacPac loading plan, the manifest could be used to comply with the new SOLAS container weight regulation. www.xacpac.com / info@xacpac.com 2) From Deploy Technologies Inc., Delta, B.C. — Deploy’s InstaWeigh can be installed in any type of vehicle and equipment to monitor, capture, and transmit operational data. For example, the 5-by-7-inch data terminal is installed with hydraulic transducers on a forklift and accurately weighs loads on the fly without having to travel to floor scales. Encrypted data is transmitted into a corporate database via a connected cellular modem, private WIFI module, or VHF/UHF radios. The system is scalable and can integrate into any environment. www. deploy.ca / info@deploy.ca 3) From BISON Group Ltd., New Zealand — BISON Weighing Jacks comprise four small jacks that fit to the corners of a grounded container, lift it slightly and measure the container’s gross mass. The weight at each corner is displayed on each jack and can be summed by the operator to provide an accurate container weight. The jacks can also transmit the weight data to a smart device, with a BISON App to automatically calculate the containers gross mass, net payload and centre of gravity. The operator can store, print and distribute this information as needed. www.bison-jacks.com / info@bisonjacks.com

December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 37

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38 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

CARGO LOGISTICS

Industry recognition – nominations are open John Gilder, General Manager CMHDS

I

n a world of constant economic, social and technological changes it is important to recognize the people and companies who strive to be better.

Performing at the next level takes extra work and dedication, something that’s not always recognized when the buyer wants to get something at the lowest price.

On Wednesday January 28, 2015 Cargo Logistics Canada (CLC) and the Canadian Materials Handling & Distribution Society (CMHDS) will be holding the First Annual CLC Awards of Excellence. These awards will offer an opportunity for the industry’s clients, vendors and supporters to recognize and celebrate B.C.’s best and brightest in Logistics & Distribution.

The event is comprised of two main groups of awards. The first group will be by nomination where companies or individuals can nominate others (or themselves) in the following three categories.

Safety Innovation Award — In partnership with WorkSafeBC, this award recognizes those companies and individuals who are improving worker safety.

We are not talking about lagging indicators such as “days without a time loss accident.” We’re focusing on those who are making changes in processes, tools, equipment and procedures that focus on preventing accidents and injuries before they happen.

Sustainability Award — One of the constants in Logistics & Distribution is disposable materials such as wood and cardboard. Reverse logistics can often be expensive and challenging and the amount of materials potentially bound for the landfill by one company alone can be staggering. This award will recognize companies that are taking steps towards being more environmentally friendly with minimal or no cost to the operation.

Supply Chain Woman of the Year Award — I’ve been around the industry for over 30 years and we do indeed have an old boys network. The industry continues to move forward and make advancements but the current situation still provides challenges for women who want to make Logistics & Distribution a career.

This award will recognize those who have

taken on the challenge and made positive impacts in the industry.

The second group of awards is a variety of Industry Vendor “Best of the Best” awards in Transportation (Land, Air, Maritime, Rail & Freight Forwarding) and Distribution (Forklifts, Operator Training, Pallet Racking, Industrial Batteries, Temporary Labour and Third Party Logistics). Voting will take place online at the awards website (www.

CargoLogisticsCanadaAwards.com) and is open to anyone in the Logistics & Distribution community.

In addition to the nomination and “Best of The Best” awards, the event’s presenting partner, the Canadian Material Handling & Distribution Society, will be recognizing their Member of Year as voted by the CMHDS Board of Directors.

The Awards of Excellence ceremony will kick off the Second Annual Cargo Logistics Canada Expo and Conference.

CLC is the largest gathering of supply chain professionals in Canada. What sets this event apart is the multimodal scope – it is designed to act as a hub for the people, products, services, and technologies that will help beneficial cargo owners

optimize their air, sea, rail, and road cargo logistics, for any cargo type. We invite you to join us again in Vancouver this January for two days of unparalleled networking and engaging industry-relevant seminars. There is something for everyone at Cargo Logistics Canada -- the entire supply chain under one roof.

Cargo Logistics Canada is a part of Informa’s global portfolio of cargo, shipping, and transportation events and publications. Informa is a global organization with 150 offices in 40 countries. The exhibition business has the unique claim to fame of having operated shows since 1880. Its bloodline dates back to 1734, when the first issue of the maritime publication, Lloyd’s List, was produced. Today, Lloyd’s List is the world’s oldest newspaper and an important resource for the global shipping community.

Cast your vote today to recognize and celebrate B.C.’s best and brightest in Logistics & Distribution.

Visit: www.CargoLogisticsCanadaAwards.com to vote/make a nomination.

Visit: www.cargologisticscanada.com to find out more about the conference.

December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 39

LEGAL AFFAIRS

Potential problems with vessel ownership

By Catherine A. Hofmann

A Vancouver Lawyer with Bernard LLP

F

or anyone who owns a boat, either commercially or purely for pleasure, you might think that the purpose of this article is to detail the ongoing maintenance and costly repairs which are part and parcel of vessel ownership.

Those problems are however, well known to all and certainly do not require indepth analysis by any legal scholar, let alone by me. Instead, I propose to discuss the nature of vessel registration with the Transport Canada Ship Registry, the transfer of legal and beneficial ownership of a vessel and what laws may govern such transfer.

By way of background, there are several different ways in which one can acquire an ownership interest in a vessel, including construction, purchase and sale, bankruptcy or judicial sale. For these purposes, I will focus on the acquisition of a vessel through a typical purchase and sale.

The Canada Shipping Act, 2001 sets out the statutory requirements for the ownership and registration of ships in Canada and the applicable regime depends, in part, on the nature of the vessel in question. In particular, section 46 of the Act, requires that all vessels which are not pleasure craft, in excess of 15 gross tons, owned by a “qualified person” and not registered in a foreign state, must be registered with the Ship Registry. A qualified person means a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident within the meaning of subsection 2(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (Canada) or a corporation incorporated under the laws of Canada or a province.

Commercial vessels under 15 tons must be registered in the Small Vessel Registry.

There are slight differences between the two registries, most notable is the fact that a mortgage may not be registered in

The Canada Shipping Act, 2001 sets out the statutory requirements for the ownership and registration of ships in Canada and the applicable regime depends, in part, on the nature of the vessel in question. the Small Vessel Registry. Pleasure craft of any size are no longer required to be registered but are subject to a licensing regime administered by Service Canada.

Owners of pleasure craft may, however, choose to register their vessels provided that they are qualified to do so. Vessels may be owned jointly and only owners or joint owners of a vessel or of one more (of the 64) shares in a vessel may be registered in the Ship Registry as owners of the vessel or shares, as the case may be.

The Act also requires the appointment of an authorized representative for every Canadian registered vessel who is to be responsible for acting with respect to all matters relating to the vessel, but no longer has an express definition of “owner” in the Act. The appointment of the authorized representative is most significant where the vessel is owned either by more than one person or by a corporation. In the latter case, the authorized representative must be a subsidiary of the corporate owner; an employee or a director in Canada of a branch office of the corporate owner that is carrying on business in Canada; or a ship management company incorporated under the laws of Canada or a province. Despite the language of the Act, the Ship Registry has adopted a general policy by which the appointment of an authorized representative is unnecessary where the vessel is owned by a single Canadian company.

The question then becomes what is the significance of vessel registration as

40 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

it relates to the ownership of the vessel.

According to material published on the Transport Canada website: “Registration is a title system for ownership of vessels.

It is similar in nature to title systems used for land registry. Registration allows for name approval, mortgage registration and proof of ownership except in the case of a vessel registered in the Small Vessel Register.”

This statement, however, overreaches.

By way of example, under section 23(2) the Land Title Act (British Columbia), subject to certain exceptions, a certificate of indefeasible title issued by the registrar is conclusive evidence at law and in equity, as against the Crown and all other persons, that the person named in the title as registered owner is indefeasibly entitled to an estate in fee simple to the land described in the indefeasible title. There is no similar provision in the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 and ship registration is merely indicative of legal ownership of the vessel.

Some of the older cases have considered the issue of establishing ownership and determined that registration alone was not conclusive evidence of ownership. In Robillard v. St. Roch (The), the Exchequer Court of Canada held that where a question of ownership is raised, the entry in the register of shipping is not determinative and that the court may inquire into the validity of the bills of sale and into all other circumstances affecting the right of property in the ship.

LEGAL AFFAIRS The significance of this principle was underscored in the former Canada Shipping Act by virtue of the fact that it drew a distinction between a registered owner and a beneficial owner of a vessel depending on the circumstances. Under the old Act, the term “owner” was generally delineated as it applied to unregistered ships as the actual owner and as it applied to registered ships as the registered owner. However, certain provisions broadened the scope of the Act’s application to include the beneficial ownership of a vessel. Those sections of the Act dealing with civil liability and compensation for pollution utilized the following definition: “owner” of a ship means (a) in relation to a Convention ship, the person registered as the owner of the ship or, where no person is so registered, (i) the person owning the ship, or (ii) where the ship is owned by a state and operated by a company that is registered as the ship’s operator in that state, the company, or (b) in relation to any other ship, the person having for the time being, either by law or by contract, the rights of the owner of the ship with respect to the possession and use of the ship.

Notwithstanding that the courts do not view registration as conclusive evidence of ownership, much turns on who is the registered owner of a vessel. Indeed the Federal Court of Canada stated in the Ryan Leet decision that “in the case of registered ships, when no qualification is stated [in the relevant legislation] “owner” means the registered owner only.” As a result, the registered owner of a vessel may face liability under other statutes which rely on the concept of a vessel owner regardless of whether or not they are the true or actual owner of a particular vessel.

This potential for liability becomes of greater concern to the extent that Transport Canada is reducing some of the formalities of registration (for example, the witnessing of documents) as it continues to grapple with the administrative nightmare that has become the nowcentralized Ship Registry. In other words, since vessel registration may give rise to potential liability, it is imperative that the process by which one becomes a registered owner or is removed from the registry should be stringent.

Section 19 of the Navigation Protection Act (Canada), for example, imposes liability upon a registered owner. Under that section, if a vessel has been left anchored,

moored or adrift in any navigable water — other than in any minor water —so that, in the Minister’s opinion, it obstructs or is likely to obstruct navigation, the Minister may order the registered owner or other owner (as in the case of an unregistered vessel), managing owner, master, person in charge of the vessel or subsequent purchaser to secure it or remove it to a place that the Minister considers appropriate. Failure to respond to such order may result in the imposition of the costs of securing or removing the vessel by the Crown against the owner.

A sample fact pattern may serve to illustrate the problem. The seller of a registered vessel executes a Transport Canada Bill of Sale and upon receipt of the closing funds provides the originally signed document to the purchaser for further handling with Transport Canada. The seller deposits the sale proceeds and happily goes about his business until he receives a call some time later from the Fisheries and Oceans Canada or the Coast Guard indicating that he is responsible for the now abandoned and sinking vessel. Apparently, the new owner failed to complete the transfer by filing the Bill of Sale with and paying the transfer fees to the Ship Registry. Sadly, the actual and beneficial owner of the vessel in whose care and control the vessel should be is nowhere to be found.

While the Ship Registry, if requested, will suspend the registration in such a circumstance, it must be first presented with a copy of the Bill of Sale (Form 6) in regard to the Vessel. The suspension will not, however, be retroactive and consequently, whatever liabilities may have arisen prior to the suspension are likely to remain with the then registered owner. It should be noted that in cases such as this, the Registry will not accept some other contract or bill of sale in place of the prescribed form. In so doing, the Registry is in effect asserting jurisdiction over the sale of a registered vessel pursuant to the Canada Shipping Act, 2001.

Thus, although the transfer of the beneficial ownership and likely legal title of the vessel occurred at the time of transfer of funds and delivery of the vessel pursuant to the terms of a contract of sale, because the change of registration was not made, the previous owner remains statutorily liable under the Act or under the Navigation Protection Act. Also of concern in this context is whether or not

the relevant provincial Sale of Goods Act is applicable to the transaction. Since vessels are considered chattels, the purchase and sale of a vessel should be governed by the relevant federal and provincial law over such transactions. Typically therefore, we would look to both the terms of the contract of purchase and sale and the relevant legislation to determine whether or not legal title to the goods has passed.

The decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Ordon Estate v. Graiz in 1998 set out a four-part test for determining the applicability of provincial statutes to maritime matters. This case was seen as the high-water mark for the expansion of the role of the federal jurisdiction of Canadian maritime law, and the decision served to limit the application of provincial legislation to maritime affairs. The Court noted that the need for uniformity in maritime law principles was a fundamental value that lay at the heart of the federal government’s jurisdiction over navigation and shipping.

Since that decision, however, several cases have likely eroded the breadth of application of the principles set out in Ordon. A recent case of the Federal Court determined that the applicable law governing the purchase and sale of a vessel could be Canadian maritime law or the law of the Province of Quebec where the sale took place depending on the facts of the particular matter. The court decided that the Civil Code of Quebec should govern since there was no close connection between the transfer of ownership of a vessel and maritime law. It is doubtful that this premise can be generalized since there is no question that there are several provisions in the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 which legislate the transfer of ownership in registered vessels.

Therefore, both provincial and federal legislation should always be considered in the context of the purchase and sale of a vessel and the contractual terms governing the transfer of ownership, risk and liability for the vessel should be clear between the parties. Finally, in order to avoid potential liabilities under the Act or other statutes it will be critical to ensure that all steps regarding the transfer of ownership of, legal title to and where applicable registration of the vessel are completed in each case.

Catherine A. Hofmann is a lawyer with Bernard LLP and can be reached at Hofmann@bernardllp.ca.

December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 41

HISTORIC SHIPS

Historic ships offer a glimpse of the past

By Captain Stephen Brown President, Chamber of Shipping of British Columbia

T

The...great feature of Baltic Sea ports is that they are home to arguably the world’s greatest collection of preserved historic ships which, for closet maritime history buffs...the attractions are endless. measure should have been razor blades many years ago. Happily, that is not that case. A great example is the Norrskar.

Built in Gothenburg in 1910, she can still chug along at 10 knots serving some of the many islands that make up the four-hour picturesque transit from sea into impressive Stockholm where cruise passengers can take in the attractions of Scandinavia’s most populated city.

But perhaps the greatest treasure in Stockholm — and arguably the entire Baltic — is the Vasa which sank on her maiden voyage in 1628 in the middle of Stockholm harbour after sailing only a little over one mile. After 333 years submerged, the wreck was raised in 1961 and has been fully restored and preserved in the four-level, purpose-built, climatecontrolled Vasa Museum which opened in 1990.

From even a casual examination of the Vasa, the reason for her embarrassingly short career is pretty evident. Her design

Source: Wikipedia

he choice of destination for an annual vacation is always an interesting exercise but as the cruise industry offers ever more attractive itineraries, the opportunity former seafarers to re-visit some of our favorite haunts of old is too much to resist. One such example for my wife and I came about in August this year when we decided to jump on the fabulous Celebrity Eclipse in Southampton and take one of the increasingly popular cruises into the Baltic Sea. I suspect for most former deep-sea seafarers, the Baltic holds a few memories — traffic density, navigational demands, extremes of weather not least ice, but most of all some truly interesting and picturesque ports. The other great feature of Baltic Sea ports is that they are home to arguably the world’s greatest collection of preserved historic ships which, for closet maritime history buffs, of which I confess to being one, the attractions are endless. Restrictions of space do not allow me to describe all that we were fortunate enough to see but I would like to mention a few of the more notable.

The Baltic is home to a formidable network of ferry services, many operated by vessels that by any reasonable

The Norrskar, over 100 years old and still in active service.

42 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

was top heavy and it is safe to assume that the naval architects of the day were less than popular with the ship’s patron King Gustav II Adolf (1594-1632).

Moving on, the port of St. Petersburg, Russia, is home to the naval cruiser Aurora, launched in 1900 and commissioned in 1903. She went on to serve in the Russo-Japanese war, surviving the Battle of Tsushima before going on to serve again in the First World War. In the Second World War, she was stripped of her guns which were used in the defence of Leningrad (now reverted to its original name St. Petersburg), however she is perhaps best known as having fired a blank shot from her forecastle gun at 9.45 pm on 25 October, 1917, signalling the start of the assault on the Winter Palace and the beginning of the October Revolution and bloody end of the Russian Monarchy.

The laid up Aurora was damaged and eventually sank in 1941 but was raised and restored from 1945-47 before being permanently moored in St Petersburg as a monument to the Bolshevik Revolution.

A further phase of restoration was carried out from 1984-87.

As a museum ship, this magnificently preserved vessel is amongst many historic attractions related to the history of the Czars in Saint Petersburg. As the oldest commissioned ship of the Russian Navy, still flying the ensign under which she was commissioned but now under the care of the Central Naval Museum, she is still

HISTORIC SHIPS The laid up Aurora was damaged and eventually sank in 1941 but was raised and restored from 1945-47 before being permanently moored in St Petersburg as a

Source: The Vasa Museum

monument to the Bolshevik Revolution.

Photo credit: Joy Brown

The Vasa, built in 1628, sank on her maiden voyage.

Photo credit: Stephen Brown

Captain Brown stands in front of the Aurora, the Russian naval cruiser famous for signalling the beginning of the October Revolution.

manned by an active service crew commanded by a Captain. In January 2013, the Russian Defence Minister announced plans to re-commission Aurora and make her the flagship of the Russian Navy on account of her historical and cultural importance.

Copenhagen is home to the Danish Royal Yacht Dannenbrog built between 1931 and 1932 at the port’s naval dockyard. Her construction is riveted and her design is truly elegant with a traditional clipper bow and an elliptical stern. Following a major overhaul in 1980-81 including replacement of her engines, she remains in perfect condition and we learned that the Royal family spends time onboard every summer sailing the Baltic and even as far afield as the Mediterranean and the Caribbean.

Manned by the Royal Danish Navy, Dannenbrog is also designed to act as a hospital ship should that ever be required.

Of interest, she was moored in the Port of London during the 2012 Olympics and was the location for a royal reception hosted

by Queen Margrethe for the Danish Olympic team.

Another interesting ship in Copenhagen is the Royal Danish Navy’s flag ship during the Cold War, the frigate Peder Skram.

Built in 1965, she underwent extensive restoration following 25 years of service and now serves as a museum ship. For the engineer historians, she was reputedly the first large warship in the world to be fitted with both diesel engines and gas turbines.

Having a couple of days to burn following our cruise, a visit to Her Majesty’s Dockyard at Portsmouth seemed a good way to round out a vacation. Launched in 1805 and having served as Admiral Lord Nelson’s flagship at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 when the combined might of the Spanish and French fleets was defeated, she remains an icon of British naval history. I first visited her 50 years ago as a sea cadet and will never forget the lasting impression of the surgeon’s tool kit.

Also in Portsmouth and now in a permanent museum is the Mary Rose, a 1510-built relic of King Henry VIII’s navy. She sank in 1545 and lay hidden until 1971 before being raised in 1982.

The surviving section of the ship and thousands of recovered artifacts are considered by historians to be of immeasurable value as a Tudor-era time capsule.

HMS Warrior, built in 1860 for the Royal Navy, has been fully restored.

December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 43

Source: Wikipedia

HISTORIC SHIPS

Source: Wikipedia

The Danish Royal Yacht Dannenbrog, still used for royal summer holidays.

The Royal Danish Navy’s flag ship during the Cold War, the frigate Peder Skram.

However, for me the most interesting preserved vessel in Portsmouth is HMS Warrior. She was commissioned in 1860 for the Royal Navy as an iron clad but with both coal-fired steam propulsion and conventional sail thereby clearly indicating that the Admiralty at the time was unclear which direction to go so they opted for both. After years of neglect, she underwent full restoration from 1979-87 and is now part of the country’s National Historic Fleet as a treasure of maritime history.

Closer to home, the St.Roch, a former RCMP schooner, the first ship to circumnavigate North America and complete the Northwest Passage in the direction west to east, is the centre-piece of the Vancouver Maritime Museum (VMM). The museum is in the process of a major upgrade to the visitor experience in appreciating the significance of the St. Roch but the dream to develop a major maritime museum on the west coast to rival the success of the excellent Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax should not be discarded. Indeed, to overcome the detachment that many residents of B.C. feel from our industry, the need has arguably never been greater.

Wherever they are in the world, preserved ships and maritime museums are not simply institutions for former mariners and casually interested observers to while away the hours. They are truly a part of our collective history and provide even the remotely curious with an insight into the ingenuity, design and deprivation suffered in man’s attempts to explore and better understand the world in which we live, 71 per cent of which is estimated to be covered by water. The full house for a recent talk by Marc-Andre Bernier, chief of the underwater archaeology team for Parks Canada that found HMS Erebus of the Franklin Expedition, (hosted by the VMM and the HR MacMillan Space Centre) was excellent and Captain John Horton’s work in educating all of us in the accomplishments of Captain George Vancouver and his crews is priceless. In any event, back to the internet to look for another interesting vacation for 2015.

Stephen Brown joined the Chamber of Shipping of British Columbia in September 2008. He currently sits on several committees and boards representing the interests of the B.C. shipping community. He can be reached at stephen@cosbc.ca. For more information on the Chamber, please visit: www.cosbc.ca

44 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

MERCY SHIPS

Maritime engineer helps keep the world’s largest charity hospital ship running

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wner of GECO Marine Ltd., instructor at British Columbia Institute of Technology and the Justice Institute of British Columbia, and now long-term volunteer with Mercy Ships, George Coman is one Marine Engineer who not only has a great passion for what he does, but also uses his skills to do good.

Coman and his wife Meagan, a nurse, followed their dream of volunteering as a family and left their Vancouver home behind, taking children Andrew (8) and Isabella (4), to Africa and onboard the world’s largest non-governmental hospital ship, Africa Mercy. “I expect to gain valuable experience in my field of work while actively being involved in relief work.

Although I have done both throughout my career, I have never had the chance to perform both at the same time,” said Coman.

On July 28, 2014, the Comans boarded their new home where they will live and work for more than a year alongside 450 international crew members, all who donate their time and skills to deliver free healthcare to the world’s poor. “Last year, the business I was running took a few unexpected turns and, after discussing it with my wife and children, I came to the conclusion that it is now, when I am young and able, that I should be giving back. My skills and my wife’s skills are valuable to the people served by the Mercy Ships and now is the right time to make them available,” said Coman.

The Comans will truly be making a difference in the lives of thousands of individuals throughout their service. “I have wanted to be a part of Mercy Ships ever since I first heard of the organization, over a decade ago” says Coman, “My most extensive volunteer involvement was during the Vancouver Olympic Games. I was assigned with the head of the Romanian Olympic delegation one year before, during and a month after the games. Volunteering is a fulfilling experience, providing me with the satisfaction of being able to give back.”

It was originally planned for the Coman family to volunteer in Cotonou, Benin for 10 months of their service but due to the recent Ebola outbreak in West

George Coman — with wife Meagan, and children Andrew and Isabella — is on the adventure of a lifetime on board the Africa Mercy.

Africa, the Mercy Ships international leadership team had to postpone the ship’s visit to the country and instead sailed to South-east Africa. As the Africa Mercy is a specialized surgical ship with multi-bed wards and limited isolation facilities and a crew that includes families with small children, the Mercy Ship is not designed to quarantine Ebola patients.

Mercy Ships received and accepted an invitation to deploy the 16,500-ton Africa Mercy to the island nation of Madagascar.

The ship set sail on September 14 for

Cape Town, South Africa to refuel and connect with supporters. They then set sail to Tamatave, Madagascar, arriving at the end of October.

As this was a lengthy sail, Coman had his work cut out for him. “The work environment aboard a hospital ship definitely requires a higher level of professionalism from an engineering officer than any similar position a non-hospital vessel requires” said Coman.

During a field service, the hospital takes centre stage but when the crew is at sea,

December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 45

MERCY SHIPS

George went from Fourth Engineer to Hotel Engineer within weeks of arriving on board the Africa Mercy. He notes is biggest challenge is to ensure the uninterrupted supply of basic services, such as power, air conditioning and ventilation as well as running water. the engines are the heart and soul of the ship. Coman, fellow engineers, deck crew and officers propelled the ship to her destination, which required much strength and renewal to keep the Africa Mercy moving forward and on schedule.

US naval vessels

CCGS John P Tully

MV Northern Adventure

What do these vessels have in common?

They are all protected by Always On uninterruptible power supplies. alwayson.com 1 877 259 2976 46 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

Coman initially started onboard in the role of Fourth Engineer. In this role, he was in full charge of monitoring all mechanical systems and daily maintenance on the main and auxiliary engines. He was also responsible for the fuel oil purifier pumps and air compressors.

Within weeks, George proved himself a highly capable professional and he was promoted to the role of Hotel Engineer. The Hotel Engineer oversees, directs and is a working member of the team that provides service and support to all heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVACR) and plumbing systems within the crew accommodation and hospital areas of the ship. Hospital services include oxygen concentrator, medical air, AGSS and vacuum systems.

“George is a great asset to the team. He has a lot of knowledge and has already contributed a fresh, new perspective to the Engineering Department,” said Chief Engineer Ananda Samaraweera. “We really look forward to seeing what is in store for George throughout his service with Mercy Ships. We know it will be very positive — just like George is himself!”

With the 2014-2015 field service underway in Madagascar, the hospital is in full swing, meaning Coman’s duties will differ from those during drydock and throughout the sail to Tamatave.

Patients are filling beds, surgeries are being performed and the medical staff needs access to clean water and power. “Africa Mercy is a one-of-a-kind vessel and very different than any other vessel out there. The uninterrupted supply of basic services, such as power, air conditioning and ventilation and running water is definitely the biggest challenge the engine department is facing as those services cannot be interrupted in a hospital,” Coman pointed out.

Coman and his family are joining Africa Mercy on a new adventure as this will be the vessel’s first visit to Madagascar. Her predecessor, the Anastasis visited the country in 1996. Coman’s voyage is sure to be full of inspiring professional and personal experiences for him as the field service unfolds and hope and healing is delivered to those in need, one by one.

For more information, visit www.mercyships.ca.

TECHNOLOGY

Considerations for Marine UPS Integration

By Alvin Alfano AScT RTMgr

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afety is always paramount within the self-sustaining environment required of any sea-going vessel.

Integrating battery back-up power in the various electrical and control systems of a ship’s electrical system is crucial for the high degree of reliability necessary to maintain critical ship functions and essential services, and to prevent hazardous situations from occurring during an emergency.

The ungrounded electrical distribution systems and environments of ships differ significantly in their makeup and operation as compared to grounded shorebased systems. This difference can have the greatest impact on the safety of the vessel and is a very important consideration for any marine integration trying to directly utilize shore-based equipment. All factors within an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) design must be examined and addressed in order to properly configure such a complex system for any of the numerous shipboard applications.

Marine UPS solutions must always consider more aspects of the design, in greater detail, than land-based systems which typically concentrate or put emphasis primarily on only one or two key elements with the remainder becoming less stringent. However, any continuous-duty industrial UPS application — whether marine or land-based — must start with the highest degree of quality and the most reliable dual-conversion technology This should never be compromised.

Each industry application has its differences. For example, while providing a new solution for an airliner factory in the world’s largest building in Everett WA, they required UPS systems that continuously cycled the batteries when used on the moving assembly line’s eight crawlers

All factors within an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) design must be examined and addressed in order to properly configure such a complex system for any of the numerous shipboard applications. that pulled plane bodies along the floor at a rate of 1.8 inches per minute through an entire shift. UPS dependability and battery performance were key to keeping the production lines moving and making the project a success.

With Department of Defence applications that put high-powered UPS systems in sea containers to be deployed overseas with a mobile hospital via a transport plane, size and weight become the major design criteria along with comprehensive documentation and military personnel training.

Oil patch refineries, pipeline and control equipment require high electrical performance to keep their processes running smoothly, prevent shutdowns and lost revenue, as well as keep critical safety systems operative during an emergency.

In the mining industry and on mobile offshore drilling platforms, the type of environment that the UPS equipment is to be installed within, dictates the primary importance of providing the proper degree of ingress protection to ensure continuous and safe operation of the system components in the harshest conditions.

Public utility and transportation infrastructure applications require easy maintainability and continued operation of the UPS system through a natural disaster, such as an earthquake.

UPS’s — or inverters, as they are called when used for emergency lighting in buildings — require adherence to very strict regulations and codes during

manufacturing, testing and integration into other building emergency equipment to ensure compliance for life safety systems.

However, even within the same industry, whether it is shore-based or marine, the same important key design requirements need to be addressed differently for each unique application.

In marine UPS applications, every part of the system design becomes a key element which requires close scrutiny.

Whether it is located in machine or auxiliary equipment spaces, or even in a control space, the UPS equipment onboard is required to always function flawlessly with the highest level of performance in a very wide range of unfavourable operating conditions. This includes harsh sea air environments, poor electrical feeds, high vibration, pitch and roll, and even in the presence of high interference radio signals. Installation space and weight always has to be minimized, yet high-power ratings and battery capacity still have to meet required backup and recharge times.

Regulatory rules for the class of the ship dictate certifications, performance and system configuration, with several levels of testing and documentation requirements to ensure accepted conformance to the most stringent marine standards, in addition to the existing land-based safety approvals.

Furthermore some users of marine UPS systems also require special configurations to meet their specific needs, such as navy

December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 47

TECHNOLOGY Relying on expertise and extensive experience with all manner of design from many successful marine UPS projects...removes many of the uncertainties that might otherwise exist when it comes to new builds or refits. combat vessels. The robust redundant UPS systems typical for mission equipment rely on the complexity of portside and starboard distributed power protection concepts, along with integrated input automatic transfer switches and comprehensive communication signalling. The navy can also use a specially designed Red Power UPS system to prevent data from migrating out of a designated secure area through the power system, to produce a safe environment to process or communicate unencrypted classified defence information.

UPS system design for single phase or three-phase electrical distribution, capable of any input and output voltage or frequency combination, and which contain enough battery backup time should there be a problem during the transition to the emergency generator, are called upon regularly by the coast

guard as well as the navy. The single phase UPS system consists of two small matching floor-mounted cabinets to minimize space. One cabinet contains the main power and control modules with batteries, while the other contains additional batteries, an external maintenance bypass switch and power interface. The higher rated three-phase input UPS is capable of an isolated delta or single phase output depending on the application’s equipment requirements. Other smaller systems are typically dedicated to protect individual critical loads such as communication or electronics circuits that are connected to the ship service switchboard.

Relying on expertise and extensive experience with all manner of design from many successful marine UPS projects for navy, coast guard, ferries, cargo and bulk oil vessels, removes many of

48 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

the uncertainties that might otherwise exist when it comes to new builds or refits. The Always On “L.I.F.E. Line” Series of marine UPS systems, are preconfigured total solution packages that are based on the most popular system designs used on today’s modern ships in the most demanding environments.

All accessories are included as standard and configured to complete the project according to vessel classification requirements. Each system is fully compliant with Lloyds and DNV, and has ABS approval. But more importantly, they meet all the established safety and performance requirements for the systems onboard all types of vessels.

Alvin Alfano is the Director of Engineering for Always On UPS Systems Canada located in Kelowna BC. He is involved in Research and Development of power quality and uninterruptible power supply systems. His custom designs provide solutions to unique applications for many major companies throughout North America. Alvin can be reached at aalfano@alwayson.com. For more information, please visit www.alwayson.com.

MARITIME SECURITY

Building the fleets of tomorrow

By Michelle White, Research Assistant, Maritime Forces Pacific, International Engagement Section

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he announcement of the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS) in 2010 sparked a national dialogue about the future of Canada’s role in the maritime domain. Since then, the global seascape has continued to evolve as a complex and multi-faceted arena, and the need for Canadians to become more involved in the conversation is arguably more important than ever.

In October, the Maritime Security Challenges 2014 (MSC14) conference took place in Victoria, B.C. and provided a catalyst for reinvigorating the conversation amongst 190 delegates who represented the industrial, naval and commercial communities from 22 nations. The longstanding biennial conference series has become the leading Canadian forum to discuss, debate, and progress maritime security issues, in both the national and international context.

With the theme for this year’s conference, Pacific Seapower, rooted in the phenomenal economic growth that Asia is experiencing, due in large part to its sea-based trade, shipping networks, and shipbuilding industry, the conference sparked the type of dialogue needed in order for Canada, a maritime nation with considerable interests in the Asia-Pacific, to move forward.

The shipbuilding industry is a crucial component of seapower in maintaining the growth, intensification, and safety of shipping networks. In a world where 90 per cent of everything travels by sea, global sea lanes are the backbone of a maritime super highway in which raw materials travel from one country to be manufactured into component parts in a second country and assembled in a third before arriving in consumer markets. To support such a system from a commercial standpoint, shipbuilding has moved towards producing more vessels of a larger size. The trend for Asian shipyards has been to focus on one or two ship designs with long production runs. The injection of investment in this sector has fed and facilitated economic growth in Asia, especially around the maritime industry. The growth of commercial shipbuilding has in turn led to a growth in naval shipbuilding in the region, partly because Asian countries can now afford the investment and because a larger naval presence is needed

While the approach of shipbuilders in Asia has yielded success in both the commercial and naval domain, procurement of naval assets in Canada poses a different set of requirements and challenges that must be addressed. to protect both individual ships and their shipping lines. While the approach of shipbuilders in Asia has yielded success in both the commercial and naval domain, procurement of naval assets in Canada poses a different set of requirements and challenges that must be addressed.

The MSC 14 panel, Building the Fleets of Tomorrow, discussed some of the challenges and opportunities surrounding naval shipbuilding in Canada, including: the procurement process; considerations involved in choosing between indigenous construction and foreign procurement; and the lessons that can be learned from the experiences of other countries and the commercial sector.

The panel began with an overview of NSPS as a means of framing the discussion within a familiar context. The NSPS, which awarded two shipyards with contracts to build all government vessels over the next 30 years, has a procurement process where the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) or Canadian Coast Guard must state what they require a ship to do, put forward a statement of requirement, have both of these approved by government, write up the specifications, and only then may they initiate the shipbuilding process. Projects under the NSPS have a fixed budget, established in 2006, which must be adhered to throughout the procurement process. However, this means that

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MARITIME SECURITY

Dr. Jim Boutilier, Special Advisor for International Engagement at Maritime Forces Pacific (MARPAC) Headquarters, introduces MSC 14’s panel on Building the Fleets of Tomorrow (left to right): moderator Commodore Kelly Williams (RCN, Ret’d), Senior Director Strategy and Government Relations for General Dynamics Canada; Vice-Admiral Peter Cairns (RCN, Ret’d), President of the Shipbuilding Association of Canada; Rear Admiral Rowan Moffitt (RCN, Ret’d), partner at Ernst & Young; and Mr. Harry Kim, Director of Performance Improvement at Seaspan Vancouver Shipyards. along the way there are often unexpected or hidden costs, delays, and changes to the original request that add to the cost without a means of adjusting the budget. As such, projects come under increasing risk of not being approved or being downsized. Some have claimed that this rigidity needs to be eased to include a certain amount of flexibility within procurement budgets because failed projects ultimately result in lost resources for the government in the form of sunk costs and opportunity costs. MSC 14 panelists discussed some best practices utilized by Australia as an example of how flexibility can be applied to the procurement process. Using more accurate cost estimates, not simply those of the lowest bid, was identified as a way to keep within the projected budget as well as allowing for junctures within the procurement process where changes could be made to the budget as required.

Delegates also discussed the challenges regarding changes made to vessel requirements throughout the procurement process. The importance of clearly defining the types of operations that naval vessels will be carrying out in the future and procuring vessels that meet these needs can be challenging when navies must do more with less. The struggle becomes whether generalist vessels, able to conduct a range of operations, or specialized vessels for niche operations should be acquired. In the Canadian context, debates over the design for Arctic /Offshore Patrol Ships and the Joint Support Ship were highlighted as such examples.

Some delegates at MSC 14 argued that many amendments to the initial procurement request, such as adding the latest technology, are not necessary for the vessels’ intended operational requirements and unnecessarily drive up procurement costs.

Another side to procurement challenges lies in the rising costs of vessels and decreasing personnel and resources which constrain what navies are capable of doing. As seen in the Canadian context, investing in new technologies has been one strategy for overcoming operational restrictions. In focusing on technology, some MSC 14 delegates argued that personnel considerations were being unfairly overlooked. Technology is not a guaranteed panacea for navies that must ‘do more with less’ and it was argued that this thinking can cause additional challenges.

Increased technology poses new challenges for crews, such as new forms of maintenance or unexpected interactions with other technology, which can undercut the supposed value-add of technology. Additionally, shifting to a more technical solution can 50 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

sometimes lead people to forget about the needs of the crew. The value of an experienced crew cannot be overstated and should not be overshadowed by the spectre of technology.

The shipbuilding conversation at MSC 14 also covered the benefits and challenges of both indigenous construction and foreign procurement within the naval context. It was noted that foreign production in the commercial sector has been impressive, but that the figures and processes do not directly translate to naval construction, as naval shipbuilding poses a different set of requirements. As such, commercial shipbuilders may have difficulties producing high-quality naval vessels, to the detriment of their buyers. Furthermore, the economic benefits of pursuing an indigenous shipbuilding strategy were discussed. In the case of Australia, the domestic Anzac-class frigate project, which began in the early 1990s, reportedly increased the country’s GDP by at least $3 billion over 15 years, created 7,850 full-time jobs, and involved approximately 1,300 companies from Australia and New Zealand, 90 per cent of which were small- and medium-sized businesses.

However, the panel acknowledged the difficulties posed in domestic shipbuilding, discussing Australia’s past experiences of reinvigorating its own shipbuilding program. There are large start-up costs and a host of challenges inherent in developing and sustaining indigenous construction. One of the goals of the NSPS in Canada is to end the boom-bust cycle of shipbuilding because, if unchecked, a series of economic ‘bear years’ could stunt domestic shipbuilding before it is able to establish itself.

While a certain level of naval procurement would provide a baseline of revenue, local shipbuilders would still face the challenge of attracting commercial or industry investment to sustain their business. Despite these constraints, some MSC delegates argued that indigenous construction would be more cost effective in the long run for both initial production and maintenance. However, in order to secure future government contracts, industry will need to provide upfront investment in infrastructure in order to show government their commitment to revitalizing the indigenous shipbuilding industry.

As was made apparent through the lively debate at MSC 14, there are no straightforward answers on how to best build the fleets of tomorrow. The shipbuilding panel facilitated an open and frank discussion of the various challenges faced in the naval procurement process within Canada and some of the opportunities on the horizon. Some delegates suggested that a combination of foreign components and indigenous construction could be a potential solution for a national shipbuilding strategy.

While there is a need for further discussion, it is clear that there is great value in challenging assumptions around what shipbuilding and maritime security should look like both at home and abroad. As a nation within the Pacific, the question of how Canada can position itself as a maritime nation is one that needs to be at the forefront of national debate.

MSC 14 is one avenue where this national debate can take place and provides an opportunity to exchange lessons learned both nationally and internationally. The candid nature of the shipbuilding panel offered a unique takeaway for conference delegates who expressed a desire for the next iteration of the MSC series, planned for 2016, to follow up with a similar panel, showing commitment to the conference and this particular maritime challenge. How we go about building the fleets of tomorrow will shape how Canada’s navy is able to maintain good order at sea for all Canadians, both at home and abroad.

MARINE ENGINEERING Babcock Canada delivers on key Navy/Coast Guard projects...and much more

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ith over 250 employees across the country in Ottawa (Ontario), Victoria (B.C.), Halifax (Nova Scotia) and Lévis, (Quebec), Babcock Canada Inc. has been supporting the Royal Canadian Navy’s submarine fleet since 2008, when it was originally awarded the Victoria In-Service Support Contract (VISSC).

With options to be extended for a total of 15 years, VISSC is valued in excess of $1.5 billion. Babcock Canada is a critical support services provider whose parent company, Babcock International Group, manages vital assets valued over $62 billion and employs over 27,000 skilled staff.

Babcock designs, builds, manages, operates and maintains assets that are vital to the delivery of many key public services across the U.K., North America, Africa, and Australia. Babcock Canada has been nearing completion of the Extended Docking Work Period (EDWP) of HMCS Chicoutimi, its major activity on the West Coast of Canada over the past couple of years.

Early this fall, HMCS Chicoutimi safely sailed from the Esquimalt Graving Dock and made its way to sea under its own power for the first time in 10 years.

HMCS Chicoutimi’s next step will be to undergo extensive sea trials, during which the crew will test the submarine’s systems and equipment to ensure that they are performing to their designed specifications. Babcock Canada played a key role in the co-ordination of the trials and continues to be involved throughout their execution. The completion of the EDWP will be a significant milestone for all those

...the current Defence Renewal initiative provides a unique opportunity for the RCN to refocus itself on its core operational missions, while at the same time revitalizing its approach to personnel training and skills development. involved, especially the Royal Canadian Navy, as it is the first to be conducted by the Navy’s industry partners.

HMCS Chicoutimi is expected to return to the fleet later this year, joining HMCS Victoria and HMCS Windsor, at which time it will bring Canada’s number of operational submarines up to three.

Canada’s fourth submarine, HMCS Corner Brook, is scheduled to be the next vessel to enter into its own EDWP. VISSC represents a significant development in the way the Royal Canadian Navy supports major warship classes by providing a long-term commitment and embedding multi-vessel refits, called Extended Docking Work Periods (EDWPs), into the contract. VISSC provides the primary interface between the Design Authority and Canadian Industry, seamlessly integrating program management, engineering services, Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and FSR (Field Service Representative) engineering services to provide comprehensive repair and overhaul of the submarines. This is known as relational-based contracting, where the customer (the Government of Canada) and the contractor (Babcock) enter into a more “relational” based contract as partners.

Babcock Canada looks to further expand its existing relationship with the

Royal Canadian Navy from the current support of the RCN submarine fleet to the future In-Service Support (ISS) of the RCN surface fleet. Under the VISSC program, Babcock Canada has established a strong domestic ISS capability and capacity to deliver support on both the East and West Coasts. These domestic capabilities and skills will be further augmented by bringing best practices gained from Babcock International’s support to several navies’ submarine and surface fleets. These will be tailored to the specific Canadian requirements to benefit future RCN in-service support programs, including the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships/ Joint Support Ships (AOPS/ JSS) In-Service Support program, and ultimately to the support of the future Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC).

Babcock Canada believes that the current Defence Renewal initiative provides a unique opportunity for the RCN to refocus itself on its core operational missions, while at the same time revitalizing its approach to personnel training and skills development. New approaches to the provision of in-service support can play a key part in making that possible.

The adoption of performance-based ISS metrics can incentivize industry to increase platform availability and optimize fleet support costs over time.

Photo courtesy Babcock Canada

HCMS Chicoutimi sailing under her own power for the first time in 10 years following an Extended Docking Work Period at Esquimalt Graving Dock.

December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 51

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Babcock Canada was recently awarded a contract for the Vessel Life Extension of the CCGS Des Groseilliers.

Creation of an integrated fleet management approach in which Industry, RCN and DND personnel work co-operatively to deliver fleet support can enable a larger portion of valuable RCN personnel to focus directly on operations, while ensuring the ongoing availability of fleet assets to support them. Integrating RCN and DND personnel directly into an industry team can provide broader exposure to the full spectrum of ISS management, technical and service delivery, providing increased personal development opportunities and supporting overall skills retention.

Babcock’s extensive experience in providing this type of ISS, specifically to the Royal Navy’s surface and sub-surface fleets over many years, has shown it to be both operationally efficient and costeffective; Babcock Canada believes these approaches will offer significant benefits to the RCN on future programs.

On another front, Babcock has established a growing relationship with the Canadian Coast Guard. They, in cooperation with shipyard team member Chantier Davie Canada Inc., have successfully completed an $8 million refit and modification of the Coast Guard’s flagship heavy Arctic ice breaker, the CCGS Louis St. Laurent, in July of this year. Most recently, they were awarded a $4.5 million contract for the first phase of the vessel life extension of the CCGS Des Groseilliers, a 1200-class medium Arctic icebreaker. The plan is to leverage their ISS expertise to assist the Canadian Coast Guard to manage the maintenance of its fleet of some 116 vessels more efficiently and economically.

In addition to growing their existing relationships with the RCN and Canadian

52 BC Shipping News December 2014/January 2015

Coast Guard, Babcock is actively looking to support the B.C. commercial marine industry.

Globally, Babcock has extensive expertise serving a variety of marine customers. They provide Engineering Support Services that range from design integration, through life support to comprehensive training solutions.

With an extensive range of technical and support staff, proven design and management know-how and a range of configurable products and systems, they support customers from concept design to through-life management.

Babcock’s capability is delivered through an extensive multi-discipline engineering resource, based around the U.K., Canada and Australia. Their core staff of engineers and professional project managers and specialists exceeds 1,300 across the world; this is combined with dedicated integration, test and commissioning resources.

In addition to providing multi-discipline design services for new programs and in-service vessels and facilities, they invest in the development of a wide range of specialist systems and equipment for naval and other defence applications.

Babcock retains selected critical manufacturing processes, plus hardware and software integration, and test in-house — maintaining their production engineering and technology development know-how.

Customer feedback has indicated that bringing together theoretical and practical engineering expertise in flexible integrated teams is a distinctive and valued capability.

Babcock’s engineering expertise spans all disciplines, from naval architecture through mechanical, electrical, electronic and control systems, to software

MARINE ENGINEERING development. This is supported by extensive analysis capability ranging from computational fluid dynamics to nonlinear finite element analysis, plus safety, HF and ARM. They are experienced in design from platform level, through systems down to equipment level. Their design process begins at requirements definition and runs through the full lifecycle.

One example of the diverse ability Babcock has in supporting marine customers is their vessel life extension project experience. With over 20 years of experience in the design and conversion of large marine vessels ranging from commercial to Naval Vessels, Babcock brings the successful integration of all engineering disciplines including: naval architecture, structural design, marine engineering, electrical engineering, scheduling and supply chain management.

This experience gives them a clear understanding of all of the factors that influence “design for life extension” and enables them to readily determine the areas of risk associated with extending the life of each vessel. For example, identifying the regions of the hull that are most vulnerable to fatigue or the equipment likely to require enhanced overhaul or replacement makes for a more effective and efficient refit.

Babcock also designs, supplies and constructs process plants for a broad range of liquefied gases and petrochemical liquids from conceptual design through to turnkey construction.

Importantly for the end user, we also provide a full performance guarantee for these services. In addition to process

In addition to growing their existing relationships with the RCN and Canadian Coast Guard, Babcock is actively looking to support the B.C. commercial marine industry. plant design, Babcock also delivers specialized solutions for shipboard storage and handling of petro-chemical gases for a wide range of marine vessels and types. They are currently engaged in the design and development of a new cost saving Type C LNG storage tank

design for a variety of new LNG bunkering ships.

Babcock’s market-leading reputation is based on one key fact: They are a partner who can be trusted to deliver.

For more information about Babcock Canada, visit: www.babcockcanada.com.

Guiding mariners for over 100 years.

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December 2014/January 2015 BC Shipping News 53

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Aarc West Mechanical Insulation / Aarc West Industrial Coatings..................49 ABS Americas................................................................................................15 Always On UPS Systems Canada Inc..............................................................46 AMIX Group...................................................................................................35 Arrow Marine Services Ltd.............................................................................22 Babcock Canada............................................................................................48 Bernard LLP...................................................................................................39 Bracewell Marine Group................................................................................23 Canada’s Pacific Gateways (Prince Rupert Port Authority).............................19 Capilano Maritime Design Ltd.........................................................................9 Cargo Logistics Canada Expo & Conference....................................................38 Chamber of Shipping of British Columbia......................................................44 ClassNK.........................................................................................................11 Cruise Lines International Association - North West & Canada......................54 CMC Electronics.............................................................................................53 Corix Water Products.....................................................................................13 Cummins Northwest.....................................................................................21 Dave Roels Photography...............................................................................31 Greenwood Maritime Solutions Ltd.................................................................9 IMS Marine Surveyors & Analytical Laboratories Ltd.....................................34 Jastram Engineering Ltd..............................................................................IBC Jastram Technologies Ltd.............................................................................IBC John Horton, Marine Artist............................................................................19 Lloyd’s Register...............................................................................................8 Lonnie Wishart..............................................................................................35 Mercy Ships...................................................................................................45 Meridian Marine Industries...........................................................................24 Mission to Seafarers......................................................................................54 Nanaimo Port Authority................................................................................10 North Arm Transportation.............................................................................26 Osborne Propellers........................................................................................53 Prime Mover Controls Inc..............................................................................29 Prince Rupert Port Authority...........................................................................4 Redden Net & Rope.......................................................................................24 Robert Allan Ltd............................................................................................25 Saam Smit Towage........................................................................................23 SANMAR .......................................................................................................BC Schneider Electric......................................................................................... IFC Seaspan Shipyards........................................................................................30 Silvagrip........................................................................................................52 Tactival Marine Solutions Ltd........................................................................43 Tervita.............................................................................................................9 Vancouver Maritime Museum.......................................................................18 Viega...............................................................................................................3 Western Canada Marine Response Corporation.............................................14 Westshore Terminals.......................................................................................7

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