- Marine Transport

The Big Fix

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:05:01 -0700

Japan's Radioactive Waters

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 21:41:16 -0700

China's New 42-km Sea-Bridge Is World's Largest

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 22:20:46 -0600

What could go wrong?

I would be infinitely more impressed with a wind/solar hybrid ferry system - huge solar and wind powered water dwelling ferries, much safer and robust than a static structure I would think. Perhaps not as fast, but I'd rather be on a boat than on a bridge that long.

Source: CBC - June 30, 2011

China has opened the world's longest cross-sea bridge.

The Jiaozhou Bay bridge is 42 kilometres long and links China's eastern port city of Qingdao to an offshore island, Huangdao.

State-run CCTV says the 35-metre-wide bridge is the longest of its kind and cost about $1.5 billion Cdn.

CCTV says the bridge passed construction appraisals on Monday and the bridge and an undersea tunnel opened to traffic on Thursday.

It has taken four years to build the bridge, which is supported by more than 5,000 pillars.

According to the Guinness World Records book, the previous record-holder for a bridge over water is the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana. The Chinese bridge is more than four kilometres longer.

The Child River Traders Of Brazil

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 08:43:45 -0600

The Race To Carve Up The Arctic

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Mon, 16 May 2011 20:40:41 -0600

(Click Image For Video link)

Oil Spill in South Atlantic

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 19:31:06 -0600

Source: The New York Times - March 22, 2011

A major spill of heavy crude oil from a wrecked freighter has coated an estimated 20,000 endangered penguins on a remote South Atlantic island chain, the local authorities and environmental groups said Tuesday.

Three oiled rockhopper penguins on the Tristan da Cunha island chain. Thousands of endangered penguins have been coated with oil after a cargo ship ran aground and broke up on a remote British South Atlantic territory.

More than 800 tons of fuel oil has leaked from the Maltese-registered ship, which ran aground on Nightingale Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, a British territory, early in the morning of March 16, local officials said. All 22 crew members of the M.S. Oliva were rescued.

“The scene at Nightingale is dreadful, as there is an oil slick encircling the island,” Trevor Glass, a local conservation officer, said in a statement.

The ship has broken in half and an additional 800 tons of fuel oil is believed to be leaking from the front section of the hull, said a spokeswoman with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, a British-based conservation group monitoring the situation.

So far, only one salvage vessel has arrived from South Africa, and its spill response and bird rescue capabilities were described as limited. A second, better-equipped response ship is expected to depart for the area from South Africa on Thursday.

Conservation groups said the wreck could pose a different ecological threat to the chain as rats could have come ashore from the vessel, which was carrying 66,000 tons of soybeans from Brazil to Singapore. Several islands in the archipelago are rodent-free, and a rat infestation could potentially do more harm to bird life than any oiling, experts said.

The Tristan Da Cunha archipelago lies about 1,700 miles from the nearest land, in South Africa, making it the most remote inhabited island group in the world. The islands are rich in life and are home to about 200,000 penguins, including nearly half of the world’s population of northern rockhopper penguins, an endangered species whose population has plunged in recent decades for unknown reasons.

Jay Holcomb, the director emeritus of the International Bird Rescue Research Center, a bird conservation group that responds to oil spills, said in a posting on the group’s Web site that about 20,000 rockhopper penguins had been “confirmed oiled.” Images from the island showed large groups of penguins, which have distinctive spiky crests, coated in oil. “Many of the birds have been oiled for over a week, which limits their chances of survival,” Mr. Holcomb wrote.

The estimate of 20,000 was based on an early visual survey of the archipelago’s penguin habitat and may be adjusted, the center said. The extreme remoteness of the island chain poses a serious challenge for responders as there is no airport and oiled birds cannot be removed because of concern about transmission of diseases to which the birds have no resistance, Mr. Holcomb said.

The owner of the wrecked vessel could not be immediately identified. The authorities in Malta, where the ship is registered, did not respond to a request for information on Tuesday.

Footage Of Japanese Boat Encountering Tsunami Wave

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:53:18 -0600

Naval Air Facility Captain: President Authorizing Evacuation of Japanese Base, Women and Children First

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:25:28 -0600

Ian R Crane: Ritual of Fire - BP Oil Disaster Was Made To Happen

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:59:11 -0700

American Warships Heading to Egypt

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 09:35:14 -0700

Source: Washington's Blog - February 6, 2011

Connecticut's newspaper The Day noted on January 24th:

Connecticut National Guard Detachment 2, Company I, 185th Aviation Regiment of Groton has mobilized and will deploy to the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, to support the Multinational Force and Observers.

The unit left Connecticut Jan. 15 for Fort Benning, Ga., for further training and validation. The unit operates C-23C Sherpa aircraft and has deployed three times in the last seven years in support of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The unit will provide an on-demand aviation asset to the Multinational Force and Observers commander to support its mission of supervising the security provisions of the Egypt/ Israel Peace Treaty.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times reported:

The Pentagon is moving U.S. warships and other military assets to make sure it is prepared in case evacuation of U.S. citizens from Egypt becomes necessary, officials said Friday.

The Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship carrying 700 to 800 troops from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and the Ponce have arrived in the Red Sea, putting them off Egypt’s shores in case the situation worsens.

Pentagon officials emphasized that military intervention in Egypt was not being contemplated and that the warships were being moved only for contingency purposes in case evacuations became necessary.

In addition to the Marines, the Kearsarge normally carries around four dozen helicopters and harrier jets that would permit evacuations and other humanitarian operations, the officials said. More than 1,000 Marines from the Kearsarge were sent to Afghanistan last month on a temporary deployment, leaving roughly one-third still aboard, officials said.

The Kearsarge is an attack vessel.

As Wikipedia notes:

In carrying out her mission, Kearsarge not only transports and lands ashore troops, but also tanks, trucks, artillery, and the complete logistic support needed to supply an assault.

The assault support system aboard ship coordinates horizontal and vertical movement of troops, cargo and vehicles. Monorail trains, moving at speeds up to 600 ft/min (3 m/s), transport cargo and supplies from storage and staging areas throughout the ship to a 13,600 square feet (1,260 m2) well deck which opens to the sea through huge gates in the ship's stern. There, the cargo, troops and vehicles are loaded aboard landing craft for transit to the beach. The air cushion landing craft can "fly" out of the dry well deck, or the well deck can be flooded so conventional landing craft can float out on their way to the beach.

Simultaneously, helicopters are brought from the hangar deck to the flight deck by two deck-edge elevators and loaded with supplies from three massive cargo elevators.

Kearsarge's armament suite includes the NATO RIM-7 Sea Sparrow point defense system for anti-aircraft support, RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles, 25 mm chain guns and the Phalanx close-in weapon system to counter threats from low-flying aircraft and close-in small craft. Missile decoy launchers augment the anti-ship missile defenses.

However, the Kearsarge has also been used in missions to evacuate people stranded in war zones. Wikipedia describes this unique dual capability:

Kearsarge is fully capable of amphibious assault, advance force and special purpose operations, as well as non-combatant evacuation and other humanitarian missions. Since her commissioning, she has performed these missions the world over, including evacuating non-combatants from Freetown, Sierra Leone, on 31 May 1997 and rescuing Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady from Serb-controlled territory in Bosnia on 8 June 1995. Additionally, Kearsarge is fully equipped with state of the art command and control (C&C) systems for flagship command duty, and her medical facilities are second in capability only to the Navy's hospital ships, USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) and Mercy (T-AH-19). These facilities allowed Kearsarge to serve a dual role during the 1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as a platform for bombing missions against Serb forces in Operation Allied Force, and as a treatment facility for Albanian refugees in Operation Shining Hope.

The Los Angeles Times continues:

In addition, the aircraft carrier Enterprise is in the eastern Mediterranean. The Pentagon originally announced that the carrier was heading through the Suez Canal for the Arabian Gulf, but the crisis in Egypt appears to have prompted a decision to keep it in the Mediterranean at least temporarily.

Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea (as well as the Red Sea):

The Enterprise is the longest naval vessel in the world, and is powered by eight nuclear reactors. The Enterprise does not appear to have any dual role for evacuations, but is simply an offensive aircraft carrier.

Therefore, I see no clear indication that the U.S. government has affirmatively decided to directly involve our military in Egypt. However, it is obvious that the government is at least planning for the possibility.

Update: Business Insider notes:

A "very senior" member of the US Marine corps is telling people "multiple platoons" are deploying to Egypt, a source tells us.

There is a system within the US Marines that alerts the immediate families of high-ranking marines when their marine will soon be deployed to an emergency situation where they will not be able to talk to their spouses or families.

That alert just went out, says our source.

This senior Marine told our source that the Pentagon will deploy "multiple platoons" to Egypt over the next few days and that the official reason will be ‘to assist in the evacuation of US citizens."

Our source was told that "the chances they were going over there went from 70% yesterday to 100% today."