Floating Fire and Forget Infrastructure
The one curse of our business is that most of our work is fire and forget. The job shows up, it is done and then we move on to the next job. With ships this is particularly common, in one way or another we are involved in the construction of a ship, it is built,… Read more »
Cargo Gear Certification Puzzles
M&O has designed many load outs and complex lifts on salvage and construction jobs, and has provided warranty surveys on complex lifts and load outs. The International Cargo Gear Bureau (ICGB) was founded in 1954 and is a US Government designated not-for-profit organization providing surveying, testing, and certification services for maritime and land-based lifting equipment…. Read more »
Sistership Salvage
On 9 April 1958, the MS “Kerkedyk” left Rotterdam on her maiden voyage to New York. Henk van Hemmen was aboard as an assistant engineer. A few days into the voyage a strange vibe started on the ship, and a while later an announcement was made to the crew that their vessel would divert to… Read more »
Critical Observation Before and After Internet and AI
Today we have to be so careful about believing our eyes. To create a fake AI picture is a trivial exercise, and people need to learn to be very cagey about believing what they see. Not every sector of the population is affected the same way. Magicians or illusionists have known for centuries not… Read more »
Statistics, the Inspection Paradox and Customer Acceptance Update
I enjoy seeing articles that confirm (or deny) things that I have said years ago. I came across an NPR article that noted that EV owners are 94% likely to repurchase another EV for their next Vehicle: “Among U.S. shoppers who are in [the] market for new vehicles, the interest in electric vehicles actually ticked… Read more »
The Big Maritime Things in 2025
2025 is grinding to its end. Much of it was an exercise in mad one dimensional thinking and global self destruction. In hitting the Big Maritime things for 2025 I cannot get past some of the biggest outrages. I am not a religious man, but why do I keep hearing “Sow the wind, reap… Read more »
Martin & Ottaway founded 1875; The Country’s Oldest Maritime Engineering Consulting Firm?
The print run of our company history arrived at the office last week. It looks great and has been a fun and interesting project. Historian Rick Geffken did a dive into the company’s early history and unearthed lots of interesting early details, too much to publish in the book. We also did not want to… Read more »
A Design you May Not Love, but will Have to Respect
I remember first seeing an Alcyone II when I was quite young. We were cruising Dutch canals in my Grandfather’s boat. It had this peculiar tan yellow color and looked like something from a different age and then again not. It flew a large American flag and appeared to be quite new. It struck me… Read more »
You Think Ship Design is Hard? Try Organization Name and Logo Design
Well, it’s done. Time for a long vacation with chaise lounges and drinks with umbrellas. SL7Expo now has its logo. In my life, I’ve been through at least eight logo designs for various ventures. Every time, I’m reminded: logo design and organization name selection is hard work. First, a new venture needs a name. The… Read more »
Martin & Ottaway 150
This year is the 150th anniversary of the founding of Martin & Ottaway. We are in the middle of writing a company history, and we thought that towards the end of the book a picture of our present staff would be appropriate. On September 8, we almost succeeded in getting everybody in the same place… Read more »
Alternative Fuel System Efficiencies
As a semi tradition, one of our summer intern assignments is to do a little project that summarizes issues that run through Rik’s head. In this case Abigail Crow, UVA Systems Engineering Sophomore, was asked to get organized on ship alternative fuel efficiencies. This is her summary: Determining the most suitable fuel for… Read more »
Innovation; A New Jersey Specialty
November 2025 update: NJ Innovation never stops. This one is so impressive that it needs to be included in this list: Monarch butterfly real time tracking. This hits the “Whaaat? That’s an incredible level of inventiveness and development!” Since 1995 Martin & Ottaway has been a New Jersey company. We like being a New Jersey… Read more »
Think Global and Act Local with the Maritime Association of the Port of New York and New Jersey.
With Martin & Ottaway celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, we are bonding with other local players in the same age group. One player is just two years older than Martin & Ottaway and continues to be as relevant today as it was back in the 1873. In its quiet and persistent way, The… Read more »
Where is the Customer Service?
Martin & Ottaway is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. While maritime technology changed a lot in that period, it still relies on foundational truths. For example, maritime continues to be a very capital intensive industry. The returns on investment are often assumed to take a decade, and with cyclical ups and down, can easily… Read more »
A Return to Fiction that Messed with My Head
In my prior blog I made reference to a story (of which I could not remember the title or the author) that I read only once many decades ago and that continues to make a strong impression on me. I provided a description of the story as follows: I think the story was called Narwal,… Read more »
Fiction that Messed with My Head
In my commitment to STEMPHLA (the combination of STEM plus Philosophy, History, Language and Arts) in engineering, I have blogged on non-fiction books that messed with my head, great nautical books, and my Literature PhD thesis proposal on maritime and the modern novel. However, books don’t have to be maritime non-fiction to leave a lasting… Read more »
Beware the Curve Fit; A 12M Design Story
This story is about 12M design, but it starts with a simple recent strength discussion. We were looking into the strength of a bollard and lifted some bollard moment strength versus bollard diameter data from the US Navy Towing manual. To help the discussion, one of our engineers prepared a little spreadsheet and added… Read more »
The Iceboat Paradox: How to Predict Failed Forecasts
Of all the recreational thrills one can seek, iceboating is No. 1 with me. It is an elusive thrill, since I only iceboat locally and global warming is not helping. I am a member of our local iceboat club, but I will admit that I am not tightly dialed in with the real experts… Read more »
Explorations Without Reservations
While airline travel is nowhere near as efficient as it used to be, I still often manage to travel to a Westcoast assignment pretty much in one day. This works particularly well for jobs in San Francisco or Oakland. I grab the earliest flight from Newark and by mid morning I am in the… Read more »
Maritime Marijuana is Just Different
I was called out on a survey. Waiting for the vessel to come alongside some snow started to fall and it provided an interesting atmosphere for some nice moody maritime pictures. Some people like 9 to 5 and others cannot deal with the same schedule every day. I like the mix of the two… Read more »
The Big Maritime Things in 2024
Well, here we go again. Another end of year list of things that manage to raise my passion or ire. Strangely the list looks more like a 2025 “to do” list than a review of 2024. 1. The Crisis in Maritime Personnel. There is a real shortage of personnel in maritime. In some countries… Read more »
Trip and Tow by the Ancient Merchant Marine
During the 2003 Gulf War there was a desperate search for biological and chemical weapons, and other stored military equipment. Soon there were press conferences where military PR officers were talking about finding weapons caches. But from day one they pronounced it as cashays (ca·chet, /kaˈSHā/) That meant they were looking for fashionable weapons, or… Read more »
Containerization, Intermodalism or Multimodalism?
Occasionally my kids remind me I should no longer use certain terms that in my younger days were quite acceptable. I generally agree, although I still think the term Orient is prettier than Asia. I would not be as interested in riding on the Asia Express as I would on the Orient Express. However, to… Read more »
A Historical trip up and down the Hudson
When picking through the odds and ends in a corner of the Grover House, I came across a set of prints that were issued by the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater in 1979. They were a reissued and updated version of the 1845 William Wade panorama of the Hudson River between the Battery and Albany. Wade… Read more »
Exploring the Raritan River
I have a soft goal of exploring all the New York harbor navigable creeks and water ways. This weekend I decided to try the Raritan River. The Raritan, Passaic and Hackensack are sort of the poster rivers for industrial pollution and decay, and somehow it seemed like a daunting, but challenging expedition. This weekend the… Read more »
In More Support of Grassroot Experiments; Apollonia
Doing is learning, and I learned when I had the pleasure of doing some shore side support for the Apollonia effort. Apollonia continues to move cargo by sail between Albany and the Port of New Jersey/New York and points in between. Occasionally Apollonia loads coffee cargo at Carteret, New Jersey. Carteret is a very interesting… Read more »
Maintenance and Cure; The Significance of a Proper Cocktail
Martin & Ottaway was the prime sponsor of a cocktail get together for the Maritime Law Association Young Lawyer Committee at “Only Love Strangers” in Manhattan. It was an informal affair, but it had two featured cocktails. One was “Maintenance and Cure” and the other was “Batten Down the Hatches” Tomer took a quick picture… Read more »
Executing Bad Designers to Encourage the Others
I was planning to write a blog on good design. I was thinking about it while driving to a ferry early in the morning. The weather is much worse than normal for the season and passengers are waiting, generally underdressed, in a cold windy drizzle. The ferry pulls in and discharges its passenger, and… Read more »
Murat Kilic Joins Martin & Ottaway
It is a pleasure to introduce Capt. Murat Kilic as a member of the M&O consultant team. I first met Murat as a client on the construction of two high speed catamarans in Sicily for the Oman National Ferries Corporation. At that time, he was the fleet manager and there were some construction issues… Read more »
Maritime; A Strange Trip. By Bob Burke
Maritime is a strange trip. It is worldwide and at the same time feels like living in a small village where everybody knows everybody. Too often you run into somebody in some random maritime den of inequity and you both go: “Great to see you! Was it 30 years ago we last hung out?” When… Read more »
Zombie Proofing Aberration with Methanol
The Aberration experiment continues, and I am making almost continuous modifications to Aberration based on operational experience and the availability of new technologies. When I ran the boat to its winter storage at Scarano Boatyard in Albany, the standby diesel generator was smoking a little and this spring I suppose I will have to… Read more »
SHEWAC Aberration
Solar Hybrid Electric Wheelchair Accessible Catamaran (SHEWAC) Aberration has been the subject of discussion on a number of Martin & Ottaway blogs, and also has received some attention in the press. This is the subject landing page for this vessel that chronicles the design, construction, operational experience and upgrades to the vessel. 1. … Read more »
Engineering/Marine Surveyor position at Martin & Ottaway
Martin & Ottaway is a well-known maritime engineering consulting firm located in Tinton Falls, New Jersey. The firm covers US East Coast ports from Norfolk, Virginia to Portland, Maine on a daily basis, with additional worldwide assignment on many special projects. The firm is an incorporated partnership that has managed successful ownership transitions since… Read more »
Call Us Ishmael, Maritime and the Origin of Modern Literature
In high school I was introduced to the concept of Deus ex Machina, the Mechanical God. It is a sudden plot twist or introduction of some fortuitous often irrational coincidence that is needed to make the story work. Once I became aware of the concept, it ruined many a story for me because the story… Read more »
The Big Maritime Things in 2023
The year is almost over, and I took some time to ponder the last 12 months. Such pondering demands perspective and I decided to check out my 2013 Big Maritime List. Overall, that provided no shocking insights or misjudgments, but some of it is folded into the first three items of this year’s list. Maritime… Read more »
A Waterpomptang Christmas and the Undefined Void between Problems and Solutions
Note: The Waterpomptang family is fictitious and occasionally a Waterpomptang story appears on the M&O website. Some say their adventures resemble real events, but that is just a coincidence. It was Christmas time, and the Waterpomptang family had congregated at the Truus and Bolle homestead. Presents had been opened and the big push for… Read more »
Svelte Speed; SC-1 Subchaser upgrade
Hudson River Maritime Museum has a great blog that regularly puts out interesting Hudson River historical tidbits. One of those blogs had a story about World War I subchasers. It provided some drawings for the vessel, but Wikipedia provided an even more complete drawing with a lines plan. They have the following particulars:… Read more »
Changing Habits to Reach Full Charger Capacity
Three years ago, after I acquired my first plug-in hybrid, we installed a car charger at our office. Since that time, I have also bought an EV, and we have had EV visitors where occasionally both chargers have been in use. A few weeks ago, David acquired a plug-in hybrid Jeep Grand Cherokee and… Read more »
How Reggie Helps Us Win the Zero Emissions Game
As I write this there are dozens, if not hundreds, of carbon emissions reduction efforts underway, or being suggested. Some can only be described as bogus, while others appear to have a positive impact, but in the big picture do not appear to make the difference that we really need. The present global warming data… Read more »
The Complexity of the Commons; EV Chargers
There are two kinds of EV users: Those who charge at home and the Gypsies; those who have to hunt from public charger to public charger. I am the first kind and therefore an incredibly enthusiastic EV user. Occasionally I have dabbled in the romance of the EV Gypsy, but will admit that I am… Read more »
Lelie Vlet V2.0, Looking for Balance in Small Boats
In an earlier blog I referred to the Lelievlet; the standard boat for Dutch Sea Scouts. It is a clever design that has allowed thousands of kids to get a solid taste of life on the water. The first Lelievlet was built in steel in 1955 and since that time over 1600 steel lelievletten have… Read more »
Valve Fix
Note: The Waterpomptang family is fictitious and occasionally a Waterpomptang story appears on the M&O website. Some say their adventures resemble real events, but that is just a coincidence. It was the early 1960’s and Bolle and Truus had just moved into their new apartment in the South of Rotterdam. Because Bolle was now… Read more »
Dutch Boating in 1964
My grandfather was planning to retire as a ship’s Chief Engineer in 1964. He and his wife had mused about getting a boat to cruise the Dutch waterways. That vision was adopted by the extended family and resulted in this design. As a yacht designer I have occasionally shot myself in the foot by telling… Read more »
EV Battery Longevity FUD; Much Better Than Anyone Expected
FUD stands for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. I only recently became aware of the acronym, but apparently versions of it have existed for almost a century in sales and marketing. Today it is used in the political arena and often FUD is used to shut down technical and scientific advances by raising unsupported issues to… Read more »
I Live in a Massive Park; Bigger than all the Lower 48 National Parks Combined.
My brother-in-law, Jim Forsyth, owns a boatbuilding and repair business in the Adirondacks. The Adirondacks is sort of a Rodney Dangerfield of American parks. In area it is larger than Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier and Grand Canyon National Park combined, but few people see it for the treasure it is. If National Parks are America’s best… Read more »
In Support of Grassroot Experiments; Apollonia
Maritime transportation takes advantage of huge economies of scale, but it was not always that way. Even quite recently there were many maritime ventures in the United States that operated on quite a small scale and in certain places in the world maritime transportation still takes place on very small scales down to the canoe… Read more »
Laser Scanning; an Update
In a 2017 blog we provided some examples of the work that our friends at Horizon Naval Architects have been doing. Time has marched on, and 5 years later there is now even more sophisticated technology. Quite near our office Greg Gomes of Skyvue is plying his trade as a remote control aircraft specialist, drone… Read more »
The Big Maritime Things in 2022
2022 is almost over and it is time to do some navel staring. 1. How Big Can a Small Mistake Be? Putin deciding to invade Ukraine will probably go down in history as the world’s biggest boner by a single individual. Since Putin is still in power, we should not ignore the possibility he might… Read more »
Wikipedia; The Best Holiday Season Present to the World
Holiday present selection is always a stressful activity, but this year I came across the best Holiday season present anybody can give to anybody. It is no secret that the Martin & Ottaway blog often refers to the usefulness of Wikipedia and as a company we are a heavy-duty Wikipedia user. On one project related… Read more »
Great Looking Ships
Warning! Reading this Column May Result in EDS Infection. My father was on the new construction team of the 1958 SS Rotterdam V, a visually iconic passenger liner that is presently a static hotel and event space in Rotterdam Harbor. When she entered service, her looks were much discussed, and generally compared to her very… Read more »