COVID-19 Field Work Procedure
Since the New Jersey government has formally announced a stay-at-home order on March 21, 2020 to curtail the spread of coronavirus, the Martin & Ottaway office doors have been closed. However, even as many other states continue to implement stay-at-home orders, as marine engineers, surveyors, naval architects, and appraisers, our doors are always open. In… Read more »
Office COVID-19 Protocol
At this moment the M&O office is operating. We are fortunate to have a spacious office where there are inherently large social distances, and personnel can choose to work from home whenever they feel it helps the overall situation. We developed our own office Coronavirus fighting procedures based on CDC guidelines and the best information… Read more »
The Unpredictability of Innovation in Wheelchair Use
Standard wheelchairs have not changed in decades. It is a chair with wheels and has foot pads to support a person’s feet and to keep them from dragging on the ground. The foot pads are actually quite complicated, because they need to flip away when the person is being seated or stands up and they… Read more »
Death by Ship Value
Martin & Ottaway has been performing ship appraisals since its formation in 1875. Our records go back to the late 1800’s and we have hung onto our historic records through all our office moves. A lot of our actual project work has now been digitized which is a huge space saver, but other paper records… Read more »
Build a Little, Test a Little and Learn a Lot; A Waterpomptang story
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 early morning at Watt & Fulton’s office above the BuyLo Packy in Red Bank. After the VC investors had overcome their initial… Read more »
Hey UN! Here is your Golden Opportunity for Global Relevance
Earlier this week the United Nations issued the “2020 World Economic Situations and Prospects report,” a high-level annual report. It is chock full of economic information collected by just about every United Nations Economic analysis body. The report has a foreword by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. In it, he stresses the importance of… Read more »
The Big Maritime Thing(s) in 2019
I actually enjoy taking stock of a past year in its last few days. The office tends to be quiet and a few moments of introspection can be interesting. This year I did not have any real innovations or significant developments in mind as far as 2019 milestones are concerned. I wondered if 2019 was… Read more »
Marmaduke Redux
Marmaduke Surfaceblow was a much beloved character in a monthly column in the trade magazine Power Magazine. I very much enjoyed reading the stories. Marmaduke was a fictional character who was a ship’s engineer who became an engineering consultant. Marmaduke traveled the world and solved various power problems. The problems probably were actual technical problems… Read more »
Solar Math Update
I installed roof top solar on my house in July 2017 and wrote a blog about it promising to provide an update in a few months. I did not get to it until now, but after more than two years of operation it is even more fun to revisit the project to see how it… Read more »
Liberty Meats
By a weird coincidence my sister, Annemarie, came across this story that my father, Henk van Hemmen, wrote on Veteran’s Day in 2004. “Liberty” Meats Looking into the history of warfare and battle ground victories it is a well-known fact that in general terms, the army that is well-fitted out and well-fed will have a tremendous… Read more »
Barbados: The Goldilocks Approach to Sustainability
Mathematically, worldwide sustainable energy is a real possibility, but it will require a very significant change in thinking, attitudes, efforts, and financial commitments to accomplish. All over the world we are encountering experiments, trials, and even significant changes in human attitudes, but, so far, we cannot point at an integrated success story of societal change…. Read more »
500 Years of Circumnavigation
On September 20, 1519 the Spanish fleet Armada de Molucca, under the command of Fernão de Magalhães (more famously known as Magellan), set sail to find a passage to the Far East by sailing around the tip of South America. By the time the single vessel carrying 18 survivors returned to Spain, they may have… Read more »
Global Partnership for Ocean Wave Energy Technology (GPOWET)
The Global Partnership for Ocean Wave Energy Technology (GPOWET) (pronounced “jeep – o – wet”)is a United Nations – Multi-Stakeholder Partnership formed to bring commercially-viable, utility scale ocean wave energy conversion (WEC) technology solutions to humanity. The founding members are Martin & Ottaway Inc. (M&O), SurfWEC LLC, and the Stakeholder Forum (SF). We believe by… Read more »
“Sustainable Energy – without the hot air” David J.C. MacKay (1967-2016) – Wave Resource Review
Sustainable Energy – without the hot air is an excellent text covering the various renewable power sources and their potential contribution to the energy supply mainly focused on the United Kingdom. One statement that I consider to be a significant error is on page 73, where MacKay states “The fetch required to stoke up big… Read more »
SurfWEC Alternate Configuration #1
The patented SurfWEC variable-depth platform (US Patent 8093736 B2 enabling the Shoaling Feature and Storm Load Avoidance Feature) is applicable to other generic WEC concepts including flapper/surge devices. Economic analysis of traditional bottom-mounted flapper/surge devices drives the existing designs into the boutique power generation realm rather than the sustainable energy triad. This is a… Read more »
Waves to Water Prize SurfWEC video
Environmental Game Theory, A Story About Endangered Birds
The wreck had spilled some heavy fuel oil and wildlife had been affected. The wreck was on the beach, waves were about 12 feet high and it was unlikely we would get a tow wire out to the tug offshore that day. I had asked a DEP employee to lay out an area of about… Read more »
The Mechanics of a Tank Barge Explosion
If there is a marine explosion, chances are Martin & Ottaway gets a call. An explosion investigation is hard work and requires a huge amount of data collection. It can be an exhausting and often confusing task. Today there are great tools to quickly build a model, but even with the best tools (drones, laser… Read more »
OHMSETT, A Hidden Technical Asset
Maritime is too easily defined as ships passing in the night, and most of our maritime lives we work to make sense of the darkness. Sometimes you know the ship is there, but since it does not appear to be a danger you don’t pay attention. In many ways that is poor form. There is… Read more »
The Jeep Stick; I’ll Take Accidental Perfection Any Day
This will be a longer story, but it tells how random timing, the passage of time, weird coincidences, sticking with what works, and a sense of fun, can result in overall near perfection. The story starts in 1995, and Martin & Ottaway had just moved from New York City to Red Bank. The move to… Read more »
New Carissa 20 years later.
That’s me in the yellow foul weather gear. Twenty years ago I was standing on this beach. I was working as a Salvage Naval Architect for SMIT, and we had just connected the tow wire to the tug offshore. It was a crazy project that I think of very fondly. Undoubtedly it was the… Read more »
Guns Blazing; The War of 1812 and the Jersey Shore
In 2014 our friends at Navesink Maritime Heritage Association organized an event that commemorated New Jersey’s 350th anniversary. Martin & Ottaway and a number of maritime organizations quickly jumped in as event sponsors and their sponsorship allowed the replica vessel Onrust to visit the Navesink River where New Jersey was originally settled. This year Navesink… Read more »
SurfWEC to Develop Utility Level Wave Power
Martin & Ottaway has formed a new company, SurfWEC LLC, that will develop Wave Energy Converters (“WECs”) using patented features that are expected to increase energy recovery rates by an order of magnitude over legacy WEC systems. SurfWEC has broken through the barriers holding back wave energy recovery technologies from successfully and economically harnessing power… Read more »
The Big Maritime Things in 2018
So here we go, one more year astern, and what does the wake look like? It is a weird wake, but the possibilities also continue to be endless. Let’s call it a mixed bag, and therefore I provide these tidbits in no particular order. 1. Fuel Oil Contaminations Early this year there was a rash… Read more »
This Year’s Christmas Present
I am a little late with this year’s Christmas present to our friends and clients. Last year it was a story, but this year I had a bit of a hard time trying to figure out a good present. I was hoping for some inspiration and nothing showed up before Christmas, but the day… Read more »
Season’s Greetings
While we are still trying to get our new office sorted out, our staff put together this truly gorgeous little Christmas tree. To put something so pretty together during a time of upheaval provides promise for the future. Best wishes to all for the holidays and 2019. Martin & Ottaway
Fast temporary repairs
Pier-side ship repair firms are known to excel at assisting their clients under unusual circumstances. Take the photo above as an example. The General Cargo vessel suffered a breach to her hull as a result of a collision with a barge being pushed by a tugboat in the Chesapeake Bay. It was a cold and… Read more »
Statistics, the Inspection Paradox and Customer Acceptance
One of my favorite funky newsletters is the Maritime Advocate. It often has very useful information, but I really suspect I read it because of a clever bit of marketing. The end of the newsletter often has a bit of silliness, like a list of painful puns or a few bad jokes. While scrolling… Read more »
Sunday Morning, the Life of a Surveyor
At Martin & Ottaway, we all love being part of the maritime community, but maritime is 24 hours per day. Therefore a call may come in at any time. This time it was Sunday Morning, just while I was getting ready to survey a boat for my personal use. So I modified the schedule for… Read more »
Surveyors Gone to Work
Newark Liberty Airport – October 19, 2018 David and Pierce’s cars parked side by side late at night in Newark Airport while both travel overseas to different locations. What are the odds of two surveyors parking side by side arriving in a full parking lot at different times?
Is It Possible to Argue about Taste?
A long time ago I enjoyed a Car Talk episode where a listener asked Click and Clack what car he should buy for a cross country road trip. Click and Clack right away started making suggestions about late 1960’s or early 1970’s great American cruisers. Their argument was simple. Those cars are not expensive,… Read more »
Replacing Fossil Fuels with Ocean Wave Power
Wave energy converter (WEC) systems have not yet made it to the stage of development of wind and solar renewable power systems, but wind-generated waves are a concentrated form of wind power covering over 70% of Earth and present a fascinating opportunity for the future of sustainable energy and power systems. Figure 1. Point-Absorber Configuration of… Read more »
How Can We Stabilize the Power Industry in the United States?
Daily power plant operations in the United States are often taken for granted. Most people are not aware that the wholesale/industrial rate for electricty is updated every fifteen minutes and frequently varies from highs near $0.30/kWh ($300/MWh) to lows near $0.03/kWh ($30/MWH) throughout the day. Regional transmission operators (RTOs), companies such as PJM in the… Read more »
Collision and Angle of Blow; Sticking with What Works
While cleaning out files and I came across a 2004 collision that my father, Henk van Hemmen, handled. In the file there was a copy of a survey report on a 1971 collision with an angle of blow determination. The 1972 report was forwarded to some of the members in the 2004 survey party to… Read more »
Grace in the Details Kills Bike Helmets
Design is complicated, but often we try to explain it in a quick catchy phrase. There is a saying: “The Devil is in the Details”. Mies van der Rohe is often credited with flipping the concept upside down by saying: “God is in the Details”. Regardless, it means that if you do not pay attention… Read more »
So What Does It Mean to have a 1000MW Wave Farm Offshore?
Scale is a difficult concept when novel technologies are being introduced, especially when it comes to marine renewable energy projects. Let’s assume we are talking about a 1000 Megawatt wave farm. It is quite interesting to visualize such a farm off the coast of New Jersey (see Figure 1). Figure 1. A visualized 1000MW… Read more »
Sergio Marchionne, An Appreciation of a Leader
I have always had an odd fascination with Chrysler. The whole story is too long to get into, but it relates to my Mother first seeing value in Chrysler stock and timing the ups and downs like Paganini on a violin, and my days at Chrysler’s Highland Parks Tech Center working with Chrysler engineers on… Read more »
Happy Anniversary IMO, a Sterling Example of International Cooperation
I joined the industry in 1981 and, before that, remember playing with the tarballs on the Dutch Northsea beaches. Things don’t always get better, but as far as international shipping is concerned, boy, have things improved. A huge portion of the credit goes to all the hardworking mariners who notice things that are wrong, and then come together… Read more »
Hydrogen As The Ultimate Fuel, Part 2
We discussed hydrogen generation techniques in our 2014 guest blog by Matt Stern. Since that time, the world has continued its fascination with this element, and recent developments show some interesting progress. Intern Karley Hildin provides an update: One really interesting example is a project taking place in Orkney, an island chain in the Northern Isles… Read more »
MICA Golf Outing 2018
Congratulations to the winner of the “Closest to the line”, Molly McCafferty of Guardian Navigation with Mike Crowley of Thomas Miller.
Tales From A “Hard Hat” Diver
While diving in an undisclosed location in the Fall of 1990, I experienced my first visceral encounter with exponential decay and exponential increase in wave energy as a function of depth. The gear I was wearing on my back was: US Divers/Conshelf XIV First and Second stage SCUBA regulators connected to a US Divers twin… Read more »
Vessel Appraisal Lunch & Learn
On May 29, 2018, David Tantrum provided a Lunch & Learn presentation to one of the marine industry leading insurance companies, Starr Marine. The presentation covered vessel valuation methodologies and included topics such as un-repaired damage claims, unique vessel appraisals, and U.S. versus foreign flag vessel construction costs to name but a few. The Lunch… Read more »
Nieuw Amsterdam
Recently Martin & Ottaway had a job on the 2010 Nieuw Amsterdam IV. Martin & Ottaway personnel have been involved with Nieuw Amsterdams’ since 1937. Henk van Hemmen sailed as an engineer on board the 1937 Nieuw Amsterdam II. We also carried out various projects on the 1983 Nieuw Amsterdam III to include mechanical and… Read more »
David Del Corso Joins Martin & Ottaway
It is a pleasure to introduce David Del Corso as a member of the Martin & Ottaway consulting team. David is a 2015 US Merchant Marine Academy Marine Engineering graduate and, after stints as a ship’s engineer and design engineer, has joined Martin & Ottaway to reinforce the junior engineer echelon. Martin & Ottaway has survived… Read more »
The Future Of Fuel Cells In The Maritime Industry
Before I joined Martin & Ottaway, I was heavily involved in the fuel cell industry, connecting Bloom Energy’s fuel cells ranging from 210 kW to 3 MW to buildings. Bloom Energy focuses on stationary natural gas powered fuel cells. The maritime industry is always looking for new ways to meet the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) growing emission standards…. Read more »
MAY 2018 – Joint Society Meeting Notice – SNAME/IMarEST/ASNE/SMPE Hosted by ASNE
May Paper: Engineering Ethics Clashes and Crashes Presenter: Hendrik “Rik” van Hemmen, President of Martin & Ottaway, Inc. Both licensed engineers and SNAME members function under a code of ethics. While it may not occur often, just about every engineer will occasionally encounter ethics challenges and proper conduct under those challenges can mean the difference between… Read more »
Leonard Pucci Joins Martin & Ottaway
It is a pleasure to introduce Capt. Leonard Pucci as a member of the M&O consultant team. I have known Lenny for many years, and worked with him on quite a number of projects. Besides providing our standard basket of services (particularly in the Rhode Island area, where he will be based), Lenny’s area of… Read more »
An Ode to Freestanding Masts
A week or so ago, for a minute, Lenny Pucci and I were thinking about jointly owning a sailboat. That immediately raised the next question: Well, what kind of sailboat? I did not hesitate, and immediately suggested a Freedom 44. To me it is one of the most useful sailboats out there. Fortunately, our boat… Read more »
Books That Messed with My Head (2018 Update)
Note: I posed a question at the bottom of the original blog and in August 2016 added two book to the bottom of the list in response. In April 2018 I added two more books. Books are fun, but very occasionally I have encountered books that have actually changed my understanding of humanity and the… Read more »
The Path to the Middle Class Runs Through the Port Of NY/NJ
I am not sure if I have ever expounded on my theory on the path to the middle class in the M&O blog. The theory is simple: Only maritime provides a reliable path to the middle class for those who seek it. There are very good technical and economical reasons for that assertion, which I may make… Read more »