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 »
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 »
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 »
The combination of containers stowed on deck and containers stowed in holds inherently results in a container securing conundrum. Containers stowed on deck sit on hatch covers, and the covers needs to be larger than the size of the hatch that fits the containers. That means that it is not possible to fit a fixed… Read more »
We have been involved in quite a number of lost container cases in the last few years, especially on large (12,000 TEU plus) container vessels. Some of these cases show various deficiencies, but in other cases it appears that the lashings simply are not strong enough for normal vessel operations. That has led us down… Read more »
The National Transportation Safety Board issued their report on the Golden Ray capsize and, as is usually the case with those reports, it provides an interesting read. The NTSB provides a cause for the incident, incorrect stability calculation, and provides the following recommendations to the vessel operator: 1. Revise your safety management system to… Read more »
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 »
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 »
I have been making these lists since 2012, and so I feel compelled to add another one this year. Maybe I have not been paying attention as closely as usual, but somehow I did not see as many milestones as prior years. This should not be interpreted as gloom and doom. I just think that… Read more »
When I joined Martin & Ottaway, Harry Ottaway told me that Francis Martin used a horse and carriage to be dropped off at the various surveys. Roy Kanapaux, a surveyor that still worked with Martin & Ottaway in the early eighties (at age 80!) and whom I met when I visited my father at the… Read more »
Point Pleasant Beach is a few miles south along the New Jersey shore from our office, which is where, on February 12, 1900, the County of Edinburgh ran aground. The vessel had very little damage, but then, as now, the stranding quickly became a tourist attraction. Merritt-Chapman refloated her on February 25, 1900 and she was repaired and… Read more »
Watch a cool video produced in the 1940’s by the US Navy on the salvage of the SS Normandie (USS Lafayette) here. Frank A. Martin of Martin & Ottaway valued this vessel for the US government before the fire/capsize.
In the early hours of July 27, 2014, a Donjon-SMIT NTVRP (Non-Tank Vessel Response Plan) vessel, a handysize bulk carrier, grounded in Lake St. Clair, near Detroit MI. In accordance with the vessel’s plan activation, the SMFF resource provider Donjon-SMIT were contacted who immediately mobilized USCG Sector D09 (Lake Michigan) Martin Ottaway RSA Mr. Mike… Read more »
The OPA 90 Salvage Response regulations have now been in effect for a number of years and while there has not yet been a major US incident that tests the system to the limit, there have been a few smaller incidents where some lessons are being learned. The most central issue in the US Salvage… Read more »