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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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. Froetjers had been on a long run home and to make cocktail hour at the Molly Pitcher she was running at full throttle in the… Read more »
The world is filled with facts that appear to be true but are nothing more than simplifications of a complex subject. Wooden boats is one such subject. Almost universally, people think that wooden boats are difficult and expensive to maintain. This is sort of true, but it ignores the fact that it is possible to… Read more »
In 2025 Martin & Ottaway will have been in operation for 150 years. The longevity of the company has always relied on the inclusion of young talent to facilitate efficient leadership succession (With regard to young talent, it is noted that Francis S. Martin was 25 years old when he founded the company). Two of… Read more »
Wayne Thomas, my friend and colleague since 1986, and business partner for over 15 years, has decided to retire at the end of the month. Wayne has always been a world traveler and he has decided to roll up his house, store only his most essential possessions, and to live light at various places of… Read more »
As noted in a prior blog, due to Anne’s disability I became immersed in wheelchair design. This blog is sort of a weird update and explains how design and user experience is a never ending interaction. It touches on subtleties that are extremely difficult to predict as far as design and user effectiveness is… 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 »
A number of years ago I wrote a blog on the link between science, tinkering and innovation and discussed the need for goal setting in innovation. More recently I have been frustrated by the general apathy of the general population in creating a zero net carbon world, and this has been the subject of discussion… 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 »
For an overall discussion of this design go to: SHEWAC Aberration Last summer we were crossing Raritan Bay on Aberration and Abby pondered out loud: “I suppose this boat would be pretty good for the Zombie Apocalypse. If you have to, you can survive for quite a while.” On long runs it is fun… Read more »
And a Prosperous, Healthy and Safe 2022!
Many years ago, before I left high school, I read a book about a famous Dutch ocean sailor who was asked what his preferred size for a safe ocean crossing sailboat was and, without hesitation, he responded 44 feet. I worked as a yacht designer and found time and time again that 44 feet is… Read more »
Note: This article was first published in the November 2021 issue of Maritime Reporter and Engineering News. As naval architects and marine engineers we are familiar with the design spiral. While design is not truly a spiral, we use the concept to remind ourselves that all pieces of a ship design interact. The design spiral… Read more »
The present US West Coast container logjam is a system instability that will be studied for many years to come. At this stage there is no single cause for the logjam and the various analyses of the problem tend to result in across the chest finger pointing up or down the chain. Interestingly the problem… 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 »
Offshore wind is inching closer to reality off the New Jersey coast. The public review process is underway and the big question is: “Will offshore wind make it past the public opinion barrier?” The advantages of offshore wind are most tightly focused to what now is becoming a screaming need to reduce carbon emissions. Wind… Read more »
For an overall discussion of this design go to: SHEWAC Aberration In my prior blog on Aberration, I promised to write a discussion on the propulsion system and the whole powerplant design. It is probably most useful to describe the whole powerplant design process to see how things eventually came together. That makes it a… Read more »
In the prior blog I discussed my grandfather’s favorite ship, the HEDEL. I got on the subject because of a weblink my Uncle Ed emailed me. The weblink my Uncle sent me actually referred to the JONGE WILLEM, a ship my grandfather sailed on immediately prior to World War II. During the depression he was… Read more »
My Grandfather, Henk van Hemmen’s favorite ship was the HEDEL. She was built as AGIRA to LR class for the Norddeutscher Lloyd at AG Weser in 1930. During World War II she was named the SPREE and in 1944 she struck a mine. She was heavily damaged, but accepted as a reparation from Germany by… Read more »
For an overall discussion of this design go to: SHEWAC Aberration Since my blog on Aberration in October last year, the concept has come to life and is now operating to a level where I can ponder my brilliance (right) and mistakes. As a designer it is particularly interesting and cathartic to find yourself on… Read more »
As surveyors, we leave no stone unturned. Likewise, our support staff leave no dumpster unexplored.
I only met Leon Hess a few times and then only quickly, but our company has been deeply intertwined with Hess Oil almost since Hess Oil’s inception. Since Leon Hess grew up on the Jersey Shore, he also interacted with my wife’s grandfather (who was the Chairman of the First Merchant Bank of Asbury Park)… Read more »
Since we updated our website with a blog function in 2011, I more or less committed myself to posting a blog each month. Somehow, I more or less stuck with that commitment, but I just noticed that we did not post a new blog for January 2021. I also noticed that this happens to be… Read more »
As usual the Martin & Ottaway Christmas present is late. But maybe I should call it a New Year’s present anyway. This year it is a story. I wrote it late in the last century. It has sort of been published in various places, one of which was a website that I can no longer… Read more »
The movie Field of Dreams was a little too dreamy for me, but the main line of the movie: “If you build it they will come”, never quite left me. In some cases it actually could be true. Within the office we have discussed using EV’s for company cars a number of times. While… Read more »
Alla Tsiring’s adventures did not start when she joined Martin & Ottaway in 1994 as our book keeper. Her adventures started in Russia and included her escape with her husband Lenny during a period of Glasnost with intermediate stops at all sorts of interesting places. However, she had never gone on a ship survey during… Read more »
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. This is Part 2, for Part 1 click here After Truus came aboard, Marina took Froetjers out her slip and headed downriver to the Shrewsbury… Read more »
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. Willem was finishing his pork roll and egg sandwich… Read more »
Besides all other Coronavirus upheavals, it has also affected our intern program. Joseph Schwarz, starting Penn State Engineering Junior was supposed to join us for the summer, but with an office that practices social distancing a face to face internship became quite impractical. In order to provide Joe with a meaningful training experience it… Read more »
Living is nothing more than postponing the moment where you kill yourself. So far so good, but I have come really close a number of times. And retrospectively, mostly due to a lack of attention to the details. One that continues to stand out to me was when I was a student at Virginia Tech…. Read more »
Since we last discussed Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) as a maritime fuel in our April 2014 blog on Methane Slip and the Marine Industry there has been much research and development in the LNG industry, particularly as it relates to ship powering, methane slip, and GHG emissions. Recently, articles and research point to LNG as… Read more »
This week and next, 7th to 16th of July, the United Nations holds the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (UN-HLPF 2020) via webinars and UN TV. The HLPF is the annual assessment of the progress made by the UN Member States on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals – the SDGs – agreed in 2015…. Read more »
While our coronavirus experience seems so novel, in the arc of maritime history, pandemics like this are far from unusual. Actually, the most unusual part of the present pandemic is that we have not had to deal with a pandemic like this for over 100 years. Taking into account that in those 100 years… Read more »
I was searching for some local rainfall information and came across a lovely meteorological summary of New Jersey weather posted on the NJ State Climatologist website. It provides a long listing of temperatures and rainfall, and Mirna captured New Jersey average temperatures since 1895 in the pictures below. In reviewing the data I found myself… Read more »
Co-Authored by: David Del Corso and Tomer Chen The year 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the ending of World War II. As usual, most World War II memorial monuments show tributes commemorating the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and sometimes Coast Guard. However, there is one branch that rarely gets recognition, yet had… Read more »
During the pandemic Martin & Ottaway has been conducting a lot of its business in Zoom style meetings. In some ways these meetings are quite effective in resolving technical issues. However, when the meeting revolves around a presentation, the presentation can become quite dry since funny asides, quips or jokes become total fails because… Read more »
The Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2004 has sent uncertainty as well as additional audit and survey demands across the towing industry. Even with a compliance date “phase-in period,” companies are scrambling to meet federal regulations enforced by the U. S. Coast Guard. As a result, companies are concerned as to whether they… Read more »
While Martin & Ottaway has always worked very closely with the United States Coast Guard, we have never had a Martin & Ottaway consultant with a United States Coast Guard background. There was never a specific reason for that, except to note that possibly the right mutual opportunity never presented itself. However, today, it gives… Read more »
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 »
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 »
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 »
Martin & Ottaway has been performing ship values 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 »
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 »