Wendy Laursen
Contributing Writer-
31 Oct 2024
Floating Wind and the Taming of Subsea Spaghetti
Preparing for industrialization, the floating offshore wind industry is tackling its unique mooring and cabling challenges.The idea of keeping floating offshore wind platforms in place using dynamic positioning has been considered. The trouble is: it could take up to 80% of the electricity generated by the turbine to do it.So, as Maersk Supply Service said a few years back: In a field of 100 turbines with 4-5 mooring lines each…
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10 Sep 2024
Vessel Ballast Water Management: Getting the Numbers Right
It was never going to be realistic to expect treated ballast water to have zero viable organisms on discharge.The G8 guidelines that define the type approval process for ballast water treatment systems were initially agreed at the IMO before any systems had actually been developed.The IMO had already been working on the issue of invasive species being transferred around the world in ballast water for a couple of decades. It was on the radar back in the 1970s.
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09 Sep 2024
Naval Power: Navies Increasingly Eye Alternative Fuels
Alternative fuels are not top of the list of naval requirements for gensets, but they are inching their way up.The naval world is largely exempt from the decarbonization pressure faced by commercial shipping, but it can’t ignore it entirely. As a famed naval strategist once said: “Fuel stands first in importance of the resources necessary to a fleet.”Navies must therefore consider their fuel supply…
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21 Aug 2024
Ballast Water Technology: Getting the Numbers Right
It was never going to be realistic to expect treated ballast water to have zero viable organisms on discharge.The G8 guidelines that define the type approval process for ballast water treatment systems were initially agreed at the IMO before any systems had actually been developed.The IMO had already been working on the issue of invasive species being transferred around the world in ballast water for a couple of decades. It was on the radar back in the 1970s.
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09 May 2024
Classification and Building the New Fuels Pathway
Long-term initiatives led by classification societies are building the foundation for future fuels uptake.About this time last year, ABS CEO Chris Wiernicki said: “When you look at where we are and the steepness of the curve ahead, the biggest risk is the unintended safety consequences of change.” Class, he says, is built for the intersection between technology, safety and regulations and must be prepared.Work is underway.
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25 Apr 2024
New Cranes & Offshore Wind Efficiency
The end may be in sight, but the race for bigger cranes is still having an impact on offshore wind project efficiency.The industry has already felt the need for upgrading crane lifting capacity on existing offshore wind installation vessels: NOV is upgrading the cranes on Cadeler’s existing O-class wind turbine installation vessels (WTIVs), and a gantry crane extension will soon make Van Oord’s Svanen one of the largest floating heavy-lift installation vessels.It’s a newbuild phenomenon too.
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24 Apr 2024
Simulators Track our Changing Relationship with Technology
Simulation-based training has its whole-of-ship/whole-of-team scenarios, but zooming in, the industry is now working on more specific targets.We have a close relationship with technology, evidenced by, for example, the phones we are estimated to unlock around 50-80 times a day. It has changed us. Half the people surveyed in a 2022 King’s College London study said that they feel like their attention span is shorter than it used to be.
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19 Apr 2024
Simulators Track our Changing Relationship with Technology
Simulation-based training has its whole-of-ship/whole-of-team scenarios, but zooming in, the industry is now working on more specific targets.We have a close relationship with technology, evidenced by, for example, the phones we are estimated to unlock around 50-80 times a day. It has changed us. Half the people surveyed in a 2022 King’s College London study said that they feel like their attention span is shorter than it used to be.
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21 Feb 2024
Demand for Maritime Shaft Generators Increasing
30 years ago shaft generators with PTI capability kept container ships sailing at top speed. That purpose gone, PTI/PTO is making a new comeback in more cargo shipping segments, this time for reducing emissions.Retrofitting a shaft generator is not an insignificant undertaking. Around 50 tons of equipment needs to be installed into the engineroom through a hole in the hull. A new section of shaft is…
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15 Feb 2024
Is Stern Tube Damage Declining?
It might be easy to blame EALs, but the ongoing causes of stern tube damage are varied, and possibly declining.Environmentally Acceptable lubricants (EALs) gained market traction with the introduction of US VGP regulations in 2013. Since then, DNV has observed two major trends. The first, starting in 2013 was early life damage, either during sea trials or within the first five years of operation, where aft stern tube bearings typically failed under extreme load conditions.
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23 Jan 2024
Aiming for Zero Waste Discharge to Sea
Advanced water treatment systems are just the start of the cruise industry’s circular waste processing ambitions.Advanced wastewater treatment systems (AWTS) were revolutionary in their day. Indeed, they still are today, but with 77% of the CLIA fleet (202 ships) already using them, and another 40 specified for vessels on order, even more ambitious waste management is coming.Martin Shutler, Principal Engineer…
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15 Dec 2023
The Problem with Reducing Underwater Radiated Noise
If the global commercial fleet reduced its speed by 10%, it would reduce underwater radiated noise by 40%, but nothing’s ever that simple.The main thing holding the shipping industry back from reducing its underwater radiated noise (URN) is not a lack of appropriate technology. It’s argued that many of the technologies being implemented today to reduce fuel consumption also reduce noise. So, the noise reductions could essentially come at no net cost to the shipowner…
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04 Dec 2023
New Wave Data Underpins Ship Structural Integrity
The loss of the Stellar Daisy in 2017 was a tragic reminder of the importance of wave data to ship design and operation. The vessel sank in the South Atlantic Ocean, with 22 of 24 crewmembers lost. The structural failure of the vessel was attributed to several factors including material fatigue and the forces imposed on the hull as a result of the weather conditions.Survey requirements for some vessel types have since been tightened…
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01 Dec 2023
Gensets: New Fuels but Perennial Goals
Fuel flexibility may be a key driver for recent developments in gensets, but the perennial goals of lowering CapEx and OpEx remain.Fuel flexibility is one of the pillars of decarbonization that is being embraced by genset OEMs. Fuel efficiency, a second pillar, goes hand in hand with that because new fuels will be more expensive, but these concerns come in addition to the on-going drive to reduce CapEx…
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20 Oct 2023
The Power of Offshore Molecule Production
Energy ecosystems are evolving as the value of offshore power-to-X production is being realized.Flexible and delivered in long lengths on reels in a fast-track operation, thermoplastic composite pipeline can transfer up to nine times the amount of energy as a cable and can be used to store hydrogen, increasing the uptime of offshore wind farm generated power.That’s according to Netherlands based supplier Strohm…
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03 Oct 2023
Enclosed Spaces: Engineering Solutions
If you think the human element is the only cause of enclosed space deaths, think again.Enclosed space incidents are cited as the largest cause of on-duty fatalities in commercial shipping. The risks can’t simply be engineered out, but there’s a powerful coalition wanting action nonetheless.There’s a tendency to blame failure to follow procedures, they say. Investigations seldom focus on the practicality of those procedures or the influence of the operating environment and vessel design…
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21 Aug 2023
LPG: Dual-Fuel Engines Prove Their Worth
BW LPG has demonstrated the value of dual-fuel LPG operations beyond the company’s initial aim of meeting IMO 2020 Sulphur Cap regulations.In October 2020, the LPG carrier BW Gemini became the first very large gas carrier (VLGC) to have its low-speed main engine converted to an LPG dual-fuel engine. The project started several years earlier, sparked by Oslo-listed BW LPG’s preparations for the IMO’s 2020 Sulphur Cap regulations.Compared to heavy fuel oil…
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23 Jun 2023
Maritime Safety - Enclosed Space Safety
It's nearly 45 years since the tragedy on the ANCO Duke where seven crew died at the bottom of the tank they were cleaning. “I was working on chemical tankers then. All the crew felt this terrible loss of life and took on tank entries with a heightened safety focus,” says Captain Dave Watkins, Deputy Director of the confidential near-miss reporting service CHIRP Maritime. Since then, enclosed space deaths still occur…
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01 Jun 2023
Data-Driven Voyage Optimization: The Demise of the Data Silo
We’ve had the means for a while, now we have the incentive to crush the data siloes that are holding back voyage optimization.Like kids in the sandpit, owners and charterers are being forced to share, perhaps more than they really want to. The IMO and the EU, for starters, are setting data-driven decarbonization rules, and those in the sandpit are having to respond.Ship managers and data analysis specialists…
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23 May 2023
Remote Survey is the New End-Game
More than remote witnessing, more than remote data analysis, remote survey techniques are now going to aid the shift to full vessel autonomy.The technology that enables a robot to safely navigate an environment it has no prior knowledge of is called Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). “It is the key to autonomy for any aspiring can-do inspection robot.” That’s according to ScoutDI, a participant…
