Maritime Monday 60 at Fred Fry International

It time for Fred Fry International: Maritime Monday 60. This week Fred holds a "cattle call" on a some livestock carriers and a whole bunch more links to "mooving" stories.

Free.

Gasoline Prices

An excellent piece on gasoline prices from the NY Times on Oil Price ‘Gouging’: A Phantom Menace?:

THE average price of gasoline in the United States set a record last week — $3.10 a gallon, according to the Energy Information Administration — up a nickel from the week before and 15 cents from a year ago.

Like night follows day, politicians in Washington immediately vented their outrage.
***
It goes without saying that gasoline retailers and oil companies will seek to maximize their profit, which usually means charging the highest price markets can bear.

But is that price gouging?

Because the demand for gasoline is what economists call inelastic, which means that people cannot quickly reduce their consumption when prices rise sharply, abrupt supply shortages lead to steep price increases without any immediate decline in sales.

The most common reason for such increases in gasoline prices is a steep increase in the price of crude oil. But crude oil prices are set in global markets, and even the biggest American or European oil companies are modest players compared with state-controlled oil companies in the Persian Gulf, Russia and Latin America.
***
It seems hard to believe today, but world oil prices briefly drifted below $11 a barrel in 1998. Not surprisingly, few lawmakers in Congress took that opportunity to denounce “unconscionably excessive” price declines.

The Federal Trade Commission has been skeptical about accusations of price-gouging on gasoline prices. In 2004, the agency studied price changes in gasoline from 1991 through late 2003. It concluded that about 85 percent of the price variability — both up and down — reflected changes in crude oil prices.
***
INDUSTRY executives say the anomaly reflects a temporary drop-off in refinery activity, partly because of scheduled maintenance and partly because of unscheduled interruptions. On top of that come ethanol prices, which have soared, because refiners now blend a small percentage of ethanol into standard gasoline.

The broader issue is that refinery capacity has not kept up with American demand for gasoline. Oil companies, caught with vast amounts of excess refining capacity in the early 1980s, systematically reduced capacity during the long lean years when energy prices and profit margins were the pity of Wall Street.
***
But Congress could face an entirely new quandary in its desire to expand the use of renewable fuels. President Bush has called for producing 35 billion gallons a year of alternative fuels — from cellulosic ethanol to coal-based diesel — by 2017. Congressional Democrats might be even more aggressive.

If that’s the plan, will oil companies want to invest in more refineries? “You’ve got to ask whether the demand will be there,” Mr. Felmy said.

See my previous post on Alternate fuels make new refineries unlikely:

A top Chevron Corp. executive said Tuesday the push to displace as much as a fifth of the country's gasoline with ethanol will make it less likely the industry will build new domestic refineries.

UPDATE: More thoughts here:

Congress can help by making it easier to build refineries in this country. The United States has a serious supply-and-demand problem due in part to this nation’s insufficient refining capacity.

Investors are reluctant to put their money into U.S. refineries due to a thicket of government regulations. Add the uncertainty that Congress could change the regulations after the refinery investments were made.

Most refinery investments now are made in other countries. No new refineries have been built in the United States in more than 30 years.

On Tuesday, the Senate Energy Committee was warned by oil analyst Paul Sankey that the lack of refining capacity in the United States leaves the nation’s 20-day gasoline inventory vulnerable to storms, accidents, equipment failures and foreign supply disruptions, according to a Cox News Service story by Marilyn Geewax.

Sankey said Congress should be prepared for emergency measures, including tossing out environmental rules and drawing down strategic reserves.

“The underlying problem is the U.S. petroleum industry’s infrastructure is just unable to cope with increasing demand,” he said.

Congress also should investigate how it can help promote refinery construction in this country. That’s a start.

Market forces, anyone? The Law of Unintended Consequences is being felt in the impact of prior governmental activity to "solve" the energy crises.

Refinery capacity? As it achieves great efficiency, it also reaches max capacity, leaving little wiggle room for refinery shutdowns, the Energy Information Agency says:

U.S. refining capacity, as measured by daily processing capacity of crude oil distillation units alone, has appeared relatively stable in recent years, at about 16 million barrels per day of operable capacity (graph). While the level is a reduction from the capacity of twenty years ago, the first refineries that were shut down as demand fell in the early 1980's were those that had little downstream processing capability. Limited to simple distillation, these small facilities were only economically viable while receiving subsidies under the Federal price control system that ended in 1981. Some additional refineries were shut down in the late 1980's and during the 1990's, always, of course, those at the least profitable end of a company's asset portfolio. At the same time, refiners improved the efficiency of the crude oil distillation units that remained in service by "debottlenecking" to improve the flow and to match capacity among different units and by turning more and more to computer control of the processing. Furthermore, following government mandates for environmentally more benign products as well as commercial economics, refiners enhanced their upgrading (downstream processing) capacity. As a result, the capacity of the downstream units ceased to be the constraining factor on the amount of crude oil processed (or "run") through the crude oil distillation system. Thus crude oil inputs to refineries ("runs") have continued to rise, and along with them -- given the stability of crude oil distillation capacity -- capacity "utilization" rose throughout much of the 1990's (again, see graph). Utilization -- the share of capacity filled with crude oil -- reached truly record levels in the last half of the decade, nominally exceeding 100 percent for brief periods.

The graph referred to follows:


Refinery profitablity issues from the past haunt us today:

In general, refining has been significantly less profitable than other industry segments during the 1990's, as shown in the accompanying graph. Gross refinery margins -- the difference between the cost of the input and the price of the output -- have been squeezed at the same time that operating costs and the need for additional investment to meet environmental mandates has grown, thus reducing the net margin even further. In addition, much of the investment made during the 1980's was designed to take advantage of the differential between the dwindling supply of higher quality crude oils and the growing supply of heavier and higher sulfur crudes. When that differential narrowed, however, the financial return on those investments declined. Refining margins peaked in the late 1980's.

In short, in the past, when any new refinery capacity that might be needed today could have been started, there was no incentive for the refining companies to build them, because there was little or no profit in the industry.

See also here.

TANSTAAFL.

UPDATE2: Corn based ethanol problems covered here:

Policymakers and legislators often fail to consider the law of unintended consequences. The latest example is their attempt to reduce the United States' dependence on imported oil by shifting a big share of the nation's largest crop – corn – to the production of ethanol for fueling automobiles.

Good goal, bad policy. In fact, ethanol will do little to reduce the large percentage of our fuel that is imported (more than 60 percent), and the ethanol policy will have ripple effects on other markets. Corn farmers and ethanol refiners are ecstatic about the ethanol boom and are enjoying the windfall of artificially enhanced demand. But it will be an expensive and dangerous experiment for the rest of us.

Thanks, Congress.

Martime Liaison Office Bahrain issues Somalia Warning

MARLO warning to stay well away from coast of Somalia can be found as MARLO Advisory Bulletin 20 May 2007:

Due to a recent resurgence of piracy off the coast of Somalia, MARLO repeats its previous advisory, and urges ALL VESSELS to REMAIN AT LEAST 200 NM OFF the eastern coast of Somalia.
***
Although there are Coalition Forces operating in the area, they cannot be everywhere monitoring every ship that passes the coast of Somalia. The Coalition Forces cannot stop these pirate attacks on their own. They need your help to effectively deal with the pirates. You can help yourselves by keeping a safe standoff distance from Somalia, and you can help Coalition Forces by informing them of any suspicious activity that you may observe.

Map roughly shows 200 miles distance from Somalia, whick coincides with Somali 200 nm EEZ, as set out here.

LA port security economic issues

Natural disaster or terrorism the LA area ports need to be prepared, as they are important to the U.S. economy, as set out here:

Decades of round-the-clock economic activity have shaped the sprawling Long Beach-Los Angeles seaport into America's premier doorway for international trade.

So what happens if that door slams shut in the wake of a natural disaster or terrorist attack?

The answer is incomplete, but industry and public sector leaders are working to develop a more cohesive plan to keep the supply chain intact following a serious disruption.

"There's obviously a great deal of pressure," said John M. Holmes, deputy executive director of operations at the Port of Los Angeles, who joined fellow port executives from Long Beach, Los Angeles and New Orleans on Friday for a daylong forum on the port's ability to continue functioning after a disaster.

"If L.A.-Long Beach went down, all the ports on the West Coast, including those in Canada and Mexico, couldn't handle the overflow. We have to think about how we get these ports back on track."

U.S. Navy to help with West African piracy

Reported here:

The United States is boosting its naval presence along the lawless West African coast to combat terrorism, illegal migration and drug trafficking and to secure U.S. oil interests, senior naval and coastguard officials said.

Amid concerns that weak government controls in some West African states has made the region fertile for drug cartels, people smugglers and Islamist groups, the U.S. navy command in Europe has focused its activities southward.

"The clear majority of shipping coming into the United States is coming off the coast of West Africa into the Gulf of Mexico," Vice-Admiral John Stufflebeem, commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet based in the Mediterranean, said on Saturday.

"So we are interested in this (region) from a security perspective from our own homeland, and ... in commerce and quite frankly, oil is one part of it," he told Reuters.

The Gulf of Guinea, which includes oil producers like Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria, is central to U.S. efforts to reduce dependency on Middle Eastern exports.

It currently supplies around 15 percent of U.S. oil consumption, and that is forecast to rise to 25 percent by 2015, although resource-hungry China is also looking to corner oil supply from the region, notably in Angola.

To reflect the growing strategic importance of Africa, the U.S. military will launch a separate Africa Command (AFRICOM) in October, to be based in Germany for its first year but likely to move to the continent thereafter.
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In a joint naval and coastguard initiative, the two vice-admirals were touring six West African countries -- Mauritania, Senegal, Benin, Togo, Sao Tome and Gabon -- to build maritime cooperation ahead of the year-long trial deployment of a U.S. navy vessel to the region in October.

The amphibious ship, capable of carrying training teams and smaller boats, will act as a mobile base along the coast, in a test of a global naval project dubbed Global Fleet Station to expand the U.S. maritime presence for a reasonably low cost.

The commanders were also encouraging local governments to adopt an electronic tagging system for ships, known as Automatic Identification Systems (AIS), as a cheap means of tracking shipping in their waters aimed at tackling smuggling and piracy.

"When we talk to major corporations like oil companies or insurance companies ..., there is a growing concern about the safety and security of their enterprises," Stufflebeem said, singling out Nigeria, the world's third worst nation for piracy.

"There is a growing intersection of illegal activities that cross over into terrorism. Terrorists are using illegal activities to raise money," said Stufflebeem, citing diamond trading in Africa and drug trafficking from South America.

Stufflebeem said the AIS initiative should be complimented with a network of radar stations, such as the $18 million site being built by the U.S. government for Sao Tome. However, he played down speculation of a U.S. naval base on the archipelago: "We are not looking for a permanent presence."

Arrow on map points to Gulf of Guinea.

Oil flow map from 1997 show flow of oil of Gulf of Guinea to Gulf of Mexico. Blue arrow points to area of oil exports to U.S.

Somalia pirates kill World Food Program sea-going guard, WFP ship escapes

Somalii pirates step up their criminal activity by killing a guard employed to protect World Food Program shipping, as set out here:

A WFP-contracted cargo ship narrowly escaped from hijacking in the port town of Merca, 100 km south of the Somali capital Mogadishu.

Pirates attempted to hijack the cargo vessel off the coast of Merca as soldiers hired to guard the Merca coast prevented the pirates from taking the ship. There has been an exchange of gunfire that lasted nearly an hour when the coastguards successfully rescued the ship from falling into the control of the pirates.

Hussein Kenyan, Shabelle correspondent in Merca, said one soldier was killed during the gun battle in the Somali Indian Ocean, while it is unclear if there were any casualties on the pirates' side.

The UN is demanding actionto cure the "piracy plague" off Somalia, as set out here:

THE United Nations has called for international action against "a plague of piracy" off the coast of Somalia that is threatening to cut aid to one million people.

The UN World Food Program (WFP) said the movement of aid supplies to the Horn of African country was under severe threat.

"We urge key nations to do their utmost to address the plague of piracy which is now threatening our ability to feed one million Somalis," WFP executive director, Josette Sheeran, said.

"Unless action is taken now, not only will our supply lines be cut, but also those of other aid agencies working in various parts of Somalia."

Piracy has been rife off Somalia since the country slid into chaos after warlords toppled military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Many pirates claim to be "coastguards" protecting their waters against illegal fishing and dumping of toxic waste.

Last year, WFP was forced to suspend aid deliveries for weeks after the hijacking of two ships it had contracted.

In the latest attack yesterday, pirates killed a guard working for a WFP-contracted ship's agent who was among those sent to intercept the pirates after they attempted to hijack the vessel.

The pirates attacked the Jordanian-registered MV Victoria about 110km from Merka, south of Mogadishu. It was on its way to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania after delivering 4000 tonnes of food aid to Merka.

The ship returned to Merka after the guards repulsed the attackers, WFP said.

"WFP is very saddened and alarmed by the death of the guard, who showed great courage while the ship came under attack. We send our condolences to his family," Ms Sheeran said.

Sunday Ship History: International Ice Patrol

Yesterday, May 19th, marked the 95th anniversary of the founding of the North Atlantic Ice Patrol, founded in 1912. The precipitating event for the founding of the Patrol was the sinking of HMS Titanic on April 15, 1912, with the loss of over 1,500 passengers. A popular folksong of the time, sung by my grandfather laid the disaster out:

Oh, they built the ship Titanic, to sail the ocean blue.
For they thought it was a ship that water would never go through.
It was on its maiden trip, that an iceberg hit the ship.
It was sad when the great ship went down.

It was sad, so sad.
It was sad, so sad.
It was sad when the great ship went down (to the bottom of the....)
Husbands and wives, little children lost their lives.
It was sad when the great ship went down.

As noted below, the response to the sinking of the Titanic was the establishment of the North Atlantic Ice Patrol, designed to keep and eye on the icebergs floating south from Greenland and into the great circle sea lanes used by the shipping comapnies to minimize the travel time between Europe and North America.

The North Atlantic Ice Patrol became the International Ice Patrol:

After the TITANIC disaster, the U.S. Navy assigned the Scout Cruisers CHESTER and BIRMINGHAM to patrol the Grand Banks for the remainder of 1912. In 1913, the Navy could not spare ships for this purpose, so the Revenue Cutter

Service (forerunner of the Coast Guard) assumed responsibility, assigning the Cutters SENECA and MIAMI to conduct the patrol.


At the first International Conference on the Safety of Life at Sea, which was convened in London on November 12, 1913, the subject of patrolling the ice regions was thoroughly discussed. The convention signed on January 30, 1914, by the representatives of the world's various maritime powers, provided for the inauguration of an international derelict-destruction, ice observation, and ice patrol service, consisting of vessels, which should patrol the ice regions during the season of iceberg danger and attempt to keep the trans-Atlantic lanes clear of derelicts during the remainder of the year. Due primarily to the experience gained in 1912 and 1913, the United States Government was invited to undertake the management of the triple service, the expense to be defrayed by the 13 nations interested in trans-Atlantic navigation.

As the convention, when ratified, would not go into effect until July 1, 1915, the government of Great Britain on behalf of the several nations interested, made inquiry on January 31, 1914 as the whether the United States would undertake the patrol at once under the same mutual obligations as provided in the convention. The proposition was favorably considered by the President, and on February 7, 1914, he directed that the (then) Revenue Cutter Service begin as early as possible in that month, the International Ice Observation and Ice Patrol Service. Each year since then, with exception of the wartime years, a patrol has been maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Risk:

While icebergs are a constant navigational hazard in the Arctic, the cold Labrador Current carries some of them south to the vicinity of the Grand Banks and into the great circle shipping lanes between Europe and the major ports of the United States and Canada. Vessels transversing this area try to make their voyage as short and as economical as possible. Therefore, ships in the vicinity of the "limit of all known ice" normally will pass just to the south of this boundary. Vessels passing through Ice Patrol's published ice limit, run the risk of a collision with an iceberg and insurance concerns. In this area the Labrador Current meets the warm Gulf Stream and the temperature differences between the two water masses of up to 20 degrees Celsius, produces dense fog. The combination of icebergs, fog, severe storms, fishing vessels and busy trans-Atlantic shipping lanes makes this area one of the most dangerous.

The cost of maintaining the Ice Patrol is borne by the users of the service:

The thirteen nations signatory to the 1915 SOLAS Convention agreed to share costs in accordance with a formula approximating their degree of individual benefit. This sharing arrangement has been updated over the years as shipping patterns changed and as additional nations acceded to the treaty. Financial relations are handled by the Department of State which does the actual billing of each nation for its share of the cost. In the early days this share was a fixed percentage changed infrequently by treaty revision. In recent years, the cost share has been based on each participating nations percentage of the total cargo tonnage transiting the patrol area during the ice season.

The Ice Patrol has evolved over time:

From its inception until the beginning of World War II, the Ice Patrol was conducted from two surface patrol cutters alternating surveillance patrols of the southern ice limits. In 1931 and thereafter a third ship was assigned to Ice Patrol to perform oceanographic observations in the vicinity of the Grand Banks. After World War II, aerial surveillance became the primary ice reconnaissance method with surface patrols phased out except during unusually heavy ice years or extended periods of reduced visibility. Use of the oceanographic vessel continued until 1982, when the Coast Guard's sole remaining oceanographic ship, USCGC EVERGREEN, was converted to a medium endurance cutter. The aircraft has distinct advantages for ice reconnaissance providing much greater coverage in a relatively short period of time.

Today, the IIP boasts a proud record:

Except for the years of the two World Wars, the International Ice Patrol has conducted each season since 1913. During the period the Ice Patrol has amassed an enviable safety record with not a single reported loss of life or property due to collision with an iceberg outside the advertised limits of all known ice in the vicinity of the Grand Banks. However, the potential for a catastrophe still exists.

How important is the mission of the IIP?

Of all the peacetime threats of the sea, none are more fearsome, unyielding, and treacherous than icebergs. Despite ingenuity, resourcefulness, and almost a century of experience and technical advances, this natural wonder has resisted our efforts to control, regulate, and avoid it.

Breaking off from hundreds of West Greenland glaciers, frequently as long as a city block and towering up to 100 feet above the sea surface, icebergs are steered by ocean currents. Their enormous mass and the tremendous environmental forces acting on them render ineffective efforts to restrain or destroy them, or significantly alter their course.

Effects on shipping? In 1945, a large ice island (for definition of "tabular" re icebergs, see here) caused some wartime problems:

An interesting and enlightening story regarding an ice island occurred in May of 1945 and was reported in Bulletin No. 32: International Ice Observation and Ice Patrol Service in the North Atlantic Ocean - Season of 1946:

Several very large flat-topped bergs were reported, an example of which was the berg reported on the 27th in position 43�08'N / 49�18'W. This berg measured about 4,500 feet long, 3,300 feet wide, and its above-water height was approximately 50 feet. Growlers and debris from the huge block of ice were scattered over a radius of 5 miles. One of the last of the large North Atlantic convoys approached this great floating mass while in dense fog of the 27th and in the confusion that followed 21 ships were damaged. Two of these ships were reported to have suffered damage in collisions with ice and the remaining 19 to have suffered damage in collisions with each other. � All ships were able to proceed under their own power and no loss of life resulted.

The impact from the ice island, both figuratively and literally, was immediately felt as the Admiralty and Chief of Naval Operations issued, on May 28, 1945, a joint order that abolished convoys and forced all merchant ships to burn navigation lights at full brilliancy and not darken ship.

Additionally, even though North Atlantic ice patrol services had not been officially re-established, the United States Atlantic Fleet inaugurated twice-daily broadcasts from Argentia, Newfoundland at 0200 and 1400 GCT to shipping commencing on 8 June, 1945 as well as detailing a surface vessel patrol to the Grand Bank region (GPO, 1947).

Growlers? See here:

You might think that big icebergs are more dangerous, but that is not the case. Big icebergs can be seen easily by people on ships. The smaller icebergs (called growlers) can hide in the waves, making them difficult to see and more dangerous.

Very large icebergs are more common off Antarctica than from Greenland, but they do appear:

Exceptionally large icebergs, commonly referred to as ice islands, came again into the public eye recently with the breaking loose of a portion the Antarctic ice sheet roughly ten times the size of the island of Manhattan (Dykstra, 2002). The glaciers of the North Atlantic, specifically along the western coast of Greenland, are not as conducive to very large iceberg generation as southern hemisphere ice fields, but do occasionally produce "Antarctic" size icebergs.

Ice Season 2002 (February 17, 2002 through July 15, 2002) saw some of the largest North Atlantic icebergs on recent record. These icebergs were actively tracked for a period of approximately two months during the summer, were photographed, and were even examined with side-scan sonar instruments.

As noted here, icebergs are resistant to destruction except by natural means:

We have tried to destroy them by shooting them, bombing them from planes, and using explosives. We have even tried to paint them black. We have found that the safest way is to let the icebergs melt on their own.

Not only does the IIP work to warn shipping of ice hazards, they also provide invaluable oceanographic information to the world's scientists. See here. This includes providing data on the ocean currents propelling the icebergs.

The IIP is a small unit:

With just 16 members, today’s International Ice Patrol in many ways is a microcosm of the Coast Guard itself: a small (even by Coast Guard standards) unit of men and women committed to excellence in the performance of their duties.

The "ice season" lasts about 6 months, from February to July.

Since 1962, the HC-130 has been the primary patrol aircraft for the Ice Patrol, but other aircraft used ranged from B-24s to B-17s to Catalina PBYs and HU-16 Albatross. The HU-16 was used in experimental bombings of icebergs.

The main product of the Ice Patrol:

All the iceberg data are fed into a computer model at the IIP Operations Center along with ocean current and wind data. Using this information, the model predicts the drift of the icebergs. Every 12 hours, the predicted iceberg locations are used to estimate the limit of all known ice. This limit, along with a few of the more critical predicted iceberg locations, is broadcast as an "Ice Bulletin" from radio stations around the U.S., Canada, Europe and over the World Wide Web. This is for the benefit of all vessels transiting North Atlantic. In addition to the Ice Bulletin, a radio facsimile chart of the area, depicting the limits of all known ice, is also broadcast twice daily.

In addition, the historical record serves as a database to detect patterns of iceberg activity:

An interesting animated producted made from the Ice Patrol reports can be found here: Described as:

This animation not only tracks the speed and distance travelled of individual icebergs, but symbolically distinguishes their relative sizes by keeping growlers, bergy bits, and small icebergs small, while bigger icebergs are sized larger.

More on the IIP here and
here.

Interesting work. A salute to all those who have served with the IIP!

UPDATE: How many icebergs per season cross into the sea lanes?

The mean number of icebergs passing south of 48 N is 473 icebergs with a standard deviation of 492 icebergs. Therefore, yearly totals are highly variable and are subject to highly variable climatic factors.

See the chart immediately above which, like most of the art contained herein, gets bigger if you click on it.

Armed Forces Day

May 19, 2007: Armed Forces Day:

President Harry S. Truman led the effort to establish a single holiday for citizens to come together and thank our military members for their patriotic service in support of our country.

In case you haven't been mad at the UN lately

Read this.

Puntland releases mislabeled "Finnish" fishermen

Seems those allegedly "Finnish" fishermen (see here) captured by Puntland were mostly Yemeni, as set here, and now they'v been released:

A group of 130 mainly Yemeni fishermen arrested by authorities off Somalia's breakaway northern region of Puntland more than two weeks ago have been released, a maritime official said on Friday.

Puntland officials detained the fishermen on May 2, in what was initially reported as a pirate attack, and charged them with illegal fishing on May 11, said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan branch of the international Seafarers Assistance Programme.

The fishermen, including one Tanzanian and nine Egyptians as well as 120 Yemenis, were "sent home after Yemeni and Puntland officials talked over the issue," Mwangura said.

They had been fishing in three large European-owned, Yemen-based boats and nine small Yemeni boats. The European vessels were not Finnish, as initially reported, Mwangura said.

Latest ICC CCS Piracy Report (to 15 May 07)

Latest ICC Commercial Crime Services Piracy Report (to 15 May 07) is found here. Highlights include lots of thefts at anchorages and this:

10.05.2007: 1830 LT: Posn 03:18.0N - 123:33.0E, Indonesia.
A small-unidentified craft followed a bulk carrier, underway, at a distance of 2.5 miles. The small craft had its search light on and aimed at the stern and bridge preventing the crew from identifying the craft. The craft closed to eight cables and contacted the ship via VHF Ch 16 informing they were an Indonesian navy patrol boat. They asked the ship to slow down and asked what type of cargo was onboard. The master asked the craft to illuminate herself for identification. The craft replied that they only wanted to know what type of cargo was onboard. The master refused to slow down as he suspected a piracy attack. The master raised the alarm. The crew mustered and took anti-piracy measures. The craft closed to about six cables, then slowed down, and moved away.

USMC Commandant Brief

Saw this on C-Span. Well worth a read:DefenseLink News Transcript: DoD News Briefing with Gen. Conway from the Pentagon

You can watch the C-Span video by going here and clicking on the link titled "Defense Dept. Briefing on Marine Corps Issues".

Ah, mediation!

So many snakes...

so little time.

India reacts to Tamil Tiger "Flying Corps"

Reported as Flying LTTE Tigers Help Spur India's Aerostat Radar Buy from Israel:

In spite of an interview in which Air Chief Fali Homi Major called the situation an irritant to India rather than a threat, the Indian military's reaction suggests that they are not taking the Tigers lightly. Part of their response includes a follow-on buy from Israel of very advanced surveillance radars mounted on tethered aerostat blimps...
***
Daily India reports that the attacks in Sri Lanka have raised "serious concerns" among the Indian defence forces "since there are greater chances that the high-range RADARS used by military might fail to detect the intrusion." This is very possible, given horizontal scan limits imposed by the horizon against low-flying aircraft.

The Times of India adds: "...especially with central and peninsular India being quite devoid of medium-level and low-level radar coverage, as reported by TOI earlier."

In response, The Indian Navy plans to press more UAVs into service around nearby coastal areas, and also plans to send 2 more ships into the region. The Indian Air Force (IAF) has reportedly mobilized small mobile Russian radars around strategic installations, including the nuclear plant at Kalpakkam.

More here.

Maldivian Coast Guard sinks 'LTTE' vessel

Reported here:

A trawler which the Maldivian Coast Guard sunk on Thursday, on suspicion that it was an LTTE gun-runner, was registered in Kerala, the Sri Lankan Navy's spokesman Com DKP Dassanayake told Hindustan Times on Friday.

The vessel bearing the name Sri Krishna ( registration number KFO 7339 ALP 2749) had set sail from Kollam (Quilon) in Kerala on March 7, Dassanayake said.

The Indian Coast Guard had last seen the vessel on March 12, near the India-Sri Lanka maritime boundary off Pamban near Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu. It reappeared on Wednesday May 16, south of the Maldives chain of islands. Trouble arose when it fired on a Maldivian fishing boat and invited the attention of the Maldivian Coast Guard vessel Huravee. After a 12-hour stand off, the trawler was sunk early on Thursday.

Four of the nine-member crew were captured, one surrendered, and four were killed, reports said. The man who surrendered was Simon Soza, the vessel's engineer, Dassanayake said. The others were apparently Tamils.

The suspicion that Sri Krishna was a gun-runner for the LTTE arose because of the kind of resistance the crew offered and also the explosions which could be heard as it sank. Reports said that the vessel, which started off as an innocent deep sea fishing trawler, was hijacked by the LTTE to do some gun-running for it.

There is a suspicion in diplomatic circles that the vessel was to rendezvous with an ocean going LTTE arms vessel in the high seas off south Maldives, and take on board a part of the lethal cargo for delivery in Sri Lanka. This could be the reason why the engineer of the vessel, the Malayali Simon Soza, had jumped ship and surrendered to the Maldivians, it is said.

The LTTE are also known as the Tamil Tigers. More here.

Friday Reads

It's Friday! And that may mean open line for Rush Limbaugh, but it also means that a couple of Navy guys push a little history at you. First, there's CDR Salamander with his Fullbore Friday, today featuring a Gearing class minesweeper. Then there's Steeljaw Scribe with his Frightdeck Friday- this time on the land-based air assets of pre-Midway.

Good stuff and only a couple of clicks away.

Stark attack remembered

By Lex at Twenty years ago today

Civil Air Patrol and Coast Guard Auxiliary to do joint operations

Reported here, an example of synergy between two auxiliary forces:

Civil Air Patrol's Raleigh-Wake Composite Squadron and members of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary met recently at Raleigh-Durham International Airport to discuss future joint training missions, beginning with the first such operation May 19.

For a number of years the Raleigh-Wake squadron has flown Sundown Patrols of the area lakes beginning Memorial Day and continuing through the Labor Day Weekend. The patrols' purpose is to attempt to spot boaters who may be experiencing difficulty or distress, then relay information to local authorities.

This year, several upcoming weekends will include coordination with the Coast Guard Auxiliary and will be conducted during peak activity hours as well as at sundown.

Capt. Dion Viventi, Raleigh-Wake squadron commander, said the patrols have provided an excellent training medium for CAP aircrews and ground support personnel.

Now, "by coordinating this activity with the Coast Guard Auxiliary, assistance to boaters in distress will be expedited," Viventi said.

Capt. Victor Lewis, the squadron's emergency services officer, said flights will be launched from Raleigh-Durham International about 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. May 19.

"One Coast Guard Auxiliary member will fly with each aircrew, and CAP members will join the Coast Guard flotilla on the lakes," Lewis said.

Capt. Tim Tessin, squadron communications officer, said CAP aircraft radios are capable of communicating with the Coast Guard Auxiliary's boats.

Great idea. Well done!

Navy training goes Hollywood

Reported as Setting the stage for survival at sea:

Looming several stories high and stretching more than 200 feet, the Navy's newest "destroyer" is, in fact, meant to create -- by turning uncertain recruits into confident sailors through a 12-hour simulation of the numbing tedium and spontaneous terror of life at sea.

The USS Trayer, a mock-up created by civilian special-effects wizards, is the centerpiece of the $82.5 million Battle Stations 21, located at Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, home of the Navy's only boot camp. Battle Stations, which all recruits must pass to graduate, puts dog-tired sailors-to-be through 17 scenarios, from taking inventory of a storeroom and watching generator gauges to an early-morning missile attack and firefighting.
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In a scenario based on the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, crews have to fight fires (real ones, though controlled by a facilitator), deal with flooded compartments and mass casualties, McKinley said. Lifelike dummies equipped with MP3 players moan amid the wreckage of a collapsed deck, smoke and flames.

The lesson is, "Bad stuff happens when you're least prepared for it," McKinley said.

Always.

Nuclear shipping fleet gets new ship- with guns?

Reported here:

A NEW “gun boat” which will ship radioactive materials from Sellafield has been launched amid pomp and ceremony in Japan.

The Pacific Heron has been built in Japan by Mitsui Engineering to the highest security specifications and this, The Whitehaven News understands, includes fixed naval guns as a terrorist deterrent while at sea.

It becomes part of the nuclear shipping fleet operated by Pacific Nuclear Transport Ltd (PNTL), a subsidiary of British Nuclear Group, the Sellafield operators.

The Pacific Heron will eventually replace The Pacific Teal, which along with its sister ship The Pintail carries Mox fuel and plutonium from Sellafield to Japan. Both are armed with canon along with “other additional physical protection systems only some of which are visible from outside”.

There is also security to protect against potential acts of sabotage. These include the presence on board of armed officers of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary who are specially trained to protect nuclear materials.

More here.

More on Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited here.