Ballast water is a traditional way to improve the stability, propulsion and manoeuvrability of a vessel. Nevertheless, it comes with some downsides which may be ecological as well as economical. So, what can be done to improve this? The answer may lies at removing ballast water systems altogether, adopting ballast free ships.

Industry stakeholders have discussed a lot about the pros and cons of paperless navigation concluding that ECDIS does have an edge over the traditional paper chart navigation. However, the question for the navigating officers remains the same. Can they steer the vessel, following a pre scheduled passage plan, avoiding grounding?

On October 27, the container ship Maersk Launceston collided with the Hellenic Navy minesweeper Kallisto off Piraeus. The minesweeper was damaged significanlty, while two crewmembers were injured. 

The industry has mostly shed its focus on navigational safety or pollution prevention; however, the issues related to engine rooms and installations should not be disregarded considering that many accidents have been reported due to engine failures, loss of power or other engineering related causes.

Already established measures have paved the way for a more environmental-friendly shipping. A key example is the IMO NOx Tier III limits. These limits apply to engines installed on or after 1 January 2016, that are operating in Emission Control Areas and establish a strict limit on their emissions.

The fourth edition has been extensively updated and addresses: Lessons learned from incidents, most notably from failures of HMSF mooring lines; Human centred mooring designs and human factors in mooring operations; New and in-development regulations and guidance from the IMO on the safety of mooring; Alternative mooring technologies and how they can be incorporated safely into the design of mooring systems both for ships and terminals.

Professionals across the shipping industry may be familiar with the terms like “gross tonnage”, “deadweight tonnage”, “net tonnage” and many more terms we regularly meet in shipping-related sources, but those are not always easy to distinguish, especially when being new in the industry. Have you ever wondered what is the difference between gross and deadweight tonnage?  

One of the most concerning problems that our oceans are facing nowadays – if not the most important – is plastic pollution. Plastics are the cause of increasing ocean pollution, which in turn affects marine life, and consequently humans as well. However, there are easy steps that everyone can follow, in order to eliminate this matter.

A Bunker Delivery Note (BDN) is the standard document required by Annex VI of MARPOL, which contains information on fuel oil delivery. It is the responsibility of the fuel oil suppliers to provide the bunker delivery note, which must remain on the vessel, for inspection purposes, for a period of three years after the fuel has been delivered. But, what information exactly should A BDN include?

With the shipping industry entering a new, environmentally-friendly period, stakeholders in the maritime industry are seeking for ways to reduce their ships’ emissions. Apart from choosing green fuels and scrubbers, ports come to add another solution: Cold Ironing. This is the process of providing shoreside electrical power to a ship at berth, while its main and auxiliary engines are turned off.