The U.S. flagged M/V Maersk Alabama has been hijacked by pirates approximately 280 miles (450 kilometers) northeast of Eyl, a town in the northern Puntland region of Somalia. The ship reportedly has 21 U.S. citizens aboard and is the first U.S. flagged vessel to be hijacked by Somali pirates.

Twenty years have now passed since the Russian nuclear sub K-278 Komsomolets caught fire and sunk in the Barents Sea off Norway on April 7th 1989.  The sub, including its nuclear reactor and nuclear warheads, are still resting on the bottom of the Barents in 5200 ft of water, slowly being buried under silt. The [...]

M/V Beriks – The stinking dutchman
M/V Beriks – The stinking dutchman

I’m seeing reports about a freighter adrift in the Black Sea dubbed “The stinking dutchman”. Needless to say, it caught my interest. Apparently the Dutch refer vessel Berkis, loaded Brazilian and Chinese meat and poultry in December, and then suffered a casualty to its refer system, resulting in over 200 tones of rotting meat that is apparently emitting quite an odor.

Reports indicate that at least 5 ships were captured this weekend alone off the coast of Somalia and in the Indian Ocean. The end of the monsoon season has arrived, and pirates are learning that attacks can still be very successful, further offshore, away from naval patrols and in what was previously thought of as [...]

At 490 meters (1,600 feet) long, 115 meters across and 13.5 meters deep, Hyundai has announced that it now has the world’s largest drydock. Imagine an area roughly the size of 7 soccer fields and that is what you would see at the new H-Dock in Ulsan, South Korea. The dock is custom designed to build floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels and includes two 1,600ton goliath cranes.