NAUTILUS P01 NOVEMBER 2009.qxd - Nautilus International

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14 | telegraph | nautilusint.org | November 2009 INTERNATIONAL shortreports CREW REPATRIATED: four crew members stranded without pay in the French port of St Nazaire since July have been repatriated to Turkey after help from the <strong>International</strong> Transport Workers’ Federation. The ITF is also continuing to fight for the payment of wages owed to the crew of the cargoship Aspet. Eight other crew members have chosen to stay onboard the vessel until the owner pays a €100,000 bond to cover essential repairs and salaries. FRENCH TRAINING: the French National Assembly has voted to establish a single National Higher Maritime Academy to train merchant navy officers. The government plans to group the country’s current four academies at Le Havre, Nantes, Saint Malo and Marseilles into a single centralised establishment but the four sites will remain as part of the ENSM, which will come under the authority of the junior sea ministry. SEA STUDIES: most of France’s maritime professional high schools have reported higher registration for the three-year maritime baccalaureate (A level) following the latest reform of the maritime education system that came into effect this year. Women still make up fewer than 12% of the entrants and students from maritime families account for as much as 15% of the intake, depending on area. SNCM STOPPAGES: seafarers serving with the French Mediterranean ferry operator SNCM voted last month to end a six-day stoppage to protect pay and conditions. The unions had called for assurances on the pay and conditions of crew members working for a new freight-carrying subsidiary, which they fear could be a vehicle for the company to recruit seafarers from lowcost countries. JAMAICAN PLAN: Jamaica’s government has revealed plans to establish the Island as ‘a global shipping centre’ offering a world-class container transshipment port, cruise port facilities, an IMO-approved officer training facility, and ship management, broking, chartering, repair and specialist maritime services. STOWAWAYS SENT HOME: four Moroccan stowaways were discovered in Marseilles having travelled in a container from Casablanca. The stowaways were sent back to Morocco on the freighter Tanger, operated by the Compagnie Maritime Marocaine, that had carried them to France. PORTS CALL: the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development says that Europe’s port services sector should be opened up to greater competition. The Paris-based body said that while some EU ports have become efficient and competitive, others have lagged behind in their productivity. FERRY LAY-OFFS: the Swedish operator HH Ferries has announced plans to halve its 200-strong workforce — including 60 seafarers — following a slump in freight volumes on the service between Helsingor and Helsingborg, which it blamed on a newly constructed bridge. SUE HOLMES MARINE TAX CONSULTANT LTD For an annual fee of £180.00 (plus VAT) you can rest in the knowledge that your 100% deduction claim will be calculated by an expert in Marine Taxation with over 20 years’ experience. Monthly Standing Order Payments available TAX RETURNS LOGGED ELECTRONICALLY FOR PERSONAL, FRIENDLY ADVICE CONTACT: SUE HOLMES 38 CARDIFF ROAD, DINAS POWYS, VALE OF GLAMORGAN CF64 4JS TEL: 02920/512029 Fax: 02920/515384 E-mail: sue.holmes@btconnect.com Web: www.marinetax.com Court clears officers on rescue charges UN refugee body says verdict upholds ‘basic principle of the sea’ PA ship master and chief officer have been cleared by an Italian court of aiding illegal migration after they rescued a boatload of African migrants in the Mediterranean. Humanitarian groups hailed the decision, saying any conviction would have amounted to criminalisation of the internationally-enshrined duty to rescue people from danger at sea. Captain Stefan Schmidt and first officer Vladimir Daschkewitsch, together with Elias Bierdel, president of the Cap Anamur relief group, were accused of aiding illegal immigration for picking up 37 African migrants from a drifting boat that was in danger of sinking in 2004. If convicted, they would have faced up to four years in prison and fines of as much as €400,000. After the refugees were taken onboard, Italian authorities refused to allow the Cap Anamur vessel to berth for three weeks before finally allowing it to enter a port in Sicily. Italy had argued that the migrants should have been disembarked in Malta, since they were rescued in Maltese territorial waters. The Italians also claimed hat the responsibility for their care rested with Germany, becauuse the Cap Anamur was a Germanregistered vessel. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees welcomed the verdict. ‘The decision of the court was positive and it was a relief for us, by Jeff Apter A crucial court case has opened Hin Paris to determine responsibilities for the massive pollution caused by the sinking of the flag of convenience tanker Erika in December 1999. The trial — which is expected to last six weeks— sees the French oil company Total, the Italian classification society Rina and the Erika’s owner and manager appeal against a 2008 court ruling that they bore responsibilities for the loss of the ship and the clean-up costs involved. The Erika lost two-thirds of the 30,884 tonnes of heavy oil it was carrying when it sank off the French Atlantic coast, fouling 400km of beaches and oiling an estimated 150,000 birds. During the 2008 trial, Total and Capt Stefan Schmidt celebrates his acquittal with members of his legal team Picture: Daniele La Monaca/Reuters and for those who work at sea, it’s an encouragement to save human lives, no matter what their judicial status is,’ spokeswoman Laura Boldrini told The Telegraph. ‘Rescue at sea does not mean going to jail,’ she added. ‘Those who do their duty, and rescue at sea, must not be punished.’ Ms Boldrini said the UNHCR two subsidiaries, along with Rina, the ship’s owner Giuseppe Savarese and its manager, Antonio Pollara, were each fined €75,000 — the maximum then possible under the law. The court also ordered the defendants to pay a total of €192m in damages to civil claimants, including €154m to the state. Erika’s master, the rescue teams and Total’s two subsidiaries were cleared of responsibility — but the prosecutor appealed against the acquittal of the companies while Total, Rina, Mr Savarese and Mr Pollara have also appealed against their convictions. The 2008 judgement strongly endorsed the argument that oil companies should be held responsible for the state of the tankers they use to ship their products — but Total maintains the vessel’s had recently dealt with a case in which 75 people died onboard a drifting vessel in the Mediterranean last month, which had been passed by around a dozen other vessels. She said there was a ‘vacuum’ in maritime policies and urged EU governments to put an agreement in place to prevent ‘ping corrosion was not disclosed to it and argues that, as the charterer, it cannot be held responsible for the failings of the classification society that had approved the defective tanker. Rina is pleading for immunity from conviction, as it did on the opening day of the original trial in February 2007. The classification society said that Malta, as the flag state, had chosen Rina to carry out what amounted to a mission of ‘public service, public duty’. Malta had not been a defendant and neither should the company be, it argued. Giuseppe Savarese, Erika’s operator, said the tanker’s age did not necessarily mean greater risks — something that the civil appellants’ barrister called ‘a hymn to old tonnage’. pong’ between countries when ships seek to disembark people who have been rescued at sea. Capt Schmidt told reporters: ‘This verdict is important for all those who do good. My only regret is that with the money we have spent fighting this case for five years we could have been helping people.’ New legal hearing on Erika responsibilities Ranged against Total and its codefendants are dozens of plaintiffs — many of them local communities — who are seeking higher compensation than they were awarded in the 2008 judgement. French shipowners’ association AdF — which had welcomed the outcome of the original trial, including the conviction of the operator — said it did not understand why there was an appeal: ‘All the victims have received compensation, the guilty parties have paid their fines and the ecological damage has been repaired.’ However, the case is being closely watched by the shipping industry, because it has potentially huge implications in determining who is responsible — and financially accountable — for maritime pollution incidents.
November 2009 | nautilusint.org | telegraph | 15 INTERNATIONAL US Coast Guard gets tough with ports that prevent seafarers’ shore leave CThe US Coast Guard has warned port operators that it will reject their security plans unless they take steps to ensure that visiting seafarers get the chance to have shore leave. In a directive sent to USCG port captains, Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen expressed concern at continuing reports of cases in which seafarers have run into problems in getting ashore or carrying out crew changes. He warned that there are some ports where seafarers have been unable to leave their ships because of the high costs involved in securing authorised escorts. Following a legal review, the USCG says it has established that it has the authority to require ports regulated under the Maritime Transport Security Act to ‘provide reasonable access to seafarers’. It wants port captains to check terminal security plans to ensure that they contain details of how crew changes will be carried out, and that shore leave and visits by union and welfare organisation representatives will be enabled. In a significant shift away from the previous hardline US approach to shore leave, the directive warned that any plan that ‘does not positively Flagship ‘rests’ In a surprise move, the French Hwestern Channel operator Brittany Ferries will this month ‘rest’ its new flagship Amorique — pictured left — ‘provisionally for several months’. The ferry, which entered service at the beginning of this year between Plymouth and Roscoff, will first undergo a programmed technical layup before being moored in a port, probably Le Havre. The company said it could not justify operating such a high-capacity vessel when the normal seasonal fall in passenger traffic had been aggravated by the economic downturn. Picture: Eric Houri SeaFrance crews stage new strike in restructuring row Seafarers serving with the Across-Channel operator SeaFrance staged a one-day strike last month in the latest stage of a battle to resist cost-cutting plans for redundancies and fleet reductions. The majority CFDT union representing ratings remains opposed to plans to reduce the current 1,600-strong workforce by more than 500, and organised the stoppage in protest at the company’s ‘inflexibility’ and in a bid to end months of deadlock in talks on the ‘recovery plan’. Seafarers say the cuts are far in excess of what is needed to return the company to profit and accused the firm of using the threat of redundancy as a form of blackmail. They have called for the French government to appoint a mediator to explore an independent solution to the dispute. As the Telegraph went to press, a crucial meeting between management and unions was due to take place in a special session of the official SeaFrance works council — the second in a fortnight. The deadline for a decision on the SeaFrance plan — which would also see the company’s fleet cut from five ships to three — was extended by a fortnight in a bid to secure agreement of all the unions. Danish unions protest over Maersk cutbacks Socialist MP says government green light to officer job losses is a scandal by Andrew Draper PDanish unions are reeling after AP Moller-Maersk announced cost-cutting plans to replace 170 junior Danish officers with Asian nationals. The Danish navigators’ and engineers’ unions have been meeting management to clarify and negotiate the terms of the job losses. They are fighting any compulsory job cuts. Maersk said the early retirement and redundancy package was aimed at officers (excluding captains and chief engineers) wanting to switch from sea to a land-based job. Navigators’ union SL has urged the company to redeploy the 170 seastaff to other parts of the group. It also asked the Danish Shipowners’ Association to help find them alternative jobs. Danish Maersk cadets staged a protest against the cutbacks last month Maersk has around 2,200 non- Dane onboard — even though the Danish officers on its ships, out government-backed register of a total of some 3,000, and says it sees no difference in their quality based on nationality. ‘We don’t think we’ll miss anything once the Danish officers disappear,’ Henrik Sloth, vice-president of offers generous tax breaks for owners. They get to keep the theoretical tax element of employees’ salaries. Union president Peer Bøje Brandenborg commented: ‘The crewing at APM, was quoted as Danish owners and Danish saying. SL estimates there are already 50 vessels operating under the Danish <strong>International</strong> Ship register, DIS, that do not have a single Shipowners’ Association must now show that they are worth all the tax rebates and favourable framework conditions. ‘Denmark’s focus on shipping with really good framework conditions also obliges the owners to deliver Danish jobs,’ he stressed. ‘ If they can’t do that in practice, then the matter will have to be taken up at a political level.’ Socialist Danish MP Ole Sohn has already tabled a question to business minister Lene Espersen asking what it costs the taxpayer to finance the DIS. Mr Sohn — himself an ex-merchant navy man — has criticised the government’s acceptance of Maersk’s plans as a ‘scandal’, saying favourable treatment under DIS should entail responsibility towards society. Mr Sohn is also asking for information on the cost of educating Danish officers. The CO-Søfart combined union body says there have only ever been guesses before at what shipowners receive in subsidies. address this requirement should be returned to the submitter for further development before approval can be granted’. Coast Guard officers should report any ports or terminals that continue to deny access to seafarers, charge exorbitant fees, greatly limit the hours of access or impose ‘overly restrictive policies that discourage or refuse access’. Tim Brown, president of the US Masters’ Mates & Pilots union welcomed the ‘new direction’ taken by the USCG. ‘This could be a major step forward in the relationship between the Coast Guard and the seagoing maritime community,’ he added. shortreports BUDGET BOXES: a new Danish-based company is planning to establish a low-cost container shipping line, modelled on airlines such as easyJet. The ‘strippeddown’ service is being set up by former Maersk and CMA CGM senior executive Franck Kayser and Norwegian shipbrokers Boxton Maritime. Norwegian shipping magnate John Fredriksen is also reported to have confirmed his involvement in talks on the proposed new service, which will go under the name of The Containership Company. CUTS RESISTED: leading European Union shipping nations — understood to be led by Greece and supported by Malta and Cyprus — have expressed opposition to the EU’s proposed 20% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions for shipping as part of its contribution to combating climate change. The countries involved told Sweden, which holds the EU presidency until the end of the year, that the target was set too high against 2005 levels. DEBT BATTLE: following years of growth, the French firm CMA CGM — the world’s third ranking containership operator — is facing major financial problems as a result of the slump in seaborne trade and is seeking to restructure its businesses. The Marseillesbased operator has set up a committee to find solutions to its debt, estimated at €5bn, and has warned that workforce reductions may be necessary. BREAKING CALL: decent ships can become a ‘rustbucket’ within a year, a leading French owner has warned. In an interview with the maritime journal Le Marin, Philippe Louis-Dreyfus, boss of the Channel ferry operator LD Lines, called for a system to eliminate the oldest tonnage — including effective ship inspections to exclude high-risk vessels. HAPAG-LLOYD AID: the German container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd is to receive direct state aid after the country’s government agreed to guarantee some €1.2bn in bank loans for the Hamburg-based operator. Shareholders have also agreed to inject some €750m of fresh capital into the company in a bid to avoid its collapse. YARDS ALARM: European shipbuilders have voiced ‘major concern’ at the slump in the size of their orderbooks. The Community of European Shipyards’ Associations, which represents almost 100% of the continent’s facilities, warned that at current order levels some yards may have to halt production in 2011. SWEDISH PRESSURE: Swedish seafarers have welcomed calls from the country’s opposition Social Democrats for their government to set up a tonnage tax system. The SEKO union said there was now broad political support for the measure, and the government was ‘entirely isolated’ in its failure to act. WATER PLAN: the French port of Le Havre has revealed a €200m project to boost waterborne freight by linking into the French inland waterway system via the existing Tancarville canal and the River Seine. HOTA, one of this Country’s leading MCA Approved Maritime Training Providers based in Hull, East Yorkshire will be running the 5 Day MCA Approved Training Course in Electronic Chart Display & Information Systems (ECDIS) in conjunction with ECDIS Ltd starting in November 2009 This is the full IMO model course 1.27 Dates now available for all short STCW95 courses for 2010 For further information please contact: Karen Shepherd Tel: 01482 820567 Fax: 01482 823202 Email: karen@hota.org Website: www.hota.org
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