NAUTILUS P01 OCTOBER 2010.qxd - Nautilus International
NAUTILUS P01 OCTOBER 2010.qxd - Nautilus International
NAUTILUS P01 OCTOBER 2010.qxd - Nautilus International
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14 | telegraph | nautilusint.org | October 2010<br />
INTERNATIONAL<br />
shortreports<br />
PENSION PLEDGE: Boskalis, the Dutch dredging<br />
major, has claimed that it was aware all along of the<br />
problematic financial position of Smit’s €200m pension<br />
fund — including a €28m shortfall — when it sealed a<br />
€1.4bn takeover of the fellow Dutch maritime services<br />
company in spring this year. A terse announcement<br />
from Boskalis revealed that the board of Smit Pension<br />
Fund Foundation had been urged by the Dutch central<br />
bank to take ‘accelerated measures’ to improve its<br />
financial position.<br />
FRENCH WORRIES: French seafaring unions<br />
and pensioners’ associations have expressed concern<br />
that the High Maritime Council is to be abolished in the<br />
government’s reform of seafarers’ social security<br />
arrangements. They fear that some rights could be<br />
withdrawn in the rehash of the advisory body, which<br />
was set up in 1953 and brings together all sides of the<br />
industry.<br />
GREEK CONCERN: Greek seafaring unions have<br />
reacted strongly to their government’s announcement<br />
that cruise ships will now be able to use the country’s<br />
ports as home bases without having to employ Greek<br />
seafarers. The government is seeking to more than<br />
double cruise ship calls as part of a programme to tackle<br />
its economic crisis.<br />
INJURIES DOWN: Sweden’s SFBF officers’ union<br />
has welcomed a report suggesting that the gap<br />
between injury rates among those working at sea and<br />
ashore has narrowed dramatically. The study concludes<br />
it is ‘only’ 30% more dangerous at sea now, while in<br />
1992 the at-work injury rate was 300% higher than<br />
ashore.<br />
WAGES WON: sixteeen seafarers stranded<br />
onboard the Sierra Leone-flagged cargoship Eastern<br />
Planet in the Spanish port of Algeciras since July have<br />
received more than US$98,000 in owed wages<br />
following intervention by a local <strong>International</strong> Transport<br />
Workers’ Federation inspector.<br />
COASTAL SERVICE: France has begun moves to<br />
establish a new coastguard function to coordinate the<br />
activity of various state bodies dealing with maritime<br />
issues and establish a centre of operations that will<br />
provide specialist advice to the government in crisis<br />
situations.<br />
INTAKE INCREASE: French maritime high<br />
school directors have expressed satisfaction with an<br />
increase in the number of new trainees this year. The<br />
number of pupils starting the three-year maritime<br />
course last month was 1,932, up from 1,650 a year ago.<br />
BOX BOOST: the ailing containership operator<br />
CMA CGM has announced a spectacular recovery, with a<br />
41% year-on-year increase in turnover and profits of<br />
€675m in the first half of 2010.<br />
CHERBOURG COAL: a new coal terminal in the<br />
French port of Cherbourg was inaugurated last month,<br />
with a bulk carrier delivering a cargo from Colombia.<br />
‘Scapegoat’ officer<br />
in $23m lawsuit<br />
Greek chief engineer launches claim after 14-month detention in the US<br />
PA Greek chief engineer<br />
officer has launched a<br />
US$23m lawsuit against<br />
his former employers, claiming<br />
that he had been scapegoated in<br />
an oily waste dumping case.<br />
Ioannis Mylonakis is seeking<br />
damages for a wrongful 14-month<br />
incarceration, lost personal<br />
income and medical expenses<br />
before he was cleared by a US<br />
court on five charges relating to<br />
oily waste dumping from the<br />
tanker Georgios M.<br />
His lawyers claim the chief<br />
engineer had been the victim of a<br />
plea bargaining agreement<br />
between the US authorities and<br />
the tanker’s owners, the Mamidakis<br />
Group.<br />
In May this year Mr Mylonakis<br />
became the first seafarer to be<br />
AA Danish bulk carrier has<br />
begun the latest in a series<br />
of voyages that mark the<br />
opening up of the Arctic Ocean to<br />
merchant shipping services.<br />
The 43,731dwt Nordic Barents is<br />
carrying some 41,000 tonnes of iron<br />
ore from Norway to China and is set<br />
become the first non-Russian<br />
commercial vessel to attempt a nonstop<br />
crossing of the Northern Sea<br />
Route.<br />
Using the Arctic route from<br />
Europe to Asia instead of the Suez<br />
Canal or Cape of Good Hope cuts<br />
5,000nm from the journey and<br />
offers fuel savings of up to<br />
US$180,000.<br />
The receding Arctic ice cap is<br />
making it increasingly easier for<br />
ships to use polar waters, and during<br />
the summer the ice sheet shrunk to<br />
near record distances from the<br />
Russian coast.<br />
In a separate trail-blazing<br />
voyage, the Aframax tanker SCF<br />
Baltica is sailing from Murmansk to<br />
China with a 70,000-tonne cargo of<br />
gas condensate, escorted by two<br />
nuclear-powered ice-breakers.<br />
cleared of ‘magic pipe’ offences<br />
after a Texas jury rejected the evidence<br />
given by ‘whistleblowing’<br />
crew members on his ship.<br />
He had spent the previous 14<br />
months detained in the US awaiting<br />
trial. During this period he<br />
suffered medical problems and<br />
his pension and health insurance<br />
lapsed because he had not been<br />
working as a seafarer.<br />
The Mamidakis subsidiary<br />
Styga Compania Naviera, which<br />
managed the 69,900dwt Georgios<br />
M, had admitted in its plea<br />
agreement to a three-year history<br />
of dumping oily waste and using<br />
by-pass equipment. In return for<br />
its plea, Styga paid a $1.25m fine<br />
and agreed to a three-year probationary<br />
environmental-compliance<br />
inspection programme.<br />
Russian authorities say the<br />
voyages will demonstrate the<br />
viability of the Northern Sea Route<br />
for shipping services and will open<br />
up ‘new business opportunities’.<br />
Sovcomflot, which owns the SCF<br />
Baltica, said its transit ‘confirms the<br />
economic potential of the NSR for<br />
delivering hydrocarbons to the<br />
countries of the Asia-Pacific region.’<br />
Tschudi Shipping chairman Felix<br />
Tschudi added: ‘We are very excited<br />
about the opportunities the NSR will<br />
generate. It has been our ambition<br />
for years, so we are very happy to<br />
finally have the opportunity to do<br />
The company also agreed to<br />
assist the US government in prosecuting<br />
its former employees,<br />
including Mr Mylonakis. But his<br />
lawyers point out that he had<br />
served on the tanker for only two<br />
months when the magic pipe was<br />
discovered and that he had been<br />
unaware of the equipment, which<br />
was concealed beneath the<br />
engineroom floor plates.<br />
They say the legal action is<br />
aimed at ‘restoring the chief engineer’s<br />
dignity and obtaining just<br />
compensation for the ordeal he<br />
and his family were forced to<br />
endure’ as a result of the company’s<br />
‘scapegoat strategy’.<br />
Laywer George Chalos commented:<br />
‘We are going to do<br />
everything humanly possible to<br />
get justice for the Mylonakis family.<br />
Beyond that, we hope the<br />
result will be a lesson and a serious<br />
deterrent for anyone who<br />
ever even thinks about trying to<br />
opportunistically blame the little<br />
guy. The defendants made a<br />
major mistake in how they handled<br />
the case and the strategy has<br />
backfired miserably.<br />
‘We are confident that a Texas<br />
jury is not going to look kindly on<br />
rich, admitted polluters who tried<br />
to scapegoat the last man on the<br />
ship in order to save a few bucks,<br />
he added. ‘It is both our and Mr<br />
Mylonakis’s most sincere hope<br />
that no one will ever have to go<br />
through what the Mylonakis family<br />
did and that the fair treatment<br />
of seafarers remains front and<br />
centre for all concerned in future<br />
matters.’<br />
Fines imposed for oily discharges<br />
AA chief engineer officer has been fined<br />
US$5,000 and sentenced to three years’<br />
probation by a US court on oily waste<br />
dumping charges.<br />
Dimitrios Dimitrakis, who had been serving on<br />
the Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier New<br />
Fortune, had admitted a series of charges relating<br />
to the overboard disposal of oil residue, sludge, oil<br />
and oily mixtures into the ocean and his attempts to<br />
conceal the discharges.<br />
Volodymyr Dombrovskyy, the vessel’s second<br />
engineer, was sentenced to two years probation,<br />
a $500 fine and a $100 special assessment after<br />
pleading guilty to aiding and abetting the failure to<br />
maintain the oil record book.<br />
The pair were brought to court following a US<br />
Coast Guard inspection in the port of Oakland which<br />
uncovered evidence that equipment had been used<br />
to by-pass the oily waste separator system, as well<br />
as false entries in the record book.<br />
The ship’s owners — Transmar Shipping of<br />
Greece — had earlier been fined $750,000 and<br />
ordered to make a community service payment of<br />
$100,000.<br />
Shipping starts to open<br />
up Northern Sea Route<br />
The Nordic Barents leaves the Norwegian port of Kirknes for its Arctic Ocean voyage Picture: Reuters<br />
this voyage.<br />
‘The NSR can be of great<br />
importance for the companies in<br />
northern Scandinavia and on the<br />
Kola Peninsula which ship oil, gas,<br />
minerals and other raw materials to<br />
the increasingly important Asian<br />
markets.’