General News

USA The Halter Marine Group`s Halter-Moss Point yard is to build a 6,000g roro vessel for the transportation of rocket booster cores. Seattle-based Foss Maritime, which has been selected to transport Boeing-built…

Two of Incat`s latest newbuildings have both recently made record-breaking Atlantic crossings. On June 10, the 91m wave-piercer catamaran Catalonia completed the 2,972 nautical mile Atlantic crossing from New York to Tarifa,…

Medium-speed MaK has secured orders for its new M43 engine ahead of its official launch at SMM as it did with the M25. Three 7,200kW (9,790 bhp) eight-cylinder units have been ordered,…

At the heart of development and production of MAN B&W low-speed engines is the Copenhagen works. While few engines are produced in Denmark, the home of MAN B&W remains firmly in Copenhagen…

Chinese yards are feeling the effects of the fall in the value of the Japanese and Korean currencies. The year ending July 1 1998 has seen the yen lose almost 22 per…

The loss of another two handysize bulkers and the abandonment of a third has renewed concerns about the safety of older bulk carriers. Fortunately all three crews were rescued, which was not…

Of about 120 signatory countries to the STCW, around 80 met the August 1 deadline to submit information on their training institutions to IMO. The information has to be processed and approved…

The Tokyo MOU`s annual report shows that during 1997 its member states carried out almost 13,000 Port State Control inspections from almost 25 thousand vessels calling at their ports. Over 7,500 vessels…

New tonnage orders for cruise ships over 100,000g are continuing to materialise. Carnival Corporation has decided to return to Fincantieri for a further two cruise ships of 102,000g. Following the success of…

Dutch yard van der Giessen-de Noord has secured an order from Greek owner Strintzis Lines SA for the construction of a roro passenger ferry. The ferry company operates its passenger and freight…

A system which can reduced NOx by over 70 per cent without resorting to Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) is being developed by Swedish- based Munters AB. Called the Humid Air Motor (HAM),…

Wartsila NSD has received its first order for a B version of the RTA-U series. The 7RTA62U-B has a rating of 16,000kW (21,770 bhp) at 115 rev/min and will be fitted to…

TI group, owner of John Crane Marine, has taken over the Dutch-based propeller manufacturer Lips and also bought the most remaining share of Japanese Marine Technologies (JMT). The group has purchased 30…

A heavy-duty sensor for constant pressure measurements in harsh environments is available from Inertial Aerosystems. It is designed to monitor and control compressor pressure in natural gas pumping stations, turbine engines, and…

A quartz-based peak pressure meter for diesel and gas engines is available from Kistler Instrumente. After recording the peak pressure from the pre-selected number of cycles the instrument automatically stores a complete…

The current enthusiasm for cruising seems to show no sign of abating. New tonnage orders continue, especially from the smaller lines. While there is little likelihood that the `big three` operators -…

Work carried out by welding research organisation TWI has shown that ferrous metals can now be joined by friction stir welding (FSW). TWI says that recent development work has produced metre-long welds…

Desktop PCs are now so powerful that software which was once the preserve of dedicated workstations can now be run on general purpose hardware. Windows NT is fast becoming the platform of…

Draft performance standards for raster chart display systems have been agreed by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Sub-Committee on Safety of Navigation. It proposes to amended the performance standards for electronic chart…

Navion Britannia is a sophisticated multi-purpose shuttle tanker the design of which emphasises safety, environmentally operations, and enhanced manoeuvrability in rough weather. Delivered in April by Astilleros Espanoles (AESA) Sestao yard to…