For those who haven’t noticed, the Coast Guard’s recently redacted and re-issued reports for the Valour and the Brownwater V are back online on our Marine Accident Reports page. Both of these incidents, which resulted in the loss of multiple lives (innocent civilian lives in the case of the Brownwater V) contain some valuable lessons-learned and deserve to be read and discussed widely. Also newly added to this page are 34 reports of incidents involving tugs and/or barges from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, and there is much of value here if you want to avoid repeating the mistakes of others.
All of the technical papers presented at the Tugnology 2009 Conference in Amsterdam have now been posted on the Towing Tech page for ease of finding them. The Library page has been significantly expanded, with more to come.
It’s the dog days of august here in New York Harbor this afternoon. After a cool and very wet Spring and early Summer the heat has finally turned on, but at least the humidity is at a relatively merciful 47% this afternoon. In the space of just a few days 3 tropical storms have formed in the previously quiet Atlantic Ocean, Guillermo churns towards the Hawaiian Islands, and the Western Pacific has already had some killer weather, especially in Taiwan. Meanwhile, California burns with a vengeance. It’s that time of year in the Northern Hemisphere when the weather can get really interesting, and fast. Proper voyage planning, especially on the long distance runs, is critical when the threat of tropical cyclones becomes more than just the usual Weather Channel-hysteria. You don’t want this to happen to you…..
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