Category Archives: Merchant Marine

NTSB 2020 Digest of Maritime Accident Investigations

NTSB 2020 Digest of Maritime Accident Investigations

The following is the National Transportation Safety Board recently released Safer Seas Digest 2020 that summarizes major maritime accidents and lessons learned including the 2017 collision of USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) off Japan and the collision of then-under construction USS Delbert Black (DDG-119). Read More

Threats to Merchant Ships Growing; Mariners Face Pirates, Lethal Drones

Threats to Merchant Ships Growing; Mariners Face Pirates, Lethal Drones

USS Lassen (DDG-82) escorts the merchant vessel Tomahawk through the Strait of Hormuz on Nov. 18, 2019. US Navy Photo

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Electronic spoofing, jammed communications and navigation systems, armed drone attacks and pirates are challenges American crews on U.S.- flagged ships in the Ready Reserve Force and Military Sealift Command already face, a panel of maritime experts said Wednesday. Read More

COVID-19 Pandemic Shows Mariners Are Essential Workers, Experts Say

COVID-19 Pandemic Shows Mariners Are Essential Workers, Experts Say

Daniel Murphy, a deck cadet with United States Merchants Marine, supervises as cargo is transported into the Green Cove with equipment being sent to the Distribution Management Office Yermo, Calif., on July 6 at Naha Port in Okinawa, Japan. MSC Photo

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted why mariners – from ferry crews to masters of Triple E-class container ships – are “essential workers,” while questioning future shipbuilding and threatening the survival of smaller shipping companies, two experts in maritime commerce told USNI News. Read More

Experts: Maritime Industry Remains Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks

Experts: Maritime Industry Remains Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks

A crew aboard Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco’s Forward Operating Base Point Mugu MH-65 Dolphin helicopter conducts an overflight near an anchorage site off the coast of Los Angeles, Calif., on April 23, 2020. US Coast Guard Photo

While handling 90 percent of the global economy daily, maritime industry ashore and afloat remains increasingly vulnerable to cyber disruptions and attacks from “neerdowells and bad actors” that threaten financial markets and the country’s national security, the head of the Maritime Administration said last week. Read More

Iranians Raided Tanker Off UAE Searching for 1M Barrels of Petroleum Seized by U.S.; DOJ: ‘They Were Looking For Their Gas’

Iranians Raided Tanker Off UAE Searching for 1M Barrels of Petroleum Seized by U.S.; DOJ: ‘They Were Looking For Their Gas’

M/T Wila, a merchant vessel in international waters en-route to the UAE port of Khor Fakkan, in the Gulf of Oman, was boarded by armed Iranian personnel from both an Iranian Sea King helicopter and the Iranian auxiliary vessel Hendijan (1401) on Aug. 12, 2020. US Navy Photo

Iranian forces were looking for 1.1 million barrels in petroleum products seized by the U.S. Justice Department when they took over a merchant tanker in the Gulf of Oman earlier this week, DoJ officials confirmed to USNI News. Read More

Navy Altering, Postponing or Skipping Midshipmen Rites Of Passage

Navy Altering, Postponing or Skipping Midshipmen Rites Of Passage

Incoming plebes participate in the Oath of Office Ceremony during induction day (I-day) 2017 at the U.S. Naval Academy. US Navy Photo

Keeping the Navy’s new officer pipeline open while mitigating COVID-19 risks means altering, delaying or even skipping some of the long-held traditions considered rites of passage for midshipmen.

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Civilian Mariners File Grievance Over Military Sealift Command COVID-19 Restrictions

Civilian Mariners File Grievance Over Military Sealift Command COVID-19 Restrictions

The Military Sealift Command maritime prepositioning ship USNS Sgt. William R. Button (T-AK 3012) is moored off the coast of Latvia for the Saber Strike 17 Maritime Prepositioning Force offload operations on May, 25, 2017. US Navy photo.

Civilian mariners are frustrated with stay-on-ship measures put in place to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks and their unions have filed a formal grievance with Military Sealift Command, even as MSC has been touting the extreme care it’s taken to avoid getting its employees sick or spreading the illness to warships they resupply at sea. Read More

VIDEO: 27 Fully Loaded Tankers Parked off L.A. with No Place to Put Their Oil

VIDEO: 27 Fully Loaded Tankers Parked off L.A. with No Place to Put Their Oil

A crew aboard Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco’s Forward Operating Base Point Mugu MH-65 Dolphin helicopter conducts an overflight near an anchorage site off the coast of Los Angeles, Calif., on April 23, 2020. US Coast Guard Photo

More than two dozen oil tankers are parked just off the California coast, holding the equivalent of 20 percent of the global daily oil consumption, with nowhere to go. Read More

USNS Mercy is ‘Open for Business’ Says Hospital Ship’s Top Doc

USNS Mercy is ‘Open for Business’ Says Hospital Ship’s Top Doc

Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Kimberly Wyss, from Ventura, Calif., sanitizes a medical supply shelf aboard the hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) on March 28, 2020. US Navy Photo

SAN DIEGO — A day after pulling into its temporary home in the port of Los Angeles the hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) Is ready to receive patients and take the pressure off local civilian hospitals inundated by the coronavirus. Read More