IN THIS ISSUE
1. The Ocean Victory and Kashima Port
2. Crane Collapse
3. Deck Cargo Swept over the Side
4. Dan Walker and Roger Day
5. Life Boat Drills
6. People and Places
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1. The Ocean Victory and Kashima Port
Our friends at hfw have sent in this note by Jean Koh and Alex Andreou on a case which has attracted no end of attention as it has run its way through the maritime courts here in the UK. They write:-
More than 10 years after the grounding and subsequent total loss of the Ocean Victory at Kashima port Japan, the final word on the safety of the port was given by the Supreme Court on 10 May 2017. Affirming the Court of Appeal decision, the Supreme Court unanimously found that Kashima Port was not unsafe and that there was no breach of the safe port warranty by the charterers. The court went on to consider the insurance provisions in the demise charter and how they affect the rights of parties and issues relating to the limitation of liability.
Read the note in full here:-
http://www.hfw.com/The-OCEAN-VICTORY-the-final-word-on-the-safety-of-Kashima-Port-May-2017
Here is the law report:-
http://www.quadrantchambers.com/images/uploads/documents/uksc-2015-0036-judgment.pdf
2. Crane Collapse
Our good friends at Splash 24/7, knowing our interest in all things riparian, sent us a well written piece by Chris Dyson and Lorne Gifford of Brooks Bell on the potential causes and impacts of crane collapses. They compare contact by a container ship moving at walking pace and impacting a crane as like the exploosion of an artillery shell.
http://splash247.com/crane-failures-ongoing-issues-mitigation/
A clip of scary film showing the recent casualty at Jebel Ali:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhkMilCE9YI
3. Deck Cargo Swept over the Side
Robin Squires and Sarah Sweet, writing in the latest BLG alert note the decision of the Federal Court of Canada which found that undeclared on-deck carriage did not prevent a carrier from limiting liability under the Hague-Visby Rules.
In De Wolf Maritime Safety BV v. Traffic-Tech International Inc., 2017 FC 23, the shipper, De Wolf, entered into a contract with the carrier, Traffic-Tech, for the transport of its cargo from Vancouver, Canada to Rotterdam, Netherlands. Although the shipper alleged the true value of the cargo was almost CAD $100,000, no value was declared and the carrier issued a clean bill of lading. The cargo was loaded aboard the M/V Cap Jackson in Vancouver, but never made it to Rotterdam. At some point during transit, the cargo was swept overboard and lost.
Read the full note here:-
http://blg.com/en/News-And-Publications/Publication_4924
4. Dan Walker and Roger Day
Shelley Chapelski of Norton Rose Fulbright has passed us sad news from Vancouver:-
Dan Walker, the principal of Pacific Recoveries Ltd. passed away last month from cancer. Very few people even knew he was ill.
Dan became well known to many P&I Clubs and their correspondents when he set up his own subrogation firm in Vancouver the early 1980’s. Stacks and stacks of steel pipe claims kept the bills paid while causing the occasional heart thumping moment making sure that the one year time bar for suit was either extended or protected. There were literally thousands of steel pipe claims in those days before all of the handlers of the cargo upped their safety games.
The loss of Dan book ends the great cargo claims era. The other book end was Roger Day who passed a few months ago in late 2016. Roger ran the Vancouver Shipowners Assurance Management office as a P&I Correspondent for most of the P&I Clubs for almost 40 years. Roger handled all kinds of correspondence work but at one time, defending steel pipe claims would have been a mainstay of his practice.
Between Dan and Roger, they kept a dozen lawyers busy litigating the cargo claims that they could not settle. In Vancouver, at least, that chapter of maritime litigation is pretty well over.
5. Life Boat Drills
Lyndon Johnson, the editor is always kind enough to send your editor a copy of “Calling BI”, a lively e-zine in pdf format,drawing on a diaspora of people who once worked for BISN, which always repays reading. This thoughtful piece appears in the current edition:-
We picked up this article from Australian Captain Nick Yatsenko:-
During my life at sea, I was always anxious during the life boat drills. One of my relatives was employed on a MSC
container carrier as an Engineer Watchkeeper. During his routine inspection inside the free-fall lifeboat, the craft
suddenly released and fell into the water while a ship was underway.
He was lucky enough to survive and suffered only a severe injury to his knee. The vessel was close to the shore so
he was evacuated by the helicopter. In the hospital, he had surgery and then spent another year recovering.
When I was working for Maersk Lines, one of our ships reported a rescue boat accident which resulted in one
crewmember being killed instantly. The other crewmember was seriously injured.
Unfortunately, there are no comprehensive statistics on lifeboat accidents but there is an ample amount of research
showing a scary outcome. In 2001, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) published a review of a lifeboat
and launching systems accidents covering a 10-year period from 1991, when seven people were killed and 10
injured.
To give you a bit of a visual aspect, watch the videos below and imagine you are inside one of these boats:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWXmHBoV2GM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEsTnAIYlA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhNcovVR
Most accidents occur during routine drills and maintenance activities. The main causes are design
failure, lack of maintenance and lack of proper training. “The equipment failure was reported to be the most
common cause of accidents, within which quick release mechanism failure was identified as the most frequent
cause”according to the Nautical Institute.
Some of the current requirements for the lifeboat/rescue boat inspections and maintenance are davit-launched
lifeboats moved weekly from stowed position, monthly launching of rescue boats, quarterly launching of lifeboats
& rescue boats and a six monthly free-fall lifeboat drill. Considering all the above accidents do you think it is viable
to break the boats from its stowed position every week? Or even worse, to launch them with the crew inside every
three months?
The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) went even further and recommended that the IMO undertake a
study on the present value, need and desirability of lifeboat drills.The crew has been trained how to use the survival craft during their STCW courses which are compulsory. During the external inspections the inspector, such as port state control can test the knowledge by asking the relative questions. I’m very confident that in a case of emergency the crew would be able to lower the boat, start the engine, let go the hooks and steer away from the vessel.
6. People and Places
C Solutions Australasia, Bayside Shipping and SEAsia have come together to open a joint office in Papua New
Guinea. Located in Port Moresby, the office will provide full P&I correspondency, legal and claims services to
Shipowners, Operators and Charterers and their respective P&I and H&M insurers requiring maritime assistance in and around PNG.
The day to day operations of the new PNG office will be overseen by Neale Proctor and supported by Alexandra Evered and Chris Beesley.
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BMS Group Limited (“BMS”), the independent specialist insurance and reinsurance broker, has appointed John Hoare as Managing Director of BMS Harris & Dixon Marine, BMS’s specialty marine division.. John succeeds current Managing Director Tony Pryce, who will remain Chairman of the business. John and Tony will work closely together on developing the expanding portfolio of BMS Harris & Dixon Marine.
John brings 32 years of experience in the marine insurance industry. He most recently served as International Marine Director at H. W. Wood Limited, having joined H. W. Wood from Heath Lambert. He began his career in the insurance industry at Sedgwick in 1985.
———-
Patrick Verhoeven has been appointed by the International Association of Ports and Harbors as their Managing Director-Policy and Strategy.
From the Avo Archive
The website of this newsletter contains all the editorial material since the inception of the Maritime Advocate as a print based quarterly in 1997 under the founding aegis of John Guy, Chris Hewer and Manfred Arnold. Readers can go to the site and search the database on the home page in its entirety. If you are looking for an old case, an old controversy or you would just like to see how many times you and your firm have featured in our annals feel free to access the archive. It is like this e-zine, free to Readers and we always appreciate the support of advertisers and sponsors.
We had a look though the archive for references to crane collapses and came up with this short one from Issue 410 of October 21st, 2009:-
Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding Crane Collapse
Our friend Walter Hansell of the firm of Cooper, White & Cooper in San Francisco sends us his memo to clients which is full of interesting news from the Republic of California. The firm has clients on the west coast waterfront and always keeps an eye on the scene. In the current memo his tail piece contains the following:-
Attached for online readers is a photo of the recent mega-crane collapse in Pudong, China, reminding us that global trade is an adventure in courage and imagination not to be taken for granted.
http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/incident-photo-of-the-week-jumbo-crane-collapse/
Maternal
When my mother was called for jury service, she felt confident of her ability to answer the questions asked of prospective jurors. Since I am an attorney, I had filled her in on what to expect.
Asked about the occupations of family members, Mom answered, “My son is a lawyer.”
As a follow-up, she was asked if she had ever used the services of an attorney.
“Only to mow my lawn,” she said.
Conjugal Bliss
It was the night of the worst blizzard of the year. The streets were filled with drifting snow, and the winds were howling fiercely. A man, covered with snow and frost, enters a bakery.
He says to the baker, “I’ll have one roll.” The baker wraps the one roll and asks if there’s anything else he can get him.
“No, that’s it,” says the man, “just one roll.”
The baker says, “You came out on the worst night of the year to buy just one roll?”
The man says, “Yes, for just one roll.”
The baker asks, “Are you married?”
The man says, “Of course. Do you think my mother would send me out on a night like this?”
[Paul Dixon]