Columns – Page 2 – Pacific Maritime Magazine

Kongberg Maritime Awarded Vessel Design Contract

Kongsberg Maritime announced in mid-November that it has won a NOK 300 million ($30 million USD) contract with Pelagic Wind Services to supply advanced vessel design and equipment for two new commissioning service operation vessels (CSOVs) to be built at Cochin Shipyard in India. The CSOVs are to be built to Kongsberg Maritime’s UT 5519 HL design. “We’re delighted to work with Kongsberg Maritime to develop this next-generation vessel, which is firmly focused on sustainable operation, safety and efficiency,” Pelagic Wind Services CEO Andre Groeneveld said. The equipment package includes a complete hybrid propulsion system driving highly efficient, permanent magnet…

A Ship Within Troubled Waters

The vessel/hotel Queen Mary and its conjoined Russian submarine, sit abandoned and rusting in Long Beach. They are an example of civic pride gone awry and failed governmental oversight. The Queen Mary is a story of unfulfilled promises, multiple bankruptcies, city auditor reports, unaccounted for public funds, multiple operators and a vessel/hotel that has bounced between the City of Long Beach and the Port of Long Beach, back to the city and now a proposal to give it back to the port. The Queen Mary is indeed iconic. It is also a failure and an example of poor public policy…

Shipboard Operational Technology: At Risk from Human Error and Cyber Attacks

As you stand on the bridge of a modern container ship, freighter, cruise ship, etc. what do you see? You see a variety of digital and analog systems including touchscreens, keyboards, mice/trackballs and even laptops. As a cybersecurity professional, I see a variety of opportunities for a cyber attacker to inject malware to take over systems or at least knock them out of service and imperil the vessel and cargo. Even an unprotected USB port on the bridge could actually be an opening for an attack. The new digitized bridges and engine rooms have revolutionized the operation of the ship;…

Seaport Cybersecurity – A Serious Undertaking

In January 2022, port facilities in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands reported large-scale ransomware attacks that disrupted operations at oil terminals and prevented tankers from delivering energy supplies throughout the region. The attacks impacted at least 17 terminals, including those in Hamburg, Ghent, Antwerp-Zeebrugge and Rotterdam. The reported ransom demands were around $14 million, well above the average demand. In 2019, a Singapore-based public-private initiative called Cyber Risk Management (CyRiM) studied a hypothetical cyberattack against 15 Asian seaports. In their analysis – called the Shen Attack – the theorized cyberattack would be launched by a computer virus carried by a…

Captain’s Corner: The Evolution of Safety

In general, as a society we like to believe we have evolved, and are continually evolving, to make the world a smarter, safer and overall better place. Technology has taken us to unimaginable heights to make tasks easier, more efficient and hopefully safer. New cars are well equipped with a massive amount of safety tech devices from lane-departing alarms to blind-spot indicator warnings and a host of other innovations that alert the driver and try to mitigate human error as much as possible. The trucking industry has electronic logbooks for drivers that record distance and working hours along with highway…

Doing More with Less

It would appear that “doing more with less” could be the unofficial motto for today’s society, especially regarding the workplace. Restaurants, offices, tech companies and many other businesses are feeling the squeeze of being short staffed and finding it hard to recruit and retain qualified long-term help. What does this mean for the employees who are in the workforce? It means doing more than your normal duties in your job description. While it is a fact that sometimes you just do what needs to be done to perform the task at hand, this extra effort is creating an environment for…

Maritime Security is Everyone’s Job

The challenge of securing ships and ports is not new. The Jack Sparrows of the world long have been trying to hijack ships, steal their cargo and misdirect the vessels onto the rocks, so pirates can harvest the booty that floats onto the beach. However, with better technology on ships and in ports, and new vectors available for the attacks, the necessary actions to predict and prevent physical and cyber assaults to shipping companies and seaports are increasing. There is more work to do to keep the buccaneers at bay, and there are new threats to consider in the maritime…

Where Have all the Mariners Gone?

At this point, I believe it’s no secret that finding experienced, qualified and reliable workers has been a challenge for many employers, especially those in the maritime sector: I have touched on this a few times in my past columns. Unfortunately, we are continuing to see this trend follow us as we approach the halfway mark of 2022. It has prompted many to ask, “Where have all the mariners gone?” At first, I really didn’t give it much thought. But I began to have to confront the question more and more as it was coming up almost daily in my…

Bringing Back LORAN: The Case for Reviving an Obsolete Navigation System

No doubt older mariners remember the LORAN navigation system, but for those too young to use LORAN, it may not be long before you must learn. For the uninitiated, if you’ve ever wondered what those gridded lines on navigation charts are, you might be interested to hear about the navigational aid. The LORAN system was developed during World War II and used to accurately position mariners for about 60 years until it was declared obsolete and decommissioned in 2010. Its successor, GPS (Global Positioning System), is so powerful and easy to use that it has become a part of our…

Maritime Cybersecurity Guidelines: Dissecting the Alphabet Soup

The world of maritime cybersecurity is relatively new, and there’s an increasing amount of information on this topic in the maritime media. In fact, Pacific Maritime Magazine has included a bi-monthly column focused on this topic to help readers better understand why cybersecurity is important to the trade and to offer some references and guidance to readers when they wish to learn more about cybersecurity for their ships and ports. In the area of international cybersecurity guidelines, there are several entities producing detailed cybersecurity recommendations that ship owners are expected to observe. These organizations include the International Maritime Organization (IMO),…