There were over 400 senior Chinese leaders present and the basis of my speech was to urge them to think about two key concepts: firstly that clean seas are good for business; and secondly that marine environment protection is an essential strategy for corporate risk management.

Times are hard globally at the moment with countless economic pressures, rising insurance costs, and growing regulatory pressure, however no shipowner, or charterer, should neglect its risk management procedures. One lesson of the Erika, Prestige, Cosco Busan and other recent oil spills is that the cost, to owners, operators and charterers, of damage to the marine environment is by no means proportionate to the amount of oil spilled.

What’s more so-called ‘strict liability’ rules, regarding damages, mean that even if a ship’s owner or operator is not directly at fault, the facts—political and legal—are that a ship operator’s liability for environment harm will most likely be considerable, virtually unlimited, and, in the U.S., ‘strict’– that is, liability regardless of actual fault. A lesson we should all take careful note of.

The shipowning community needs to take responsibility for minimizing human error both on board ships and ashore and as such should work towards environmental excellence and promotion of safety at all times.  I told the forum I believe that this can be achieved by following these important suggestions:

1. hiring quality personnel;

2. training in accordance with a formal teaching system;

3. the identification of problems;

4. rewarding environmental excellence and safety performance;

5. communication;

6. empowerment;

7. responsibility;

8. respect;

9. integrity; and

10. emphasizing the need for willingness to change bad habits, and correct mistakes.

Another suggestion offered to the audience was to avoid “beancounter-ism” at all costs.  I stressed how important it was for them to be able to assess the adequacy of their safety and environmental budgets…and broke the news that this means spending money now, in order to save more later.  Ensuring your financial staff are on board with this and also subscribe to specific quality, safety and environmental goals will help you to achieve these aims. Budgets need to be everyone’s business and shortfalls must be resolved BEFORE an oil spill or other disaster occurs.

The Senior Maritime Forum was sponsored by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Transport of the People’s Republic of China, along with the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government.  The Forum included environmental, shipbuilding, ship finance and offshore sessions. It was held in tandem with Marintec China 2011, which attracted over 60,000 visitors to an exhibition which is one of the largest maritime events in the world.

The European Commission has embraced this curious terminology and in connection with its upcoming environmental requirements for Emission Control Areas, offers the shipping industry a “toolbox” of technical and financial solutions to facilitate compliance in meeting the 0.1% limits on fuel sulphur content. Despite the repeated concerns of the shipping industry at the impracticality or even the need to reducing to this level in the proposed 2015 timescale, no derogation or postponement, it is insisted, is going to occur. Orders must be obeyed.

The tools in the Commission’s “toolbox” are but three in number – the option of fuelling ships with LNG, the employment of scrubbers where heavy oil usage is retained or EU funding initiatives or state aid.

The ferry operator’s trade organisation Interferry has been examining the practicality of these options and remains singularly unimpressed as are six major North European ferry operator members, which between them operate 108 vessels around this part of the world. The feasibility study which was carried out by Brittany Ferries, DFDS, Grimaldi Group, P&O Ferries, Stena Line and TT-Line reported back to Johan Roos, the organisation’s man in Europe, that the toolbox is completely empty.

LNG, which seems a grand option in the long term, is judged impractical due to the prohibitive cost of converting existing vessels, and the inadequate infrastructure for supplying LNG as bunkers. Scrubber technology is not a “miracle cure” (not least because of the huge weight of the devices high in the funnel casing of existing ships) and the operators say that for 60% of the existing fleet it would be neither technically or financially viable. And as for the EU funding, it only applies to newbuilds or new routes.

So the only possibility is to shift to using gasoil, which will push costs up by 70% and could lose 50% of the ferry market as the customers go back to road haulage, all traffic that has been won from land transport routes by solid hard work in recent years. The 2015 deadline says everyone who needs to deal with it is “mission impossible”, but will this study of practical issues make any difference. What do they say?  -“I’m from the Commission, I’m here to help”.

All commercial ships of over 500 gross tons, including passenger ships, oil tankers, chemical tankers, gas carriers, bulk carriers, cargo high-speed craft, other cargo ships, and, significantly, mobile offshore drilling units, are to comply with the ISM Code.

The Code is drafted in broad terms and lays down a set of general principles with widespread application to all types of ship and owner.  It recognizes that shipping companies and shipowners are not the same and that ships operate under a wide range of different conditions.  It expressly recognizes that different levels of management require varying levels of knowledge and awareness of safety and environmental issues.  Therefore, the Code is brief and deliberately based on general principles and objectives.  There are as many ways of addressing the ISM Code as there are shipping companies.  It is up to the shipping company to decide how to address the provisions of the ISM Code.  This must be done in a way that it can be demonstrated to a third and independent party.  The intention of the Code is that the owner or operator should design his own system, in a form that is suitable for his particular operation.  The duty of the implementing authority is to make sure that once the system is designed it complies with the general requirements of the Code.

To comply with the requirements of the ISM Code, companies should develop, implement and maintain a safety management system (SMS) to ensure that the safety and environmental protection policy of the company is implemented.  The SMS should include a number of functional requirements:

• A safety and environmental protection policy;
• Instructions and procedures to ensure safety and environmental protection;
• Defined levels of authority and lines of communications between and amongst shore and shipboard personnel;
• Procedures for reporting accidents, etc.;
• Procedures for responding to emergencies;
• Procedures for internal audits and management review.

Although the Code doesn’t spell this out, it is understood that operational risk management rests on a broad framework of risk and reward.  Top executives and board members are certainly responsible and accountable for this strategic positioning.  The presence of a risk committee assessing the future balance of threat to opportunity should never spare the board the sweaty-handed liability for the consequences of risky decisions.

Moreover, even risk managers working within a well-designed control structure are largely powerless if there exists an embedded corporate culture of noncompliance, irresponsible cost-cutting, cynicism and a system of skewed incentives.  Recent history – particularly in the financial sector – shows rules and processes are far easier to change than bad behavior and big bonuses.

An unanswered question:  How are regulators supposed to oversee compliance with ISM principles?  The political mess that occurred after April 20, 2010 makes it very clear that the regulators will be blamed for failing to oversee and prevent corporate failure.  It is evident that coastal states and flag states can not afford the imputation of a failure of oversight.  It is also clear that the regulators can not fail to “get out ahead” of the public relations battle that always follows an environmental incident, particularly one involving spilled oil.

One of the issues is the extent to which safety management systems are approved, and their compliance validated, by recognized organizations such as – but not limited to – classification societies.  Given the political sensitivity, something more is needed.

That “something” may prove to be a requirement that senior management certify that a corporate culture of safety is in place, at the same time specifying what methods are being applied to ensure adherence to the spirit, as well as the letter, of the ISM Code and its offspring – such as the ISO system.

If this sounds like a safety management version of Sarbanes-Oxley, that is probably in fact where we are headed, with a measure of Dodd-Frank added.  When all is said and done, regulators can not interview middle management employees, much less the directors and officers of shipping and oil production companies; there are just too many of them, and government doesn’t have the money.  The marketplace, in the form of liability, is probably the greatest discipline.  BP’s projected $40 billion cost in liability and cleanup expenses is of course a cautionary tale.  However, it is unlikely to discourage costcutting at the wellhead, or in the finance department, unless risk and liability are brought home on a personal basis to the individuals who make the decisions.  This seems to have worked with Exxon Corporation after EXXON VALDEZ.  It is, in two words, PERSONAL ACOUNTABILITY.

To begin with, let’s look at that hardy perennial, oily water separator violations. These have been with us for a great many years, and have been vigorously prosecuted, at least in the United States. And yet they continue, with baffling frequency.

Here’s the challenge: The United States has granted Royal Dutch Shell conditional approval of its plan to begin drilling exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea, off the North Slope of Alaska, next summer. Shell has spent nearly $4 billion over more than 5 years, to obtain the right to drill in waters north of Alaska. Aside from environmental issues, the issues for the maritime industry – including the tanker trades – are very large ones.

Oil and gas supplies will struggle to keep up with world demand growth, making energy prices more expensive and more volatile in the long term, the head of Europe’s largest oil company warns.

Peter Voser, the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell says: “We will have a lot of volatility ahead of us that we cannot avoid…for energy prices in general.”

He adds: “We most probably will see a tightening of the supply-demand balance and hence rising energy prices for the long term. I think we should just get used to that”

His comments add to the pressure on U.S. policymakers both to develop America’s own oil and has resources and to invest in alternatives to fossil fuels.

Shell this week secured air quality permits from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that it requires to drill in the Artic Chukchi Sea next summer, although it still faces further regulatory hurdles.

Mr. Voser says the U.S. administration and Congress now has a greater understanding of the benefits of Arctic drilling, compared with last year when Shell was turned down for those permits after an appeal, and forced to put on hold its plans to drill in the summer of 2011.

Exploiting U.S. resources would strengthen energy security, create jobs and generate more tax revenues, he says.

However, he adds that there is still an immense challenge in meeting growing world demand for energy.

The problem is not a lack of oil and gas, he says, but inadequate investment, following cuts by many companies since the start of the financial crisis.

Oil output from fields in production declines by 5 percent a year as reserves are depleted, so the world needs the equivalent of four new Saudi Arabias in the next 10 years, just to maintain current supply levels.

Arctic conditions heighten the risks of drilling, and make any attempt at cleanup of a potential spill far more complicated than in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Shell plan recently approved sets out detailed plans on how the company and its suppliers would respond to a blowout and oil spill analogous to the Macondo disaster of 2010. In the Beaufort Sea, Shell has proposed drilling four wells at a depth of about 160 feet of water, about 20 miles from the Alaskan shore. The well that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010 was at a depth of more than 5,000 feet and 40 miles from the Louisiana coast. The accident killed 11 workers, and spilled nearly 5 million barrels of oil. Shell has proposed using two drill ships in the Arctic, each capable of sinking a relief well for the other. It also has put an extra set of shears on its blowout preventers, and promises to keep emergency capping systems near drill sites to capture any leakso

Arctic ice classed tonnage development is opening up new energy frontiers at a time when many tanker owners are still suffering from red ink balance sheets due to the prolonged recession. The harsh winter in northern Europe and the Baltic provided a lifeline for many ice class 1A tankers as they were able to penetrate deeper thicknesses of ice without the aid of icebreakers keeping the energy supply chain flowing. It was the maximum classification limits test in harshest of conditions for this relatively new ice class. Around 280 ice class 1A vessels are in service with some 70 per cent under 20,000 dwt vindicating the vision of shortsea owners and yielding rich dividends in terms of premium hire rates while non-ice tonnage suffered.

Progress in development of offshore oil and gas fields in the Arctic has induced deepsea owners to order larger sizes of conventional tankers and shuttle vessels of which record numbers entered service in the last year. Not all are trading in ice regions but it is one more earning option which owners know will be in demand in the future. Some 200 ice class 1A types are on order although this remains a niche trade area in the context of the global tanker fleet but the new ice class age has definitely arrived. Technology is gaining ground all the time and this year saw the first purpose-built LNG carriers ordered. The fact that so many owners are capitalizing on the Arctic potential can only serve to encourage further development of oil and gas exploration.

Don’t miss my next post, where I’ll look at the role of the ISM code in risk management.

At one end of the spectrum we rightly have the modern passenger ship, hugely subdivided, heavily compartmented into watertight and fireproof sections, with all sorts of cross-flooding arrangements and enormous duplication of systems to get it back to port, whatever ill fate threw its way.

At the other end there is the “one-compartment” coaster or short sea bulker, in which survival will largely depend upon what might be in that single hold when the water gets in. A full cargo of timber and she might make it; ballasting, or with a cargo of scrap and stone, and down she’ll go. Containerships, because of the presence of all those boxes aboard, many of which might be full of something lighter than water, or at least relatively impermeable, have been thought to lie somewhere between these extremes. But it is a fact that containerships are the very devil to salvage, if they run aground on something sharp and unforgiving, as was the case with the Rena, presently being tortured to death on a reef off New Zealand.

The best part of 100 of the boxes on deck quickly found their way over the side, where some sank and some floated, as might be expected, according to the contents. But it is the entry, and subsequent spread of water into the holds that will effectively doom the ship and her cargo. We are not dealing with sheltered waters here; it is the big Pacific swell which sometimes makes it difficult to stay safely alongside in east coast New Zealand ports, and which has made it a slow and dangerous job to even get the fuel off the wreck, which is slowly settling onto the reef as the water spreads into the hold and into the boxes themselves.

This is the end of the earth, where floating cranes aren’t found liberally distributed around the country’s ports, and suitable gear to get them off has had to be dispatched from Singapore. Then the salvors need the weather, which is always iffy, with depressions running across the Tasman at regular intervals at this time of year. The contract, most informed folk seem to suggest, will end up as wreck removal, rather than salvage. History tells us that the majority of wrecks on these coasts rarely float again. And if you wanted a ship which was easier to salve than any other, a containership would probably be at the bottom of your list.

So it’s all bad news then? Maybe a brighter note might be the tremendous efforts of  NZ volunteers to clear up the beaches from the 350 tonnes of heavy oil which have landed on them so far. But it isn’t nice when the master and second mate have to be hidden at a secret address, lest  members of an angry public show their feelings.

The artifacts that survive, and therefore mark the wrecks, are usually amphorae, the ceramic cargo containers used over millennia.  The technology used to explore the ocean floor for ancient wrecks is also effective in the search for natural resources on the ocean floor.

E/V Nautilus is one of the boldest and most advanced working ships in existence. The crew are a mix of youthful geologists, biologists and archaeologists; you can follow their activities on Nautilus Live. We’re advancing on wrecks off the Datcha peninsula, which projects into the southern Aegean. It is an ancient and modern resting place of sunken ships, and provides a cross-section of merchant shipping since the earliest stirrings of civilized man.

Oceanic depths, such as the Aegean, are largely unexplored beyond shallows accessible to regional SCUBA divers.  The regions off the Bodrum and Datcha Peninsulas have long been centers of human activity, from the earliest times.  They are there for an understanding of ancient and modern submarine landscapes.

Over the past four years, the Nautilus has been engaged in documenting areas of coastal deepwater (50-600 meters) with sophisticated acoustic and visual imaging systems.

Carleen Lyden-Kluss and I, as trustees of the Sea Research Foundation, were excited to be able to participate in Nautilus’ work for about a week.
The technology deployed from Nautilus, including the remotely operated vehicles Hercules and Argus, comprise systems specifically designed for deepwater exploration.

Hercules and Argus are state-of-the-art deep-sea robotic vehicle systems capable of exploring depths up to 4000 meters. Each remotely operated vehicle (ROV) has its own suite of cameras and sensors that receive electrical power from the surface through a fiber-optic cable, which also transmits data and video. Engineers and scientists command the vehicles from a control room aboard Nautilus, with some dives lasting more than three days.

Argus was first launched in 2000 and was soon followed by Hercules in 2003.  The systems are versatile, capable of supporting a wide range of oceanographic instrumentation and sampling equipment.  They have surveyed ancient shipwrecks, discovered hydrothermal vents, and recovered lost equipment in oceans and seas around the world. Several smaller remote systems complement Hercules and Argus for various exploration objectives.

The Institute for Exploration, a division of  Sea Research Foundation and based in Connecticut, is led by Dr. Robert D. Ballard, who was responsible for locating and exploring the wreck of RMS Titanic more than twenty years ago.  One of its major functions is the education of young people in a broad range of outreach programs, supported by Nautilus Live, making it possible for everyone to follow the deepsea exploration efforts of Nautilus, as though all of us, wherever we are located, are aboard the ship, interactively sitting with the members of the command/control center.

After the discovery of the wreck of Titanic, Dr. Ballard, in 1989, founded the JASON Project, now also part of Sea Research Foundation.  The purpose of JASON is to make use of the growing interest in ocean exploration on the part of school children across the United States, and, soon, around the world.  Since its inception, the JASON Project, in partnership with the National Geographic Society, has motivated millions of young students with the excitement of scientific exploration and discovery.

Using the cutting-edge research and researchers within the private sector and at federal research laboratories – JASON pursues its mission systematically through an inquiry-based curriculum and a global online community.

The program has won acclaim for its innovative use of telepresence technology to create a “being there” experience through satellite broadcasts from remote expeditions – and even more so for taking students and their teachers into the field to experience oceanographic research first-hand. This immersive field experience is accompanied by a variety of curriculum units aligned to national science standards, promoting STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) skills, sorely needed in today’s school environments.

The JASON project is founded on the principle that scientists can and should be presented as great positive role models for children.
Students can be inspired with the desire to learn, and many will go on to make science and related disciplines part of their career or education plans.

The work of Dr. Ballard and his team has, as you might realize, practical applications.  Nautilus is equipped to find chimney vents, “black smokers”, and “white smokers”, which are hydrothermal vents rich in strategically important minerals and sulfides. They occur wherever there is enough heat and porosity to drive hydrothermal convection, such as in certain parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  Active submarine volcanoes in the centers of tectonic plates also host hydrothermal vents. Loihi, a mid-plate hot-spot volcano that will eventually emerge as a new Hawaiian island, is one of the best-studied seamount/hydrothermal examples.

Other hydrothermally active seamounts that have been explored are Pito Seamount near the East Pacific Rise at 22 degrees south, and Peep’s Seamount in the Bering Sea. The vast economic potential for subsurface/seabed mineral and biological exploitation (not a politic turn of phrase, but there you are) has been increasingly clear since the discovery of deep-sea hydrothermal vents in 1977.

By wonderful coincidence the breakthrough was made by the research vessel Knorr, 9000 feet above the Galapagos Rift in the eastern Pacific, 200 miles north of the Galapagos Islands, where Dr. Darwin landed in September, 1835 and changed our understanding of life on Earth.
We are, in late August of 2011, aboard Nautilus in part to learn where technology has gone since 1977.

Economically and politically, the oceans are often called our “last frontier”. There are of course a number of “last frontiers”.  The assault on this one has many intriguing dimensions.

Shell has spent nearly $4 billion over more than 5 years, to obtain the right to drill in waters north of Alaska.

Aside from environmental issues, the challenges to the maritime industry are very large ones.  The Arctic itself is an oceanic area around and north of land masses that circle the pole.  In May of this year, the extent of Arctic ice was the third-smallest since collection of data began in 1979.

Alaska itself has a coastline that is longer than that of the combined “lower” 48 states.  Nevertheless, the United States has very limited resources to cope with search and rescue responsibilities; Last May, an Arctic Search and Rescue Agreement was signed by 8 nations — Iceland, Finland, the United States, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Canada and Denmark, in which it was agreed to cooperate on rescues above the Arctic Circle.  At its meeting in Greenland, the Arctic Council refrained from any attempt to resolve the issue of territorial claims.

Russia has made claim to a large part of the Arctic, which is thought to hold as much as a quarter of the world’s oil and gas reserves; It takes the position that an underwater ridge running from northern Siberia runs directly to the North Pole.  Whether this gives it a valid claim to subsea resources along the ridge is a matter of dispute.

With the melting of Arctic ice amid rising global temperatures, surface temperatures in 2010 were approximately those of 2005, both being the warmest on record according to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a part of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  The nations that surround the Arctic Circle are competing to establish new shipping routes and fishing grounds, as well as oil and gas drilling claims.

The United States remains the only major nation, and the only one bordering on the Arctic, that has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Arctic conditions heighten the risks of drilling, and make any attempt at cleanup of a potential spill far more complicated than in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Shell plan recently approved sets out detailed plans on how the company and its suppliers would respond to a blowout and oil spill analogous to the Macondo disaster of 2010.  In the Beaufort Sea, Shell has proposed drilling four wells at a depth of about 160 feet of water, about 20 miles from the Alaskan shore.  The well that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010 was at a depth of more than 5,000 feet and 40 miles from the Louisiana coast.  The accident killed 11 workers, and spilled nearly 5 million barrels of oil.  Shell has proposed using two drill ships in the Arctic, each capable of sinking a relief well for the other.  It also has put an extra set of shears on its blowout preventers, and promises to keep emergency capping systems near drill sites to capture any leaks.

Environmentalists are still unconvinced, asking whether any company has the ability to respond to a major oil spill in hurricane-force winds, high seas, broken and shifting sea ice, subzero temperatures and months of fog and darkness.

Of greater concern to observers is the relative lack of maritime resources available to governments, particularly the United States.  At a time of increasing budget cuts, a question persists: will there be a need for icebreakers on Arctic routes, particularly for transiting vessels, and if so, where will these ships be found?

U.S. Coast Guard has only two icebreakers available at present, one of which is in more or less permanent layup.  A third icebreaker is supposedly being updated.  China is reportedly building what will be the most powerful conventional icebreaker in the world.  The Russian fleet, which includes nuclear-powered icebreakers, is fairly old and of doubtful reliability, much less availability.  The cost of a fleet of icebreakers would run into the billions of dollars, and there is no evidence that the congressional will exists to appropriate that sort of money.  As a transarctic trade route draws closer to reality, the need for international cooperation in polar and subpolar seas grows greater all the time.

Arctic ice classed tonnage development is opening up new energy frontiers at a time when many tanker owners are still suffering from red ink balance sheets due to the prolonged recession.  The harsh winter in northern Europe and the Baltic provided a lifeline for many ice class 1A tankers as they were able to penetrate deeper thicknesses of ice without the aid of icebreakers keeping the energy supply chain flowing.  It was the maximum classification limits test in harshest of conditions for this relatively new ice class.  Around 280 ice class 1A vessels are in service with some 70 per cent under 20,000 dwt vindicating the vision of shortsea owners and yielding rich dividends in terms of premium hire rates while non-ice tonnage suffered.

Progress in development of offshore oil and gas fields in the Arctic promoted deepsea owners to order larger sizes of conventional tankers and shuttle vessels of which record numbers entered service in the last year.  Not all are trading in ice regions but it is one more earning option which owners know will be in demand in the future.  Some 200 ice class 1A types are on order although this remains a niche trade area in the context of the global tanker fleet but the new ice class age has definitely arrived.  Technology is gaining ground all the time and this year saw the first purpose-built LNG carriers ordered.  The fact that so many owners are capitalizing on the Arctic potential can only serve to encourage further development of oil and gas exploration.

The Barrents Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, Beaufort Sea, Greenland Sea, Davis Strait and Arctic Ocean are the key areas of oil and gas development while it is also relevant to mention developments in sub Arctic conditions in the Caspian Sea and Black Sea as well as the Sea of Okhotsk.  Undiscovered oil in the Arctic is estimated at 90 million barrels with a further 1.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.  Russia is the driving force but has called on the experience of ice region traders and owners to pool their expertise and co-operation in meeting the challenge of getting new energy discoveries to a global market.  Against a recession hit conventional trading market tanker owners are expecting rich pickings in the years ahead.

The relatively fast pace of some developments has caught the market by surprise as there are still many commercial and technical barriers to overcome.  An acute shortage of icebreakers for escort duties has proved a headache with Finland and Russia having “neglected” ordering new tonnage as winters became milder but these are expensive vessels to operate.  The harsh winter of 2010/2011 has changed this thinking with joint ownership of new icebreakers under consideration between Russia and Finland.  Some ice class supply vessels are also doubling up as icebreakers to fill the void but service is restricted.  Mindful of safe passages Russia has banned non-ice class 1A tankers from trading to Arctic regions in the winter months.  This in turn lifted newbuilding commitments for this class of tanker.

While it is not expected that the Arctice Ocean will never become ice free, shippers are ready to exploit the current thinning ice trend giving longer shipping season and better access to energy production in remote areas.  In the long term new Arctic shipping routes will be opened up including the Northwest Passage.  A milestone was passed in August last year when Sovcomflot’s aframax tanker SCF Baltica achieved a voyage time of 11 days from Murmansk to Pevek in northern Russia.  Under escort of nuclear ice-breakers the vessel covered 2,500 nautical miles via the Barrents Sea, the Vilkitkiy Strait, Taimyr ice field, Sannikov Strait, Laptev Sea and ice fields of the East Siberian Sea.  The tanker’s commercial cargo of 70,000 tonnes of gas condensate was delivered early and underlined the real possibility to reduce transit times along the Northern Sea Route unlocking the potential to deliver hydrocarbons to the Asia-Pacific region.

Like many other maritime issues, resourcing the northern trade routes lacks the degree of support from the public and from governments, necessary to get the job done.  If there was ever a cause to be embraced by the United Nations, the development of an international icebreaker flotilla would seem to be a worthy one.

If you are a keen observer of the marine scene you may well notice that the painted Ts are getting bigger and bigger, replacing the smaller arrows (which dim tug skippers might have failed to comprehend) of yesteryear. Today, the tug skipper would have to be severely myopic to miss these enormous letters inscribed on the vessel indicating the presence of a thick frame behind the steel plate, where it is safe to rest his bow fender.

Some might suggest that these lurid indicators on the sides of a ship are required because tugs are so powerful these days.

The more realistic explanation might be that the friendly computers in design offices are still busily optimising more steel out of ship construction. Lighter ships are also blessed by the environmentalists, because it will enable the dreaded carbon and other climate-changing emissions to be reduced by a lot less horsepower in the engineroom. Salty seadogs who like their ships built thick and strong, capable of being banged alongside a fender without cracking the sides or taking a green sea without “dishing” the bow plating are fighting a cause long lost. Demand for cheaper, lighter, less powerful ships allies everyone, from the aforesaid greens to the shipbuilders, shipowners and their customers.

It will only get worse. Class might point out that their even larger computers have given their electronic approval to the further reduction of overall weight in ship designs, “putting the strength where it is needed”. The effects of the EEDIs agreed at the IMO for all the best reasons (keeping the EU and greedy emission traders at bay), will inevitably see the pressure on to build even lighter ships with even less power. And clearly, it makes more sense to buy a pot of white paint and inscribe big “T”s all round a ship, than to reduce the distance between frames and weld on thicker shell plating.

The worry is that in this rush to give shipowners and shipbuilders and greens what they want, these lighter, thinner, less powerful ships will be more likely to experience dangerous levels of wastage, and will be more, not less dependent upon the most diligent maintenance.

Sharp fenders, the skippers of tough tugs slightly missing the “T”, and the constant pressure of weather on the thinner sides might suggest that the designers ought to be reversing their apparent course.

Another “truth” that is repeated constantly is that “we’ve got to do something about piracy”, particularly the Somali variety, and that if our industry musters the “will”, whatever that is, the world will listen. And the third is that Greece’s (and Europe’s) current economic and political passion play has, and will have, no relevance to the Greek-owned shipping sector.

In my more than 40 years in shipping, I’ve learned that like most businesses, ours is dominated by relatively few voices, functioning within an echo chamber of mutually supportive expressions of internal consensus. These voices do not always take account of uncomfortable events outside: a failure that brings unpleasant surprises from time to time.

There are a number of reasons why the three “truths”, that I have referred to, aren’t actually true at all.

“Truth” no. 1 ignores the fact that sound risk management, as a good classification society will tell you, requires a programme that implements principles embodied in the International Safety Management (ISM) Code, the U.S. Oil Pollution Act (OPA ’90), SOLAS and MARPOL. These principles, particularly stringent internal and external audit procedures – in other words, sound corporate governance –  were notable for their absence leading up to every major oil spill up to and including (you guessed it) last year’s in the U. S. Gulf. They apply to shipping companies just as much as they do to oil companies and offshore rig operators. Perish forbid that the great and good should publicly take note of this.

“Truth” no. 2 maintains that the Great Powers are minded to heed the pleas of some of us, and take concerted action against Somali and other pirates. This is implicit is the mantra: “something must be done”. A related school of thought has been active in promoting the belief that mercenaries can be put into smallish private navies, and counter-attack the skiffs and “mother ships”. Well, of course this is possible, but the enormous liability exposure that it would entail has, it seems, not been fully considered. As for the notion that the Obama administration or China, or another Great Power, is willing to take on the pirates, that too is possible — just.  There are reasons, though, to doubt that any such thing is likely.

One is that the rise of Al Qaeda in the Gulf of Aden area is of greater concern to certain powers than a little thing like piracy, and that the said pirates – or their tribal colleagues – are adroitly selling their services, as allies, to certain famous intelligence agencies.

A second reason is that after the less-than-stellar performance of NATO & Co. re Libya, and the forthcoming U. S. skedaddle  from Afghanistan,  evidence exists that further military activities are being discouraged, for now. I can’t refrain from adding that our industry’s leaders have not been good at burnishing our image – not that they’ve tried very hard – with the result that our political leaders have very little stomach for pounding Somali villagers, and their husbands, with predator drones, J-Dams and Seal Team Six.

Yes, I know about the poor seafarers, but do they have effective spokesmen in the councils of the mighty? Show me. If something CAN be done, I don’t think we’re there yet.

“Truth” no. 3, that the Greek shipping sector is (more or less) unaffected by the increasingly messy situation in that country, has more merit than “truths” 1 and 2. Most Greek shipowners of my acquaintance have been careful not to get too close to Greek banks, much less the government. They tend, with good reason, to prefer foreign flags, foreign banks and foreign corporate domiciles. Those however who say that the present crisis will leave no imprint on the “mind” of the Greek shipping sector are mistaken. The present spot of trouble only confirms the traditional sectoral belief that it’s best not to put all one’s eggs in one basket, or one’s ships under the blue ensign.

Those of us who remember the fervent efforts of successive Greek governments to woo shipowners back to the Greek registry realise that the present developments are likely to be unhelpful. Social unrest is growing. Greece is insolvent: its debt load is now about 160% of its GDP. Greece is a rare — and maybe the only — country where shipping is still regarded as a fundamental national asset, accounting for nearly 30% of GNP. Shipping has for many years enjoyed preferential tax treatment. Posidonia, Greece’s famous biennial maritime bash, is the industry’s foremost global trade fair. While none of these is really at risk, there is a growing realisation that a company’s identification with Greece will sometimes be unhelpful in the global financial markets.

On the other hand, it has long been said that when times are bad in Greece, Greeks turn to the sea. Hellenic seafarer recruitment is up and is likely to grow further as shipping revives. The Hellenic shipping sector has a long history of surmounting troubles ashore. Buoyant is an apt word for it.

There are of course others in virtually all of the worlds’ oceans.  Many of these wrecks pose environmental threats because of the hazardous nature of their cargoes, presence of munitions, or because of bunker fuel oils left onboard.

Admittedly, only a few can be dealt with, because of where they are, and the availability or lack of funding.  As some wrecks corrode and decay, they may release oil or hazardous materials.  Although a few, such as USS Arizona in Hawaii, are national shrines or memorials, most wrecks, unless they attract notice or pose a significant pollution threat or impede navigation, are isolated and forgotten, left alone in anonymity, until either they begin to leak or their potentially hazardous cargoes attract modern notice.

They have, however, names:  Richard Lawrence, in the Thames estuary; Empire Knight off the coast of Maine; Coimbra, off Long Island; Mississinewa, in the lagoon of Ulithi atoll, Micronesia; Jacob Luckenbach, off the California coast; Montebello; Princess Kathleen, U-262, and many others.

Many of the ships were lost during the Second World War, and since forgotten, along with their cargoes.  Many are war graves, containing artifacts and history; some are frequently visited by divers, but many are out of reach of all but professional salvors.

Many are close to beach resorts and fishing grounds.

Recent incidents, however, have heightened concerns about the potential environmental hazard posed by shipwrecks.  In 2002, for example, the decaying wreck of S.S. Jacob Luckenbach was identified as the source of mysterious, recurring oil spills that had killed thousands of seabirds and other marine life along California’s coast.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) joined with the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and other agencies in operations to remove the approximately 100,000 gallons of oil remaining in the wreck.  This work may not be finished.

The public has long been captivated by shipwrecks and there is growing interest in the environmental impacts of these wrecks.

Dozens of stories have been written about the problems associated with leaking WWII era ships lost in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

There is also increasing interest from both government and industry to systematically identify, investigate and potentially and eliminate environmental threats from wrecks before they begin to leak.

Those like that of the Coimbra, sunk by a U-boat in 1942, have been leaking for a great many years, and continue to “burp” oil, some of which goes ashore.

Others, including some U-boats, were configured to carry cargoes of Mercury, as barter between Germany and Japan in the late years of the war.

As the years have passed, public and political pressure has built to “remediate” toxic and environmental threats from these wrecks, particularly in North Atlantic waters.  Norway and the United States have been particularly active in these remediation and abatement activities, which can be technically highly complex.

In Norway, the removal of Mercury from sunken U-boats, and leaking oil from those remaining in the port of Narvik, was preceded by pioneering and successful removal of oil from the sunken German cruiser Blucher, in Oslofjord.

The U.S. Marine Technology Society published special proceedings in 2004 focusing on such underwater pollution threats, and the 2005 International Oil Spill Conference furthered the discussion within government agencies and with the response and salvage industries.  Much of the interest is because of the cost and limited effectiveness of emergency response.  Removal of oil while it is contained within a wreck can be planned and managed more cost-effectively than a reactive emergency spill response while at the same time preventing impacts to surrounding habitats and sensitive natural resources.

On September 7, 1952, S.S. Princess Kathleen ran aground on Pt. Lena just outside Auke Bay near Juneau, Alaska and sank.  The wreck had been a source of periodic releases ever since.

In 2010, the United States Coast Guard, with scientific support from NOAA, contracted removal of approximately 130,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil and an additional 220,000 gallons of oily water from the wreck.

The 2010 NOAA budget included a one-time appropriation of $1 million for the Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R), working jointly with the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS), to solicit a one-time independent assessment of potential man-made undersea threats that could impact coastal and Great Lakes States.  In 2010, NOAA hosted the International Corrosion Workshop which brought together experts from the fields of oil spill response, military munitions response, and historic preservation to compare how marine corrosion affects each field and to leverage technologies and experience necessary for threat remediation and preservation of historic materials.

There are approximately 20,000 known wrecks in US waters.  Most are old and did not use oil as fuel or carry it as cargo, but some more recent wrecks are known to be relatively intact, and based on accident investigation reports and cargo records are believed to contain oil.

Dealing with these wrecks is an interesting process.