Pirated Crude!

 It will be hard to sell it On?

The U,S, now have five crude oil tankers seized and no one with any sense will want to buy them, since the sanctions on Venezuela are not UN, Congress or Internationally approved and the U.S. President is discovering it is hard to get rid of stolen goods!

His justification will not work for the oil companies ethos to both update and recover the industry, when it appears to be colonized and taken without a Internationally recognized treaty?

Meanwhile the capture of Greenland will be another headache for a leader who refuses now to drill and dig in his own backyard and create those promised Jobs.

The Super Tanker!

Vulnerability at Sea?

This week we are seeing the results of an accident off Shanghai involving a Iranian Super Tanker carrying an extremely flammable fuel and a Chinese cargo ship! This incident occurred one-hundred and sixty miles from the Chinese coastline, but as yet the cost of the ecological damage is unknown?

Bulk carriers, container ships and Super tankers are now some of the largest vessels at sea, they are followed by the Aircraft carriers of the worlds powers and the giant cruise liners. All of them create hazards in the worlds shipping lanes because of their huge size, and the length it takes them to slow down!

The world has many busy straights, where shipping moves along in various lanes such as traffic on a motorway. They may be miles apart, but bad weather and trying to avoid or time other smaller vessels crossing your lane will from time to time be missed and a collision is likely?

There is no real way of controlling individuals who choose to flout the laws of the seas, monitoring unfortunately is becoming more electronic and less visual with the closing down of various Coast-guard stations and lighthouses/ships!

Army Transportation. Part-One.

Unipower Commander.

This has been the replacement to the Thornycroft Antars of the heavey lift transports such as the Challenger Mk-I and II Main Battle Tanks. 

The Unipower started life as a Scammel in concept from 1976, but has changed over to the present with main production starting in 1983, with an order for 125 vehicles.

Two types of Diesel engines are available the Cummins KTA 600 and the Perkins Rolls-Royce CV12.

As time has moved on and Britian being part of N.A.T.O. there is a wider choice of heavey transportation available with civil haulage types such as the Germany Mercedez and Swedish Scania trucks. I think that both of these types where unloading and uploading before and after the Wales National Air Show WNAS16 in Swansea.

Apart from the acceptance and procurement of the German MAN trucks the U.S may be providing some of its Oshkosh MTVR units for the movement of heavy weight requirments of tracked armour and refulling tankers.

HMS Sentinel Plus.

Patrolling the English/French Channel.

We have a problem that has mushroomed and will continue to exist wither we Brexit or not, that of smuggling people from France to the southern-England. The English Channel is one of the busiest in the world, with one ship every eleven miles apart east to west and mostly Ferries every five miles north to south, this does not include fishing boats, yachts and other military vessels.

One only has to go to Marine traffic to see the complexities and congestion of this sea!  Meanwhile the French navy has dedicated 30-40 ships to patrol their waters and the British Royal Navy 3-4 of the HMS Sentinel type cutters.

We have not heard much in relation to France intercepting these migrant smuggling boats? But it has mostly been the general public on this side of the Channel who see these flimsy craft sinking, if not the smugglers themselves.

Serious cut backs in the armed forces have over the last few years been pointed out by the U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama, as having a potential on N.A.T.O. deployment capability of lack.

These boats are fast and very manoeuvrable at sea and they are effective in use as Customs Cutters, the problem of just twelve for the U.K.'s waters is a serious lack and by the time more vessels are built and commissioned we may be swamped, as Nigel Farage is pointing out to the E.U. open borders policy?

Sea Power In the Med. Part-One.

European Force. 

There at this time two major areas of European involvement with Naval vessels, the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and northern-Somalia protecting western shipping from being hijacked. The other is in the Mediterranean dealing with refugees fleeing Libya or north-Africa.

Ireland last year donated their Emer Class Corvette LE Aoife P22, to the Maltese Navy as P65. It is the first warship for Malta, since the Crusades 1091-1340. It is now part of the European force, that has seen the U.K. deploy two Frigates and one support ship HMS Hermes.

Everyday the Italian Navy is overwhelmed by the number of crap boats trying to get to the island of Lampadusa, many hundreds of people are drowned each day on these fatal crossings. 

Finland and Sweden, along with France and perhaps the British patrol the Arabia sea, Gulf of Aden and the narrows into the Red sea. The task here is to protect gas and oil tankers heading to Europe with their cargoes from the Persian Gulf. Hijacking and hostage taking is big business for Al-Shabab and other affiliated Al-Quida militants in this region.

Tugboats. Part-Two.

A different kind of Life.

It takes a certain kind of person to work on the tugboat, 'Hours and hours of boredom, interrupted by moments of sheer terror.' It is not a job for the faint hearted, crews are expected to go out in all weathers and work on the outside of the boat with the chains even in very rough seas.

The tugboat is designed with a glass tower for the crew to see all around them at all times. In 1900 two classes of tugboats were introduced and improved paddle and a steamer and these were no real changes until 1950. In the war years 1939-45 there were some adaptions made to handle larger warships and older boats started to be withdrawn.

In 1950 boats went from steam to the diesel and so ended the 'days of the 'Puffing Billy.' With post war shipping and the introduction of the Super Tankers new designs had to made to handle these huge sea vessels. It has been a slow history for the tugboat, because there were no big changes in the shipping world until the late 1950s.

Chemical Tankers.

Farming and Industry.

Chemicals are big business and what one nation cannot make, another can provide via tanker shipping or railroad tankers. We need chemicals for fertilisers in farming and also in industry for various processes from plastic polymas to nylon.

Many of these chemical formula's are top secret and can be used for both commercial and military use. The Tanker ships are roughly the same sizes as bulk ore/coal carriers and cruel oil super tankers.

In the United Kingdom many travel to Milford Haven and other terminal ports, such as Runcorn near to Liverpool. Unfortunately a recent visit to Tata steel in Port Talbot I missed filming a Norwegian tanker, who did not spend very long there.