Articles

In the early morning hours of 23 March, the laden bulk carrier, KAAMI grounded in bad weather in the Little Minch channel between the islands of Skye and Lewis off Scotland. Gard insured the KAAMI for both P&I liability, and Hull & Machinery.  Our authors, Gunnar Beisland and Påsan Vigerust handled the casualty and tell the story as their case went from salvage to wreck removal and, ultimately, sustainable recycling of the vessel and cargo. 

Following the recent incident in the port of Beirut, the port is currently closed with all traffic being diverted to the port of Tripoli, Lebanon.

In response to several incidents of containers being lost into the sea, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has initiated a focused inspection campaign on container stowage and securing arrangements, both fixed and portable, that will run from 1 August 2020 to 31 October 2020.

Following the standard tanker practices of sampling when loading petroleum products could save owners millions of dollars in claims and save loss of time and ensuing losses for charterers and shipowners. When it comes to dealing with liquid cargo contamination claims, majority of the losses could have been avoided if the vessel had followed basic tanker seamanship practice.

Soya beans are big business and Brazil has now become the world’s leading producer, surpassing the United States. We looked to consultant scientist, Dr Stephanie Heard for insight into carriage of soya beans in bulk between Brazil and China and some of the problems that may be encountered due to moisture content at loading.

Muster lists lacking sufficient detail was one of the most notable deficiencies found by port state control regimes during their concentrated inspection campaign on emergency systems in 2019.