UK: Macduff Shipyards Limited has completed their largest fishing vessel to date, ‘Endeavour IV’, for Peter Lovie from Whitehills.

Mr Lovie had previously owned and operated the ‘Endeavour III’ out of Kinlochbervie, mainly fishing west coast and northern waters. ‘Endeavour III’ was also built by the Macduff yard, and was sold to Iceland last year. Although ‘Endeavour III’ had a full length shelter, sweep winches and net tracks, taking the catch on board was with a Gilson gantry over the starboard side forward.

During initial discussions on the planning of the new vessel, Mr Lovie decided that a stern ramp trawler would best serve the type of fishing he would pursue in the future. Consideration was also given to the possibility of building a larger vessel, but in the final analysis it was decided to keep below the 24-metre length between perpendiculars limit.

The following passages are from the keynote speech by Mr Amer A Al Sulaim, Executive Director, Industrial Services, Saudi Aramco, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Founder and Chairman of the Arabian Gulf Workboats Association at the opening ceremony of the Work Boat Gulf 2009 Exhibition, opening today (April 6) in Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain.

Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to start by saying “business is certainly unusual.”

Only a few months ago we were talking about an unprecedented increase in the demand for marine services to support offshore drilling, production and transportation of crude oil, natural gas and refined products.

Today we are faced with an unprecedented economic downturn that mandates the need for resilience in our business model to manage costs while maintaining quality and reliable services through healthy marine service organizations and competent seafarers.

Knowing that the oil business is cyclical in nature, this is the time where we need to chart new routes to come out of this economic downturn even stronger. As a stand alone workboat industry we need an association to pull our strengths as a group and benefit from each other’s knowledge through an international work boat association that focuses on our needs.

To achieve this vision we have established The Arabian Gulf Workboats Association (AGWA) as a nonprofit organization that will serve such needs by interacting with the international maritime organizations to support the local maritime community and increase its knowledge and capability of providing reliable marine services. This will be achieved through promoting the local maritime human resources profession and other essential components such as marine operations, maintenance, engineering and training. It is a strategic initiative to pursue.

From our long years of experience in marine operations, we know that those components complement each other and any deficiency in any of them will negatively impact the others.

We realize the significance of knowledgeable and experienced maritime human resources as the hub of growth and development in these areas; and we seriously intend to focus in the development of national seafarers along with enhancing the other marine resources and technology. We strongly believe and confirm that knowledgeable and experienced maritime human resources are a vital component for successful companies and operations.

We know the increasing challenges to develop   local seafarer jobs. And we want to respond to this creatively by pursuing creative routes. We will associate with international societies, marine services companies, marine training colleges and others who work in the field of the marine and the maritime human resources development to earn and make use of the latest techniques to optimize this area and be a reliable partner of development in the marine operations.

We will enhance initiatives which will contribute to the transfer of marine knowledge and experience to as many seafarers as possible in the Arabian Gulf. Our activities will include experience exchange for developing the marine field in the areas of maritime human resources and marine engineering, training, maintenance and operations.

In addition to our intention to enrich the Association member's maritime knowledge via education by sourcing and collaborating with the most versed academic entity in the world, we also want to provide and put into practice realistic solutions by learning from the experience of other organizations who have attained notable success in those areas  I envision that AGWA would be the perfect future entity to issue such certificates.

We want contractors to learn from pioneers, such as Saudi Aramco, how they can maintain their experienced personnel, and provide several options to keep and increase the experienced maritime human resources. We want to help them develop effective mechanisms for providing training, compensation and services to their maritime human resources to ensure safe, reliable and cost-effective marine services. And to make sure that the member companies of AGWA incorporate such methods as part of their manpower development, and believe in it as a means to achieve their objectives to be competent marine services providers.

We wish to create a maritime college to graduate marine engineers, naval architects, chief engineers, captains, professional divers and other marine craftsmen. We can initiate a fund for this purpose and work to obtain the respective authority subsidy on this. And we hope to collaborate and share the resources to shrink any gaps, and to ensure continuity of  services provision, such as back-up vessels to replace vessels when due for refit or extended breakdown.

We will also explore all venues to promote the maritime human resource training and development. We will cooperate with other maritime human resource organizations in the world for the purpose of training and developing local seafarers. We will co-sponsor several events with sister associations for the mutual benefit of both groups. In addition to reaching regional partners, we will also reach and work towards maintaining close working relationships with international maritime societies including those in the United States and Europe.

Certainly, these are very challenging objectives. But I am confident in the abilities of the people who work in the field of promoting the maritime community in our region and in the hard work that will be done by the members of AGWA, and our persistence for success, all of which will enable AGWA to overcome all challenges and proceed with the good work of developing the maritime human resources profession, operations, maintenance, engineering and training; encouraged by the help and assistance we hope to receive from pioneers in the field of marine operations such as Saudi Aramco Organizations - Marine, Terminal, and VELA and others who are engaged in the marine business, such as marine contractors and major marine corporations in the Kingdom and the Arabian Gulf.

I envision that the Arabian Gulf Workboats Association will grow into a notable organization and will be the preferred association for the maritime community, companies; training entities and professionals engaged the maritime business in Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Gulf as a whole. And will be a leader in the field of Maritime Human resource development in the region and will provide an enriched forum for exchanging knowledge and expertise in the marine field.

With a committed membership, relentless pursuit of success and futuristic work, AGWA will successfully move forward.

We invite you to join our efforts and resources to help AGWA realize its noble goals and contribute to its activities to successfully make a difference and advance the development of the maritime human resources and to promote the knowledge and experience of marine engineering, training, operations and maintenance to attain reliable and competitive marine organizations which can deliver second to none marine services.

Mr Al-Sulmain holds a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from King Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals and an M.S. degree in Construction Management from the University of Washington. He attended the Executives Management Program at Cornell University in 1989.

Mr Al-Sulaim held several management positions in Saudi Aramco in the areas of Engineering, Inspection, Oil Production, Pipelines, Project Management, Quality Management, Marine, Mechanical Services, Training and his current position is The Executive Director of Saudi Aramco’s Industrial Services Organization, in which Saudi Aramco Marine Department falls under. Mr Al-Sulaim is also the Chairman of the Saudi Quality Council. He chaired two Quality conferences and is very active in change management.

British Columbia, Canada: At the mouth of the Fraser River the tides routinely have a 3.5-metre range. Sixty-five kilometres upriver at Mission, the coastal mountains are beginning to crowd the flat farmland, but still the tidal range is frequently 1.8 metres. No salt water reaches this far as the tide only serves to back up the river water. But the river can slow to a crawl from the pressure of the flood tide, and with the combined ebb and river current, the flow can be dramatic.  

This is no place for the faint of heart, especially when operating a towboat in the river currents. But this is the routine for the operators of the boats at Catherwood Towing based in Mission, BC. Much of the work involves moving booms from storage along the river side to lumber and shingle mills that are also along the river. The booms are made up in 18-metre by 18-metre sections and are chained together.

Upon starting this article it looked reasonably simple to try to estimate the supply and demand of OSVs (AHT, AHTS, PSVs or straight supply vessels) for the Asia Pacific region in an attempt to help the Editor-in-Chief of Work Boat World to prove or disprove his theory that the OSV market looks to be overbuilding (a thought which I also share).

However, the whole picture comprising the elements below needs extremely careful examination before voting one way or the other. It’s a very dynamic, nomadic and volatile industry and the comments have to be viewed in both a worldwide and regional context.

The tables 1, 2, 3, and 5 are only snapshots in time, as the situation is forever changing as rigs, OSVs, etcetera, arrive and leave all the time (see table 1), plus the fact that a country can be experiencing varying degrees of activity of exploration, appraisal and development drilling, along with construction projects and production.

Coming through a tricky section of waterway in the Moreton Bay Islands, the car ferry 'Seaway' came to a sudden silence as all engines died. This four-engined car ferry had the latest 60-series Detroit diesels, the first installation in the Southern Hemisphere. Audio visual alarms on the bridge were ringing and flashing while the Master, the engineer and myself muttered some sailor type expletives which could be translated as "oh bother!!"

"CODE 96" the display units read, and as we furiously searched for the engine manuals, we wondered why it just didn't tell what was wrong. The engineer found the manual and hurriedly turned to Code 96. "Your bus is travelling too fast" was the explanation. We had to reset the start sequence and within a few minutes had all engines working again, narrowly escaping a grounding in the zig zag channel called the "W's".