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The accident of Ro – Ro Carrier CougarAce in June 2006 was the reason for thedecision taken by the last 56th session ofthe IMO Marine Environment ProtectionCommittee to develop guidelines fortraining of seafarers in respect of ballastwater exchange at sea, which virtuallyconstitutes a new shipboard operation.

In June 2006, the abovementioned vesselof 55.328 grt, loaded with approximately5.000 vehicles, during the voyage fromJapan to Vancouver and while sailingthe north west Pacific went into a 80deg. list to her port side.

The final destination of the vessel afterVancouver was the U.S. west coast andspecifically the ports of Tacoma andHueneme which are located in an envi-ronmentally, particularly sensitive area.

It was considered that the wrong ballastwater exchange carried out by the vesselin a distance more than 200 n. milesfrom the nearest coast altered the initialloading condition and subsequently tothis extreme heel.

The Master and the 22 members of thecrew of the vessel were rescued while asurveyor who had gone onboard lost hislife falling from a 25 meter-height.

The ship was towed to a safer areawhere pumping of water that floodedone of her 12 decks took place.

It is known that when ballast water ex-change at sea takes place through thesequential method (emptying and re-filling a ballast tank) large quantities ofwater are removed from the ship untilsuction is lost and then added again.

The loading condition changes affect-ing the stability of the ship, her struc-tural strength, bridge visibility andmaneuverability.

Particular attention should be given toconsiderable heeling moments result-ing from ballast water exchange oftanks with different capacities ortanks located in the same side of theship.

It is advisable that each intermediatestage is calculated and monitored bymeans of the Loading Instrument ofthe ship in relation to the permissiblelimits of stability, bending momentsand shearing forces.

In case an asymmetrical exchange ofballast tanks is performed heeling an-gles must invariably not exceed 2.0deg.

Guidelines for training on ballast wa-ter exchange at sea will be drafted inthe context of the STCW and its Coderevision which is under development,aiming at informing and familiarizingOfficers with the available ballast

Date: 22/ 1 / 2008

Issue 25he

HELMEPA NAVIGAT RHELMEPA NAVIGAT RHELMEPA NAVIGAT RHELMEPA NAVIGAT R

Technical Bulletin

 Τraining for ballast water

exchange operations at sea 1

 Τhe impact of climatic

change to the oceans 2

Maintenance of the Elec-

tronic Chart Display and

Information System - ECDIS

4

IssueIssueIssueIssue PagePagePagePage

 Τraining for ballast water exchange operations at sea

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management methods (sequential, dilution andflow through) covering among other the following:

• the ballasting/deballasting system (pumps,tanks, piping, operability of air pipes andother openings),

• the knowledge of the time span required tocarry out ballast water exchange by meansof any available method and of the impactto stability, strength and other operations ofships,

 Τhe impact of climatic change to the oceans

(cont. from pg. 1)

• knowledge of sampling and record keeping.

At the end of last year, the IntergovernmentalPanel for the Climatic Change, widely known asIPCC, published the 4th  consecutive, integratedreport (Synthesis Report) assessing the scien-tific, technical and socio economic informationrelated to the climatic change.

One of the most interesting areas of the reportis the impact of the climatic change to theoceans, a summary of which is provided below:

During the period 1955 – 2003, the world averagetemperature of the water column from surfaceto 700 meters depth has increased by 0.1oC. Inthe same period, the average temperature ofthe layer between 700 – 3.000 meters is esti-mated that it has increased by 0,037oC.

Due to the large heat capacity of sea water(1000 times higher than that of the atmos-phere), the oceans absorb approximately 90% ofthe extra heat radiated down to earth by thegreenhouse gases.

The most important proof of the climatic changeis the increase of temperature of the intermedi-ate and deep waters which are not directly af-fected by changes occurring in the atmosphere.

In the same period, a large scale reduction ofthe salinity of surface waters is recorded, par-ticularly in high geographical latitudes and anincrease in the tropical and subtropical regions.

These trends are attributed to the inflow of majoramounts of fresh water in polar areas and thechange of the precipitation – evaporation balance.

The salinity of surface as well as of deep watersconstitutes a parameter hardly altering; howeverthe increase of the oceans’ temperature is obvi-ous.

Since 1961 to 2003, the average sea level rise was1.8 mm annually. This rate has increased to 3.1

mm annually in the period 1993 – 2003. Measure-ments taken from a network of 23 tidal levelgauges installed since the end of the 19th centuryin various areas around the world demonstratethat in the period 1900 – 2000 the average sealevel has risen by 18.5 cm.

It is known that the oceans play the role of a giantheat pump carrying the surplus of heat producedfrom solar radiation from low to high geographicallatitudes.

The contribution of seafarers onboard commercialand postal ships of the 19th century to detect andmap major ocean currents such as the Gulfstream, Kuroshio, etc. Changes of the temperatureof surface waters and the melting of icecaps inGreenland and Canada seems to shift the circula-tion in North Atlantic since the Gulf Stream con-tinually reaches to lower geographical latitudeswithout making milder the climate north.

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(cont. from pg. 2)

The proper maintenance of the Electronic ChartDisplay and Information System – ECDIS is impor-tant for ensuring the safety of navigation.

ECDIS is used to meet the chart carriage require-ments as set out in SOLAS Regulation V/19.2.1.4.and comprises of hardware, software and data.

• If ECDIS is not updated to the latest versionof the International Hydrographic Organiza-tion (IHO) Standards that govern the trans-fer and presentation of the charted infor-mation used in ECDIS, it may not meet thechart carriage requirements.

• If ECDIS is not upgraded to the IHO Elec-tronic Navigational Chart (ENC) ProductSpecification with recent requirements onParticularly Sensitive Sea Areas and Archi-pelagic Sea Lanes, it may not meet thechart carriage requirements.

• If ECDIS is not upgraded to the latest versionof Product Specification or the S-52 Presen-tation Library, the system may be unable tocorrectly display the latest charted featuresand appropriate alarms and indications mayfail to be activated.

• If ECDIS is not updated to be fully compliantwith the S-63 Data Protection Standard may

fail to decrypt or to properly authenticatesome ENCs leading to failure to load or in-stall.

A list of all current IHO standards can be found inthe ENC/ECDIS section of the IHO website(www.iho.int).

Sea level rise. The black line shows the three year average and the red line the recent satellite

Maintenance of the Electronic Chart Display and Information System - ECDIS

 MARITIME SECTOR

For further details on the topics of the Bulletin, you

may contact Stelios Volakis or Marina Papaioannou.