Issue No. 08October 2008

Samos Waveswww.samossteamship.gr

Published in Greece

Samos Steamship moves closer to sea

New TonnageQuite a busy time, it has been all these months, seeing three new tankers com-ing in the fleet pushing our total DWT up to more than 1.5mil tons.

A couple of miles eastern to the coast of Saronikos, we set our home to Poseidonos Avenue, just over the sandy beach of Alimos.

A psychological study trying to explain why watch keepers tend to reduce their attention when all look fine.

Samos Flag climbs up the mountains of Borneo

Samos Safety

Forum in

Novorossiysk

Watch Out when you Look Out !

Of course, window view is an issue now. With the sandy beach of Alimos just below the balconies, and the Greek summer peaking up to some 40 degrees Celcius, I admit there are many things that can de-struct our attention. Just a few days ago the sailing boats racing the Aegean rally were tacking and gybing just a few cables away! And for those not interested in sports, a glance to the swimmers and sunbathers enjoying the easy beach life quickly discharges the daily stress right into the blue water.

Our days start differently now. With all this sea be-low, it feels a bit like being on board.

And everything is so new around us that we feel new ourselves…

Samos Headqua rters RelocationOctober 2008 No.08

Our Head Office relocation, a project that start-ed nearly a year ago, was finally materialized during June’s first weekend.

All the previous week, on the side of the daily work we had to pack our things and decide what to take along and what to leave behind.

It was either a photo, a letter or some forgotten reports slipping out of aged files that was trig-gering memories and there it was: an unbeat-able need to recall the whole story. ‘It was back in… that we were loading…’ or ‘…I remember I was on the m/v… sailing towards… when...’ So many stories coming from the past and yet being so lively remembered!

I wondered, is it those common memories that mould us tight together? Is it the common past that produces this unique feeling passing over from generation to generation? Most probably yes, but this vast expe-rience tank really fills us with pride and also with confidence to face our future challenges and score our goals.

On Friday afternoon, everything was packed and the old office could hardly remind the base of an active shipping company that was just 24 hours ago.

Additional communica-tions channels had been built to ensure continu-ous contact with ships, risk mitigation scenari-os that were being eval-uated for months were put into place and our new premises, fresh, modern and equipped with top notch technical solutions were ready. Time had come to cast lines off.

A super busy weekend followed but on Mon-day we were all sitting in our new desks and –when not staring out of the window- we were doing our daily routine like nothing happened in between!

Western view to Piraeus Sea is all around us

On February 27th, we were happy to receive the massive VLCC Kokkari delivered from Ariake Universal Shipyard Japan. It’s vast hull carries some 297 kDWT, while the thrust comes from a Hitachi Zosen Man B&W, 7S80MC engine, delivering more than 25400kW at 82.8 rpm. Cpt. Sergey Lushnikov and Chief Engineer Eygeniy Tugolukov who attended the sea trials saw the large tanker pushing the Tokyo bay waters with some 17.34kn during maximum speed tests.

Kokkari is classed by ABS.

New building deliveries

October 2008 No.08

Only 2 days later, on 29 February, another newbuilding tanker joined our fleet, this time the delicate and sophisticated Petalouda. Being sister ship to Butterfly and Papillon, Petalouda (the Greek name for butterfly) is the 3rd Medium Range Product Carrier being built at Onomichi Dockyards for Samos Steamship. Sea trials and delivery saw Cpt. Arkady Savin on the bridge and Chief Engineer Vitaliy Pereviazko in charge of the power plant. As for the whole series, Petalouda is classed with the American Bureau of Shipping.

Lastly, on July 7th the m/t Oracle was delivered from Sumitomo Shipyard, being the fourth of our Aframax tankers. Delivery was mastered by Cpt. Sergey Khromikhin while in charge of the Engine Room was Mr. Alexander Belikov. The ship is classed by Lloyds Register and certified with Green Passport, reflecting the company’s environmental awareness.

Owner Hale Maritime IncCategory Product CarrierSize MR IIBuilt Onomichi / JapanYear Built 2008DWT 47322Flag BahamasClassification ABSI.M.O. Nr Nr: 9367669Cargo Segregations 4Double Hulled YesNo. of Cargo Tanks 15 (Slop Tanks Included) No. of Ballast Tanks 1498% Capacity (m3) 52.608Cargo Tank Coating YesCoiled YesCargo Pumps 4 Centrifugal Steam TurbineCOW YesIGS YesVECS Yes

Owner Masthead Shipping S.A.Category Crude Oil Carrier Size Aframax Built Sumitomo / Japan Year Built 2008DWT 105380 Flag BahamasClassification LR I.M.O. Nr 9400980Cargo Segregations 3Double Hulled Yes

No. of Cargo Tanks 13 (Slop Tanks Included)

No. of Ballast Tanks 1298% Capacity (m3) 114719.3 Cargo Tank Coating Yes PartialCoiled YesCargo Pumps 3 Centrifugal

Steam TurbineCOW YesIGS YesVECS Yes

Owner Karley Finance S.A.Category Crude Oil Carrier Size VLCCBuilt U.Sh.Corp. Ariake ShipyardYear Built 2008DWT 297538 MTFlag BahamasClassification ABS I.M.O. Nr 9337157Cargo Segregations 3

Double Hulled Yes

No. of Cargo Tanks 17

No. of Ballast Tanks 11

98% Capacity (m3) 333.364 Cargo Tank Coating Yes PartialCargo Pumps 3 (5500 m3/h @145 m)COW YesIGS YesVECS Yes

Mrs. Chryssa Banti, of the Pur-chasing department who has attended the delivery ceremony reports:

…Words are not enough to describe the great feelings we had by watching this brilliant, newborn vessel glide on the Japanese waters, propelling her way towards Australia.

So many pictures we took of this beautiful ship, which will become both a home and a country for those aboard it, but yet they come short to portray the emotions of all participants and to capture that unique feeling born in our hearts as we realized that it was not just a typical ceremony we were witnessing, but the real beginning of a life itself.

The size, the excellence of materials used for the construction, as well as the advan-tage and benefits of modern technology following new demanding rules and regu-lations, have been met on our new achieve-ment.We applaud the efforts of all people involved on vessel’s construction and look forward to many years of a productive working relationship going forward.

I am sure that Oracle has a good spirit and to those that will take care of her she will be friendly, gracious and giving.

She will be a Good Ship!

And you may consider that as an “oracle”.

It seems that two dimensions (longitude and latitude) are too little for Samos.

As there is altitude too, Mrs Eugenia Koutsantoni took a quick trip to the peak of mountain Kinabalu and raised the Samos Steamship flag as high as 4095m. The ‘expedition’ to the highest mountain of Borneo started on 26 and the summit was successfully reached next morning on 27 April.

It is common ground for human behavior that any choice we have to make is evaluated against the potential re-ward of options available. That means that either con-sciously or unconsciously, our decisions are guided by comparing the pay-back, (reward) we expect to receive from each alternative action against the effort that this action requires. Often, when we are in a situation well known from past experience (i.e I have done the same thing several times in the past and nothing happened to justify the extra ef-fort of being alerted) the logic part seems to fall asleep just as a computer falls in a save-power mode and the subconscious takes the lead. That is understood by the fact that our concentration is disrupted to a variety of irrelevant things, escaping from the ‘boring’ real time ac-tions. In psychological terms, it is symptomatically called ‘auto pilot’ and in many occasions we can not actually remember even if we have performed a said routine task or not. Expanding this simplified simulation to a watchman’s duty, it becomes obvious that in situations which are more or less predictable, when nothing much is expect-ed and when little occurs in it, it is only human that the person’s brain switches to power-saving mode and body reacts subconsciously. In such situations, the subcon-scious dictates that actions like look-out, preview of de-veloping situations or even prepare recovery scenarios, are consuming too much energy and will most probably not pay back the effort (In most of the cases nothing will happen as nothing has happened before). But what happens if conditions change and real inter-

Conscious and subconscious reactions.Sometimes we "look" but we don’t "see"

vention is urgently needed by the individual?How many times we have caught ourselves just ‘day-dreaming’ while somebody is repeatedly calling us just to bring us back to reality?The human brain, when in the ‘autopilot’ mode, needs a sudden shock to jump-start and get back to the observe-analyze-think- react mode just as we need to strike a key to get our PC back alive.The only problem is that PCs do not watch out in naviga-tion, neither they are responsible for the lives of those working or living below the bridge deck.It is not easy to avoid ‘autopilot’ but knowing the mecha-nism behind it might help. Keeping the logic part of the brain alive might keep us alive too!

Samos flag hoisted at high altitude

October 2008 No.08

Mrs Koutsantoni holding the Flag on the roof of Borneo

New Comers

Bigger fleet has bigger needs.

Mr. Panagiotis Togias, ex merchant marine Chief Engineer and Mr. Ni-kiforos Parsalidis, Mechanical en-gineer, come to give a hand to the Technical Department as a PMS Operators.

Mr. Kostas Karaboulas has joined the Operations Department as fleet operator.

And last but not least, Mrs Lena Kapatou comes to add an elegant touch to the dull kingdom of the SQE department as DPA assistant.

Samos Safety Forum in Novorossiysk

A Forum for Navigation, Cargo and Safety mat-ters was organized in Novorossiysk on 24, 25 and 26 September. The two Forum coordinators, Cpt. D Vlamis and Cpt. K. Oikonomopoulos, confirmed that feedback was more than promis-ing and such confer-ences should be held as often as possible.

Although mostly ad-dressed to senior of-ficers, graduating level cadets were invited for the 1st time to partici-pate, being so introduced into a new shipping era, demanding officers with managerial skills such as team work ability, de-cision making and sharp analytical thought.

SHIPPING organisations renewed their warn-Ings that more weapons aboard merchant vessels will translate into more danger not less for their crews. A strongly worded joint statement issued by BIMCO, ICS/ISF, In-tercargo, Intertanko and the International Trans-port Workers Federation said: The pirates are now attacking ships on a daily basis with machine guns and rocket - propelled grenades, and currently

holding over 200 seafar-ers hostage. The pirates are operating with impu-nity, and governments stand idling by. If civil air-craft were being hijacked on a daily basis, the re-sponse of governments would be very different. Yet the response to pi-rate violence by many governments is that it is not their problem and that ships should hire mercenaries to protect themselves, the state-ment continued. The

arming of merchant ships will almost certainly put the lives of ships crews in even greater danger

and is likely to escalate the level of violence em-ployed by the pirates.

Urge for sea patrols against piracy

Samos Waves

Ambelos

Built: November 2006105kDWT Crude Oil CarrierMaster: Glinyov MaximC.Engineer: Shoniya Georgy

ButterflyBuilt: July 200547kDWT Product CarrierMaster: Smetanin OlegC.Engineer: Ryabov Yuriy

AmbrosiaBuilt: June 2006105kDWT Crude-ProductCarrierMaster: Tukhanen AndreyC.Engineer: Shevtsov Aleksandr

NectarBuilt: June 2005105kDWT Crude-OilCarrierMaster: Vavakin VyacheslavC.Engineer: Kovsh Petr

PapillonBuilt: June 200747kDWT Oil/ChemicalMaster: Chernobrovkin AndreyC.Engineer: Mulko Aleksandr

KerkisBuilt: August 1982208kDWT gearlessMaster: Kotov VasiliyC.Engineer: Knyazev Igor

StamatisBuilt: September 2004203kDWT gearlessMaster: Kokarev AndreyC.Engineer: Naiullin Farit

London SpiritBuilt: December 2007208kDWT Double hull - gearlessMaster: Sapozhnicov VictorC.Engineer: Khylchenko Andriy

KokkariBuilt: February 2008300kDWT VLCCMaster: Lushnikov SergiyC.Engineer: Tumasyan Eduard

OracleBuilt: July 2008105kDWT Crude Oil CarrierMaster: Khromikhin SergeyC.Engineer: Belikov Victor Petalouda

Built: February 2008 47kDWT Product CarrierMaster: Savin ArkadyC.Engineer: Konovalov Mikhail

AnthemisBuilt: July 200476kDWT gearlessMaster: Tryapochkin AlexandrC.Engineer: Nekipelov Oleg