The Ocean Cleanup is capturing plastic, prepping a larger trash-collecting system

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world and is located between Hawaii and California.

Scientists of The Ocean Cleanup Foundation have conducted the most extensive analysis ever of this area.

From Forbes by Jeff Kart 

Organizers of The Ocean Cleanup have spent years trying to get a system up and running to collect floating plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the largest accumulation zone of plastic in the world’s oceans.
They now say a System 001/B is doing the job, and has been collecting a range of plastic debris using the natural forces of the ocean to catch and concentrate the garbage.

The system is the second attempt by the nonprofit, which began its journey seven years ago at a TEDx conference where the concept was presented by CEO and Founder Boyan Slat.
And that means while the group is celebrating, they’re also ready for more setbacks, or as Slat likes to call them: “unscheduled learning opportunities.”
“Something like this has never been done before,” Slat said during an Oct. 2 press conference from Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
“The path of progress wasn’t exactly a straight line.”

Slat says he and his team are proud to share that plastic is being captured, while also noting that the latest update means a System 002 is now being designed.
He and others on the team say they’re not sure when that System 002 will launch, but hope to have more details in a few months.

Plastic retained in front of an extended cork line by System 001/B.

photo : The Ocean Cleanup 

The new cork line setup.

image : The Ocean Cleanup 

The Ocean Cleanup is essentially a big rake that picks up floating plastic, with a goal to clean up 50% of the patch in five years, with a 90% reduction by 2040.

System 001 (aka Wilson) was launched from San Francisco, California, in September 2018, then later brought back when another “unscheduled learning opportunity” happened in the form of an 18-meter end section of the boom that broke off due to a fatigue fracture.

System 001/B was launched in June from Vancouver, British Columbia, and earlier reports showed promise, with tweaks that included a giant parachute anchor to create drag, slow down the system and let winds and waves push in the plastic.
The last hurdle was "overtopping," where plastic overtopped a screen meant to retain it.
That issue was addressed by using buoys to make the screen stick out higher above the water.

System 001/B, including the parachute

photo : The Ocean Cleanup 

Slat said he doesn’t have data to share on how much plastic has been captured by System 001/B so far.
“The objective of this first system wasn’t to collect as much plastic as possible,” he said, but to prove the principles of the project and using the natural forces of the ocean to collect trash.
“We collected quite a lot of plastic,” he added.

Another look at crew sorting the plastic.

photo : The Ocean Cleanup 

But he said the system is collecting all kinds and sizes of plastics, from medium-sized debris all the way down to microplastics as small as 1 millimeter.
Much larger ghost nets associated with commercial fishing also have been removed by the system.
“Now that we have these conclusions, they really have given us sufficient confidence to start the next phase of the development and work toward System 002,” Slat said, adding,
“If the journey to this point has taught us anything, it’s that this is not going to be easy.”

Ghost net being lifted onboard the support vessel during the System 001/B mission.

photo : The Ocean Cleanup

The main element to tackle in getting System 002 out on the ocean is survivability, to design a system that can stay in the water in year-round conditions and for long periods of time, so the plastic doesn’t have to be harvested too often using vessels that cost money to send.
“Right now the plastic is really able to stay in the system for days, possibly weeks,” Slat said, “but we have to go for months or even more than a year to make the economics work.”

Lonneke Holierhoek, the cleanup’s chief operating officer, said System 001/B will remain in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch through the end of November to gather more information for the next stage in the project.
It’s headed back now for a crew change and plans to concentrate near-future efforts in collecting plastic in high-density areas of the patch.
“We expect more challenges, more unscheduled learning opportunities and even more surprises, but our team has proven to be steadfast and very resilient which gives us full confidence for the future,” Holierhoek said, adding thanks to long-term partnersincluding the Dutch government and Maersk.

A bag filled with ocean plastic caught by System 001/B being lifted onboard the support vessel.

 photo : The Ocean Cleanup

Slat recalled his idea being dismissed and ridiculed by some when it was first proposed, and some remain skeptical of the project.

They include Marcus Eriksen, research director of the 5 Gyres Institute.
“All global environmental problems, like the hole in the ozone layer, smog over cities, or tar on the ocean surface, were all solved by an upstream policy solution, and that's what it will take to solve the plastic problem,” Eriksen said in response to the announcement.
“We need to use good science to see beyond the distractions.”

At the time of the announcement, Eriksen was in San Francisco with the San Francisco Bay Institute, announcing a three-year study of plastics in the San Francisco Bay “and the range of preventative solutions that will solve the problem here locally and can be replicated around the globe.
“It's upstream vs. downstream, and this is the fight we're engaged in,” he said in an email.
“We need to move the narrative to prevention.”

Crew members sort plastic into size and type classes onboard the support vessel during the System 001/B mission.

 photo : The Ocean Cleanup

Eben Schwartz, marine debris manager with the California Coastal Commission, has a similar message.
“It’s exciting to hear that The Ocean Cleanup project has made some advances in their design,” Schwartz said.
“However, my concerns remain the same as they have been since this project was first proposed.
“The Ocean Cleanup project, in both their methods and their messaging, ignores the fact that this is a 3-dimensional problem.
Plastics on the surface of the garbage patches are important to address, but they represent less than 3% of the plastic that enters the world’s oceans every single year.
“Plastics are found everywhere—throughout the water column and on the ocean floor.
Our focus needs to be on reducing and preventing the plastic that enters the ocean, while continuing to explore the possibility of long-term cleanup.”

Slat says The Ocean Cleanup still needs support to keep moving forward.
“Funding is always going to be necessary. Even though we’re in a good situation now, working toward scale-up, we’ll need more help.”
He also mentioned vacancies the nonprofit is looking to fill and encouraged people to spread the word about the work.
“The more people that know about what we do, I think the higher probability of success.”

Links :

• Forbes : The Ocean Cleanup Has Good News, Hopes To Resume Plastic Cleanup Soon
• CNN : A floating device created to clean up plastic from the ocean is ...
• Business Insider : The massive plastic-cleaning device invented by a 25-year ... / A massive plastic-cleanup device invented by a 25-year-old may finally be catching trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
• The Guardian : Ocean cleanup device successfully collects plastic for first time
• GeoGarage blog : Marine Litter Extraction : a teen innovator ... / The Ocean Cleanup : it could work / Ocean Cleanup Project's trash-catching ... / 'Great Pacific garbage patch' far bigger than ... / The revolutionary giant ocean cleanup ... / Ocean Cleanup : A 600-meter-long plastic ..

315 billion-tonne iceberg breaks off Antarctica

The EU's Sentinel-1 satellite system captured these before and after images

The new D28 iceberg (~1582km²) that recently calved from Amery ice shelf is nicely shown in the latest
@CopernicusEU #sentinel1 satellite imagery @steflermitte

From BBC by Jonathan Amos

The Amery Ice Shelf in Antarctica has just produced its biggest iceberg in more than 50 years.

The calved block covers 1,636 sq km in area - a little smaller than Scotland's Isle of Skye - and is called D28.
The scale of the berg means it will have to be monitored and tracked because it could in future pose a hazard to shipping.

Not since the early 1960s has Amery calved a bigger iceberg.
That was a whopping 9,000 sq km in area.
Amery is the third largest ice shelf in Antarctica, and is a key drainage channel for the east of the continent.

 see NASA MODIS picture (30/09/2019)

 Localization with the GeoGarage platform (NGA nautical raster chart)

The shelf is essentially the floating extension of a number of glaciers that flow off the land into the sea.
Losing bergs to the ocean is how these ice streams maintain equilibrium, balancing the input of snow upstream.

So, scientists knew this calving event was coming.
What's interesting is that much attention in the area had actually been focussed just to the east of the section that's now broken away.

 The rift system was the boundary of a large piece of ice that had been referred to as the “Loose Tooth” since 2002, because it has appeared to be precariously attached for some time.

This calving happened to its west and the “Loose Tooth” is still wiggly. 

Photo by James Behrens

This is a segment of Amery that has affectionately become known as "Loose Tooth" because of its resemblance in satellite images to the dentition of a small child.
Both ice areas had shared the same rift system.

 Loose Tooth pictured in the early 2000s.

D28 is seen forming to the left

NASA 

The moment : Amery Ice Shelf's "Loose Tooth" finally calves an iceberg@NASA_ICE image

But although wobbly, Loose tooth is still attached.
It's D28 that's been extracted.
"It is the molar compared to a baby tooth," Prof Helen Fricker from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography told BBC News.

Prof Fricker had predicted back in 2002 that Loose Tooth would come off sometime between 2010 and 2015.
"I am excited to see this calving event after all these years. We knew it would happen eventually, but just to keep us all on our toes, it is not exactly where we expected it to be," she said.

The Scripps researcher stressed that there was no link between this event and climate change. Satellite data since the 1990s has shown that Amery is roughly in balance with its surroundings, despite experiencing strong surface melt in summer.
"While there is much to be concerned about in Antarctica, there is no cause for alarm yet for this particular ice shelf," Prof Fricker added.

Amery experiences a lot of summer surface melt, but the data indicates it is in equilibrium

 Amery experiences a lot of summer surface melt, but the data indicates it is in equilibrium

Richard Coleman/UTAS

The Australian Antarctic Division will however be watching Amery closely to see if it reacts at all. The division's scientists have instrumentation in the region.

It's possible the loss of such a big berg will change the stress geometry across the front of the ice shelf.
This could influence the behaviour of cracks, and even the stability of Loose Tooth.

D28 is calculated to be about 210m thick and contains some 315 billion tonnes of ice.
The name comes from a classification system run by the US National Ice Center, which divides the Antarctic into quadrants.
The D quadrant covers the longitudes 90 degrees East to zero degrees, the Prime Meridian.
This is roughly Amery to the Eastern Weddell Sea.
D28 is dwarfed by the mighty A68 berg, which broke away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in 2017. It currently covers an area more than three times as big.
Nearshore currents and winds will carry D28 westwards.
It's likely to take several years for it to break apart and melt completely.

Links :

• The Guardian : Giant iceberg breaks off east Antarctica

Building a geospatial Quant model of ocean transport

Julius Silver/Pixabay

From Medium by Alex Diamond, Eduardo Franco, and John Shriver

Geospatial analysis of shipping data allows Descartes Labs to forecast freight prices months ahead of the competition.

Next time you’re perusing the internet, take a quick detour to the website MarineTraffic where you’ll encounter the ability to track more than 200,000 ships navigating the open seas each day.
From cargo vessels to tankers and tugs; fishing boats, and “pleasure crafts,” the virtual ocean looks like a swarming beehive of activity.
The sheer number of vessels displayed on the website makes it clear that seaborne transport is critical to supplying the needs of modern life.
The International Maritime Organization sums it up well with this quote:

Maritime transport is essential to the world’s economy as over 90% of the world’s trade is carried by sea and it is, by far, the most cost-effective way to move en masse goods and raw materials around the world.

Why is maritime transport so cost-effective?
It comes down to economies of scale that arise from the massive volume of goods that each ocean-going vessel can transport.
The largest modern container ships can carry more than 10,000 FEUs (forty-foot equivalent units), or over 25 million cubic feet in total!

With each container currently priced close to $1,300 USD per FEU, this allows merchants to send containerized goods across the ocean for only around 50 cents per cubic foot.
Shipping the same load by air freight could cost more than $4,000 USD and would add significant restrictions for heavier cargos.

 Shipping has been a critical component of a functioning society since ancient times (Comfreak/Pixabay).

Vessel Specialization

Much of the economies of scale described above are enabled by the specialized handling of the bulk material being transported, with containerization — in use since the 1960s — being the most well-known example.
Bulk cargo is often classified into three primary categories, each with its own unique ship design, outfitted to carry a specific type of commodity.
The three primary categories; dry bulk, liquid bulk, and containerships, are displayed below.

Bulk cargo ships are specialized according to the materials they transport

(source: MundoMaritimo.cl and phys.org).

In addition to ships designed to carry different types of materials, there are also significant variations in ship size to meet transport needs.
Ship size depends on the supply and demand of the material being transported; plus the distance covered, the route selected, and any obstacles encountered while moving from point A to point B.
The image below shows the relative size and deadweight tonnage (DWT) of each dry bulk shipping category.

The size and deadweight tonnage (DWT) of each shipping category.
Very Large Ore Carriers (VLOC) are designed to carry large quantities of ore to fast-growing economies in Asia and the Middle East.

 The size and deadweight tonnage (DWT) of each shipping category. Very Large Ore Carriers (VLOC) are designed to carry large quantities of ore to fast-growing economies in Asia and the Middle East.

Ships that are smaller than Handysize are specialized for river transport, as their reduced dimensions are necessary to pass under bridges and to navigate shallow waterways.
Handysize and Handymax ships are usually general-purpose in nature and represent the majority of bulk carriers in use today, as increased government regulations and stricter risk management resulting from the 2008 financial crisis have limited the financing of larger vessels.

Moving up in size from Handymax, Panamax ships, which traverse the Panama Canal, are functionally restricted by the berth and depth of the Panama Canal’s lock chambers, while Capesize ships cannot pass through the Panama Canal at all and must travel around Cape Horn to navigate between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
Only recently have some Capesize ships been able to pass through the expanded Suez Canal, which was completed in 2015.

In addition to ship type and size, the ocean transport industry typically involves four primary market participants:

• Owner — Usually an asset-heavy company that owns a commercial ship and equips it for delivering cargo either on a per-voyage or a time-bound basis.
• Charterer — End-users who typically own cargos that need to be moved from one location to another. These are often producers or traders.
• Operator — Normally asset-light entities that are responsible for the end-to-end operation of a voyage. They typically buy time from ship owners and sell point-to-point services to charterers.
• Broker — Intermediaries managing the buying or selling of shipping services between owners and charterers.

Typical bulk shipping scenario involving all four market participants.

One might imagine a typical scenario in which Company A, a charterer, wants to deliver grain from South America to the United States to be used in animal feed for Company B, a food processor.
Typically, Company A would contact a broker to arrange a quote for a voyage between two ports on a specific date.
The broker would work with an operator and potentially a shipowner to secure the proper vessel and crew to match the cargo being transported.
Assuming everything checks out, the charterer would sign off on the quote and proceed with the shipment.

But what if the cost to ship the material is higher now than it was three weeks ago when the charterer first started the conversation?
Would the charterer attempt to save money by storing the material for a period of time and waiting for shipping costs to decline?
What variables would they need to understand to move forward with that decision?

Volatility in the Baltic Dry Index

Descartes Labs is building a digital twin of our planet.

Our ocean transport price modeling process helps shipping companies optimize charter rate decisions by forecasting route-specific Baltic Dry Index price changes 1–2 months ahead.

(source: CNBC).

Systematic Fundamental Modeling

At Descartes Labs, we use our systematic fundamental modeling process and proprietary customer data to help charterers make better forecasting decisions.
Our process helps operators plan for increased price volatility and optimize Baltic Index charter rates 1–2 months ahead.
Using a “quantamental” modeling approach, we blend fundamental supply and demand factors with macroeconomic and geospatial data to predict route-specific charter rates in all market environments.
We can do this for shipping prices, or almost any financial or operating metric.

A powerful example of some of the geospatial data we work with are transponder signals from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) devices required on larger vessels.
These radio signals are generated through an onboard navigation safety device that transmits and monitors the location and characteristics of large vessels in international waters in real-time.
In its raw form, AIS data is fairly noisy, requiring cleaning and cross-referencing with outside datasets (e.g.
vessel databases) before it can be used effectively.

Over the past few years, we’ve successfully ingested multiple sources of AIS data into the Descartes Labs platform and now use it frequently for customer projects.
One of the big advantages of using AIS data from Descartes Labs is that we fuse information from different AIS sources to get the best coverage available.
The graphic below shows the incomplete coverage and variability between two AIS datasets and the more complete coverage that arises when they are combined.

Fused AIS data from multiple sources provides significantly improved coverage and completeness.

But even when AIS datasets are fused and coverage is complete, there still may be a lot of work to clean and normalize everything prior to analysis.
With billions of AIS pings in total, bad data is a frequent issue.
We define it as any vessels that have moved more than ten miles further than they should have based on a vessel’s reported speed and timestamps, anything that was moving more than ten times its reported speed, or anything that is moving more than one knot while moored.
Our process for cleaning bad data is laid out below.

A simplified process for cleaning bad AIS data

Once all the data fusion and cleaning is done, we’re left with an analytics-ready dataset like the one displayed below.
Our ability to process geospatial data at a huge scale enables customers to get answers quickly and make informed decisions.

 Color marks the status of each vessel in this cleaned AIS dataset (Descartes Labs).

Beyond AIS data, the processing pipeline for freight rate forecasting involves additional fundamental and macro data ingest and cleaning using the Descartes Labs Platform.
Once the datasets are calibrated and analysis-ready, we perform feature engineering to identify the unique variables that contribute most to model performance, such as the ratio of ballast-to-laden vessels in a specific location, or vessel counts at congested ports.
Our final models are ensembles of fundamental and macro models, that reflect the blended influence across markets changing over time.
In general, the most common factors may include:

• Vessel supply and trade flow analysis including AIS-derived vessel patterns, potential destinations, advertised tonnage, and vessels in ballast
• Commodity supply and demand such as imports & exports of coal, iron ore, grains, or other commodities by country and region
• Historical prices, seasonality, bunker prices, and forward freight agreements
• Intangibles including weather, new vessel supply, macroeconomics, port logistics and more

Using the most significant factors from feature engineering, our quantitative model selects the best combination to maximize target accuracy while rigorously avoiding overfitting.
We do this by employing robust, blind-set practices and eliminating data leaks with simulated noise series.
The end result is route-specific charter rate forecasts produced by the methodology below.
This process is a tangible example of how quantitative science can be translated into actionable forecasts that all market participants can use.

Research Area: Iron Ore Market Dislocation

As part of ongoing research and backtesting, we often evaluate how our forecasts would have performed in various macroeconomic scenarios.
One area of research is how vessel supply, routes, and prices changed across the iron ore ocean transport market before and after the Brumadinho dam failure and the resulting shutdown of multiple iron ore mines in Brazil.

The repercussions from the Brumadinho disaster are still being felt today, approximately nine months later, as Brazilian mining regulators recently announced that Vale misrepresented what it had done to shut down its riskiest dams.
The legal fallout continues even as impacts to the iron ore ocean transport market have largely returned to normal.

Looking into AIS data relating to iron ore, the graphic below depicts the major commodity-specific Capesize Dry Bulk routes.
These routes make up about half of the total Capesize contribution to the Baltic Dry Index.
Specifically, routes C2, C3, C5 are iron ore and C4 and C7 are coal.
One of the more interesting things about these routes is that they often operate on a one-way basis, shipping iron ore or coal on the “front-haul” portion of the route, and often return cargo-free and loaded down with ballast on the “back-haul” portion of the route.

Visualization of AIS data depicting the major commodity-specific Capesize Dry Bulk routes.

Most of our focus has been on the C3 route that ships iron ore from Brazil’s major export terminal in Tubarao to China’s major import terminal in Qingdao.
Looking at iron ore market data and 3rd party studies for the C3 route suggest that rates fell significantly after the Brumadinho disaster.
A quick glance below at historical Baltic Dry Index data and iron ore futures data from the CME Group tend to confirm this effect.
The chart clearly shows a divergence in prices for iron ore futures and the Baltic Dry Index shortly after the announcement that production at multiple iron ore mines in Brazil would be paused indefinitely.

Data courtesy of Investing.com. Iron ore fines 62% futures contracts available through CME Group.

This pause didn’t just impact prices but also vessel departure and destination patterns to and from Brazil.
For example, the orange line in the chart below shows Capesize and Panamax vessel departures to China dropping in early March 2019, presumably after most of the remaining iron ore inventory was cleared out of the supply chain and loaded onto ships bound for the C3 route to Qingdao.
The blue line shows vessel arrivals en route to Brazil started falling even earlier, around February 2019, or only a week after the dam failure.

Capesize and Panamax arrivals en route to Brazil and departures to China declined in early 2019

The timing difference in the decline of vessel departures and arrivals in the chart above is most likely due to the immediate negative impact on demand for ships into Brazil.
Similar effects can be seen in the drop of the Baltic Dry Index and the spike in iron ore futures that occurred at nearly the same time.

Weekly route volume information like this can be converted to features that can be used to build and test different price models.
The chart below includes several examples that could be constructed and fed into a machine learning model for iron ore.
In this case, the features being engineered include normalized weekly ratios of route volumes with a destination of either Europe or China and those with a source from Brazil or Australia.

In addition to route volumes, the relative demand between dry bulk cargos can also be represented as a feature.
These three features combined could be used to represent the primary fundamental model factors for the C3 iron ore route overall.

If you’d like to learn more about this factor model or discuss your interest in financial or operational modeling in general, feel free to get in touch with us here.
Until then, we’ll continue to expand our models of ocean transport and leave you with an appropriate sailor’s proverb:

“It is not the ship so much as the skillful sailing that assures the prosperous voyage.” — George William Curtis

The rise of cyber threats and GPS-jamming on OSVs

Cover: Guidelines on Cyber Security Onboard Ships, Third Edition.

Click on image to download PDF.

From Rivieramm by Martyn Wingrove

OSV owners need to protect DP systems from failures and the spoofing of GPS signals, while preparing crew to identify cyber threats

Offshore support vessel owners need to ensure their bridge teams, especially dynamic positioning (DP) operators, are aware of cyber threats, particularly from global positioning jamming and malware.
Although there has been no direct attack on DP vessels, they are still being impacted by jamming or spoofing of GPS in regions exposed to state players.

According to International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA), jamming signals from satellites to vessels’ position reference systems helped cause a 50% jump in DP events reported in 2018.
IMCA received 147 event reports in 2018, up from around 95 in 2017 and 80 in both 2015 and 2016.

IMCA technical adviser Capt. Andy Goldsmith said part of the jump was due to improved reporting by vessel owners, but not all of it could be explained that way.
Addressing the offshore vessel owners, operators and managers at Riviera’s Asian Offshore Support Journal Conference in Singapore on 18 September, Capt Goldsmith said: “A big part of this in 2018 was reference system signal jamming in the Middle East.”

Of the 147 events reported in 2018, 24 incidents involved a loss of automatic DP control, said Capt Goldsmith, 82 were labelled ‘undesired events’ and 41 came in under the heading ‘observations’.
He said the most frequent causes for DP events were electrical and human factors.
The electrical issues were due to “poor design, component selection and lack of maintenance and testing” he said.
Human factors included lack of knowledge, training or experience of DP functionality, operator error or insufficient processing and procedures.

Increased spoofing and jamming

In addition, DP operators should be equipped to identify any GPS signal issues, cross check with other position reference sensors and be prepared to take control of the vessel.
However, Naval Dome chief executive and cyber security expert Itai Sela thinks if there is a DP issue because of GPS spoofing and jamming, owners should not blame this on human error.
“There is an increase in spoofing and jamming of DP systems,” he tells OSJ.
“But, it is not enough to apportion blame on individuals or consider the breach of a critical system simply as a technical failure unless a cyber event has been ruled out.”

He warns owners to have greater awareness of other cyber threats to OSV bridge systems, including DP computers and controls.
This comes after an offshore drilling unit in the Gulf of Mexico lost control of its DP system due to malware incursion.
A report into the incident indicated viruses entered the system after crew members plugged in mobile devices on the bridge.
“Would this have been considered human error if the DP and associated operating technology were adequately protected and the hack thwarted,” asks Mr Sela.
“I doubt it. If cyber-crime continues to be designated a human factor event, then the industry does not fully grasp the cyber problem.”

OSV crew should be aware they can be the unwitting assistance to a cyber criminal by accidently spreading a virus on board.
“We should be careful not to attribute blame to the crews or individuals when systems malfunction due to a cyber incident,” says Mr Sela.
“After all, the hacker will always be able to penetrate systems unless a technical solution has been established to protect these systems.”

He thinks vessel systems and crew will always be vulnerable to potential cyber interference.
“Humans will always make mistakes and hackers will always find ways of circumventing them to find the weak spot,” says Mr Sela.
“We should bear in mind that a cyber incident is not a human error incident. They happen because systems are not sufficiently protected.”

Another cyber expert, SoftImpact maritime consultant Alexandros Theofilou, thinks OSV bridge systems, including DP are vulnerable to malware, viruses and hacking programs, through unauthorised use of USB memory devices.

“USB are commonly used to transfer data to port authorities and by service engineers,” he said at the Seatrade Offshore Marine & Workboats Middle East Conference in Dubai, in September.
“They can carry viruses, which can be blocked if there is antivirus. But they do not block everything, so think before plugging them in,” he warned.

Mr Theofilou demonstrated the ease by which a hacker could block usage of an onboard computer through a USB-based virus.
“When the program can damage ECDIS or change the depth alarm or jam GPS, this could cause vessels to crash, leading to damage and pollution,” he said.

Mr Theofilou thinks owners should train onshore personnel and crew to be aware of cyber threats and identify if there are issues.
“They should check passwords are not saved on laptops, that emails are not fake, set digital signatures on email, be wary of using open wifi for connectivity and use virtual private networks,” said Mr Theofilou.
“The human element is a vulnerable link, so training is important.”

To protect OSVs from the impact of a GPS jamming and spoofing, DP systems should have differential GPS with connectivity to various Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), such as Glonass, Galileo and Beidou where they are available.
DP systems should also source data from multiple position reference sensors.

Providers of differential GPS and position reference technology will present their products and services at the European Dynamic Positioning Conference and Annual Offshore Support Journal Conference, Exhibition and Awards, in London, on 4-6 February 2020.

Veripos provides Apex high-accuracy GNSS services with Precise Point Positioning (PPP), an absolute positioning technique that corrects all GNSS error sources such as: satellite orbit and clocks; tropospheric; ionospheric; and multipath errors.
PPP is not dependent on the location of reference stations and provides position accuracy regardless of location.

Veripos operates its own Orbit and Clock Determination System (OCDS) which derives real-time corrections for all available satellite constellations using proprietary algorithms.
The OCDS uses data from Veripos’ reference station network.
Apex can be complimented by Veripos’ Ultra service that provides real-time corrections using JPL’s OCDS and reference stations.

 Albwardy Damen has started construction of a DMB 8020 Multibuster vessel with DP2

Middle East oil companies tighten OSV DP requirements

In the Middle East, national oil companies and energy majors are increasingly demanding OSVs, including construction vessels, have DP2 capabilities for the next round of term contracts.

Arga Energy managing director Vivek Seth says oil companies are demanding inclusion of OSVs of less than 15 years-old and with DP2 in the latest contract tenders.
“It is only a matter of time before there is an upswing in demand for high-quality assets,” he explains.
“There would then be a two-tier system, with high quality DP2 versus low quality.” Mr Seth adds DP2 vessels will be required by the engineering, procurement and construction contractors to support inspection, maintenance and repair work.

McDermott director of maritime operations in the Middle East and North Africa Doug Korth thinks offshore construction in the Middle East will increasingly involve DP vessels compared with moored units.

McDermott operates two derrick barges with mooring spreads in the region, but it is likely to require one with DP2, he tells OSJ.

Derrick barge DB 27 is more than 40 years’ old and DB 32 is over 12 years’ old.
They operate in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates, supported by a fleet of anchor-handling tugs and shallow water multicats.

Mr Korth expects offshore work for these derrick barges and a support fleet of around 150 OSVs and tugs will increase in 2021 and be sustained at higher levels to 2025.
“There will be so much volume we will need to look at bringing in a DP derrick barge,” he says.
This could be sourced by partnering with an owner, or leasing an idle unit or one half-finished in a shipyard with DP2.

Multicats increasingly need computer-controlled positioning, which is why Damen is installing DP systems on the latest models.
The latest example is a multicat Damen Shipyards’ Hardinxveld facilities in the Netherlands is building for Van Wijngaarden Marine Services.

This vessel, to be named Kilstroom, will be built to a Multi Cat 3013 design with a DP system and bollard pull of 38 tonnes.
It will be a multi-function vessel with twin, heavy-duty cranes, rugged fendering, all-round visibility, extensive deck space and shallow draught.

Van Wijngaarden Marine Services managing director Peter van Wijngaarden said Kilstroom will support marine construction, towage, dredging and offshore windfarm operations.

Damen’s partnership in the UAE, Albwardy Damen, has started constructing a Multibuster vessel, a cross between a multicat and shoalbuster, with DP2.

Albwardy Damen managing director Lars Seistrup says this 80-m vessel will be built for shallow water pipe and cable lay, anchor handling, platform upgrades, well stimulation and decommissioning projects.
It will be built to a DMB 8020 design with 45 tonnes of bollard pull for delivery in Q1 2021, he says.
“It will be built for the Middle East market with shallow draught, Caterpillar engines and Schottel propulsion,” says Mr Seistrup.

This package includes two Schottel Rudderpropeller (SRP) 360 fixed pitch, a retractable SRP 260 RT fixed-pitch propeller and a STT 2 fixed-pitch tunnel thruster, plus steering and control systems.

Hybrid systems and energy conservation

Schottel has introduced a hybrid approach to cutting energy consumption for thrusters.
Vice president for sales Roland Schwandt says Schottel’s synchronous Y-hybrid drive enables one engine to drive two SRPs using a new gearbox.

This could be linked to SyDrive hybrid diesel-electric propulsion with energy storage, electric motors and frequency drives.
“It is adaptable and can be used in retrofit projects,” says Mr Schwandt.

Topaz Energy & Marine head of information technology Kris Vedat says fuel optimisation will be a key differentiator for OSV owners in securing contracts.
He thinks data analytics on OSV consumption will enable owners to reduce fuel costs.

“Ultimately, it will become real-time reporting to enable owners to throttle down their consumption,” he says.
“We process a lot of energy data that would benefit operators. Then we ask chief engineers to trust the data and that will then drive on board decisions, not just relying on their experience.”

Mr Seth says producing electronic logs of energy consumption will help both shore managers and onboard crew to operate propulsion more effectively.
“Crew can use smart devices for reporting and see what the office expects and then try to beat these expectations,” he says.

Links :

• DigitalShip : Cybersecurity not a human error issue, says Naval Dome CEO
• HellenicShippingNews : Cyber Security Is A Technical Issue Not A Human One, Says Sela / Safety At Sea And BIMCO Publish Cyber Security White Paper
• ZDnet : Hackers target transportation and shipping companies in new trojan malware campaign
• ArcWeb : Mitigating Cyber Risk in Maritime Applications 
• ITPro : Modern cyber security bears great resemblance to the Titanic disaster, says Stena CISO
• WorkBoat : The state of maritime cybersecurity
• Maritime Executive : Orolia, Telko Parter on First ECDIS with Navigational Cybersecurity 

Image of the week : Annual pulse of sea surface temperature

One year of sea surface data animated in the Spilhous projection view

In 1942, Athelstan Spilhaus produced a world map with a unique perspective, presenting the world's oceans as one body of water

 

Links :

• GeoGarage blog : Finally, a world map that's all about oceans