Free Republic

34 years ago today, on November 10, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald - aka "Mighty Fritz," - foundered and sank during a storm on Lake Superior. Launched on June 8, 1958, the Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest ship on the Great Lakes for the next 13 years

UP close and personal, the modern day pirate gang is a mob of scruffily dressed Somali males armed to the teeth with AK-47 assault rifles and other weapons. And the group encountered by those aboard the Anzac Frigate HMAS Toowoomba in the Indian Ocean last month were distinctly unhappy that their plan to hijack a Portuguese freighter had been thwarted. But they weren't about to admit they were pirates. Communicating through a Somali language interpreter, Lieutenant Jace (Jace) Hutchison, officer in charge of Toowoomba's nine-member boarding party, asked just what they had in mind in approaching the Portuguese vessel. They...

World’s largest cruise ship sets sail Oasis of the Seas features 2,700 cabins, can accommodate 6,300 passengers The Associated Press updated 11:06 a.m. ET Oct. 30, 2009 HELSINKI - The world's largest cruise liner on Friday began its maiden voyage to Florida, gliding out from a shipyard in Finland with an amphitheater, basketball courts and an ice rink on board. The 16-deck Oasis of the Seas spans 1,200 feet (360 meters) from bow to stern. Its 2,700 cabins can accommodate 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crew. Commissioned by Royal Caribbean International, the ship cost $1.5 billion and took two and a...

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somali pirates holding two Britons captive aboard a yacht off the coast of the Horn of Africa nation warned Britain not to try to rescue the couple. The pirates seized the vessel on Friday morning hundreds of miles out to sea near the Seychelles archipelago. They have taken it to the Somali coast with a view to demanding a ransom for their captives. "If warships surround us, we shall point our guns at the British tourists. They are old and we will take care of them -- that is if we are not attacked," said a pirate...

Container Trade in TEUs* 2009 Year-to-Date*TEUs: 20-foot equivalent units or 20-foot-long cargo container **Preliminary estimate   Loaded Inbound Loaded Outbound Empties Total Containers January 200,588 88,510 110,197 399,295 February 149,299 92,781 75,962 318,042 March 186,450 117,674 70,007 374,131 April 199,051 112,976 96,678 408,705 May 208,591 121,064 89,900 419,555 June 206,358 114,107 92,882 413,347 July 221,719 108,420 102,874 433,013 August 249,920 130,623 112,796 493,339 September 224,924 109,337 106,103 440,364 October November December Year-to-Date 1,846,900 995,492 857,399 3,699,791 YTD % Change -23.8% -26.3% -24.2% -24.6%

MOGADISHU - Somali pirates were behind the hijacking of a Chinese bulk carrier with 25 Chinese crew seized in the Indian Ocean on Monday, a member of the gang said. "We have captured a Chinese ship carrying fuel," gang member Hassan told Reuters by phone from Haradheere, a pirate stronghold north of the Somali capital, Mogadishu. "My friends will bring the ship to either Haradheere or Hobyo. We have not yet decided but it is heading towards this area." The European Union's counter-piracy force said earlier the vessel was seized 550 nautical miles northeast of the Seychelles and 700 nautical...

The number of laid up containerships increased 10.4 per cent in a fortnight, according to the latest Alphaliner survey, which showed 568 ships were idle, aggregating 1.35 million TEU as of October 12 from the 548 idle vessels, totalling 1.29 million TEU, noted two weeks earlier. The Paris-based agency said laid up fleet is now the biggest ever. Apart from ships in the 1,000-TEU - 2,000 TEU range (7,500-TEU plus sized ships lay-up rate remained steady), all sizes showed increases in idling during the two-week period. Alphaliner also reported that the raft of service cutbacks by major carriers had an...

French marines aboard trawlers in the Indian Ocean Saturday fired on pirates to repel a dawn attack, as two vessels used in the attack were subsequently captured by Seychelles coastguards, sources said. "Three small launches... (which were) nearly invisible and that we had on the radar at the last moment, chased us," a member of the crew of the Drennac, one of two fishing vessels approached by the pirates, told AFP by telephone. The French military said the marines had first fired flares then "warning shots in the air and across the bows of the pirates' boats", before finally, when...

PARIS - Somali pirates in two skiffs fired on a French navy vessel early Wednesday after apparently mistaking it for a commercial boat, the French military said. The French ship gave chase and captured five suspected pirates. No one was wounded by the volleys from the Kalashnikov rifles directed at La Somme, a 3,800-ton refueling ship, French military spokesman Rear Adm. Christophe Prazuck said

There's an email whipping around the internet, supposedly written by a Navy SEAL who complains that President Obama delayed decisions to deploy the Navy SEALs because he wanted to resolve the hostage standoff with Captain Richard Phillips "peacefully." There's enough background detail in the email to suggest it was in fact written by a SEAL, but several senior military officials who were involved in the direct planning and execution of the mission -- including in consultations with the White House and President Obama -- tell NBC News the claims are bogus.

An Australian naval ship has thwarted an attack on a merchant vessel in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Yemen, by suspected Somali pirates armed with a rocket propelled grenade launcher. The HMAS Toowoomba answered an emergency call from merchant vessel BBC Portugal after it sighted an armed boat approaching on Sept. 20, Australia's Department of Defence said today in a faxed statement. Along with the grenade launcher, staff from the Toowoomba found six AK47 assault rifles, a G3 assault rifle and a large quantity of ammunition. Somali pirates venturing out to sea as monsoon winds abate are...

Somali pirates attempted to hijack a ship Thursday night in the Mogadishu port but were eventually scared away by a rescue effort. The Syrian captain on the Panama-flagged ship was killed in the incident. The African Union forces and Somali police responded after receiving a distress call from the ship. But Barigye Ba-hoku, the spokesman for African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM, says that by the time his forces got there, the pirates had already climbed aboard the vessel. "We reacted very quickly and tried to prevent these characters from boarding on to the ship, but unfortunately...

The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination> – and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year. >Fascinating article by Simon Parry in the Daily Mail this evening on the Ghost Fleet of Singapore — 100s of empty container ships sidelined by the recession.Excerpt: Here, on a sleepy stretch of shoreline at the far end of Asia, is surely the biggest and...

An interesting detail of the recent S-300-for-Iran story keeps popping up on Russian and Finnish forums. Another ship left the base right after the Ladny frigate (which was sent to chase MV Arctic Sea). Two Russian Navy ships passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, the frigate and some transport ship. This is something that Estonian Admiral Kouts mentioned, but it somehow fell through the cracks. Now, that second ship was seen hanging around the Arctic Sea, too. The $1M question: what was it doing there? I understand sending a frigate to intercept an allegedly hijacked freighter, but sending along a...

The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination - and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed-The-ghost-fleet-recession.html#ixzz0R0k4822N

The world's ship owners and government economists would prefer you not to see this symbol of the depths of the plague still crippling the world's economies The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination. Do not tell these men and women about green shoots of recovery. As Briton Tim Huxley, one of Asia's leading ship brokers, says, if the world is really pulling itself out of recession, then all...

A CARGO ship that vanished in the Channel was carrying arms to Iran and was being tracked by Mossad, the Israeli security service, according to sources in both Russia and Israel.

Supertanker owners may start refusing cargoes within the next three months unless rates return to a profitable level, said Frontline Ltd., the biggest operator of the ships which carry almost half the world’s oil. Ship owners are contributing $942 a day toward fuel costs to ship Middle East crude, according to the London-based Baltic Exchange. Rates have been below operating costs since July. Should the losses persist, some owners may choose to idle their ships, according to Jens Martin Jensen, Singapore-based chief executive officer of Frontline’s management unit. “If you see another quarter, then I think owners have to do...

NEW YORK (CNN) — The United Arab Emirates seized a ship carrying banned arms from North Korea to Iran, diplomats told CNN Friday. The incident occurred in early August and was reported to the U.N. Security Council’s North Korea Sanctions committee, Western diplomats at the United Nations said. The diplomats did not disclose which country owned the vessel. It also was not immediately clear whether this was the first time such an incident had happened, or only the first time such a case had been revealed. A U.N. resolution passed in July imposes an embargo on the shipment of arms...

Here is video of Somali Pirates firing a "Large Caliber Weapon" at a U.S. Navy Helicopter from the deck of a Taiwanese ship they have been holding hostage since April. More than 30 hostages are being held on board the ship. Fox News' John Scott talks with a Navy Spokesman for the 5th Fleet about the incident. . . . . (Watch Video)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Somali pirates holding a hijacked ship off the coast of Somalia fired at a U.S. Navy helicopter as it made a surveillance flight over the vessel, the first such attack by pirates on an American military aircraft, the Navy said Thursday.

A U.S. Navy helicopter conducting surveillance off the coast of Somalia was fired upon Wednesday by pirates aboard a Taiwanese-flagged vessel, where some 30 crewmembers are being held hostage, according to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. The Somali pirates fired what appeared to be a large-caliber weapon at the U.S. Navy SH-60B but didn’t strike it, according to the Navy. No one was injured in the incident and the crew did not return fire, the Navy said. The Taiwanese ship Win Far was seized April 6. Since then, it has been used as a "mother ship" for the launching of...

can’t say anything about the roots of this story and I don’t plan to dig further… I need to think about my own skin too. Understand that as you will.” —Mikhail Voitenko, editor of the Russian maritime Bulletin Sovfrakht., speaking about the “hijacking” of the Arctic Sea While it might seem like an unusual morphing of the movies Inside Man and The Hunt for Red October, the account of the cargo ship Arctic Sea is far stranger than either fictional account. Based on information developed through our extensive investigation, we can authoritatively state, without hyperbole, that the mysteries surrounding the...

ULAN BATOR (Reuters) - Russia's top general said on Wednesday the military would search the Arctic Sea merchant ship for a possible secret cargo when it returns to Russia from a maritime odyssey that has made headlines around the world.Russia says the Maltese-registered Arctic Sea, officially carrying timber from Finland to Algeria, was hijacked by eight men off the coast of Sweden on July 24. This month Russian warships intercepted the vessel off the coast of Cape Verde."We do not know yet what it is carrying, we only know it is timber. But what else it is actually transporting. It...

Was Israel's secret service behind the mysterious hijacking of a Russian freighter to foil a secret attempt to ship cruise missiles to Iran? The mystery surrounding the hijacking of a Russian freighter in July has taken a new twist with reports claiming the pirates were acting in league with the Israeli Mossad secret service in order to halt a shipment of modern weapon systems hidden on board and destined for Iran. While Israeli and Russian officials dismissed the reports, accounts published in the Russian media sounded more like a spy thriller than a commercial hijacking.

I happened to be watching The Kudlow Report last tonight were First Trust’s Chief Economist, Brian Wesbury, stated that the economy is in great shape and global trade is fantastic. He cited the Baltic Dry Index as an indicator of strong trade. However, there must be another Baltic Dry Index as the one everyone else follows shows a horrible past month. In fact, the Baltic Dry Index has dropped another 3.1% Wednesday on top of horrible losses in the last few weeks. Couple that with Japan’s latest trade data which shows the China is now Japan’s largest trade partner. Furthermore...

Moscow, Aug 21 (DPA) A Russian newspaper claimed Friday that suspected pirates who boarded the freighter Arctic Sea were actually agents of the Israeli secret service trying to stop it from smuggling arms into Iran. According to Russian media, the Arctic Sea may have been carrying illegal X-55 cruise missiles destined for Iran hidden among its cargo of lumber. Men acting on behalf of the Israeli Mossad secret service commandeered the ship to divert the weapons away from Israel's regional enemy, the daily Novaya Gazeta said. Citing Moscow publicist Yulia Latynina, the daily pointed to the surprise visit of Israeli...

The UN Refugee Agency has expressed shock at reports that other vessels passed by and did not help as a boat sank carrying illegal immigrants. About 75 illegal immigrants from Africa died while travelling on a crowded rubber dinghy between Libya and Italy. It is thought many succumbed to hunger or thirst. Five Eritreans survived the journey and said no-one offered help. The UN said the failure of other ships to stop and help represented a betrayal of maritime tradition. Earlier this year, Italy and Libya began joint naval patrols in the Mediterranean to try to prevent the passage of...

Port Tracker report projects retail imports to be at lowest level since 2002 Container trade imports will fall 20 percent in August and September and another 18 percent in October, pushing overall retail imports for 2009 down to the lowest level since 2002, industry forecaster IHS Global Insight said in a report released Thursday. In its Port Tracker report, released with the National Retail Federation, the group said the sharp pullback in peak season shipping will leave import shipping volume measured in TEUs down 18.8 percent in 2009 compared to last year. The 12.3 million 20-foot-equivalents IHS Global Insight estimates...

The eight suspected hijackers of the Arctic Sea cargo ship that went missing in the Atlantic Ocean this month appeared in court in Moscow on Friday to be formally arrested for piracy and kidnap. "We were saving ourselves, we were drowning," said Igor Borisov, 45, after he was arrested. "We didn't hijack the ship."

The military airlifted the suspected hijackers of the Arctic Sea and most of its Russian crew from Cape Verde to Moscow on Thursday, after the lumber freighter mysteriously vanished and reappeared in the Atlantic. Eleven of the 15 crew members arrived in Moscow, while the captain and three sailors remained on the ship, which was adrift about 200 nautical miles from the West African island nation of Cape Verde. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the freighter was sailing to the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. The sailors and their suspected captors arrived in two separate Il-76 cargo jets at the...

Russian authorities flew the suspected hijackers of the cargo vessel Arctic Sea to Moscow on Thursday and took off them for interrogation, dismissing suggestions that the ship may have been carrying weapons. The Russian Navy tracked the ship into the Atlantic after what Moscow has termed an act of piracy and boarded it off the Cape Verde islands in the early hours of Monday, freeing the 15 Russian crewmen.

The hijackers of a cargo ship that disappeared off the coast of France threatened to blow it up if their ransom demands were not met, Russian news agencies said.Russia has arrested eight people on suspicion of hijacking the Arctic Sea off the Swedish coast and sailing it to the Atlantic Ocean, ending weeks of silence about the fate of a ship which has intrigued European maritime authorities. Limited information from Russian officials has failed to satisfy sceptics who voiced doubts about whether the piracy actually took place or was a convenient cover story to conceal a possible secret cargo of...

MOSCOW - Russia's navy arrested eight men accused of hijacking the Arctic Sea freighter near Sweden and forcing the crew to sail to West Africa, the defense minister said Tuesday

Russia has arrested eight people who hijacked the merchant ship Arctic Sea, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies on Tuesday. Serdyukov was quoted as saying that the hijackers of the ship, whose disappearance baffled maritime authorities for weeks, included nationals from Russia, Estonia and Latvia.

Russian news agencies quote the defense minister as saying a freighter that went missing nearly three weeks ago has been found near Cape Verde, and its crew is alive

Breaking News Russia Finds Missing Merchant Ship Near Cape Verde Islands Monday, August 17, 2009 ] MOSCOW — DEVELOPING: Russia has found a missing freighter near the Cape Verde islands and its crew members have been taken aboard a Russian vessel, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said... Developing

The mystery of a missing ship embroiled in contradictory reports deepened Saturday, as investigators in Finland said a ransom demand was made for the freighter that vanished more than two weeks ago. It wasn't immediately clear whether the request for money from the purported hijackers of the vessel, named the Arctic Sea, was legitimate. Markku Ranta-Aho of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation told national YLE radio Saturday that "a ransom demand has been made and it was addressed to the shipping company which is based in Finland, and let's say it's a largish amount of money." He did not give...

France: missing cargo ship found near Cape Verde (AP) – 12 hours ago PARIS — The French Defense Ministry says a Russian-manned cargo that vanished in the Atlantic last month has been found near Cape Verde. Ministry spokesman Capt. Jerome Baroe says Cape Verde coast guards have confirmed the Arctic Sea was discovered Friday afternoon about 520 miles (840 kilometers) off the former Portuguese colony off the West African coast. The Arctic Sea has been missing since it passed through the English Channel on July 28. The Maltese-flagged freighter sent radio messages as it sailed south along the coasts of...

The whereabouts of a Russian-manned cargo ship that vanished last month in the Atlantic remained in question Friday -- after a Russian envoy said that a reported sighting off the West African coast proved to be untrue. French and Russian officials had said that the ship, the Arctic Sea, had been discovered off the coast of Cape Verde, and Russian ships were on their way to investigate, the Associated Press reported. But a Russian news agency later quoted Alexander Karpushin, Russia's ambassador to Cape Verde, disputing that information about this ship, which had been carrying a load of timber and...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The mystery surrounding a missing merchant ship deepened Thursday with the vessel's operator suggesting piracy and maritime experts suspecting foul play or even a secret cargo. The Kremlin ordered Russian warships to join the hunt for the 4,000-tonne, 98-meter bulk carrier Arctic Sea, whose fate has baffled maritime authorities across Europe and North Africa. The Maltese-registered vessel, carrying a $1.3-million cargo of timber, was supposed to have docked on August 4 in the Algerian port of Bejaia. It never arrived and is thought to have last made contact from the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of France....

President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the Russian navy to join the hunt for a cargo ship which disappeared after passing through the English Channel. Warships and nuclear submarines have have been told to “take all necessary measures to find and free” the ship and its 15-man Russian crew amid fears that it has been seized by pirates. The mystery surrounding the Arctic Sea has deepened after further details emerged of the “missing” four days after the ship was reportedly raided by armed men off the Swedish coast. There was speculation that the ship had been seized by the Russian Mafia...

A search is under way for a cargo ship which may have travelled through the English Channel after apparently being hijacked by pirates. Coastguards fear the Maltese-flagged Arctic Sea, carrying 15 Russian crew, was hijacked in the Baltic sea. UK authorities made contact before it entered the Strait of Dover but the Russian navy told the Itar-Tass agency it was now looking for the ship. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said the situation was "bizarre". Spokesman Mark Clark said: "Who would think that a hijacked ship could pass through one of the most policed and concentrated waters in the world?...

An Italian tugboat and its crew of 16, seized by Somali pirates four months ago, has been released. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini expressed his satisfaction at the outcome after months of negotiations. The Italian-flagged tugboat Buccaneer was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden on April 11. On board was a crew of 10 Italians, 5 Romanians and one Croatian. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said that the Somali prime minister informed him directly about the vessel's release and said it was the result of exceptional work on the part of Somalia authorities and Italian intelligence. Frattini said Italy was...

"The tall ship Unicorn, which grounded on rocks Wednesday morning about 400 yards off Nonamesset Island in the Elizabeth Islands chain, just off Martha's Vineyard, has been freed, the U.S. Coast Guard announced Wednesday afternoon. The Coast Guard said the ship was refloated with the assistance of the commercial tug Jaguar." "The cause of the incident is not yet known. The Unicorn claims to be the only all-female-crewed tall ship in the world. According to the Unicorn's Web site, the ship was operating under a program called Sisters Under Sail, with plans to sail the East Coast from Baltimore to...

Somali pirates holding a German ship with five Germans, three Russians, two Ukrainians and 14 Filipinos on board have received a $2.7 million ransom and are counting it before releasing the ship, a pirate told Reuters.

<p>EOUL, South Korea — This is a developing story. Please refresh for the latest update.</p> <p>North Korea seized a South Korean fishing boat early Thursday after it accidentally crossed the countries' sea border, a news report said.</p> <p>Yonhap news agency quoted a Defense Ministry official as saying that the incident took place at about 6:30 a.m. in the East Sea and that four people were on board the South Korean boat.</p>

TRANSPACIFIC lines are preparing to tear up annual contracts signed less than two months ago in a desperate bid to shore up their finances. The 14 members of the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement issued a stark warning to their customers that freight rates agreed for service contracts signed in May were not sustainable over the typical 12-month term and may have to be renegotiated. In an unprecedented move, that reflects the plight of the industry, the TSA issued a statement saying members had adopted a voluntary across-the-board increase of $500 per feu effective from August 10. This will apply to rates...

Five words would change law, have big impact on ocean carriers and shippers All U.S.-flag ships in international commerce would have to be built in the United States if language approved July 9 by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee becomes law. Shippers of government-impelled cargo such as food aid, project or military cargo that require U.S. flag vessels for transport would likely incur higher rates. Experts said it would be impossible to calculate how much, but owners would have to recover the higher relative cost of building a ship in the U.S. The change — spelled out in...

One could be forgiven for thinking that contracts in shipping are no longer worth the paper they are written on. First we had charterers in the dry bulk sector simply walking away from unfavourable contracts at the top of the market. Now in container shipping we have lines on the transpacific trade trying to unilaterally increase rates on annual contracts just months after they were agreed. It would certainly be interesting to be a fly on the wall when shipping line sales people meet major US shippers and try to explain that they now, in effect, want to tear up...