Category Archives: Maritime Studies and Research

Future Sailors Protect the Marmara Sea with the MarBalast Project!

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The “Raising Awareness on Marmara Sea Ballast and Bilge Pollution” project, supported by European Union Projects, draws attention to the environmental threats facing the Marmara Sea and aims to raise awareness among future sailors.
Environmental pollution caused by ballast and bilge water wastes originating from ships poses a serious threat to the Marmara Sea ecosystem. Although MARPOL and IMO Environmental Pollution rules aim to prevent this pollution, human factors and a lack of awareness can cause problems to continue.
At this point, the MarBalast Project was carried out under the consultancy of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ismail Cicek aims to raise awareness through training for maritime students. Within the scope of the “Raising Awareness on Marmara Sea Ballast and Bilge Pollution” project, supported by European Union initiatives, highlights the environmental threats facing the Marmara Sea and aims to educate future sailors.
Pollution resulting from ship ballast and bilge water waste poses a significant threat to the Marmara Sea ecosystem. Although MARPOL and IMO environmental regulations are designed to prevent this pollution, human factors and a lack of awareness can lead to ongoing issues.
The MarBalast Project, guided by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ismail Cicek seeks to raise awareness among maritime students through specialized training. As part of this project, the project team will organize conferences and workshops on maritime management and the importance of pollution prevention at various maritime faculties and high schools across Turkey.The project will last eight months and be executed by the Istanbul Technical University Maritime Technologies Club. Through the MarBalast Project, future sailors will learn about environmentally responsible maritime practices and contribute to protecting the Marmara Sea.
The main objectives of the project are:

  • To inform maritime students about the environmental damage caused by ships.
  • To emphasize the importance of adhering to international maritime regulations such as MARPOL and IMO.
  • To raise awareness aimed at minimizing environmental damage stemming from human activities.
  • To cultivate environmentally conscious generations of future sailors.

The MarBalast Project promises hope for the future of the Marmara Sea!

Underwater Radiated Noise and Sealife. Powerships and noise emittance. maritime studies

Terrestial and Underwater Radiated Noise from Powerships: Testing and Evaluation

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The increase in shipping activity globally has resulted in an increased awareness of impacts on the marine environment. Effects of noise pollution, especially on marine life, have become highly prominent. Marine life is extremely sensitive to noise pollution. Due to their extreme reliance on underwater sounds for basic life functions like searching for food and mate and an absence of any mechanism to safeguard them against it, underwater noise pollution disrupts marine life (Singla, 2020). In short, marine animals depend on sound to live, making and listening to it in various ways to perform various life functions (US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, 2014).

Noise travels much more in water, covering greater distances than it would do on land while travelling through air. Underwater sound has both pressure and particle motion components and hearing can be defined as the relative contribution of each of these sound components to auditory detection (Popper AN, 2011). Sounds radiated from ships are among the underwater noise sources. Among shipborne Underwater Radiated Noise (URN) sources are the following:

  • Propeller’s rotational turn and the blades hitting to water flow lines
  • Propeller’s cavitation
  • Ship hull structure’s interaction water (fluid-structure interaction)
  • Mechanical noises from onboard machinery
Underwater Radiated Noise and Sealife. Powerships and noise emittance. maritime studies
Diagram Illustrating Three Significant Paths of Underwater Noise Generation from Machinery (NCE Report 07-001, 2007).

Click here to read the report generated by NCE (NCE Report 07-001, 2007)

All of these noise sources are radiated to underwater from ships, especially when the ship speed is at higher rates, i.e. above 15 knots.

When a Powership is considered, out of the 4 aforementioned noises, only mechanical noise sources are of concern as there are no noises that emanate from the other three sources because the Powership is docked. Mechanical onboard noises are still of concern and therefore need to be evaluated and tested for the assessment of their potential negative effects to marine life.

GDS Engineering R&D has the capability for measuring the underwater radiated noise and assessment of the results based on the effect to the sealife in the region.

References of GDS Simulator Users
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Solution Partners
in
Maritime Training and Research

Prevention of Maritime Accidents. Maritime Studies. Man Overboard. Denize Adam Düşmesi. Maritime Accident Investigation Reports. Maritime Research. IMO GISIS. Database. Veritabanı Oluşturulması. EU Project. TUBITAK. ITU Maritime Faculty. İTÜ Denizcilik Fakültesi. Maritime Accident Investigation, Casualty Investigation Code, Man Over Board (MOB), Lessons Learned, Database, Data Format, Report Forms. Root Cause Analysis. Root Cause Flow Charts. Collision Accidents. Analysis and assessment of ship collision accidents using Fault Tree and Multiple Correspondence Analysis. MCA. , Fault tree method, Multiple correspondence analysis, Collision Regulation, CollReg. Human Error. The results represent the cause statistics of the ship-to-ship collision accidents that occurred in the last 43 years. Considering the collision accident reports data, our results show %94,7 of collision accidents are related to human error.

Categories of Maritime (Ship) Accident Types and Research Studies

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Categories of Maritime (Ship) Accident Types

Lloyds Maritime Information Services (LMIS) has a casualty database which divides the maritime (ship) accidents into the following categories:

1. Foundered – includes ships which sank as a result of heavy weather, leaks, breaking into two, etc, and not as a consequence of other categories such as collision etc.

2. Missing vessel – includes ships that disappeared without any trace or witnesses knowing exactly what happened in the accident.

3. Fire/explosion – includes ships where fire/explosion is the first event reported, or where fire/explosion results from hull/machinery damage, i.e. this category includes fires due to engine damage, but not fires due to collision etc.

4. Collision – includes ships striking or being struck by another ship, regardless of whether under way, anchored or moored. This category does not include ships striking underwater wrecks.

5. Contact – includes ships striking or being struck by an external object, but not another ship or the sea bottom. This category includes striking drilling rigs/platforms, regardless of whether in fixed position or in tow.

6. Wrecked/stranded – includes ships striking the sea bottom, shore or underwater wrecks.

7. War loss/hostilities – includes ships damaged from all hostile acts.

8. Hull/machinery damage – includes ships where the hull/machinery damage is not due to other categories such as collision etc.

9. Miscellaneous – includes lost or damaged ships which cannot be classified into any of the categories 1 through 8 due to not falling into any of the categories above or due to lack of information (e.g. an accident starting by the cargo shifting would typically be classified as miscellaneous).

Above is also referenced in Wartsila website. Man Over Board (MOB) event, a person falling into water, is not referenced in the above listing.

 

However;

IMO accidents website, Global Integrated Shipping Information System (GISIS), refers to Man Over Board as another accident type, which may end with a death or injury. We would like to refern the following two of our publications for the details of MOB and Collision accident types:

Title: Maritime Investigation Reports Involving Man-Over-Board (MOB) Casualties: A Methodology for Evaluation Process, Turkish Journal of Maritime and Marine Sciences, Vol: 5 No: 2 (2019) 141-170. Authors: Orhan Gönel and İsmail Çiçek. Click this link for more information...

Title: Analysis and assessment of ship collision accidents using Fault Tree and Multiple Correspondence Analysis, Ocean Engineering, Volume 245, 2022, 110514, ISSN 0029-8018. Authors: Hasan Ugurlu and Ismail Cicek. Click this link for more information...

 

With these studies, we categorize the maritime investigation reports into the following groups, which is more inline with the  International Maritime Organization (IMO) ‘Casualty Investigation Code’ (CI Code) (2008):

Ship:

  • Grounding/Stranding 
  • Collision/Contact/Allision
  • Fire/Explosion
  • Flooding/Foundering
  • Capsizing/Listing
  • Damage to ship or equipment

Crew:

  • Man-Over-Board (MOB)
  • Injury/Death
Maritime Studies. Man Overboard. Denize Adam Düşmesi. Maritime Accident Investigation Reports. Maritime Research. IMO GISIS. Database. Veritabanı Oluşturulması. EU Project. TUBITAK. ITU Maritime Faculty. İTÜ Denizcilik Fakültesi. Maritime Accident Investigation, Casualty Investigation Code, Man Over Board (MOB), Lessons Learned, Database, Data Format, Report Forms.

Maritime Investigation Reports Involving Man-Over-Board (MOB) Casualties: A Methodology for Evaluation Process

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Turkish Journal of Maritime and Marine Sciences, Vol: 5 No: 2 (2019) 141-170.

Authors

Orhan Gönel and İsmail Çiçek

Abstract

Flag states must issue their maritime investigation reports in accordance with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) circulars with the inclusion of ‘lessons learned’ items from recorded accidents or incidents. To identify the root cause of an event, there must be enough detail of information about the investigated event presented in reports. The information included in reports may help identifying the procedural deficiencies or technical challenges. Considering the Man-Over- Board (MOB) events as a sub group of maritime accident  nvestigations, authors systematically reviewed over 100 reports containing MOB events in this study.

In this study, reports are reviewed and major differences in formats as well as level and type of information are recorded. A systematic methodology for reviewing and reporting the overall information retrieved from maritime accident reports is presented. To cover all information from reviewed reports, 113 information items are identified. An associated standard form is developed for use in extracting information from all investigation reports. Enabling the data collected systematically from reports, issued by the world maritime accident reporting states and agencies, and successively populated into a database for overall analysis, this form is called “Maritime MOB Events Investigation Form (MEI Form)”. This paper presents the content of the MEI Form and demonstrates the methodology of use for retrieving, formatting and analyzing the information from the MOB investigation reports using case examples.

Click to see published paper for more reading.

Keywords

Maritime Accident Investigation, Casualty Investigation Code, Man Over Board (MOB), Lessons Learned, Database, Data Format, Report Forms.

Highlights

  • A Form was developed and proposed for use in accident investigations.
  • Using the form and entry into a database, maritime accident investigation data is digitized.
  • Statistical Data for MOB Events were obtained and presented.
  • results provide useful data for having lessons learned items.
  • Provides a methodology for root-cause of MOB events.
  • Lessons learnt process is automated.