Horror ship due back in Cork

The Latvian owned, Cambodian registered cargo ship Defender is due back in Cork Harbour next week (6 May) less than a month after her departure after a lengthy stay during which crew members had to strike because of appalling conditions onboard and non-payment of wages for several months totalling over €80,000. The nine crew members on that occasion had to call in their union, the International Transport Federation which sought the arrest of the ship. During the dispute it emerged that there was not even enough food onboard ship to sustain the crew on her return voyage.

This is not of course the first time that this 40 year old vessel has been the subject of industrial action in Cork port. In 2008 a similar dispute broke out involving a different crew who were subjected to the same treatment by their Latvian bosses and only last January the Defender was detained in a British port for the same reason.

The Irish goverment has stated its desire to get tough on Flags of Convenience ships, that is ships registered in countries with little or no worker protection legislation, low wages and inadequate safety rules. Yet they allow ships like the Defender to re-enter our ports despite their appalling record.

The Old Blog Cabin calls on the Irish government to ban such ships from entering ports here (unless it is an emergency where lives are at stake). There is now urgent need to extend such legislation on an European Union wide basis.

We have seen countries take extraordinary measures to protect ships and their crews from piracy in recent times, but there is another type of piracy evident here where workers can be treated like slaves in dirty, dangerous and ancient hulks of ships while at the same time being denied their basic rights and conditions. The Defender is due at the privately owned Passage West dock next Wednesday.



http://www.itfseafarers.org/maritime_news.cfm/newsdetail/3126/region/6/section/0/order/1

Return of the liners

The Cobh cruise liner season opens again in the next few days with the return of Black Watch, now a regular visitor, to the cruise terminal on Deepwater Quay next Thursday morning at 8.30am. A week later it will be the turn of the Grand Princess and then the Jewel of the Seas will call on April 28th. Then on the following day, Wednesday 29th April will see the visit of the Tahitian Princess on the return leg of a world cruise that started in Fort Lauderdale, Floriday in mid-January and travelled via Sydney, Hong Kong, Dubai and Rome and will have transitted both the Panama and Suez canals.

There was an interesting visitor earlier this week which I almost missed. The tall ship Tenacious overnighted at the Deepwater Quay. I spotted the name Tenacious in the list of port visitors but assumed wrongly that it was an ocean-going tug of the same name that was due rather than the yacht Tenacious which is the largest wooden ship of her type in the world at 49.85 metres (164 feet) in length. There are in fact almost a dozen ships using the name Tenacious, or variations of it, worldwide. It was also the name of the yacht which won (after time correction) the notorious Fastnet Race of 1979 (which I will return to later this year as its 30th anniversary occurs in August). That Tenacious was skippered by the US media mogul Ted Turner who was once married to actress Jane Fonda.

On a final note, today, Easter Sunday will see a ceremony in Cobh to mark the 97th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic. Cork Harbour was Titanic's last port of call on its fateful journey which ended in the tragic loss of 1517 people after it struck an iceberg on the night of 14th April 1912. A few days earlier some 123 passengers joined the ship from a tender which departed the White Star Line's terminal (now the main post office) on April 11th. This afternoon's ceremony will leave Lynch's Quay, Cobh (eastern end of town) and a parade led by a colour party from the O.N.E. will leave from the Clock Tower Gallery (Old Town Hall) travelling the short distance to the Titanic Memorial on Pearse Square (outside the BMC shop). There will be prayers, hymns from the Commodore Male Voice Choir and Cobh Confraternity band and a wreath laying ceremony followed by the reading of the names of the 79 passengers who had boarded the liner from Cobh and later perished in the North Atlantic. This year there will be a wreath laid by members of the Irish Lebanese Cultural Society in memory for those Lebanese who lost their lives in the disaster. The Mayor of Cobh Cllr. John Mulvihill Jnr. will later place a wreath in the sea to honour all the victims followed by a rendition of the Last Post and Reveille by a bugler.

20th anniversary of Exxon Valdez disaster

On Tuesday of this week an important anniversary went by almost unnoticed on this side of the globe at any rate. Friday, 24th March 1989 is a day that will never be forgotten by the fishing communities of Alaska and many places further afield. It was the day the Exxon Valdez went aground in Prince William Sound. A documentary was shown on television last night which revisited the awful devastation caused to wildlife and to the livelihoods of thousands of people.

It is estimated that around 10.8 million US gallons (9 million Imperial gallons or 40.9 million litres) poured into the sea when the Exxon Valdez went aground. This caused devastation on a scale never seen before and hopefully never again. Before the disaster the area was rich with a diverse spread of marine life and an important fishery for the local population.

One of the most appalling aspects of the disaster was the way in which the Exxon oil company, who were responsible for the disaster, used their expensively bought public relations to turn around the situation. They also exacerbated the damage by using large jets of boiling water to clean rocks and beaches. This had the effect of practically sterilizing the area and killing whatever tiny aquatic creatures and seaweed that remained.

Incredibly the Exxon Valdez is still in service and this brings me back to my pet subject - the outrage of Flags of Convenience. The Exxon Valdez is now known as the Dong Fang Ocean and carries metal ore rather than oil but the fact that this ship is still in service at all is very disturbing. After the disaster the ship was patched up and remained in service, undergoing a number of name changes along the way - you know the type - where Windscale becomes Sellafield or Long Kesh become HMP Maze. Well the Exxon Valdez is still plying the high seas under a flag of conveniencee - in this case Panama. Thankfully she is banned from European Union waters because she doesn't have a double hull - something only brought in after the Exxon Valdez disaster.

The Innisfallen sails again, hopefully.

Photo: mv Julia, hopefully soon to be the new Innisfallen.
Got another update via the Bring Back the Swansea Cork Ferry website and it seems that it's still all systems go for the return of the ferry link between Cork and the port of Swansea in Wales.

According to the latest bulletin from the group they have now received just under €3 Million in pledges, with €2.3 million of that already in the bank and are very hopeful of securing a deal to purchase the Julia, a Russian-owned ship which previously operated out of Finland. A co-operative is in the process of being formed and will be launched in mid-April according to the website. If all goes to plan and the deal on the Julia goes ahead she will be renamed m.v. Innisfallen - a historic name held previously by five ships which operated the Cork to South Wales route beginning in 1896. The company, interestingly is to be named the B+I Line, resurrecting the name of a company once owned by the Irish government and was itself a successor to the City of Cork Steampacket Company.

The Julia has a gross tonnage of 21699 and was launched in 1982. She is being sold by her owner Stella Naves Russia OY Ltd based in Finland. She was built by Weser Seebeckswerft of Bremerhaven, Germany and originally named MS Olau Britannia. The ship originally sailed on the Sheerness (UK) to Vlissingen (Netherlands) route.

I have fond memories of the last Innisfallen which sailed on the Cork Swansea route from 1968 to the late 1970s. I sailed on her around half a dozen times. I am just about old enough to remember the 4th Innisfallen which operated until around 1968 although I never sailed on her.

Let's keep all fingers and toes crossed and hope that the new Innisfallen and the Swansea-Cork route rises from the ashes very soon.
Photo Innisfallen (No.4) passing Carrigaloe on her outbound journey. Pic from Jack Phelan via Irish Ferries Enthusiasts website.

Cobh Liner visits 2009

I have been looking at the provisional list of cruise liner visits due in Cobh in 2009 and there are some interesting ships which have not previously visited the port of Cork.

Once again this year there will be over 50 such port visits by some of the world's most luxurious cruise liners which only goes to show that not everyone is worried about the worldwide recession.

The Independence of the Seas will be back in port at the end of August while many "regulars" will be returning including the Jewel of the Seas, Black Watch, Delphin and Deutschland. Without doubt the highlight of the year must be the visit of the Queen Mary 2 which will take place in November. Althouth the QM2 is now over 5 years in service it will be her first visit to Ireland and will be in port on 21st October, just over 12 months after the farewell visit of her predecessor the Queen Elizabeth 2.

Among the other notable newcomers in 2009 will be the Prinsendam of the Holland America Line and Minerva II.

For a full list (provisional) of Cobh cruise liner visits for 2009 visit the Cobh Tourism website on

http://visitcobh.com/gpage.html