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The maritime superhighway |
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Global trade and travel continues to increase and traffic on the oceans is busier than ever. Europe's newest marine transport technology is developing the marine superhighway as an environmentally-friendly and efficient part of the world's transport system. |
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A new generation of high speed shipsToday there is a general need to transport passengers, cars and cargo by sea using methods that are safe, fast and cost-effective. European research is developing new types of ship to fulfil this demand. The newest high-speed vessels are Surface Effect Ships, i.e. that lift up away from the water, as well pushing their way through it. Until very recently, the only SES were small and medium size hydrofoils or hydroplanes used for military and passenger transport but a potentially large future market for much larger SES has prompted new European projects to develop them.Scaling up SES is actually quite difficult. Many of the final stages of design and development need to be done using a prototype, and building full scale working prototypes of large vessels is usually prohibitively expensive. For SES, this problem has been circumvented by SESLAB: a ship-sized SES prototype that is flexible enough to be used as a tool to test a whole family of SES ships. In the study, a modified full scale ship has been built to act as an experimental model that can be used at all stages in the design process to obtain the necessary data and experience to overcome every technical or design problem imaginable. SESLAB will be used to design a range of large SES. The target family covers a wide range of sizes and performances, which reflect the present and future trend in medium and large SES vessels. SESLAB can simulate a length range between 65 and 160 metres, a displacement range between 500 and 5000 tons and a speed range between 40 and 70 knots (75 to 130 km/h). Each size of ship can be assessed for performance (power/speed), manoeuvrability and to see how well it stands up to sailing in rough seas. No other prototypes will be necessary before final building goes ahead. With top speeds of 40-70 knots, SES are fast, but they are likely not
to be the fastest vessels on the high seas. Another European project.
SEABUS-HYDAER is developing a completely new concept in marine transport:
a hybrid between a plane and a ship. Although Seabus never leaves the
water, most of its lift power is provided by the wings. This gives it
the capacity to travel very fast. Ferries currently in use have top speed
of about 40 knots; Seabus beats this hands down, achieving around 120
knots (220 km/h) whilst using 20% less fuel.
A sea corridor between Russia and EuropeSome parts of the world are still difficult to reach. The area around the Ob River in Siberia - the site of 25% of the world's oil products - is one of them. Moving the oil products out by sea has always been considered a bad idea because of the appalling weather conditions that are typical of a Siberian winter. Instead, trade has depended on a pipeline system, which runs through the permafrost area of Russia. In such an inhospitable environment, maintaining the system is next to impossible and a significant part of the transported material is lost through leaking pipes.Russia is now working with countries from the European Union to look for a more effective and environmentally acceptable solution. The research project ARCDEV is investigating how safe and cost effective it would be to transport these important oil products through a Short Sea Shipping corridor from the Arctic regions of Russia to the western European market, bringing the Ob River within range of European strategic trade interests all year round. The project is based around a fully operational voyage to the Siberian oil reserves area in the worst of the winter conditions. The ARCDEV expedition, which is supported by the Ministries of Transport in Finland and Russia, involves many industries and research institutes from all over Europe and Russia, including large companies in the petroleum, shipbuilding and ship supply industries. This will be the last joint Euro-Russian expedition to the Arctic before the end of the millennium. Four different vessels are participating: one nuclear Russian icebreaker, one conventional Russian icebreaker and two oil product carriers, one from the Finnish company Neste and one from Russia. As well as developing the sea corridor as a fully operational, environmentally friendly alternative to the pipeline system, the ships involved will also act as mobile laboratories. In particular, the demonstrator - the oil product carrier, M/T "Uikku" from Neste Shipping - will test new technology and equipment developed to load liquid oil products in temperatures as low as -30 °C. Several other European projects are hitching a ride with the ARCDEV expedition to test out their developments during a real voyage. One of these is the Voyage Data Recorder developed by the Maritime Black Box project. Catastrophes at sea can result in loss of human life and severe damage to the environment. If, in the future, all ships carry electronic automatic incident data recording systems (similar to the obligatory Black Box installed on all aeroplanes) it should be easier to find out the cause of accidents at sea and to prevent similar tragedies in the future. This device complies with standards recommended by the International Maritime Organisation that come into force on January 1st, 2001. |
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Learning to communicate |
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| Good communication at sea can mean
the difference between life and death. People from many different nationalities
work together, often in difficult conditions, and misunderstandings can
and do arise. Many EU-funded projects aim to overcome this potential threat
to human safety and to the environment. MARCOM, for example, is looking at the impact of multicultural and multilingual crews on maritime communications. This project aims to enhance safety and efficiency on ships, particularly those operated by multi-European crews, by developing:
On-going training improves communication and personal safety and encourages practices that are environmentally-friendly. It also allows workers to obtain the further qualifications and skills that enable them to maintain a sense of progression throughout their working life. |
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