The year 2021 witnessed a surge in demand for vessels in the Shipping and maritime industry be it dredging, box shipping, tankers or whatever floats. Three different news which came up this week are – 1. The collision of the tankers and subsequent collision of one of the tankers on the Wind Turbine installation in the Dutch North sea, 2. The increase in the size of the turbines calls for larger vessels for their installations offshore, 3. The 20,000+ TEU Box ship Mumbai Maersk ran aground in the mouth of the river Weser. These three news are indicators of things to come. They are clear pointers as to what is in store for the Maritime industry worldwide.
Julietta D, the bulk carrier drifted rudderless in the storm as the crew were airlifted by the Royal Dutch Rescue team after the vessel collided with another vessel before eventually hitting one of the wind turbine monopile foundations at the 1.5 GW wind farm offshore the Netherlands. The turbine was yet to be installed. Lucky enough for the Wind Farm company.
Storms are nothing new to the Americas too. Imagine a storm outbreak amidst the number of ships in anchorage waiting for their berthing slots in the sea outside the Port of Long Beach Harbour and Los Angeles. Though there aren’t enough turbines in the vicinity, frequents storms do pose a threat to the wind farms when incidents like the Julietta drift happen. Storms and vessels are indeed a threat to the growing number of installed turbines across the oceans.
Next comes the larger size of the turbines that are installed by the day as technology heads northward. Larger sized turbines require larger installation vessels. The recent launch of Voltaire by Jan De Nul (read the news here JAN DE NUL LAUNCHED THE WORLD’S TALLEST NEXT GENERATION JACK-UP INSTALLATION VESSEL VOLTAIRE – Dredgingworld.com) was one such move in the right direction. The industry calls for bigger vessels as most of the major dredging companies are strengthening their positions as turbine installers and cable-layers, another vertical which has become a prominent and major income provider to these companies. Stock prices of Vessel manufacturers are set to surge when orders for the bigger vessels start pouring in. Without larger vessels, companies will lose out to their competitors who invest in bigger vessels.
The third is the Box ship running aground. Irrespective of the location, this could happen anywhere. The important thing to do here and the only thing to do is to widen and deepen the channels to allow these supersized ships to call at any port it may need in the future. The Ever Given fiasco and the Mumbai Maersk, etc are wake up calls for action from the various maritime countries. Channel Deepening is key to the berthing and handling of very large box ships. With 1.5 Bn USD in funding, the Army Corps of Engineers is spearheading the reclamation and restoration works in the US post-budget allotment under the Infrastructure Act. The dredging behemoths are busy worldwide, deepening the harbours, jetties, quays, shipping and navigational channels.
In the days to come, we could witness more adverse actions with respect to the above-mentioned reasons. This could be repeated until and unless substantial effort is made by the countries and huge spending is required to make and maintain the waterways as per the need of the hour. Wind Farms should not only be stormproof, but measures need to be added to protect them from drifting objects (Remember how the concrete block from Japan reached the shores of America The tsunami debris washed from Japan to Oregon – BBC News).
