WORK WEEK OF JANUARY 27-31, 2014 HOME PAGE / NOTICES

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ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLT II

                                                                               

YOUR PORTAL TO THE MARITIME WORLD OF NAVIES, COAST GUARDS, MERCHANT MARINES,YACHTING, OCEANOGRAPHY, NAVIGATION, FISHING, DIVING, SURFING, MARITIME LAW AND MORE. THE ONLY SITE YOU NEED TO KNOW TO FIND ALL THE INFORMATION THERE IS ON ANYTHING MARITIME IN NATURE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.         

                  

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1. To Reach The Latest Blog Posts simply Scroll down

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3. NEW VISITOR?  Click here for a short video explaining our purpose and mission, a basic site guide, short cuts etc.   INTRODUCTION

4. Looking for maritime links? We link to maritime information sites throughout the special interest pages based on the special interest subject. But we also have an indexed collection of most of the world's English language maritime web sites. Click here: THE BIG LINKS LOCKER

5.  Looking for past essays by the our top analyst, Namazu, former Japanese Giant Catfish demigod. His stuff is spread all over the blog but we are building an archive so you might want to check there first: EVERYTHING NAMAZU

6. We've been following the aggressive actions of the Chinese Navy and Coast Guard for nearly two years now. We are working on an archive for those posts as well: How Far Will The Dragon Swim?

7. On line books?  We have a growing collection for reading on line or use as a reference: Our authoritative literature section is where we are editing, up dating and posting the entire collection of American Admiralty Bureau Guide and Commentators, references that should prove vital to admiralty lawyers working with expert witnesses. This is an on going project but about four complete volumes are on line now: After you enter the Authoritative literature page simply scroll down to the start of the American Admiralty Bureau Guides and Commentators.
AUTHORITATIVE LITERATURE INCLUDING AAB PUBS.  We also have our popular serial posts on the parallels between space exploration and the earlier age of maritime exploration originally published as a serial blog post under the continuing title "SPACE AS AN OCEAN" and now posted as an E-Book in Progress titled PROTOCOLS: Click into our MARITIME LITERATURE page and scroll down until you see the words "E Book In Progress". Then you may continue to scroll down to read as many of the essays as you like. Each one is complete in and of its self so you could red the entire collection painlessly by reading just one a day, about five thought provoking minutes. To view the essays click here: MARITIME LITERATURE, Including PROTOCOLS. We also have in our MERCHANT MARINE INTEREST SECTION the National Mariner's Association book: BLOOD ON BROWN WATER. Just enter the MERCHANT MARINE INTEREST SECTION and scroll down:  MERCHANT MARINE INTEREST:  "BLOOD ON BROWN WATER"

8. Book Reviews: Are sorted via the special interest pages, just click on any of the special interest pages in the column margin to your right to select a subject area. Book reviews are spread throughout each section along with links to free videos on the pertinent subject, links to specialized web sites on the subject etc. Each book review will have a link to a vendor where you can obtain additional information or purchase the book. If you are interested in a library loan look for the International Book Binding Number (ISBN) either in our review or at the vendor's site. The ISBN number is a big aid when your librarian has to arrange an inter library loan.

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THE MERCHANT MARINER AND THE TAR BABY

Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of extensive posts that we will publish covering one mariner's struggle with the U.S. Coast Guard's National Mariner's Center (NMC) and its "Medical Navic" which is accused by maritime labor as outlawing middle age in the American Merchant Marine.-Links updated 12/15/2015

 Brer Rabbit tries to fight the Tar-Baby by AB. Frost 1895 (Public Domain-Old -100)


This is the start of a short serialized group of posts on problems with the U.S. Coast Guard's National Mariner's CENTER (NMC) the organization that  American merchant mariners have to deal with to obtain, renew, or advance relative to their occupational credentials. Tangentially, this is also a story about the "Medical NAVIC"*, a Coast Guard issued policy document that is published and enforced by the Coast Guard without benefit of the regulatory process or Congressional mandate. It is the feeling of many in the American Merchant Marine that the effect of the "Medical NAVIC " was to outlaw middle age in American Merchant navigational services. Many feel this was the actual deliberate aim of the Coast Guard from the very beginning. Others feel it is the understandable result of the Coast Guard's abject, total, complete, and continuing failure since taking over superintendence of the American Merchant Marine in WWII to recognize what the U.S. Merchant Marine is and does. While the U.S. Merchant Marine is by law a "naval auxiliary", it is not a Federal uniformed service. There are no 20 year pensions in the Merchant Marine.While Navy and Coast Guard crewmen typically receive a pension and leave the uniformed sea services after careers of 20 to 30 years at ages between 38 and in a few cases their mid fifties,merchant mariners ratings and officers alike generally have to work well into their sixties in order to retire. Coast Guardsmen are members of a military service. Merchant mariners are in a job market, though subject to the call to provide naval services while holding active credentials. Either way the "Medical NAVIC" is ruining lives. So is the way the NMC is operated, and when a Merchant Mariner gets caught up in the administration of the "Medical Navic by the NMC the ensuing fight over a man's career can feel like an encounter with a tar baby. Below , and in a continuing series of posts we are going to share with you the first person observations of NMA Mariner No. 3001 as he struggles with the NMC for a medical waiver for his marine engineering credential. NMA Mariner 3001 is a 58 year old merchant mariner with over 20 years of service. As we write this we still don't know if the NMA has in effect ended his career, though he was certainly eligible for the medical waiver even under the "Medical NAVIC's guidelines.  Like every American remotely connected to the Merchant Marine we have good reason to fear for retaliation against NMA Mariner 3001 and ourselves as the U.S. Coast Guard is notorious about suppressing any negative opinions about any of their services. While we have often expressed admiration for the Coast Guard's military service, search and rescue services, and aids to navigation services to the nation we join the chorus of voices calling for the movement of the superintendence of the U.S. Merchant Marine out of the Coast Guard. Below is the first correspondence that the NMA received from NMA Mariner No.30001. More will follow in the coming days. If you'de like to read more horror stories of the ham handed handling of merchant seamen go to our MERCHANT MARINE INTEREST Section and read our serial "BLOOD ON BROWN WATER.

* NAVIC: Navigation and vessel inspection circular.

* TAR- BABY::The Tar-Baby is a fictional character in the second of the Uncle Remus stories published in 1881; it is a doll made of tar and turpentine used to entrap Br'er Rabbit. The more that Br'er Rabbit fights the Tar-Baby, the more entangled he becomes. In modern usage, "tar baby" refers to any "sticky situation" that is only aggravated by additional contact. (Wikipedia)

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The First Letter of NMA Mariner 3001

Good day to you Captain

I have been having my own adventures with the NMC and in doing research on these people I came across this letter from your good organization. [Editor's note the organization is the National Mariner's Association. (NMA)]

http://towmasters.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/nma_r-428-d_rev1.pdf
 From: NMA Mariner 3001 to the NMA
"I myself have been confronted with all the core experiences found in your case stories. Lack of cooperation,  Refusal to communicate, obstructionism, etc and as I document in my letter I do believe that as of right now I am the target of NMC retaliation for complaining to them about their abuse of me in this process. I have put together a historical document of sorts covering all my experiences from the start of this process to this very day. I have sent a copy to my own union president and my union is aware that I have decided to become active in this fight against the abuses of the NMC. From my union president,"

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Partial copy of correspondence from the mariner's union president, Names with held for the protection of all involved.

"The "sadistic process" that you just went through with the USCG is not uncommon. 

It will most certainly get worse before it gets better as the USCG is now implementing amendments to STCW - including new STCW two-year medical certificate requirements.

A couple of months ago I was appointed to MERPAC - Merchant Marine Personnel Advisory Committee - by the Homeland Security Secretary. So at least we now have a voice in the policy making process aside from public comment, albeit a couple of years too late.

I will certainly try to raise your issues and complaints to the Advisory Committee level, with the USCG in the room.

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The Mariner Continues:

So I have written this document but I have never been politically active before thus I really have no contacts to actually get this information out into the public eye where hopefully it may do some good. nor do I even know who the most effective people to contact with this would be. Thus it is my hope that if you agree with the content of my letter that you would forward it to your own political contacts and any Merchant Marine friendly groups that may be able to help us to right the wrongs done to all merchant mariners by the NMC process.

Although I am deep sea and your group seems to coastal and inland we are all still of the same family. Merchant Mariners. I am counting on the united we stand strategy to get this information out where it can do the most good. Because if we do not stand together then rest assured we will all fall together. 

Below is the full content document I have written. You are free to use this information in full or in part for your own purposes.

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There is more to follow check back with us tommorrow-Editor
Link To Final Post in The Series:

http://americanadmiraltybooks.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-mariner-and-tar-baby-final-chapter.html

FISHING: ACCESS TO WATERWAYS THREATENED

http://keepamericafishing.org/action/take_action/army-corps-of-engineers-proposal-will-lock-anglers-out/

ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS PROPOSAL WILL LOCK ANGLERS OUT

Operational changes to locks will affect access to waterways throughout the U.S.

Claiborne Lock and Dam on the Alabama River, Photo U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Editorial Note 10/18/2015 We urge our readers to continue to follow this issue. At t his writing fishing access to inland waterway continues to be threatened

Around the nation it is becoming more difficult for fishermen and other recreational boaters to gain access to the navigable waters. Of late the U.S.Army Corps of Engineers once the champion of the concept of the navigable waters as a "common highway", open to all is rarely defending non commercial rights and is starting to impose  some additional restrictions of its own. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 declared the waters of the Ohio River, it's tributaries and dis-tributaries a "Common Highway", "open to all" and "forever free" of tolls. The "Louisiana Organic Act" passed around 1812 extended this concept of the "common highway"  to the waters of the Mississippi and Missouri in the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. Roughly 33 individual states mostly in the Mississippi,Ohio, Missouri river valleys and ringing the Great Lakes have passed additional laws that have opened up non river navigable waters to citizen access, including recreational boating and fishing. Unfortunately in recent years in a number of places big corporate interests have encroached on the public's access rights to the navigable waters.  The first appeal of the public traditionally and legally should be to the U.S.Army Corps of Engineers for enforcement of the these ancient acts and the follow on, Corps of Engineers regulations in Title 33 Code of Federal Regulations. Unfortunately, in far too many recent cases of corporate encroachment the Corps has taken only cursory action such as sending out a written notice to the corporate offender, and when the offender engages lawyers, the Corps has actually on some occasions that we are aware of taken the position that they would "wait to see what the state does". Neither the Corps nor the individual states where these encroachments occur are very interested in expensive litigation to insure the public's rights against well heeled and litigious corporations. To read more about this battle we suggest:

 AMERICAN ADMIRALTY BUREAU'S COMMENTATOR  VOLUME 4: "A COMMON HIGHWAY" by Master Pilots Raymond F. Bollinger and the late Gerald E. Disler, ISBN 1-879778-79-3

A COMMON HIGHWAY Using this link you can read a review at Amazon .com but we strongly suggest that you not pay over $35 at Amazon for this book which they advertise used for as much as $ 357.98. We have explained in print before that the publications of the American Admiralty Bureau while often in lapsed copyright and reprinted by several University Presses at some very high prices are still available at their original publisher Marine Education Text Books as spiral bound soft cover books at very reasonable prices often around $35. Unfortunately the print on demand collection of MET is not in their online bookstore. Here is their contact information: 

Marine Education Textbooks124 North Van Avenue  Houma , Louisiana 70363-5895  Phone: (985) 879-3866  Fax: (985) 879-3911  E-Mail: email@marineeducationtextbooks.com

  As motor propulsion marine technology continued to improve so did the Corps development of navigation infrastructure including locks and dams allowing all season inland navigation at one point from the eastern back slope of the Rockies to the Western back slope of the Appalachians, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf. There was always a priority for using the locks and many locks had waiting lines for vessels. Back when there were actually mail boats they had the top priority. Today the priority is government vessels, followed by passenger vessels, and then commercial vessels particularly towing vessels and their barges, with the last priority going to recreational vessels. However at some locks there have been long periods where due to loss of commerce due to general economic conditions the most frequent traffic is actually recreational boats. Neither commercial nor recreational lock users pay anything for lock passage thanks to the North West Ordinance and Louisiana Organic act. Both types of users pay fuel tax with the those of the commercial users going to a waterways maintenance trust fund. The same would be true for recreational boats purchasing diesel fuel at water side sources. However, a lot of recreational boating gasoline tax goes into highway trust funds. Generally locks that slip into recreational dominant use are in trouble in the budgeting wars in tight times. About a year ago we examined some locks below Montgomery , Alabama. Montgomery was once an important inland cotton port. Now the locks that connect the city to the other navigable waters and the sea are mostly used by recreational boats. The waterfront of Montgomery is now largely an excursion boat dock, and water front park. But the marinas, recreational fishing related businesses behind those locks are real and contribute to the regional economy as does the excursion boat business. More over the larger river valley served generates bulk commodity cargoes in abundance including soybeans and timber, and construction aggregates. Rising transportation costs by road and rail are already causing some producers to reconsider barge transport. But due to several decades of neglect there is little regular "line haul service" or infrastructure behind the up river from the dam. These things take time to reemerge. Also behind the dam is a large Air Force Base at Montgomery with river front property. This base could receive aviation fuel via tank barge the safest and most inexpensive way to transport that commodity whenever tank barge service is again available on a regular basis or the Feds decide to sign up for a contract hauling service. But meanwhile recreational boating contributes to the regional economy and helps keep the locks operating. But increasingly the Corps fails to consider the importance of recreational boating traffic or the periodic ups and downs of inland maritime transport and locks that service mostly recreational traffic are in danger of no longer being funded.
This not only impacts recreational boating and fisherman access to water but permanently eliminates the economic advantages of low cost water transport to vast areas of the 33 American states served by the inland waterways. Now according to the article we link you to here: Army Corps of Engineer Proposal Would Lock Anglers Out at Keep America Fishing new Army regulations could virtually eliminate lock usage on some waterways by fishermen and other recreational boaters. We don't disagree with lock use prioritization of traffic but we think any ban on lock use by any category of vessel traffic is contrary to both the provisions of the Northwest Ordinance and Louisiana Organic Act. We think anything that leads to any reduction in navigable capacity of our interstate navigation systems is extremely poor public policy. 

 Since colonial times we have always had more water borne commerce moving between and among our states than we have foreign water borne commerce and we are a very sea dependent nation with 66 of 77 strategic materials having to be brought to us by sea not to mention all of the foreign manufactured and processed cargoes that enter U.S. customs ports of entry daily. We have long recommended this book for those who wish to know or are attempting to defend domestic navigation rights for any sort of vessel traffic including sport fishermen. THE WAY OF THE SHIP contains some very important historical information for defenders of domestic water transport rights and infrastructure.

Marine Education Textbooks124 North Van Avenue 

Houma , Louisiana 70363-5895 
Phone: (985) 879-3866 
Fax: (985) 879-3911 
E-Mail: email@marineeducationtextbooks.com

 To read the coverage of the planned Army Corps of Engineers actions viewed as limiting angler access to navigable waters click here: Keep America Fishing. Again we solicit the comments of our fishermen readers on the Keep America Fishing web site a candidate for permanent linkage on our in our Fishing Special Interest Section.

FISHING ACCESS AND MANAGEMENT ISSUES

RIGS TO REEFS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO

Photo by Andrew Schmitt  

   "Offshore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico serve as valuable marine habitat, supporting economically important recreational fishing in the Gulf region. These platforms serve as huge vertical reefs offering structure and coral where otherwise there would be only barren, smooth bottom.

Since 2006, removal of platforms has exceeded installations. For example, in 2010, 161 were removed while only 23 platforms were installed, and these installations were typically further from shore and therefore less accessible to anglers. Only approximately 10 percent of all eligible platforms in the Gulf of Mexico have been converted into artificial reefs, while the rest have been removed.

In the face of increasing attention on the removal of these important fish structures, in June, 2013, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) released an amended “Rigs to Reefs” policy that will make it easier to turn inactive platforms into new artificial reefs. The new policy supports and encourages the use of obsolete oil and gas structures as artificial reefs; provides greater opportunities for reefing by reducing the five-mile buffer zone between reefing areas to two miles; allows for reefing in place when appropriate in Special Artificial Reef Sites; and provides for extensions to regulatory decommissioning deadlines for companies actively pursuing a “Rigs to Reefs” proposal."...

To Read the entire article click on the title above or here: Rigs to Reefs

To Check Out The complete Website: Keep America Fishing

Editor's Note: Please comment on this site: http://keepamericafishing.org/ which we are evaluating for permanent listing in our FISHING SECTION

ITALIAN NAVY ASSISTING AREA NAVIES

Defence Watch RSS Feed

Algerian Navy Expands – Flagship Launched, Crew To Be Trained by Italian Navy

Updated 6/6/2017

Italian ship San Giusto thought to be comparable to the ship Italy is preparing for Algeria. Photo U.S. Navy. Algeria presently has a 28 ship navy that performs both naval and coast guard type missions and is in the process of upgrading from Cold War era equipment and vessels.

Ottawa Citizen

"Jane’s is reporting about the launch of the Algerian Navy’s future flagship, the Kalaat Beni-Abbes (474) landing helicopter dock (LHD) ship. It recently entered the water for the first time at Fincantieri’s Muggiano shipyard in La Spezia, Italy. The LHD ship was built under the prime contractorship of Orizzonte Sistemi Navali, according to Jane’s (see Ottawa Citizen)

The 8,800-ton vessel is scheduled for handover to the Algerian Navy by September, but will remain in Italy for crew and maintenance staff training under the supervision of the Italian Navy, the magazine reports. The handover will be in the first quarter of 2015." For the full story click here: Ottawa Citizen

 Editors note 2017 Handover confirmed and Algeria is set to purchase additional craft from Germany and other European sources. (See ALGERIAN NATIONAL NAVY ) 

THE RAPID GROWTH OF THE ALGERIAN NAVY

"The Algerian Navy has been on a buying frenzy in recent years, amassing a significant maritime force. In September 2014, representing the culmination of a longer term procurement project, Italy’s Orizzonte Sistemi Navali (OSN)delivered Algeria’s new flagship, an 8,800-tonne amphibious assault ship called the Kalaat Beni-Abbes. But newer projects than OSN’s are currently underway. A shipyard in Saint Petersburg, Russia is building two new Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines for Algeria, while two MEKO A200-class frigates, three F-22P Zulfiquar-class frigates, and two Tigr-class corvettes are being produced for service in the Algerian National Navy at shipyards ranging from Kiel to Karachi." Read the entire article at GIMSEC 

OTHER RECENT DEVELOPMENTS: 

( Live Links) 

Italian shipyard launches Algerian mine countermeasures vessel

U.S, Adm. Howard Visits Algeria

Israel's Navy Having Issues With Safe Boat International, A U.S. Manufacturer

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140127/DEFREG04/301270040/Israel-Navy-Restricts-Safe-Boat-Ops

ISRAEL'S NAVY RESTRICTS USE OF U.S. MANUFACTURER SAFE BOATS INTERNATIONAL  BOATS PENDING AN ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION

 Rigid Inflatable Boats used by U.S. Navy (Photo U.S. Navy)

Story from Defense News

"TEL AVIV — The Israel Navy is restricting use of a US-built, rigid-hulled, inflatable boat pending an investigation of technical and operational conditions that caused one of the small craft to capsize last week off the coast of Gaza.

The Israeli military said the speedboat, built by Bremerton, Wash.,-based Safe Boats International, was carrying five crew members when it overturned during “a routine naval patrol along the border with Gaza.”

All crew members were safely evacuated and the boat was towed to a nearby port. Vice Adm. Ram Rothberg is restricting the entire fleet from operational deployment pending results of the investigation. You can read the entire story at Defense News.

VIC SOCOTRA ON THE ISLAND WARS

http://www.vicsocotra.com/wordpress/2014/01/islands-and-owls/  (Links checked 2//20/2015)

OWLS AND ISLANDS, NAMAZU's PERSONAL FRIEND VIC SOCOTRA POSTED SOME SERIOUS NEWS ON THE ISLAND DISPUTES.

The China/ Japan./Taiwan Disputed Senkakus Image by U.S.Department of Energy

We've said it before if you don't read your Daily Socotra you could miss something important. The Vic Socotra mind works in strange and eclectic ways but its interior workings are based on some uncommon but serious information from well known and respected as well as strange and far from public sources.  The emerging synthesis may take a long way around to be clearly stated but once its out there it can be jaw dropping. Case in point the a recent daily post titled  Islands and Owls . Vic wakes up noting that Snowy owls have been sighted on K street in Washington DC far south of their normal range. There is some grossing about the weather and then he compares the out of normal range owls with the Chinese push for total ownership of the China Seas. Interesting comparison but this is vintage Vic, you know something mind boggling is coming. It seems that the owls appear blithely unaware of the potential implications of their departure from their home turf where after the Arctic Vortexes of this winter are through having their way, their natural camouflage will become a distinct disadvantage. 

 Then Vic reports on an obscure (to most American's but not information junkies like Vic) conference in Switzerland. In the process of telling us about the conference he drops a couple of information bombs. The first was a quote from a Chinese official concerning the island dispute with Japan reportedly publicly uttered at the conference:

"He said when the mike got around to a prominent Chinese official, he opined that the biggest deal was the Diaoyus, and that the PRC just ought to take them back in a military occupation."

 Then Vic drops this quote of a tweet from Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times about an interview with Shinzo Abe, Japan's Prime Minister.

(China and Japan) are "now are in a “similar situation” to UK and Germany before 1914.”

Finally Vic links all his thoughts of the morning into one profound statement, though glib as advertised : "I don’t know if the quote is accurate or not. But to the degree that the PM of Japan and highly ranked Chinese officials seem to concur, I have to agree with Mr. Blodget’s assessment. It is enough to scare the crap out of people.

I am no snowy owl, but I know when a habitat is about to change."

If you have been following our "HOW FAR WILL THE DRAGON" SWIM POSTS AND OUR OTHER COVERAGE OF THE CHINA SEAS DISPUTE YOU REALLY NEED TO READ THIS FROM THE  DAILY SOCOTRA 

FOR MORE BACKGROUND CONSIDER: