Merchant Fleets Research Articles

History of Thai maritime trade

The Thai commercial fleet can carry about 10 % of the volume of imports and exports. The history of Thai maritime trade is divided into 4 periods: 1) the Sukhothai period (1238-1438); 2) the Ayutthaya (1350-1767) and Thonburi (1767-1782) periods; 3) the early Rattanakosin period (c. 1782-1910), and 4) the first of the national fleet period (1918-1925). The Sukhothai period era involved trade with various foreign countries. In the King Ramkhamhaeng era (1279-1299), trade was prosperous from China via the Gulf of Thailand, and from India via the Indian Ocean. During the Ayutthaya and Thonburi periods, traders of various nationalities came to trade via both the Gulf of Thailand (the South China Sea) and the Indian Ocean. Trading in the Ayutthaya period was a monopoly trade, operated by monarchs and noblemen, and all ships used were Chinese and Southeast Asia (South China Sea) junks. The Rattanakosin period had Siam (now Thailand) enter into the Burney Treaty; the outcome of the agreement was that the country had to cancel its monopoly trade and end trade by the government. The growth of trade increased. The old production structure was self-transformed into production for export. The first of the national fleet period took place during 1918-1925. After World War I (1914-1918), King Rama VI (1910-1925) established a Thai merchant fleet, named “Siam Commercial Maritime Company Limited”, in April, 1918. It was terminated in 1925. On June 22, 1940, the Thai cabinet approved the establishment of Thai Maritime Navigation Company Limited for international maritime shipping. The Thai cabinet terminated this in 2011. The merchant fleet was not growing; because of this lack of a sizeable Thai merchant fleet, there is a lack of negotiating power with foreign merchant fleets. The government must set up a policy to promote the merchant fleet.

American Sanctuary: Mutiny, Martyrdom, and National Identity in the Age of Revolution by A. Roger Ekirch

Reviewed by: American Sanctuary: Mutiny, Martyrdom, and National Identity in the Age of Revolution by A. Roger Ekirch Terri Diane Halperin (bio) KEY WORDS Mutiny, HMS Hermione, Caribbean, British Navy, Fugitives, Extradition American Sanctuary: Mutiny, Martyrdom, and National Identity in the Age of Revolution. By A. Roger Ekirch. (New York: Pantheon Books, 2017. Pp. 320. Cloth, $30.00.) In American Sanctuary, A. Roger Ekirch tells the riveting story of mutiny, murder, escape, and retribution in its full detail. He connects the fate of HMS Hermione sailors to the partisan politics of the United States in the late 1790s. It is a story not just about disgruntled and ill-treated sailors, but it is about fundamental issues of American identity and governance—such as personal liberty, national sovereignty, citizenship, alien rights, and separation of powers. Ekirch asserts that the story of a British mutiny “powerfully influence[d] the momentous election of 1800” and more significantly, “helped to shape the infant Republic’s identity” (xii). He divides the story into three parts, which are bookended with a preface and prologue and an epilogue and coda. In the first part, Ekirch tells the story of the February 1797 mutiny aboard the Hermione in a vivid, page-turning account. He gives a good sense of how small yet expansive the world was for naval and merchant fleets and crews. The [End Page 356] frigate sailed throughout the Caribbean with a diverse crew from the British Empire, Africa, and Continental Europe. Ekirch estimates that there were about twenty Americans aboard, fewer than half of whom were probably impressed into service. He describes life in the Royal Navy and the cruel treatment by the Hermione’s erratic and impatient captain. After the mutiny, the remaining crew sought refuge in a Spanish port where they surrendered the ship in exchange for their freedom. Many crew members eventually returned to the seas and dispersed throughout the Atlantic, which offered many havens for the fugitives. The British could not abide disobedience in their navy and thus pursued the mutineers with singular focus. Yet, by late 1798, they had captured and hanged only a handful. The British believed that the over 100 men who were still at large were mostly in America or on American ships. In the second part of the book, the story of the Hermione comes to the United States. Tensions were running high between the U.S. and Great Britain with regard to the treatment of neutral shipping and the issue of extradition, particularly in regard to Hermione’s crew. In a detailed discussion of affidavits, judicial opinions, position papers and letters written by cabinet members, and newspaper pieces, Ekirch explores the English minister’s extradition requests and fugitives’ trials and connects them to the broader political debate and to process. There was no settled method for considering extradition requests: Would they go through the judiciary or the executive? Both processes and various combinations were used. Here, Ekirch turns his attention to the most famous of the mutineers—Jonathan (or Nathan) Robbins, which may have been an alias for the mutiny’s leader Thomas Nash—whom the United States extradited and the British subsequently executed. Ekirch dismisses the question of Robbins’s identity because regardless of whether Robbins was a native-born American, a naturalized American citizen, or the Irishman Thomas Nash, the issues surrounding his extradition were the same. These issues encompassed the integrity of American citizenship, alien rights, and the right to resist tyranny—either British or American. Thus the Robbins affair adds another dimension to the Federalist and Jeffersonian Republican divide. Ekirch’s treatment of the partisan debate of the 1790s will be familiar to most readers. The Federalists were suspicious of immigrants and favored good relations with Great Britain. The Republicans were more committed to immigrant and alien rights. Ekirch has some sympathy for the Federalists’ circumstances. The United States was already engaged [End Page 357] in the Quasi-War with France, and thus if the Federalists refused to cooperate with the British they risked widening the conflict to include Britain. Generally, Ekirch’s sympathies lie with the Republicans. The last part of American Sanctuary examines Robbins’s impact on American politics...

Business cycles in Greek maritime transport: an econometric exploration (1998–2015)

Maritime transport has been a crucial input for the growth of the Greek economy given that the Greek fleet is one of largest merchant fleets in the world. However, the impact of the local and international business cycle on Greek maritime transport is inadequately researched, so far, in the literature. In this context, the present paper investigates the key determinants of maritime transport fluctuations in the three major ports of the Greek hinterland, taking into account a number of variables for the 1998–2015 time-span, capturing, at least partly, the global financial crisis and the local crisis, as well. To this end, various relevant quantitative techniques have been used, such as Granger causality, Dufour and Renault multistep causality and SURE system estimation. Our main finding is that Greek maritime transport traffic, as expressed through the cargo volumes of the three major ports of Piraeus, Volos and Thessaloniki, has not been influenced by the Greek business cycle, implying that the country’s maritime sector is practically independent of the macroeconomic conditions of the total economy. Clearly, future and more extended research would be relevant in the direction of applying the aforementioned approach to other EU countries of the Mediterranean.

MARITIME TREASURES OFF THE MALAY PENINSULA

The Malay Peninsula –or what is present day West/Peninsular Malaysia – shores are flanked on either side by the South China Sea on the east and the Straits of Malacca (Melaka) on the west, both essentially important sea-borne passages between the East and the West. By the first millennium BCE and the early part of the first millennium CE the Malay Peninsula possessed trading sites on the lower reaches of rivers and along the coasts. Complementing the peninsula’s strategic location was the seasonal monsoonal pattern that facilitated the comings and goings of merchant fleets enabling long-distant seaborne trade to develop. The peninsula acted as a ‘connector’ for the confluence of traders from East Asia to interact with counterparts from South and West Asia and within Southeast Asia. The Straits of Malacca was a pivotal passage of the Maritime Silk Route. A multitude of natural elements and man-made disasters (warfare in particular) resulted in shipwrecks in the Straits and the South China Sea. This paper shall revisit the beginnings of maritime archaeology in Malaysia, ascertain the players and the contemporary playing field, the benefits of this endeavour, look towards its developments, and envisage its future directions.

COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS IN A MIXED CREW ENVIRONMENT

Shipping has become a highly international and multicultural industry due to a globalised labour market of seafarers. About two thirds of the world`s merchant fleets, are manned by a mixed crew, which may include two to three different nationalities. The common language used on board ship is English. So the crewmembers must have a good command of this language. 80% of all maritime accidents are, according to incident reports, caused by human error i.e. negligence, fatigue, incompetence or communication breakdown. Another factor that may affect the safety of crew and cargo is the cultural differences within the mixed nationality crews which, if not appeased in time, may lead to very serious conflicts. This paper proposes to analyse some characteristics of the Asian culture and traditions and suggest some ways of improving the professional relationship among multinational crew members by making them aware of their shipmates identities. A questionnaire, which we intend to use as a research tool, will be provided and explained.

Fatal accidents and injuries among merchant seafarers worldwide

The British merchant fleet has expanded in recent years but it is not known whether this expansion has led to proportionate changes in mortality. To investigate mortality from accidents and injuries in British merchant shipping, to determine whether this has increased in recent years, to compare fatal accident rates across British industries and to review fatal accident rates in merchant shipping worldwide over the last 70 years. Examinations of marine accident investigation files, death registers and death inquiry files, national mortality statistics, worldwide surveys and review methodology. The main outcome measure was the fatal accident rate per 100 000 worker-years. Of 66 deaths in British shipping from 2003 to 2012, 49 were caused by accidents, which largely affected deck ratings. The fatal accident rate in British shipping increased by 4.7% per annum from 2003, although this was not significant (95% confidence interval: -5.1 to 15.6%). During 2003-12, the fatal accident rate in shipping (14.5 per 100 000) was 21 times that in the general British workforce, 4.7 times that in the construction industry and 13 times that in manufacturing. Of 20 merchant fleets worldwide with population-based fatal accident rates, most have shown large reductions over time. The expansion of the British merchant fleet in recent years does not appear to have had a major impact on fatal accidents. Further preventive measures should target fatalities during mooring and towing operations. Internationally, most shipping fleets have over time experienced large decreases in fatal accident rates.

From Lateen to Square Rig: The evolution of the Greek-owned merchant fleet and its ships in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Between the middle of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries shipping became a major economic activity for many Ionian and Aegean communities. The growth of the merchant marine of the Ionians and Aegean Greeks under both Venetian and Ottoman sovereignty, and that of the kingdom of Greece after 1830, are examined in relation to shipping developments. A key element of this study is the analysis of the ship types that were employed by Greek shipowners over the period. The evolution of ship types helps us to understand the technical upgrade of the Greek merchant fleets and in parallel with their economic growth, their expansion to new routes and their specialization on certain trades and markets. As they made the transition from purely Mediterranean ship types to those influenced by those of western and northern Europe, seafarers improved the performance of their business and gathered important technical know-how. As a result they steadily integrated with the wider international maritime economy.

Geopolitics and the Northern Sea Route

Experimental transit voyages along the Northern Sea Route to the north of Russia are breaking new ground each year and the route is already significant for the export of raw materials from Russian ports. National and corporate interests are now driving Russia's Arctic policy, rather than, as formerly, an exclusive focus on security, and the Russian government has ambitious plans for the development of the route. Future regular transit of the Northern Sea Route between Europe and Asia, at present facing serious obstacles, could be accelerated not only by climate change, but by overload on, or interruptions to, the existing route through the Suez Canal, which passes through some of the world's most volatile regions. Despite the formidable impediments to regular year round transit of the Northern Sea Route, governments of the non-Arctic states with most at stake, particularly Germany and China, appear to be taking no chances, and to be jockeying for influence in the Arctic region. The interests of the non-Arctic trading states, and of the European Union, more inclined to view the Arctic Ocean as part of the ‘common heritage of mankind’, are however potentially different from those of Russia, and indeed of Canada in respect of the North East passage, both determined to maintain their exclusive national jurisdiction over emerging sea lanes through their territorial waters. Great issues are at stake here. The emergence of new sea lanes has historically impacted heavily on the international balance of power. Where the merchant fleets go, navies will shortly follow.

An analysis of the respiratory health status among seafarers in the Russian trawler and merchant fleets

Trawler fishermen and merchant seafarers have tough working conditions. While workers in both occupations are exposed to a challenging environment, trawler fishermen are also engaged in onboard fish processing, which is considered to be additional exposure. The aim of the present study was to characterize respiratory health status in both groups of seamen. In total 127 trawler fishermen and 118 merchant seafarers were enrolled during their regular medical health examinations. The study protocol comprised a standardized questionnaire, lung function test and measurements of fractional nitric oxide concentrations (FE(NO) ) in exhaled air. Doctor-diagnosed asthma was reported only by trawler fishermen (3.9%, P < 0.05, Pearson Chi-square test). Adjusted odds ratios (OR) of respiratory symptoms were more often elevated in trawler fishermen compared to merchant seafarers. Trawler fishermen had reduced spirometric parameters: FEV(1) % of predicted values (adjusted β: -5.28, 95%CI: -9.28 to -1.27), FVC % of predicted values (adjusted β: -5.21, 95%CI: -9.25 to -1.17). Increased OR of the work-related cough with phlegm (OR: 6.6, 95% CI: 1.8-21.9), running nose (OR: 3.0, 95%CI: 1.2-7.7), and frequent sneezing (OR: 3.4, 95%CI: 1.0-12.7) were found among those trawler workers whose work tasks included filleting of fish. FE(NO) levels were not significantly different between trawler and merchant seamen. The present study indicated that trawler fishermen exhibited impaired lung function and were more likely to have asthma. The environment of the onboard factories where fishermen fillet fish is suggested as a risk factor for work-related respiratory symptoms.

Mergers And Acquisitions In The Shipping Industry

&lt;p&gt;The purpose of our research is to analyze Acquired and Acquiring companies in the Maritime Transport sector in order to determine whether the two groups can be distinguished from each other based on their different financial characteristics. Although this area of research is considered as very fruitful by many academics, it was given less attention due to the rare sequence of such events and the difficulty to gain access to valuable data. The authors are not aware of any other papers that have examined the maritime transport sector in such a way in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;However, since many shipping companies have taken the opportunity to access stock markets around the world, in order to gain equity finance to upgrade or expand their merchant fleets, their financial statements became public. Moreover, the fact that over the last decades Mergers and Acquisitions are considered by many managers as very efficient method of company expansion, the view of the past that considered Mergers &amp;amp; Acquisitions in the maritime sector as a difficult area of research is starting to change.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; The study will be based upon a sample of 60 companies, consisting of 37 targets (either through merger or acquisition), occurring during the calendar years from 1994 to 2009 and 23 acquirers (some of them multiple acquirers). In the analysis, ratios measuring different aspects of business activity will be investigated; such as profitability, liquidity, efficiency and leverage, with the utilization of multiple Logit Regression Analysis.&lt;/p&gt;

A Key Decision-Making Process on Logistic Support to Merchant Ships Based on Operational Requirements: Marine Supplier Selection

The operational performance of merchant ship fleets depends on establishing an effective ship–shore interface especially on logistic support. In this process, selection of marine supplier with respect to the ship operational requirements appears to be a key decision-making issue. This paper offers an integrated decision aid in order to model the marine supplier selection process. The backbone of proposed methodology is the combination of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, Analytic Hierarchy Process, and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution, which allows the decision-makers to combine market dynamics and the logistic needs of the ship's operating environment, which also includes sea voyages, port periods, and docking facilities. A user-friendly interface of the integrated methodology provides opportunities to shipping executives to integrate the proposed methodology into technical ship management procedures.

Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century

Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century

Suicides among seafarers in UK merchant shipping, 1919-2005

Little has been reported on suicides among seafarers and how they have changed over time. To establish the causes, rates and trends in suicides at work among seafarers in UK merchant shipping from 1919 to 2005 and to compare suicide rates with the general UK population and with seafarers employed in non-UK shipping. Examination of seafarers' death inquiry files, death registers and death returns (for a total population of 11.90 million seafarer-years); literature reviews and national suicide statistics. The suicide rate (for suicides at work and unexplained disappearances at sea) in UK shipping fell from 40-50 per 100,000 in the 1920s to <10 per 100 000 in recent years, with an interim peak during the 1960s. Suicide rates were higher for ratings (all ranks below officers) than for officers, for Lascars (Asian seafarers) than for British seafarers and for older than for younger seafarers and were typically lower than those in Asian and Scandinavian merchant fleets. The suicide rate (for suicides at work) among seafarers was substantially higher than the overall suicide rate in the general British population from 1919 to the 1970s, but following reductions in suicide mortality among seafarers, it has become more comparable since. Although merchant seafaring was previously a high-risk occupation for suicides at work, there has been a sharp fall in the suicide rate in the past 40 years. Likely reasons for this include reductions over time in long intercontinental voyages and changes over time in seafarers' lifestyles.

The Nineteenth Century Law of the Sea and the British Abolition of the Slave Trade

The hesitation to abolish the slave trade on the high seas was not predicated on the slave trade per se, but on the conflict between the Grotian notion of the freedom of the seas, and attempts to establish a right to visit ships suspected of being involved in the slave trade. For most of the eighteen hundreds, the battle lines were drawn between Great Britain on the one hand, which put forward an abolitionist agenda primed on the use of its superior naval forces; and on the other hand, lesser maritime powers which sought to ensure freedom of commerce for their merchant fleets.

Artisanal fishing in Andalusia (II): Safety and working conditions policy

In an earlier paper, we presented a statistical study dealing comprehensively with the so-called “artisanal fleet”, with data on the typology of vessels and on the extractive effort. In this paper, we focus our research on safety and working conditions. Although numerous factors are known that can directly influence the health of the sailor or fisherman, and that are present one way or another in both the fishing and merchant fleets, it is necessary to address in particular the problem of coastal fishermens’ health in order to identify areas of health and safety that need to be improved. The results of this analysis, among other aspects, identify the injuries associated with machinery, tools, nets and protection devices, the health status, the life styles and the working conditions.

Britain and Barbary, 1589–1689 (review)

Reviewed by: Britain and Barbary, 1589–1689 Michèle Longino (bio) Nabil Matar, Britain and Barbary, 1589–1689. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2005. 241 pp. $59.95 (cloth). With this masterful volume, Nabil Matar concludes a brilliant trilogy focused on the English–Islamic connection in the second half of the sixteenth century continuing through the better part of the seventeenth century. The imbalance suggested above by the juxtaposition of the incommensurate terms 'English' and 'Islamic,' pitting nationhood against religion, flags a symptom of the tensions and debates that characterize relations and representations of the Muslim and the Briton in this period. Matar's two earlier equally admirable books, Islam in Britain: 1558–1685 (Cambridge University Press, 1998) and Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (Columbia University Press, 1999), lay the groundwork for this final one, and together the three volumes clearly establish Matar as the foremost authority on the subject. Britain and Barbary is organized in five chapters that weave together the representation of the Barbary states in British novels, writings, formal documents and on the stage, and provide a detailed and engaging picture of the context of these writings, the contact story. In addition, ever attentive to his sources, Matar includes three eloquent documents as appendices following the conclusion. The first chapter examines the representation of the Moor on the Elizabethan stage, with attention to Shakespeare's Othello and The Merchant of Venice, but also to Heywood's Fair Maid of the West Part I, and explaining the state of relations and degree of contact between England and Barbary that would explain interest for the topics of these plays. The second chapter analyzes the imperialist initiatives of the English in and around the Mediterranean basin following the defeat of the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto [End Page 107] in 1571, resulting in the establishment of the East Levant / Turkey Trading Company and the Barbary Company, a greater British presence in these parts, and, as a consequence, an increasing frequency of pirate attacks and captive-taking. British knowledge of the region and its people increased as the captives (frequently enslaved and held for long spells when not for life) provided written accounts of daily life in North Africa. Unsuccessful demands on the King to provide ransom money exposed his reluctance to intervene and free his subjects. The consequent discontent of the seagoing British and their families played into the civil strife that was fomenting in those same years. An important outcome of the Barbary challenge would be the commitment to build up the British Navy in order to protect the merchants, and thus Britain would become an important maritime power, better equipped to protect the merchant fleets. Matar's brilliant third chapter convincingly demonstrates that British women acquired political agency as a consequence of their men's captivity and the women's need to fend for their families in the absence of male providers. They dared to assume public roles, petitioned and persisted, not simply at the parish level, but at the parliament level, and with letters to the King himself. Thus an important consequence of Moorish captivity was to destabilize domestic politics and the patriarchal order. In addition, class order was challenged by the experience of some British women who found themselves captives in Barbary, only to discover they were treated with more consideration there than at home. They rose in status, esteem, and wealth by virtue of their exotic Britishness. This too, if more paradoxically, led to a sense of greater agency for women, and to a questioning of the traditional ways of British society. In the meanwhile, the Britons were content to hand over their women passengers, indentured servants, and the like, when threatened, and to trust that their women would pave the way for smoother trading relations with the Barbary people. Certainly not all British women who found themselves captive would end up sultanas, but there remains little written trace of those more common and certainly more painful experiences. Matar concludes that Barbary–British relations had an important effect on British women's lives, at home and abroad, and transformed their way of seeing themselves and the world. Matar's fourth chapter discusses...

The Sixteenth-Century French Religious Book (review)

224 Reviews Parergon 21.2 (2004) in Dutch state finances, for which colonial exploitation provided one solution. Although Horlings provides some revealing statistics about Dutch and British economic activity (export figures; the number of steamships in merchant fleets) the comparative element is found here (if at all) within a single article, rather than between the pair. The two opening essays examine political developments from very different perspectives. H. M. Scott looks at the deterioration in diplomacy up until 1788 through the figure of Sir JosephYorke, Britain’s representative in The Hague. Niek van Sas concentrates on internal rivalries between Patriots and Orangists in the Netherlands and their impact on foreign relations from 1780 to 1850. Later, N. A. M. Rodger and Jaap R. Bruijn offer essays on seapower, the former questioning traditional readings of the British navy’s role in imperial policy, the latter exploring the relatively late entry of the Dutch navy into colonial affairs. Finally, there are two articles on the metropolitan state and its relations with the colonies. P. J. Marshall identifies the trends that saw the British parliament and the judiciary taking a more active role in imperial administration. He also challenges earlier interpretations of the differences between British and Dutch colonial government. Jur van Goor asks whether the changing style of Dutch rule in the East Indies during the period represents a radical change or merely a change in emphasis. Unfortunately, his brief conclusion does not provide a clear answer to this question. In most cases there are implicit comparisons to be made between the two articles in each section, but simple juxtaposition is no substitute for a more thorough and overt analysis of the variations in British and Dutch experience (especially in the form of editorial commentary). In summary, Colonial Empires Compared contains much interesting material but fails fully to live up to the promise of its title. Lindsay Diggelmann Department of History University of Auckland Pettegree, Andrew, Paul Nelles and Philip Conner, eds, The Sixteenth-Century French Religious Book, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2001; cloth; pp. xviii, 366; RRP US$99.95; ISBN 0754602788. Contrary to the usual flow of academic bright ideas, the French, or at least Britishbased historians of early modern France, have begun to emulate the British model of the history of the book, built upon the monumental foundations of Pollard Reviews 225 Parergon 21.2 (2004) and Redgrave, Wing and the ESTC. The University of St Andrews Reformation Studies Institute has begun assembling an analytical database of sixteenth-century French religious vernacular literature, broadly conceived and now re-labelled the French Vernacular Book Project. This collection publishes eighteen papers, four in French, from the first Sixteenth-Century French Religious Book Conference, held at St Andrews University in 1999, and celebrating the conclusion of the first stages. As might be expected, the initial results of collaborative research into a topic intersecting such vast fields as the history of the early modern book and its relationship with the Reformation and Catholic Reformation, have spawned an eclectic collection showing little cohesion. Topics range from the material to the intellectual, including the production and distribution of books, their censorship, readership and impact on group opinions, their collection by individuals and institutions, their use for devotional rituals, religious drama, Protestant historiography, political advice and criticism. In other words, this book reflects a field in the process of growing through prodigious work into one asking new historical questions that will precipitate illuminating answers. Andrew Pettegree outlines the early trends revealed by the project, most intriguingly the limited period (1555-67) of vigorous French Protestant printing, and the subsequent resurgence of French Catholic printing in shaping a distinctive Catholic identity, previously badly under-estimated by historians. Paul Nelles challenges similar assumptions about the limited and specific impact of the book on French religious life through a thorough analysis of individual and institutional book inventories and their provenances. Though necessarily limited, such evidence enables him to project beyond the material production of religious books to their potential audiences, identifying the Catholic clerical professionals who bought liturgical, sacramental and apologetical works, the clergy and laity throughout society who sought manuals of piety and devotion, and the socially...

An analysis of the causes of mortality among seafarers in the British merchant fleet (1986-1995) and recommendations for their reduction.

This study was designed to establish the manner and causes of all fatalities among seafarers who were serving in British merchant shipping between 1 January 1986 and 31 December 1995. Other main aims were to compare mortality rates with workers in other industries and with seafarers in other merchant fleets, and to discuss recommendations for the prevention of occupational mortality. This study was based upon official mortality files with a population of 253 919 seafarer-years at risk. There was a total of 252 fatalities in British merchant shipping during the study period. One hundred and seven of the 252 deaths were due to natural causes, of which 93 (87%) were caused by cardiovascular disease. The relative risk of mortality due to accidents at work (96 fatalities) was 23.9 times higher than for all workers in Great Britain during the same time period (95% confidence interval = 14.0-40.7). The risk of a fatal accident in merchant shipping was also much higher than in other British industrial sectors, such as agriculture, forestry and fishing (relative risk = 4.5), construction (5.5), and manufacturing (22.0). Seafaring was identified as a dangerous occupation compared with shore-based employment. Many of the fatal accidents at work were caused by hazardous working practices and were often preventable, as were the many off-duty accidents and drowning that were caused by seafarers falling into docks when encountering hazardous access to their ships from the shore. Seafarers are also at special risk from acute illnesses since they lack direct access to specialist medical care.

The Future of Minimal Manning and Its Effects on the Acquisition and Life-Cycle Costs of Major Coast Guard Cutters

Since the 1970's, the world's merchant fleets have been pursuing crew reductions as a way to cut costs: however, the United States military has been slow to adopt this trend. In the current age of tight budgets and defense cutbacks, the Coast Guard and Navy can no longer afford to continue in this manner. Both services have now initiated research and acquisition projects which address minimal manning. These projects must be carried out and minimal manning practices implemented if our sea going services are expected to maintain their edge as world leaders. This paper presents a study designed to research the quest for minimally manned crews and its applicability to military vessels. It is meant to provide guidance to the United States Coast Guard and other interested parties on future surface combatant acquisition projects including but not limited to the Coast Guard Deepwater Program. Emphasis is placed on the theory behind automation and the organizational impacts associated with minimal manning.

Les hydrocarbures offshore, une alternative au shipping en Norvège

Guillaume, J. 1996. Les hydrocarbures offshore, une alternative au shipping en Norvege. Norsk geogr. Tidsskr. Vol. 50, 215–223. Oslo. ISSN 0029-1951. The difficulties encountered by Norwegian shipping during the 1970s and 1980s have been analysed usually as the consequences of the world maritime crisis and the differences in costs between many kinds of merchant fleets. In the same way, the overtuning after 1987 was a result of a deep modification of Norwegian costs (N.I.S.) and the improvement in the world situation. This analysis is correct, but must also include the effects of shipowners' investments in the offshore Norwegian economy. In fact, there is considerable oscillation between tanker shipping and the offshore operators, with many resultant effects on ports, shipbuilding and shipping services.