Bombshell! Vale: No More Ships! - Vale Beijing going to Rotterdam!

[Captain Ted]

4116 SEA MILES, 12.9 DAYS @ 14KN

[holedrille]

Is it true that Vale Basil has been towed a couple of miles off the loading bay and moored over a mud bank with very little clearance under her keel? Pictures of her being moved showed her down by the stern.
Vale Rio de Janeiro is now moored offshore, looks as if she is on her maiden voyage from build in Korea.
Will they dare load her?
Holedriller

[Phil English]

Vale Rio de Janeiro was delivered in September and has already completed one cargo voyage from Brazil to Italy. This will be her second loading.

Brgds
Phil

[Captain Ted]

Anchoring/position her over a mud bank makes sense. In case she really goes further down or even breaks more she will not totally sink, but after off loading and repairing could go somewhere else for further inspections and repairs. so in that light a good idea.
But personally I think they reached areas in ships sizes as in the 70,s with the tankers, when everybody thought bigger, bigger, BIGGER,,BIGGEST !!!! and suddenly they broke and everybody wondered. Seems like we reach or have reached the same stages. Just looking fwd or better said not, when the first mega container vessel goes apart. I read an article when the Emma Maersk came in service that in case of total loss it would be about 2 billion Dollar loss ,not counted the following losses of production cuts in factories etc etc.
staggering numbers when one thinks about it. I remember I did one trip at that time on a 2500 TEU ship, fully loaded, among it 400 reefer container from Brazil and Argentina, I figured it would be about 250 million under my feet. Staggering numbers

[Tuomas Romu]

But personally I think they reached areas in ships sizes as in the 70,s with the tankers, when everybody thought bigger, bigger, BIGGER,,BIGGEST !!!! and suddenly they broke and everybody wondered.

If I recall correctly, none of the 370+ m ships on the list of world's longest ships suffered major structural failures and sailed to the scrapyard in one piece. However, there might have been some smaller problems that were not widely reported - mind shedding some light on them if you can recall any?

While it would be nice to go to smaller ships (yay, more ships!), I guess the economy of scale will become more and more important in the future and we'll see even bigger ships. I don't think safety will be an issue as long as we make sure the ships are built as they are designed.

[Mats]

I agree. Based on history, there is no reason to say a 400,000 dwt vessel is more dangerous than a 300,000 dwt vessel, and there are many of the latter sailing the seas. There were no major structural failings or incidents with the 400,000 - 565,000 dwt ULCCs built in the 1970s, to my knowledge.

I saw the Chinese Shipowners' Association has sent out a press release this week, saying the Valemaxes were allegedly unsafe and posed "catastrophic" pollution risks.
Rhetorical questions:
- Are they referring to the ones built by their compatriots, or the Korean-built ones?
- Also, how can the risk of pollution from bunkers(!) from a 400,000 dwt dry cargo ship (Valemax) be anywhere near as "catastrophic" as a spill from one of the elderly VLCCs that trade to China carrying full cargoes of crude oil? Perhaps they should focus on the latter in stead...
- And finally, what is more risky - a brand-new 400,000 dwt Valemax or one of the old single-hull 250,000 - 300,000 dwt VLCCs that the Chinese have converted into VLOCs?

Don't believe the hype.

[Tuomas Romu]

Mats has a point. A Valemax ship can carry some 10,000 tons of fuel which, while surely a potential environmental disaster, is nothing when compared to tankers. While I do not know where the fuel tanks are located, I would assume that they are not evenly distributed along the length of the hull, meaning that a typical structural damage of a VLOC (grounding, hull girder failure) would not rupture them. However, what happens when a fully-laden VLCC breaks in two...

[Captain Ted]

quote from a friend of mine with whom I worked together 10 years ago in the same company
and that company builded heavily in China during the following 6-8 years.
"one should forbid them to build ships,if it were not for the cheap building prices due to labour costs and materials"
he said that after he came back from China after the initial sea trials for a 300+m container vessel failed 3 times, they got not even out of the river.
I was on one chinese constructed vessel and I know one thing I don,t want to see any again.
As mentioned in a posting before, I sailed with officers (engineers and nautic alike)from 2004-2008 on container ships and from each one of them who came from 300-350 +m ones, I heard that those 300 + ships "cracks" are the norm. That means not necessarily that they will break, but it happened. Saying now, that it is a proven and sizes don,t matter, can be as big as they want,,thats exactly what was said also in the 70.s
That a big ore carrier makes less pollution than a VLCC in case of disaster is a given.
It was mentioned that in case of the Vale ship that may be it was wrong loaded, possible,,but nowadays with all the computer oversight involved, I would say unlikely. Just on the first time loading most probably the oversight of the loading operations was rather good, complacency comes usually with standard and repeating prodecdures, not when procedures are used the first time.  What I know for sure, as long the human element is involved, accidents will happen,,never mind how much automatic/computer control will be installed.

[Tuomas Romu]

I too have heard horror stories about Chinese-built ships. For example a decade or so ago a shipping company ordered a number of products tankers that, once delivered, spent weeks or months in a western ship repair yard due to hairline cracks in the cargo tanks. Still, they were cheaper than their European-built counterparts. Also, a Chinese-built ro-ro ship I visited had many minor issues that made life and working inconvenient, and the overall appearance was kind of shabby...

Anyway, one should not forget that the Vale Beijing was built in South Korea, not China, and the Jiangsu Rongsheng-built Vale China has not reported structural damage. Of course this does not mean that the reason for the failure can not be an error made during the construction of the vessel. Also, since it's a prototype, it could also be a design error that must be fixed to the next STX-built Valemaxes.

As for loading error, I don't think Vale made a mistake - they do have enough experience of loading VLOCs and breaking them in two. However, the loading plan might have been incorrect to begin with and, as you said, there's always the human punching in the numbers.

[Radu]

Captain ted, I don't know why you keep tooting on about ULCC's, in fact, the biggest ones suffered absolutely no structural problems, the 555.000 dwt Batillus class Sea Giant sailed for more than 24 years with no problems, French construction, really robust.

And the current largest sailing ULCC, 441.000 dwt TI Oceania has absolutely no problems nor any of her sisterships so it's not the size, it's either bad design or cheap construction, a crack can form in 50m vessel if it's built/designed poorly.

[Captain Ted]

Radu

Would you please point out where I said that VLC,s and ULCC,s breaking up ? You may have to get the habit to read more carefull what is posted before attacking someone.

fact is that in the 70,s various tanker broke at sea and during loading ops. That was in that time a wake up call, The ULCC,s you mention were all builded afterwards, and what I said is,,it reminds me of that period (70,s) what goes on now that ships seemingly can,t be big enough. I said with not one word that now ships breaking up. That big ships, special container ships in this matter , have often cracks, I know out of my own experience as
Master who sailed on them and heard often enough from other sailors who sailed them too.  You ever were on a ship where the vibrations are so high that coffee shakes out of a cup,, do you really believe that those vibrations coming from nowhere and going to nowhere. You ever been on a vessel where the main engine ripped out of its foundations ?  I was there when that happened, also when at that time not as Master.

If they lerned in the last 1-2 decades how to build better ships of that size, great, I hope so, because I and others working on them, but I would not put a bet on that.

[Radu]

Would you please point out where I said that VLC,s and ULCC,s breaking up ? You may have to get the habit to read more carefull what is posted before attacking someone.

Ted, I'm not attacking you I'm merely wondering why you keep repeating this since you're the ONLY one saying this.

Let me dissect what you wrote:

Would you please point out where I said that VLC,s and ULCC,s breaking up ?

You wrote:

reminds me of the 70,s when tankers became bigger and bigger until they broke apart, most of the time during loading or discharging.

But personally I think they reached areas in ships sizes as in the 70,s with the tankers, when everybody thought bigger, bigger, BIGGER,,BIGGEST !!!! and suddenly they broke and everybody wondered.

Now I'm not sure what "bigger" means to you but at that time the biggest tankers were ULCC's, Is that correct? (Yes or No) And I don't recall a massive influx of cracked/brocken ships to accompany the evolution of ship size, sure there were afew but the BIGGEST ships of the 70's never had such problems.

I sailed some containerships , 200 + m and we had on all of them somewhere cracks, very often in Ballast tanks and bunker tank areas.

You weren't talking about container ships, nor have I said anything about container ships, you mentioned the biggest tankers in the 70's and I addressed that.

I suggest you take your own advice, no disrespect intended.

Thanks.

[Phil English]

Before this argument goes any further I think it's wise to add some sort of perspective. Yes, I too have heard horror stories of sub-standard Chinese built ships, but it has tended to involve those built at smaller, privately run yards. The major state run CSSC/CSIC yard groups generally do not have the same failings.

It's perhaps important to bear in mind that over 25% of the global merchant fleet currently sailing and built in the last 10 years was built in China. That is a lot of ships - almost 6,000. If they were all substandard, there would be regular carnage on the high seas. But thankfully there isn't.

Brgds
Phil

[Captain Ted]

Radu

ok,,you are right,,I never been on a ship, know therefore of ocurse nothing and will
attentivley listen to the experts

case closed
have a great day

[Radu]

Ted, I'm not an expert, I just wanted to know where you got your facts from, that's it, don't take it so personally.

I'm fairly knowledgeable with big tankers especially older ULCC's (70's-80's), I'm not questioning anything else you said I just required some facts, nobody here is questioning your experience but please don't believe all rumors.

And like I mentioned before I generally dont like Chinese built ships, so we have that in common.

Have a great day.