On May 11, 2024, at 8.30 p.m. an injured crew member of the 'Torm Innovation', en route from Copenhagen to Gibraltar, had to be medevacd 113 miles north of the Galician Coast. The CCS of Salvamento Marítimo in Finisterre deployed a Helimer 401 helicopter which rendezvoused wuth the ship off A Coruña, to where the ship had diverted to shorten the distance. The patient was airlifted at 10.30 pm. and taken to shore at 11 p.m. Ihe Urxencias Sanitarias de Galicia-061 mobilized an ambulance to the airport of the city to be able to transfer the injured person to the hospital.
News
WARSHIP 4
The USS 'Hershel Williams' ran aground on soft bottom off the coast of Gabon on May 9, 2024. The vessel, assigned to the U.S. 6th Fleet and operating within the U.S. Naval Forces Africa area of operations, ran aground around 1 p.m. GMT shortly after departing from a routine port visit to Libreville. It managed to refloat again by approximately 5 p.m. GMT, taking advantage of the high tide. No injuries or major damage were reported, and the ship remained operational in the Gabon estuary just south of Libreville. The Navy started to conduct a comprehensive additional inspection of the ship to assess any potential damage that may have occurred during the grounding. Concurrently, an investigation into the causes of the incident was underway. The ship was in Gabon for the commencement of Obangame Express 2024, an annual multinational exercise aimed at enhancing maritime domain awareness and law enforcement capabilities, with a focus on exercises like visit, board, search, and seizure. The grounding could have raised questions about the ship’s ability to participate in planned activities, including the testing of a surface drone, though no immediate impact on the exercise schedule was indicated.
Sines
The Portuguese government announced an investment of 547 million euros in the expansion of the Port of Sines in the southwest of the country and an agreement to extend its concession from 2029 to 2049. The agreement was reached last week between Portugal and PSA Singapore for the completion of the 3rd phase of expansion of Terminal XXI, so as to greatly increase its capacity and give another 20 years of operations in Portugal to PSA Singapore. The Sines port, 58 nautical miles south of Lisbon, is one of the major European ports and the great hub port of the Iberian-Atlantic front.
Barcelona
BEST terminal in the Port of Barcelona has recently increased its storage and connection capacity for refrigerated containers, from 1,600 connection points up to 2,750, an increase of 70%, making it one of the terminals with the most connections for refrigerated containers in the whole of the Mediterranean area.
ALBIZ
The captain of the 'Albiz', en route from Brest to Moerdijk, was medevaced in the night of May 11, 2024, about 60 kilometers northwest of Ushant. The 44-year-old man, who fell ill, was airlifted by an H160 helicopter from the French Navy in good conditions. The captain was dropped off at the Brest University Hospital at 12:18 a.m.
ABEILLE NORMANDIE
On the night of May 10, the CROSS Gris-Nez was informed that a migrant boat was in difficulty off the coast of Portel and depolyed the 'Abeille Normandie' to assist, which launches its rescue boat to reach the site, where it recovered 36 people. Several people still on board the boat refused the assistance offered by French means and continued their journey under appropriate surveillance. The shipwrecked people were dropped off at the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, where they were taken care of by the shore based rescue services and the border police.
Rotterdam
APM Terminals Maasvlakte II’s new rail service between its Rotterdam terminal and Venlo, a key logistics hub on the Dutch-German border is proving popular. Following the success of the initial five-times-per-week service, plans are already in place to scale this up to 14 times per week over the coming weeks.
Genova
A 24-hour national labour strike is planned on Jul 24, in all Italian ports and all transportations. The planned strike is subject to confirmation in the coming days.
UTOPIA OF THE SEAS
A man was injured on board the "Utopia of the Seas" off the coast of Belle-Île-en-Mer on May 11, 2024. At 4.21 p.m., emergency services were alerted to assist the injured worker on the new cruise ship off the coast of South Brittany. The ship, which was built at Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, has been undergoing sea trials since May 7 to start cruises this summer. The CROSS Etel coordinated the response, and a Dragon 25 helicopter hoisted the injured person, who was dropped off at the Vannes hospital center at 6:33 p.m.
FD ATHINA
In the morningof May 11, 2024, the Port Authority of Argosaronic was informed by the Master of the 'Flying Dolphin Athina', that after the arrival in the port of Piraeus, en route from the ports of Aegina and Agistrio, there was a vibration on the port side side of the ship. The ship was to run a route from the port of Piraeus to the ports of Aegina and Agistrio, while the passengers were forwarded to their destinations by the company. The Argosaroniko Port Station of the 1st Port Department of the Central Port Authority of Piraeus prohibited the sailing of the ship until the repair of the damage and the presentation of a certificate of class maintenance of class by monitoring classification society.
Churchill
Canada’s arctic port of Churchill is set to resume its first grain shipments since 2015 after a group backed by investor Prem Watsa stepped in last year to buy the facility and a related rail line linking the northern town with the rest of Manitoba. The 88-year-old port on the shores of Hudson’s Bay will resume operations in the next few months, reducing by several days the shipping time to deliver grains to Europe and the Middle East across the Atlantic Ocean.
King Abdullah Port
In the largest commercial operation of its kind in the history of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah Port has received 28 state-of-the-art Liebherr cranes to start the expansion of the container terminals. The latter was decided through a MoU signed with National Container Terminal on the day the port was officially inaugurated in the presence of the Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman last February. The new cranes include 20 gantry cranes and 8 ship-to-shore (STS) cranes, which are the largest of their kind, with an outreach of 70 m (25 rows) and a safe working load of 65 t. The cranes that were supplied in this deal will join their operational counterparts in the port. They are the largest cranes exported by Liebherr and can serve mega container ships easily and seamlessly.