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Supertanker risks and hazards
Risks to boats and ships date back to at least the Pesse Canoe. This reed boat can be seen at the
in Assen, Holland
This small canoe was constructed around 8,000 BCE during the Mesolithic Period. The owner was exposed to the risks of piracy, storms, and sinking.
Today, after 10,000 years of sailing, ship’s crews are still concerned with piracy, storms, and sinking, but in addition they have to worry about computer hacking, failure of automated navigation systems, collisions, and other dangers to their vessel
Tsunamis
The impact of tsunamis on large vessels such as supertankers or cruise ships, from
Experts agree that a cruise ship sailing out over a body of water is not likely to feel any impacts from a tsunami’s waves.
“Generally, if you’re in deep ocean, there’s no way that you can perceive a tsunami from a ship,” Heaton said. (Dr. Thomas Heaton, seismologist and professor of geophysics and civil engineering at the California Institute of Technology.)
The wavelength of a tsunami at sea travels quickly at hundreds of miles per hour, and will likely be tens of kilometers long, said Dr. Scott Miller, research associate at the State University of New York at Albany’s Atmospheric Sciences Research Center.
“The amplitude of the wave at sea will likely only be a few centimeters, so if a cruise ship heaves by a few centimeters, it would not be noticeable on board,” Miller said
From
Piracy
Piracy on the high seas is not as big a threat as it was a few years ago
From the
Somali pirates hijacked a Ukrainian freighter loaded with tanks, artillery, grenade launchers and ammunition worth an estimated $30 million and heading for Kenya or Sudan. They demanded a ransom of $20 million in cash.
Today the pirates are thwarted by the presence of war ships in the shipping lanes and by armed guards on the vessels.
Our Windships will have at least four armed guards on board each ship.
Loss of propulsion
Each Windship will have two Corvus Blue Whale Electric power plants. In the unlikely event of losing both power plants and both wind turbines, solar energy can be used while repairs are made.
The deck area is approximately 3 acres in size. Half of the deck will be fitted with Tesla solar panels. The energy from these panels will be used to power the ship’s life support systems in an emergency and to provide limited mobility.
We will also install solar-powered seawater desalination units similar to the equipment from
Sinking
If a Windship should begin sinking, four lifeboats like the
will be available on each ship. They will have double the occupancy of the ship’s crew with each freefall boat having a capacity of 17 people.
These lifeboats have self–righting properties with the space between inner and outer shell filled with buoyancy foam.
They have a self-contained engine, rescue beacon, and food and water for 10 days.
Collisions
The
on fire after a collision with a cargo ship in the Strait of Malacca in 2009
Collision of large ships with other ships, icebergs, or stationary object, even at a very slow speed, can cause enormous damage and possible loss of life.
A ship’s deck officers have sophisticated technology such as radar, sonar, satellite imaging, radio communications, and transponders to help them avoid collisions.
Over the past 12 years, serious collisions have decreased significantly with 132 large vessels lost in 2009 compared to just 46 in 2019.
However, even with the help of modern technology, it has been estimated that human error is responsible for 75 to 90 percent of all marine accidents.
SOLAS (The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea) issued Regulation V/19 in the year 2000, requiring all ships to carry automatic identification systems (AISs) transponders capable of providing information about the ship to other ships and to coastal authorities automatically
Sabotage
The U. S. Navy amphibious assault ship
on fire at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on July 12, 2020
The fire was said to have been started in a lower vehicle storage area by a disgruntled sailor. Someone also sabotaged the ship’s fire suppression system and since the fire was fueled by abundant supplies of oxygen and combustible material it quickly spread throughout the ship.
The damage was so severe that the ship could not be repaired and was subsequently consigned to the scrap yard.
The Windships will have tamperproof fire suppression systems throughout the vessels as well as crew-entry controls on all compartment doors. These passes will be biometric and the captain and first mate, as well as security personnel will have access to displays on the bridge showing the location of every crewmember on board. The video screen will show each man and woman, where they are and why they are there. Not everyone will have access to all areas of the ship. For example, a kitchen cadet would have no reason to be in the engine room.