Excerpt
Preface
Tanker design, construction and operation has been controlled by a weird form of self-regulation called the Classification Society, combined with sporadic, emotional intervention by outsiders in the aftermath of a big oil spill. The Classification Societies - and their partners in the Flag States - compete for and are financially dependent on the entities that they are supposed to regulate: the shipyards that build the tankers and the ship owners that operate them. This incestuous relationship has produced a steady deterioration in tankship standards since World War II. The well-meaning but technically ignorant outside intervention has not only not been directed at the core problems facing tankers; but in several critical areas has exacerbated those problems. The result is a mess.
The tankship being built today is flimsy, highly unreliable, unmaneuverable, and nearly impossible to maintain. And the situation is becoming progressively worse. As a result, there will be gargantuan oil spills in the future that need not have happened. This book outlines the sad history of tanker regulation and calls for fundamental changes in both tanker design and the regulatory system. The main body of the book assumes no prior knowledge of tankers. All the technical detail has been banished to appendices.
With respect to the ship itself, I argue that we must:
- Substantially upgrade our hull structural standards, and adopt a far more conservative machinery design philosophy. The ships need at least 15% more steel. Otherwise we are guaranteed massive structural failure spills.
- Require much better cargo sub-division, going back to lots of smaller tanks, regularly arranged.
- Put a blanket of inert gas in all double hull ballast spaces. The book documents that cargo leaking into ballet tanks is the single most important cause of both tanker spillage and tankerman deaths. The book describes how two classes of double hull tankers built in Korea in 2001-2003 had their ballast successfully inerted. The book demonstrates that ballast tank inerting is critical to tanker safety not only by preventing an explosion should a leak occur, but even more importantly by preventing the leak in the first place by drastically reducing corrosion in way of coating breakdown. Some of this material is being made public for the first time.
- Mandate twin screw in the form of two fully independent engine rooms. Under the current system. 99.6% of all tanker, however large, are single screw. These ships are always a single failure away from being helplessly adrift. The book presents evidence, never before public, that there are at least ten total loss of power incidents on tankers every day. Twin screw, properly implemented, would reduce this failure rate by more than a factor of one thousand. Twin screw would also dramatically improve tanker low speed maneuverability which is implicated in a number of big spills including the Aegean Sea shown on the cover.
The combined cost of these reforms will be about the same as the cost of imposing double hulls.
With respect to the tanker regulatory system,
- We must require that ship builders take responsibility for the tankers they build both in the form of a meaningful guarantee and liability for imprudent design and construction. Under the current system, the ship building warranty is a joke - you will get a better guarantee with a toaster - and the shipyards are explicitly absolved from any real liability for their products.
- We must break through the layers of secrecy fostered by the Classification Society system which prevents us from learning from our mistakes.
- We must replace the current, ship owner controlled, Flag State/Classification Society system. It is not regulation; it's an auction. The book argues for an expanded form of port state control in which the port state inspectors go into the tanks. And these inspectors must be guided by a philosophy which is entirely different from current Classification Society surveys.
The Center for Tankship eXcellence (CTX) is an organization devoted to achieving these reforms. It is my hope that those who feel as I do will contact the CTX and offer to help. The website is www.c4tx.org and the email address is ctx@c4tx.org. In particular, I appeal to tankermen - all of whom already know that the argument outlined above is essentially correct - to come forward with facts and anecdotes supporting the cause.
We have made the mess. We must clean it up.
