Proctor in Admiralty

The Maritime Homeland & Port Security Blog

I came across a blog that has been around for awhile but which I had missed until now.  The Maritime Homeland & Port Security Blog written by the folks at Wave Dispersion Technologies, Inc.  (WPT).  WPT develop products based on a technology they call WhisprWave which they describe as follows:

Since it's founding in 1995, Wave Dispersion Technologies, Inc. (WDT) has been developing the WhisprWave® floating articulated breakwater technology to afford erosion control protection to shoreline beaches, coastal marinas, anchorages, and other areas subject to destructive or nnoying erosionary wave / wake forces. The potential uses for the WhisprWave® Technology have, over the last few years, expanded far beyond its stricly environmentally focused beach and sand erosion protection beginnings to encompass marine port security and global antiterrorism applications.

You can read more about the WhisprWave technology here.  The Port Secuirty Blog is filled with interesting posts concerning the Department of Homeland Security and port security initatives in the US and abroad.

WPT also authors the Coastal Erosion Blog, which might be of interest to some.

120 year old schooner technologically savvy

According to a press release from earlier today,  Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, the South Street Seaport Museum, and the New York Department of Environmental Protection announced a joint project to measure water conditions in New York Harbor.

According to the press release:

The Seaport Museum's 1885 schooner The Pioneer, which celebrated its 120th anniversary this month, now carries the latest technology in the form of a computerized water monitoring system as part of the Urban Ocean Observatory at Stevens. In partnership with the New York Department of Environmental Protection, the system measures water temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen in New York Harbor from The Pioneer as it conducts its public sails. The data is fed via a wireless network to computers at Stevens' Center for Maritime Systems (CMS) in Hoboken. Data collected includes water temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen.

The public can sail on the Pioneer as well as on the schooner Lettie G. Howard, built in 1893 and on the wooden tug W. O. Decker.  Check out the Seaport Museum website for more details.

 

Environmentally Friendly Shipping

Kudos to Wallenius Wilhelmsen for commissioning the design of an environmentally friendly ro-ro vessel.  Accoding to Wallenius Wilhelmsen's press release,  a scale model of the ship that demonstrates some of the exciting technical ideas produced by the design team, has now been constructed and will take centre stage in the Nordic Pavilion at the forthcoming World Expo 2005, Aichi, Japan. A working version of the vessel, which does not require ballast water tanks and produces no emissions is expected around 2025.  The vessel, dubbed the E/S (Environmentally sound Ship) Orcelle,  is named after the Irrawaddy dolphin, also known as the Orcelle dolphin, and is currently on the endangered species list.