James Palmer

Ho-hum.....another new CEO announces further delays! CMALs Glen Sannox not in service until the end of October at the earliest. Like the entire contract, I think they are underestimating the time to finish, commision, seatrail and handover the ship on LNG. Calmac then working it up and bringing it into service on LNG with passengers and vehicles on the Arran route by end Oct is rather optimistic to say the least. Anyone in the shipping industry could have told them there was “a lack of available expert knowledge and qualified resources in the UK around LNG systems" before the contract was awarded. There still is that lack of knowledge and qualified resources. Why just not go to Europe and hire it in? In 2014/15 the contract for these ships should have gone to Remontowa in Poland as the world leader in small to medium LNG ferries. Both ships would have been in service many years ago and cost the Scottish tax payers £100m instead of £428 million. What could have been done with a spare £328 million? On the positive side it kept a lot of people employed over the 10 years, and rewarded some very handsomely along the way such as turnaround Director Tim Hair Et al. https://lnkd.in/exNE9NT3

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I visited the Perth boat show last weekend where there was a design company supporting three of their customers, who are competing with each other. By using the same designer and offering the same products those builders don't really have a USP so they can only compete on price. It was also a clever way for the designer to promote themselves at a boat show without having to pay for their own stand. But it dawned on me that this is exactly what is happening in commercial ship building. Ship yards without internal design capability are all using the same designers, have no IP, no unique designs, no design data, no USP and are more or less just a labour service competing on price. What's even more bizarre is that some of these designers don't have any staff with production experience, so when the ship yards give the designer production feedback, the designer then incorporates that knowledge into their next design and claims copyright on it. The shipyard yards are effectively training the designers and giving them IP that will ultimately be shared with their competitors, all while paying them a design fee. It's very different to years gone by when shipyards had their own designs, own workflows, own production methods, own hull shapes, own IP and went to great lengths to keep it secret. They had much more to offer than just competing on price and could win work even when not the cheapest. Some secrets were so well kept that today the knowledge is only known by a few, and some has been lost as more and more people leave the industry. The same can be said for software. If everyone is using the same software and are using the same support service to solve the same problems, do you think that the software company wont share your solution with the next company that has a similar problem? This is why I never lodge support tickets and have never shared my workflow. Just like the ship yards, it's the software users training the software providers who are then at liberty to share the knowledge. This past month I have sold two designs to two boat builders who wanted a point of difference from their local competitors, who you guessed it, are all using the same designer. They have realised that doing the same as everyone else and competing on price alone is a certain way to go broke.

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Getting our Subsea Intervention Device to lie down, or stand up straight is always fun. Just one of the benefits of a lightweight stack that can be easily transported by road when required to mobilise onto a vessel. This footage was taken in Darwin recently, just prior to System Integration Testing. Learn more about TMT here: www.tmtrov.com #ROV #SID #subsea #oilandgas #mining #defence

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Safety overlooked again in New Darwin Shiplift Design - Echoes of 1998 Accident In a move that raises serious safety concerns, Australia’s Northen Territory Government has selected the same shiplift design principle that led to a serious accident in 1998. The accident occurred when a Navy Patrol Boat docked on a Darwin shiplift, did a back-flip off the platform. The planned new shiplift is also based on the same 67-year-old design well known for its flaws and high accident rate (15%), despite the availability of proven safer alternatives. The 1998 Darwin shiplift accident resulted from a single wire break, which exemplifies the dangers of the hinged, or non-welded design. This type of platform design lacks redundancy, meaning there is no backup system to prevent collapse if a critical component fails. Notably, 15% of shiplifts using this design have experienced similar accidents. In the tender for the new Darwin shiplift, there were no requirements specified for safety, a glaring omission in today's world where robust and redundant designs are essential for handling commercial and navy ships. For the record, the same articulated design is also being installed in Marinette WI, Jacksonville FL, and Mobile AL. Again, the designs have been selected on “it’s the same as the one before” cookie-cutter legacy basis, and not as a result of any risk or functionality assessments. So, a similar accident is possible on all four, as yet unproven, installations. For those who may not recall the 1998 accident, further information can be found here: Darwin Shiplift Accident 1998.  

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Salos will teach you the technical aspects of your program on a simulator. But…we will also utilise Human factors with your teams to mitigate the hazards within your program. * Well intervention * Abandonments * Drilling * Stuck pipe prevention * Well control   Get in touch for a chat about how Salos can work with you & your teams.   #decomissioning #wellcontrol #humanfactors

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