Ship collision accidents are rare events but pose huge threat to human lives, assets, and the environment. Collision resistance of ships is usually assessed in terms of ship structural response such as member displacement, energy dissipation and the extent of damage. Many researchers have sought for effective models that compute ship stochastic response during collisions by considering the variability of collision scenario parameters. However, the models were limited by the capability of the collision computational models and did not completely capture collision scenario, and material and geometric uncertainties. In addition, the simplified models capturing the input-response relationships of the ship structural impact mechanics are in implicit forms which makes them unsuitable for assessing the performance of structural design specifications in collisions. Furthermore, with increasing ship passages in the Arctic region, the probabilities of ship-iceberg interactions are increasing, highlighting the need to focus on risk based ship designs. In this research, a conceptual stochastic modelling framework is developed for performance characterisation and quantitative risk assessment of ship-ship and ship-iceberg collisions. In this direction, an interface for automated stochastic finite element computations was developed to model ship structural resistance in reference collision scenarios. The stochastic structural response was characterised based on the onset of the ship structural failure. The focus was initially on ship-ship collisions to quantify the uncertainties experimentally and to characterise the performance for a variety of striking ships. The framework was then extended to consider probabilistic performance measures in ship-iceberg collisions. The computationally intensive collision response models were captured with efficient surrogate representations so that the performance measures can be obtained with gradient based reliability approaches. The most probable input design sets for the response distribution were sampled with Latin Hypercube models. The probabilistic performance measures were also combined with available collision frequency models from literature for risk computations and to demonstrate the risk tolerance measures. The framework underlines the significance of different risk components, providing valuable guidance for improving risk-based ship designs. Although, a double-hull crude oil carrier is presented as the struck ship, the approach can be readily extended to characterise the performance and risk of other ship structures in collisions.

No description available.

In this day and age of europeanisation and internationalisation of all aspects of society, including law, the topic of medieval maritime law has attracted increasing interest.  Regulating sea shipping, which is characterised by the connection between different ‘nations’, sea law is intrinsically international.  Or is it?  The existence of a common medieval maritime law has often been presumed, but is researched thoroughly for the first time in this study. By analysing the developing and spread of the written sea laws across Northern Europe and by comparing the contents of the different maritime regulations, as well as the legal practice in five Northern European towns (Lübeck in Northern Germany, Reval (Tallinn) in Estonia, Danzig (Gdansk) in Poland, Kampen in the Netherlands and Aberdeen in Scotland) by using the examples of shipwreck, jettison and ship collision, the author has aimed to determine whether it is accurate to speak of a common law of the sea in medieval Northern Europe on the level of the books of law, their contents and the practice of the law at the town courts. Research has proven that there was no uniformity on any of these levels, despite occasional similarities between the laws and the judgements passed by the courts.  There was no single law compilation available throughout Northern Europe at any time during the Middle Ages, there were no common regulations in the written laws and there was  no uniform legal practice in the towns of Northern Europe. The divergence between the five towns handled in this study could largely be explained by the different role each of the towns played on the European stage.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 338-360).

No / Boat people, whether refugees or migrants, are protected by special provisions in custom and law relating to safety and rescue at sea. At the same time, the governments of coastal states have expressed concern about the arrival of boat people and have been robust in depicting and treating them as a threat. The questions addressed in this article are: how and why have boat people been regarded as a threat, and what challenges does this treatment present for the humanitarian regime at sea? The article connects two dimensions of the issue. First it deconstructs the prevailing images and discourse surrounding boat people that contribute to securitizing them as a threat. Securitization is defined as the process by which issues are identified, labelled and reified as threats to a community, often by politicians for electoral gain. Second, the article argues that this securitization challenges the maritime regime, which is infused with humanitarian values based on solidarity among seafarers. Both short and long-term remedies might be considered. The immediate requirement is to ensure not only that asylum seekers at sea continue to be rescued and protected but also that the maritime regime is strengthened to facilitate their arrival at a place of safety. Over the longer term, de-securitizing the issue of asylum seekers and boat people requires action to address perceptions in destination states.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Ocean Engineering; and, (M.S.)--Joint Program in Marine Environmental Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1998. / Includes bibliographic references (p. 79). / by Charles E. Rawson. / M.S.

Thesis (Nav.E.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Ocean Engineering; and, (M.Eng.)--Joint Program in Marine Environmental Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-86). / by Kurtis Wayne Crake. / Nav.E.

The spectral polarized radiance distribution provides the most complete description of the light field that can be measured. However, this is a very difficult parameter to measure near the surface because of its large dynamic range, dependence on incoming sky conditions, and waves at the air-sea interface. The measurement of the Stokes vector of the downwelling polarized light field requires the combination of at least four images, all of which must be obtained simultaneously. To achieve this, a new polarimeter (which we call DPOL) has been designed, characterized, calibrated and deployed. The description of the DPOL, its calibrations and characterizations are discussed. The uncertainties in the retrieval of Stokes vector and other derived parameters are also discussed. This instrument is equipped with four fish-eye lenses (180° field of view) with polarizers behind each lens in a different orientation, a coherent optical fiber bundle with 4 arms, a spectral filter changer assembly and a charged coupled-device (CCD) imaging camera. With this system, a single image contains 4 separate fisheye images, each a whole hemisphere of the same scene, each with different polarization information. Using these 4 images and applying appropriate calibration parameters allows us to calculate the four-element Stokes vector and then the total degree of polarization and the angle of plane of polarization of the incoming light field in a hemisphere of desired directions. Under the Office of Naval Research RaDyO (Radiance under a Dynamic Ocean) program, DPOL has been used in the Santa Barbara Channel and Hawaii field experiments. In most cases, data on sky polarization were collected with a separate camera (Sky-Cam) simultaneously with the DPOL. The data and results with these two camera systems in these experiments are presented and are compared. Data on the inherent optical properties of water from the same field experiments collected by collaborators will be shown. Our measurements show that very near the surface, for clear sky conditions, the dominant source of polarization is the refracted sky light. As one progresses in the water column, the polarization due to light scattering by the water increases and polarization due to the water becomes dominant. The dependence of the in-water light field polarization on the sky and surface wave conditions, solar zenith and azimuth angles, the depth of the instrument, the viewing angle, the wavelength of light, the inherent optical properties (IOP’s) of water are discussed.

I denna rapport tas ett problem till sjöss upp, nämligen alkohol. Alkoholgränsen i ‰ (promille) på sjön går vid 1,0 ‰ och med bil går gränsen vid 0,2 ‰. Detta ämne är aktuellt då det figurerat tv-program såsom Kustbevakarna som visat hur alkoholpåverkade människor tagits om hand av Kustbevakningens personal (www.kanal5.se). Med detta i åtanke ges här ett designförslag på en alkolåsmodul att ha i fritidsbåtar. Modulen ska vara enkel att använda och inte vara till belastning. Meningen med alkolåset är att förhindra att alkoholpåverkade människor ska kunna skadar sig själva eller någon i sin omgivning på grund av ouppmärksamhet eller vårdslöshet. Alla ombord borde ha sin egen uppgift för att harmonin ”Happy Ship” (”glatt skepp”) ska infinna sig. Studien om alkolåsmodulen innefattar enkäter och intervjuer med användare för att få en så oberoende syn på både design och funktion som möjligt. Till vår hjälp hade vi ett teoretiskt ramverk som kallas Aktivitetsteori (AT). Resultatet blev ett designförslag på ett alkolås kombinerat med förarintyg. Förarintyget sätts i alkolåsmodulens kortläsare och ska sitta där under hela resans gång. Detta designförslag kan ge bättre förutsättningar för en säkrare sjöfart då föraren måste blåsa i alkolåset, samt inneha ett giltigt förarintyg för att få klartecken att starta båten. Har föraren alkohol i utandingen kommer farten regleras med hänsyn till vilken promillehalt föraren hade. Försäkringspremien kan också komma att antingen sänkas, om inloggningarna varit utan alkohol, eller höjas om inloggningar visar att alkohol funnits i utandningen eller ej. Denna premieåtgärd gjordes för att båten vid extrema väderförhållanden eller vid eventuell olycka, måste kunna flyttas. Till alkolåsmodulen gavs också ett förslag på hur inloggningen kom att fungera med sina olika rutor i administrationen. / In this report we address a problem at sea, namely alcohol. The limit at sea measured in ‰ (permille) is at 1,0 ‰ but in a car the limit is 0,2 ‰. This topic is relevant and it has also been brought up in a TV-show that showed people under the influence of alcohol being taken care of by the coastguard (www.kanal5.se). With this in mind we're presenting a design proposal of an alcolock module to install in pleasure boats. The module should be simple to use and not to be seen as a burden. The purpose of this alcolock is to prevent people under the influence of alcohol from hurting themselves or others in their environment due to inattention or recklessness. Everyone onboard should have their own assignments to create the harmony of “Happy Ship”. The study of the alcolock module consists of surveys and interviews with the users to get as close to an independent view as possible regarding design and function, without our influence. To aid us, we used a theoretic framework called Activity Theory (AT). The result was a design proposal of an alcolock combined with a drivers license. The drivers license is inserted in the card reader of the alcolock module and will remain there for the duration of the trip. This design proposal might result in a safer environment at sea, since the operator has to breathe in the alcolock, and possess a valid drivers licence to be able to start the boat. If the operator has alcohol on his/her breath the speed will be reduced with consideration of the amount of alcohol. The insurance policy might also either be reduced or increased, depending on if there were alcohol on the operators breath or not. The reason for this is that the boat has to be movable in case of bad weather or an accident. There was also a suggestion to how the log on process would work with the different administrational pages.

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Dr. Glen H. Doran, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of American and Florida Studies. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Mar. 2, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.