Welcome Wednesday!

It wouldn't be a Wednesday without our weekly feature welcoming the latest ships to enroll in the Amver system.  We will have a post up shortly about our inaugural awards ceremony at the Seatrade Middle East Maritime conference in Dubai honoring Amver participants from across the Middle East.  In the meantime please welcome the latest members of the Amver family.

•          GLORIOUS WIND                    
•          NYK ALTAIR              
•          WADI SAFAGA             
•          GREATSHIP MANISHA 
•          LONDON HIGHWAY                
•          EMERALD OCEAN           
•          COSGOLD LAKE            
•          KHADIZA JAHAN           
•          OOCL LUXEMBOURG         
•          STENA PENGUIN           
•          BALTIC WOLF             
•          ORE AMAZONAS            
•          SUNSHINE BLISS          
•          PRISCO ALCOR            
•          CONTI SAPHIR            
•          KL BREVIKFJORD          
•          SAMOS                   
•          IWATESAN                
•          JOHN WULFF              
•          ROSCO BANYAN            
•          ATHENIAN SUCCESS        
•          WILHELMINA              
•          CS SONOMA               
•          ATHENIAN HARMONY        
•          TIAN ZHU FENG           
•          GOLDEN ZHEJIANG         
•          SPAR MIRA               
•          DARYA MOTI              
•          MAERSK DRUMMOND         
•          ATLAS LEADER            
•          JINDAL MEENAKSHI        
•          ENDEAVOUR STRAIT        
•          DENSA EAGLE             
•          NIAMH                  
•          HOEGH XIAMEN           
•          PARAMOUNT HATTERAS     
•          MIEDWIE                
•          OCEANIC HAWK           
•          HANJIN VERSAILLES      
•          LIBERTY                 
•          MARINA R                 

Photo credit: Fotolia

Deepwater Horizon, first person account

Are you curious what happened in the minutes and hours after the Deepwater Horizon explosion?  Take a listen to the Weekly Leader podcast 68 for a first hand account of the explosion and search and rescue efforts in an interview with Captain Alwyn Landry.  Captain Landry led the rescue of 115 people from the Deepwater Horizon immediately after the explosion. 

The Weekly Leader is the brainchild of our  friend Peter Mello.  Peter has deep maritime roots with the Sea Fever blog and the Messing About In Ships podcast.

Photo credit: uscgd8

Lloyd's List presents Amver Award

The shipping world was buzzing during the Lloyd's List Global Awards which were held at the Dorchester Hotel in London on September 29th.  The Amver Assisted Rescue At Sea award, sponsored by Inmarsat, went to the M/V Cesaria managed by Integra Ship Management of the Marshall Islands.  The Cesaria, previously known as the Overseas Primar and managed by the Overseas Shipholding Group, rescued 162 Somali migrants in the Mediterranean Sea in January, 2009.

The crew of the Cesaria were originally told they should expect to encounter 18 refugees but those numbers quickly climbed as the tanker assessed the situation.  The group of survivors included an eight month pregnant woman and a 12 year old child.

You can read more about the rescue here. 

Pictured left to right are: USCG Lieutenant Commander James Suffern, Perry Melton, COO of Inmarsat, Tom Leander, Lloyd's List Editor, and David Chapman, Chartering Manager.

Photo credit: Lloyd's List

Related articles

• Captain Landry Wins Shipmaster of the Year Award 2010 (gcaptain.com)

Singapore flagged Amver ship saves American sailor

A routine voyage between Jamaica and New York turned into a daring rescue mission for the Amver participating cargo ship Algol early Thursday morning October 21st.  The Singapore flagged ship radioed United States Coast Guard rescue personnel in Hampton Roads, Virginia alerting them they had received a distress call from a lone sailor on his 36 foot sailboat off the Carolina coast. 

Matthew Eliason was on a voyage from Hampton Roads, Virginia to Florida when the boat suffered engine failure.  As the weather deteriorated Mr. Eliason decided his best move was to activate his private distress beacon and make a distress call out via VHF radio.  It was Captain Johnny Sueta Deraper, on the bridge of the Algol, who heard Eliason's distress and turned his 529 foot ship towards the stricken sailor.

The Algol was only two miles away from Mr. Eliason's location and arrived on the scene quickly.  The Algol's crew helped Mr. Eliason aboard the cargo ship and tried to take his sailboat in tow.  The weather conditions were rough with winds howling over 45 knots and waves cresting at six to ten feet and the tow line eventually broke.  The crew of the Algol were forced to abandon plans to tow the sailboat.

The Algol, managed by Navylloyd AG Reederei of Switzerland, enrolled in the Amver system on November 23, 2006.  This is its first rescue.

The Algol is expected to arrive in New York in the coming days where the survivor will be reunited with his family.

Photo credit: Navylloyd AG Reederei

 

Save the date for the U.S. Amver awards in Washington!

Make sure to mark your calendar for the 2011 United States Amver awards.  The ceremony will be held on May 23, 2011 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.  If you missed this year's ceremony you can read more about it here.  You can also learn a bit more about the people behind the scenes that bring you the awards.

We look forward to seeing you next year at the Amver awards ceremony!  Remember, you can't earn awards if you're not enrolled.

Photo credit: Fotolia

Welcome Wednesday!

We asked and you answered.  We may have had a light week last week, you answered the call and enrolled in Amver in droves.  68 vessels agreed to make safety your top priority by joining the Amver system.  Thank you.  Please help us welcome the latest members-

• GENIUS
• KARLA C
• MSC SILVANA
• DOUBLE FORTUNE
• POLYNESIA
• HIGH STRENGHT
• VIKING AMBER
• LAKE KONPIRA
• UNITED MILOS
• EXEMPLAR
• FISKARDO
• HELLESPONT CRUSADER
• VERIGE
• MARITIME TABONEO
• BOE OCEAN
• GRY BULKER
• SEAWAYS 16
• PACIFIC RAVEN
• AGONISTIS
• BUNGA BALSAM
• ATLANTIC MIRAGE
• HISPANIC G
• DAEBO PIONEER
• TASCO 2
• ZEYA
• IGUAZU
• GULF MAIDEN
• WORLD NAVIGATOR
• CLIPPER ANN
• TIGER OCEAN
• COCHISE
• E.R. BOSTON
• ERACLEA
• GALE FORCE
• SVYATOGOR
•  CAPE LAMBERT
• MING LAMBERT
• DORA SCHULTE
• ZEIN I
• YUE GUAN FENG
• CORONA MAJESTY
• PANDURATA
• OCEAN TOMO
• BULK SWITZERLAND
• CHEMROAD LUNA
• BRIGHT HOPE
• NAVIOS FULVIA
• NORMAN F MCCALL
• JIN WANG LING
• SPRING RETRIEVER
• ATHIRI
• CMA CGM CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
• TOPAZ KHALIDIYA
• GENMAR MANIATE
• THELISIS
• JAMILA
• K. AMVER
• KMTC ULSAN
• HIGH FORCE
• MORNING CHRISTINA
• HANJIN SAIJO
• SEABOARD AMERICA
• ANNA KNUTSEN
• NORD SWAN
• ZHONG TENG HAI

Is your ship listed above?  If so drop us a line in the comments and tell us what motivated you to join Amver!

Photo credit: Fotolia

Amver, the original crowd source program

Ryan Skinner, on his relaunched blog ShipCrunch, recently wrote about the maritime industry and crowdsourcing.  Ryan's blog post highlighted a real time piracy tool that uses the crowd to collect piracy data, mash it up, and then provide it as a product to the maritime community.  Kind of sounds like what Amver does with ship positions for search and rescue doesn't it?

The whole social media craze got us thinking.  Was Amver the first organization to use crowdsourcing?  We might have been.  When you consider that back in 1958 we were encouraging the commercial maritime sector, the "crowd", to voluntarily provide their positions to the Coast Guard, then mashing the data for use in search and rescue incidents, we think we were the first!
So join the latest craze!  Join Amver and demonstrate your Web 2.0 prowess, or nostalgia depending on how you look at things.  Regardless of your motivation, your enrollment and participation helps mash data to save lives at sea.

If you don't believe us just see what PBS wrote about Amver!  What do you think? 
Photo credit: Fotolia

Greek Amver ship earns Association for Rescue At Sea Award

On September 30th the Association for Rescue At Sea, or AFRAS, held an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. to recognize several outstanding Coast Guard rescue missions.  Included in the ceremony was the AFRAS Amver award given to the Greek tanker Andes for their rescue of 7 fishermen  from their sunken boat off the coast of Ecuador.

Captain T. S. Vassilakis, representing the Tsakos shipping company of Athens, Greece, was on hand to receive the award on behalf of the Master and crew of the Andes.  Congratulations to Captain Vassilakis, Tsakos shipping, and the crew of the Andes for a well deserved award.

Captain T.S. Vassilakis, left, and United States Coast Guard Commandant Robert Papp

You can see a photo gallery of the evenings events on our Flickr page.

Photo credit: USCG photos by Beverly Howard

Welcome Wednesday!

3 ships enrolled in the Amver system in the past week.  Some people might view that as a disappointment.  We see it a little differently.  First, it shows we still have room to grow.  You see, until we have all of the world's ships enrolled and participating in the Amver system then, well- we still have work to do.  Secondly, it helps us find new ways to market the Amver system.  That's what's great about this space, the online space.  It lets us try new ideas- like our 10 questions series, video projects, and blog posts like this.  This space allows us to use Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr as vehicles to bring you the Amver story.  So while only 3 ships may have enrolled in Amver in the past week we're celebrating.  It only takes 1 ships to save a life.  Maybe the next life saved will be by one of these ships. 

Help us welcome the following members of the Amver system.

• NORDIC HELSINKI
• OCEAN MARINER
• MONTAUK MAIDEN

What motivates you in marketing?  How could we reach more mariners?

Photo credit: Fotolia

Welcome Wednesday!

Yep, it's that time of the week again.  Time to recognize the latest enrollees of the world's only global search and rescue system.  What are the advantages of enrolling in Amver?  First, you are only called upon to provide service if your ship is the most appropriate for the incident.  Second, if your ship isn't needed, it is released from its international obligation to respond.  Finally, you could save a life!  Those are great reasons to enroll and participate in Amver aren't they?  In the meantime please help us welcome the latest vessels to "roger up".

• SKS DOYLES
• TRADE STAR
• GOLDEN BRILLIANCE
• PILION
• CARONI PLAIN
• BELGIAN EXPRESS
• MBA GIOVANNI
• SEA MOON
• SPRING SKY
• CMA CGM LAPEROUSE
• CMA GGM MAUPASSANT
• BELUGA FUSION
• SEA STRAIT
• BOW DE JIN
• MARIJEANNIE
• SAMJOHN LEGACY
• TRIPLE A
• VALDEZ STAR
• BESIKTAS AZERBAIJAN
• GLEN COVE
• DYNAMOGRACHT
• MOL MARVEL
• DIANA SCHULTE

Thank you for joining the Amver network!


Photo credit: Fotolia