BLUE RIVER

The crew of Panama-flagged cargo ship MV ISA STAR have been rescued in the Red Sea after sending a distress signal, the EU's Aspides naval mission said."All crew members aboard the MV ISA STAR have been rescued and will be transported to Djibouti, the nearest safe port of call," Aspides said in a statement posted on Facebook.The vessel had reported flooding in the engine room and the master requested assistance, it said, as its crew of 20 were forced to abandon it.One maritime security source told Reuters that the ship experienced engine problems and another source said that it had reported an internal explosion. Details on the current condition of the vessel were not immediately available.

This week at MarineLink…An Australian Prime Minister once famously (infamously) said: “Life wasn’t meant to be easy.”He could have been talking about the maze of IMO and EU regulations relating to new fuels, especially the concept of well-to-wake emissions.It’s not enough to have a clean-burning engine or even an onboard carbon capture system. Well-to-take emissions, upstream and out of the control of ship operators, will have to be factored in.This week, MarineLink reported that a CMA-CGM vessel bunkered bio-LNG in Rotterdam, and it highlighted another upstream complication: the need to verify the sustainable origins of any new fuel used.

Each year, as we prepare for the largest U.S. based maritime industry conference in New Orleans, we tend to look back on the state of the industry and initiatives that were announced from the conference that took place the year before. 2023 provided us with plenty to talk about. In September of 2023, while the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the global shipbuilding industry were fixated on “emissions” and alternative fuels, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro held the opening meeting of the Government Shipbuilders Council.

A Chinese fishing vessel is under the control of alleged pirates in Somalia's waters in the semi-autonomous Puntland region, the European Union's anti-piracy naval force said on Thursday.The anti-piracy force said the vessel with up to 18 crew members on board had been taken over by pirates, some armed with AK-47s and machine guns. It classified the incident as a robbery at sea.No crew members were injured in the incident, the anti-piracy force added.Somali pirates caused havoc in the waters off the Horn of Africa nation's long coastline between 2008 and 2018. They had been dormant until late last year when pirate activity started to pick up again.

A rescue operation is under way for the crew of a Panama-flagged cargo vessel that was abandoned off the port of Hodeidah in the Red Sea, three maritime security sources said on Thursday.The cause of the incident remained unclear and the number of crew on board was not known.The crew were forced to abandon the vessel, one of the sources told Reuters, adding that the ship experienced engine problems. Another source said an internal explosion occurred.Iran-aligned Houthi forces have launched attacks on international shipping near Yemen since November 2023 in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war between Hamas and Israel.