Maritime Vessels Directory

An unprecedented level of investment in multi-deck vehicle carriers is being driven by tonnage replacement and scale economy strategies, but emphatically also by explosive growth in China’s automotive exports.Global deep-sea automotive shipments, excluding the Russian trade, were estimated at some 15.6 million units in 2025, up 5 percent on 2024, maintaining recent years’ trajectory. China’s inexorable rise as a producer and exporter is the conspicuous influence on traffic development.Notwithstanding the impacts of sometimes fraught political relations between the USA and China, and between Europe and China, and the prevailing Middle East conflict

Spanish shipyard GONDAN Shipbuilders has launched a 120-metre Ocean Energy Support Vessel (OESV) for Østensjø Rederi, the largest vessel built by the shipyard to date.The C513 OESV was launched at GONDAN's Figueras facility and will now undergo final outfitting and sea trials ahead of scheduled delivery in late 2027.Designed by Salt Ship Design, the vessel has a beam of 23 meters and is intended for operations including walk-to-work personnel transfers, commissioning service operation vessel (CSOV) support for offshore wind, offshore construction, subsea installation, ROV inspection and cable laying and repair.

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis on Friday reached the strategic island of Perim in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, four Yemeni government sources told Reuters, potentially tightening their grip on one of the world's vital shipping routes and further increasing the threat to energy markets in the widening Middle East war.Earlier, two sources from the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised Yemeni government said its forces had withdrawn from Perim and that the Houthis had also taken the mainland Red Sea coastal town of Dhubab, which faces the island.

Lloyd's Register has granted Design Appraisal to HD Hyundai Heavy Industries' fore-accommodation LNG carrier design featuring Mitsui O.S.K. Lines' Wind Challenger hard-sail system, advancing the concept towards potential commercial deployment.The appraisal confirms that the design complies with LR's Wind-Assisted Propulsion Systems notation requirements and follows Approval in Principle granted at Gastech 2025.The partners describe the vessel as the world's first fore-accommodation LNG carrier equipped with the Wind Challenger system. The joint development involves LR, HHI, MOL and the Republic of the Marshall Islands Maritime Administrator.

With Pacific gray whales moving south from November to January, and humpbacks heading south from late autumn through December toward Hawaii, Mexico and Central America, it's peak season for whale encounters at sea.Vessel strikes are one of the leading causes of death for large whales worldwide, and sailboats carry a particular risk here, moving quietly under sail means whales often don't hear a boat coming, and may surface directly beneath or in front of it.PredictWind's Orca & Whale Watch feature helps, showing continuously updated whale positions on compatible chartplotters and apps, and letting sailors add their own sightings back into the network.