Category Archives: Announcements and Events

The Marine Café Blog turned a year old on the 25th of August. No celebration of any kind, certainly not public (only the Pope and the Queen of England are entitled to a public celebration of their birthdays). It’s enough for us that the blog has endured for 12 months. For this we thank our [...]

Concerned about fuel consumption and gas emissions from ships? Then catch US-based Propulsion Dynamics‘ presentation “Hull Resistance Management – IMO Activities to Reduce GHG and Minimizing Biofouling” on 9th September at the Marine Coatings Conference in Hamburg, Germany. The two-day forum is part of the Shipbuilding, Machinery & Marine Technology International Trade Fair (SMS 2010) [...]

Paddy Crumlin, the dynamic and tough-talking national secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia, was elected president of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) during its world congress in Mexico City that ended on 12th August. Whether this will see a more belligerent ITF remains to be seen. We have no doubts, however, that Mr [...]

Of late, we’ve been up to the gills with press releases. So we’ll just make a short, brazen plug  for the 11th Asia-Pacific Manning & Training Conference coming up this November in Manila. Why attend at all? Because it’s the biggest annual manning event starring the biggest names in the industry. Because it’s organised by [...]

The ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) holds its 42nd Congress at the swanky Hilton Reforma in Mexico City from the 5th to the 12th of August 2010. In all, 1,376 participants from 368 unions in 112 countries are expected to attend the quadrennial event, the first to be held in Latin America. Daily news updates [...]

The “Party in the Park” held on 26th June at Manila’s Rizal Park (a.k.a. Luneta) was a tremendous success, according to Roger Harris, executive director of the organising body, International Committee on Seafarers Welfare (ICSW). The event, in celebration of the Year of the Seafarer, drew hundreds of seafarers, their families and some bigwigs from [...]

The UK-based International Committee on Seafarers Welfare (ICSW) is organising a “Party in the Park” on 26th June at Manila’s Rizal Park, better known by its old name, Luneta. The event is supported by the IMO, ILO, maritime labour unions and local crewing agencies. It comes a day after the close of the IMO Diplomatic [...]

Thomas Miller, established in 1885 as the manager of UK P&I Club, is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year by supporting the renovation of Africa’s oldest ship. Built in Glasgow in 1898, Chauncy Maples will become a floating clinic serving the health needs of villagers living around the shores of Lake Malawi.

Manila’s maritime sector is in a tizzy. An IMO Diplomatic Conference will take place in the Philippine capital from 21st to 25th June to adopt proposed amendments to the STCW Convention and Code. Expect the fiesta-loving and hospitable Filipinos to try to go overboard in giving their foreign guests, led by Secretary General Efthimios E. [...]

Two seafarers’ groups are gunning for party list seats in the Philippine Congress in the 10th May general elections – AKSI (acronym, in English, for Federation of Seamen) and ALON (Agenda of Seafarers for the Nation). For reasons that remain unclear, the Commission of Elections has withdrawn the accreditation of the United Filipino Seafarers (UFS), [...]

Last week, we received from the UK two email items related to the issue of piracy that reminded us of the following stanza from a centuries-old English nursery rhyme: Rain, rain go away, Come again another day. Little Johnny wants to play; Rain, rain, go to Spain, Never show your face again! Much as shipowners [...]

We will confess at the outset. Maritime conferences have made us jaded, if not slightly cynical. These events tend to be stodgy affairs, offering as much enlightenment as a cocktail party and less entertainment than YouTube. They’re often a lame excuse for business executives to go on a junket at company expense and, for some [...]

After a long interregnum, the Marine Café is back. It is now a blog site, which is a radical departure from the virtual Café which we started in December 2004 as an online journal providing exclusive (and often provocative) news and opinion on the Philippines’ maritime industry. The transfiguration was not an easy decision. There [...]