[BITList] Fwd: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague

[Michael Feltham]

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From: enquiries at lloydslist.com
Date: 21 November 2008 07:38:03 GMT
To: mj.feltham at madasafish.com
Subject: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague


The below article was sent to you from Mike Feltham (mj.feltham at madasafish.com 
) with the following message: I thought you might be interested in the  
article below.

Dangerous yards

GERMANISCHER Lloyd produced some alarming photographs this week of a  
ship with shoddily welded seams, holes in its shell plating, and other  
construction faults.

So what? Substandard ships may be unacceptable, but are hardly a new  
phenomenon. What made these pictures particularly shocking is the fact  
that they were taken of a newbuilding. The defects uncovered by GL  
after it took over the class of the ship were so serious that it was  
taken straight to drydock for repair before going into service.

The ship ordering frenzy of the past few years tempted many newcomers  
to establish shipyards. But construction skills remained in short  
supply, with shipbuilders in some parts of the world employing  
inexperienced workmen including poorly-trained welders.

Whether a new generation of badly-built ships is now being delivered  
may not be clear for years. One hopes many of the deficiencies of the  
type spotted by GL will be detected in time. But the German class  
society suspects the badly-built ship it came across is not an  
isolated case. That means lives are at risk.

If there is some good news to emerge from the economic slump and  
plunging shipping markets, it will be the disappearance of yards that  
have been producing vessels of questionable quality, and the end of  
many projects to build new facilities on greenfield sites.

Fingers crossed that the shipping industry is not sitting on a ticking  
time bomb.

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