Author(s): Magne-Petter Sollid; Ove T. Gudmestad; Knut-Espen Solberg
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: No keywords
Abstract: As the ice cover of the Arctic is retracing, Arctic is being opened for more shipping and voyages, however, the hazards relating to voyages in new areas of the Arctic should be noted. The increased activities relate to transport along the Northern Sea Route, in particular associated with transport of liquefied gas from Russian plants to the Far East, to increased research activities conducted by many countries and organizations, and not at leased by increased cruise ship activities. The increased shipping activities involve areas where previously ships did not pass and unchartered waters which pose severe risks to shipping with danger of grounding and subsequent leakages. Grounding is caused by lack of reliable and undated sea charts with a particular hazard caused by unnoticed underwater rocks and also to moving sandbanks. According to the Norwegian Maritime Administrations accident statistics database (Norwegian Maritime Authority, 2017), there were 14 registered accidents involving passenger vessels in the Spitsbergen area in the period from 1981 to 2014. Of these accidents, 12 were due to grounding. When glaciers are retracting, the open waters are not chartered, therefore ships bringing passengers close to the glaciers pose exceptional risks to the passengers. Cruise activities close to glaciers also exposes ships to interaction with glacial ice and ships without structural strengthening may be holed due to collision with glacial ice. In other areas, accidents have occurred recently; two vessels were dented by ice in the Chukchi Sea in 2012. A tanker was holed in September 2013, which created a real danger of an ecological disaster from fuel leakage which lasted for several days. The paper will discuss hazards for ship voyages in the Arctic and suggest mitigating measure by which the risk of grounding and interaction with ice is considerably reduced.
Year: 2018