A lifebuoy is a ring that floats. The complication is that SOLAS does not treat them as interchangeable: it specifies which buoys carry lights, which carry smoke, which carry lifelines, and, crucially, which combinations are not allowed on the same buoy. By MarineCraft Journal · 15 September 2026 · 9 mins read Halfof … Read more
A ship carries more portable extinguishers than any other item of safety equipment, and each one runs on three separate clocks at once. The annual service is well known. The five and ten year requirements, and the spare charge arithmetic, are where operators come unstuck. By MarineCraft Journal · 14 September 2026 · … Read more
A fuel can meet the sulphur limit, arrive with correct paperwork, and still wreck an engine. Since the 0.50% cap reshaped the bunker pool, the operational risk moved from compliance to compatibility, and it is managed before the hose is connected rather than after. By MarineCraft Journal · 11 September 2026 · … Read more
Demurrage is the cost of a ship waiting, and on a petroleum cargo it accumulates fast enough to erase a trade’s margin in a couple of days. It turns on one question that sounds simple and rarely is: when did the clock actually start? By MarineCraft Journal · 8 September 2026 · … Read more
The lifeboat gets the attention. The davit and winch that lower it get far less, right up to the moment a brake slips during a drill. Launching appliances carry their own testing regime, their own authorised-servicing rule, and their own recurring deficiencies. By MarineCraft Journal · 1 September 2026 · 9 mins read … Read more
Two ships bunkering the same grade on the same day, in ports a few hundred miles apart, can pay materially different prices. Crude explains the general level. Almost everything interesting happens in the layers stacked on top of it. By MarineCraft Journal · 21 August 2026 · 9 mins read 0.50%the sulphur … Read more
