This bumper issue is jammed with news from two recent maritime conferences - the 10th National Maritime Conference and the 5th Intermodal Africa Conference. Each brought to the table different issues and many questions about how much progress is in fact being made. It's an excruciatingly slow boat!

The 10th National Maritime Conference held in Johannesburg revealed that government is making some progress with legislation but how long this will take before it is put into practise is anyone's guess.

The fear is that South Africa has probably lost the opportunity to participate in the world shipping boom. The South African ship building and repair industry is under strain. Word is that the National Port Authority is furious that Cape Town's repair firms complained to local government that it was dragging the shipping industry down, and Durban's shipbuilding and ship repair industry has placed future expansion plans on hold until the National Ports Authority clarifies its expansion strategy for the port.

There are still opportunities. For instance the passenger/container ship Mauritius Trochetia will be undergoing a complete overhaul at the Elgin Brown & Hamer's Durban's floating dock, Eldock, starting this month, two reefers from Saudi Arabia are also scheduled for repairs to meet class requirements, and shipyards around the world, including our own, have submitted quotes to rebuild the M/V Mighty Servant 3, a semi-submersible heavy transport vessel which sank less than two kilometres off the North Angolan coast in December.

The Intermodal Conference held in Durban gave speakers the opportunity to harp on the old theme of working together to bring down the cost of business, but views appear to be one sided - depending on which side you are on!

Talk is cheap, new information is that South Africa's focus on infrastructure development which is seeing it access expertise and investment in other countries to meet road, rail and port needs among others, will now be dealt with at yet another conference later this month, the idea being to find methods to effectively overcome bottlenecks such as obtaining construction materials and capital equipment, engineering, regulatory and artisans' skills.

The visit to Durban gave me the opportunity to interview the new CEO of Grindrod. Alan Olivier has big shoes to fill and no doubt expected a barrage of questions about Grindrod's money-making plans for 2007 and beyond. But people get lost in the daily grind and so he was somewhat surprised that I wanted to ask him about him - who he is, what he believes in and what plans this young man has for driving such a big organisation forward. African Refiners are uniting against threats to industry security in the wake of massive refinery construction in the Middle East and Asia. The African Refiners Association met in Cape Town at the end of March and I was privileged to attend some of the workshops which came at a rather high price for the delegates. The report makes for interesting reading.

In conclusion, most people will know by now that the Maritime Labour Convention (2006) was adopted by the 94th International Labour Conference in Geneva in February 2006. What this means for South Africa is that the Merchant Shipping Act (MSA) and its subordinate regulations need to be reviewed to comply with the requirements of the Convention.

This also gives SAMSA the opportunity to "modernise" the MSA. Amendments of the following will ensure partial compliance: the Merchant Shipping Act; crew and accommodation regulations; provisions regulations; bedding, towels, mess utensils and other articles for personal use regulations; seaman's welfare regulations; and safe manning regulations. This is good news indeed for our seafarers most of whom are employed offshore and who have been receiving the short end of the stick.

Editor

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Marine Data Solutions (Pty) Ltd is a subsidiary of the Kongsberg Group of Companies supplying Vessel Traffic Management Information Systems (VTMIS) and AIS Networks to enable port authorities, coastal authorities and oil companies to effectively and efficiently manage vessel traffic and related resources in and around ports, coastlines and oil platforms. The VTMIS processes data from various sensors like radar and AIS and presents an all encompassing integrated vessel traffic picture to the operator. This includes vessel information (identification of vessels, ETA, position, speed, draft, type of cargo, etc); resource information (status of berths, depths linked to hydrographic data, teams on duty and their cost; and support vessels like tugs, pilot boats); and meteorological information (tide and weather).