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Aquaculture is an industry that has developed rapidly over the past decades. Despite several hazards in the operations, emergency preparedness is not at the same level as in the rest of the maritime industry. This paper highlights some possibilities to increase the aquaculture industry’s coastal emergency preparedness. This paper is the result of the innovation project “Coastal Emergency Preparedness” funded by the Norwegian Research Council and industry partners. The aquaculture industry must establish its own emergency preparedness. In this paper, the innovation of a fleet of emergency preparedness vessels along the coastline, which could fill the gaps in emergency preparedness, is presented. The vessels would be of varied sizes, with different equipment and response times, and could assist the aquaculture industry during local incidents or large‐scale ones, such as algae blooms or winter storms, that affect many sites at the same time. Each production zone would need its own dedicated fleet due to biosecurity regulations. The emergency preparedness vessel fleet would be led by an on‐scene commander. The fleet would deal with oil spills and tasks such as emergency towing, firefighting, rescue of people, recapturing of fish, silage making, algae detection, and diving missions. With such a vessel fleet, small and large aquaculture companies could increase their emergency preparedness with a common strategy and shared resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Norwegian coastline has many long fjords where crossings are necessary for transportation of goods and passengers. In the last decade, the focus on reduced travel time along the main roads in coastal areas has increased the building of bridges and subsea tunnels. However, at present and in the future many fjord crossings will depend on ferries. The Norwegian government [7] requires that ferries, like all coastal ships in Norwegian waters, should be designed for zero or low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to meet the national goal of 50% reduction of GHG from coastal shipping by 2030. As ferry services are regulated by national or local governmental bodies, all new ferry operations should be performed using zero- or low-emission ferries. Thus, ferry companies require new and innovative ferry designs with reduced resistance, resulting in reduced installed propulsion power. This paper describes work done by the ship designer HAV Design AS (former Havyard Design & Solutions AS (HDS)) to meet the governmental request for ferries with a low environmental footprint. Work on a double-ended ferry design is described. In the early design phase manoeuvring performance is not a priority item, partly due to lack of a simple and reliable manoeuvring performance prediction tool for unconventional ship designs. It is well known that optimization of resistance can be at the cost of manoeuvring performance. In this paper, a specific double-ended ferry design will be used as a case. Outcomes of design simulation of manoeuvring performance are compared to manoeuvring full-scale tests in deep, calm water. Full-scale test results will later be used to tune a simulation model for a future training simulator for double-ended ferry, where full-scale manoeuvring tests have been performed, will be used as a test case. This paper shows how the designer has worked with these two topics in parallel in the final design stage where both experimental and numerical tools have been used for design verification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Norwegian Emergency Towing Services (NETS) is managed by the Norwegian Coastal Administration (NCA). In the early days of the NETS, the operational part was sheared between commercial tug companies and the Norwegian Coast Guard (NCG). A major change in the organization of the operation took place from January 1st 2020, when NCG was given the operational responsibility for NETS. This change is briefly described and the vessels in today's NETS are presented. Statistics for drifting vessels in Norwegian waters are presented before some selected recent maritime emergency incidents are highlighted. Actions by the NETS vessels and other NCG vessels will be highlighted. Handling of "FV Nortguider" after the grounding in Hinlopen (Svalbard) and the wreck removal work is one of the cases. The other two are drifting ship represented by the cruise vessel "Viking Sky" and the cargo vessel "Eemslift Hendrika". The final part of this paper discusses ways to ensure knowledge and operational experience sharing for personnel on vessels performing emergency towing tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Norwegian Coastal Administration (NCA) is an agency of the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications, and is responsible for services related to maritime safety, maritime infrastructure, transport planning and efficiency, and emergency response to acute pollution and drifting vessels. NCA has five regional Vessel Traffic Service centres. Of those, Vardø VTS has the special task of monitoring high-risk maritime traffic in Norwegian territorial waters, including the sea areas around Svalbard. Based on the history of ship incidents in Norwegian waters and lack of commercial tug resources in Northern Norway and the Svalbard area, the government decided in 2005 to establish a national emergency towing service. The establishment and coordination of this service was assigned to the Norwegian Coastal Administration. This paper briefly describes the development of the Norwegian Emergency Towing Service (NETS), how the service has changed over the years and plans for the coming years. Some cases involving emergency towing vessels are described. The paper also reviews the development of a national competence plan for senior officers on vessels employed by the Norwegian Emergency Towing Service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]