Oil tanker, over 110m in length (www.marinetraffic.co.uk)

Over 60,000 merchant ships will travel around the Aegean sea, where 6,000 of these ships are oil tankers carrying up to 100-200 thousand tonnes of heavy oil. The Aegean Sea is seen as a marine root as goods and items need to be transported to the Islands throughout the Mediterranean. For this reason the marine traffic in the Aegean consist of vessels larger than 110m in length where by law, vessels larger than 110m are forbidden to travel around the Aegean Islands.
However data that has been collected has shown that vessels up to 260m in length travel around the Islands. If any vessels had an accident, the damage to the marine environment would be catastrophic, where as a vessel of that size would destroy the entire ecosystem. There are shipping lanes for these vessels, but it is quicker for the vessels to take short cuts around the Islands, which makes fuel cost cheaper for them too.

This is a concerning issue within the Aegean sea as it supports a huge amount of wildlife, such as the last remaining sea beds of Posidonia Oceanica within the Mediterranean. Other vital wildlife includes 120 species of sponges, thousands of fish and invertebrates, 4 dolphin species which includes the common dolphin Delphinus delphis which is critically endangered, 3 species of whales including the sperm whale Physeter macrocephalus, where populations are decreasing drastically, along with monk seals Monachus monachus which are endangered, where their small population is limited to the East Mediterranean. There has been a drastic decline in marine turtles too.

The ship wreck in Santorini in spring 2007, highlighted the inefficiency of the state mechanisms and institutes to manage any serious marine accident, therefore if an emergency at sea during daylight, under good weather conditions, in a lively port, at the beginning of tourist season cannot be dealt with, it will be much more of a tragic situation if an accident occurred in different weather conditions and further out at sea. The authorities in the Aegean area don’t have much control over the vessels, as an illegal vessel was recorded in the area in August 2009. The authorities received the vessels location and no action was taken to catch the vessel. It was suggested that this vessel could be illegally dumping waste products into the sea which is going to have a drastic effect on the marine ecosystem.

This project is looking at two websites, www.marinetraffic.com and www.mariweb.gr and recording shipping vessels travelling through the Aegean. Three sites have been selected to look at. First site between Samos and Ikaria, second site Ikaria and Mykonos and the final site is between Andros and Nisos Evia. All of the tankers and cargos are recorded that travel through these Islands. The data collected for each vessel is the type of vessel and its name, length and weight of the vessel, position on the map along with its IMO and MMSI number. All of these results are filed and will be analysed, where a report will be written.

r 60,000 merchant ships will travel around the Aegean sea, where 6,000 of these ships are oil tankers carrying up to 100-200 thousand tonnes of heavy oil. The Aegean Sea is seen as a marine root as goods and items need to be transported to the Islands throughout the Mediterranean. For this reason the marine traffic in the Aegean consist of vessels larger than 110m in length where by law, vessels larger than 110m are forbidden to travel around the Aegean Islands.

Map of shipping vessels

However data that has been collected has shown that vessels up to 260m in length travel around the Islands. If any vessels had an accident, the damage to the marine environment would be catastrophic, where as a vessel of that size would destroy the entire ecosystem. There are shipping lanes for these vessels, but it is quicker for the vessels to take short cuts around the Islands, which makes fuel cost cheaper for them too.

This is a concerning issue within the Aegean sea as it supports a huge amount of wildlife, such as the last remaining sea beds of Posidonia oceanica within the Mediterranean. Other vital wildlife includes 120 species of sponges, thousands of fish and invertebrates, 4 dolphin species which includes the common dolphin Delphinus delphis which is critically endangered, 3 species of whales including the sperm whale Physeter macrocephalus, where populations are decreasing drastically, along with monk seals Monachus monachus which are endangered, where their small population is limited to the East Mediterranean. There has been a drastic decline in marine turtles too.

The ship wreck in Santorini in spring 2007, highlighted the inefficiency of the state mechanisms and institutes to manage any serious marine accident, therefore if an emergency at sea during daylight, under good weather conditions, in a lively port, at the beginning of tourist season cannot be dealt with, it will be much more of a tragic situation if an accident occurred in different weather conditions and further out at sea. The authorities in the Aegean area don’t have much control over the vessels, as an illegal vessel was recorded in the area in August 2009. The authorities received the vessels location and no action was taken to catch the vessel. It was suggested that this vessel could be illegally dumping waste products into the sea which is going to have a drastic effect on the marine ecosystem.

This project is looking at two websites, www.marinetraffic.com and www.mariweb.gr and recording shipping vessels travelling through the Aegean. Three sites have been selected to look at. First site between Samos and Ikaria, second site Ikaria and Mykonos and the final site is between Andros and Nisos Evia. All of the tankers and cargos are recorded that travel through these Islands. The data collected for each vessel is the type of vessel and its name, length and weight of the vessel, position on the map along with its IMO and MMSI number. All of these results are filed and will be analysed, where a report will be written.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 11:31 am and is filed under Marine Team. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.