A first shipment of carbon steel slabs bound for the new ThyssenKrupp steel mill in Alabama arrived at the Port of Mobile’s Pinto Island Steel Terminal this week. The Star Evviva, a Grieg Star Shipping vessel, discharged approximately 10,000 metric tons of steel slabs that will be stored at the terminal until the mill is ready to receive them.
Star Evviva at Pinto Island Steel Terminal berth
The breakbulk steel was discharged using the terminal’s three post-Panamax gantry cranes, each of which has a 78-metric-ton lift capacity. The cranes are electric and create no emissions and virtually no noise. They are also equipped with radio frequency identification scanners for reading the bar-coded slabs as they are moved. The cranes use magnet hoists to lift the slabs. The Pinto Island terminal is the first in the world to use this type of magnet lift technology in a ship-to-shore cargo operation, according to Alabama State Port Authority spokeswoman Judith Adams.
First ThyssenKrupp slabs discharged at Port of Mobile
The cranes can discharge to ground or directly to barge. The steel terminal also has a barge haul system that allows barge units to move independently.
Photos courtesy Alabama State Port Authority
MH-53E & Mk-105
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The US Navy currently uses large CH-53/MH-53 helicopters and towed sleds to help with mine clearance work, but they hope to replace those old systems with something smaller and newer. In an era where the threat of mines is arguably rising, while new minehunter ship classes like the Ospreys are being retired by the US Navy and sold, AMCM is a critical program. This new DII Spotlight article covers it in depth.
The smaller MH-60S helicopter’s Airborne Mine Counter-Measures (AMCM) system adds an operator’s station to the helicopter cabin, additional internal fuel stores, and towing capability, accompanied by a suite of carried systems that can be mixed and matched. AMCM is actually 5 different air, surface and sub-surface mine countermeasures systems, all deployed and integrated together in the helicopter.
- Airborne Mine Counter-Measures (AMCM): The Set
- Contracts & Key Events, 2000 – Present
- Additional Readings
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ScanEagle launch
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US Navy buys more naval surveillance hours, NanoSAR released. (Feb 23/10)
ScanEagle’s base Insight™ UAV platform was originally developed by Washington State’s Insitu, Inc. to track dolphins and tuna from fishing boats, in order to ensure that the fish you buy in supermarkets is “dolphin-safe”. It turns out that the same characteristics needed by fishing boats (able to handle the salt-water environment, low infrastructure launch and recovery, small size, 20-hour long endurance, automated flight patterns) are equally important for naval operations from larger vessels, and for battlefield surveillance. A partnership with Boeing took ScanEagle to market in those fields, and the design is carving out a market-leading position in its niche.
This article covers recent developments with the ScanEagle UAV system, which is quickly evolving into a mainstay with the US Navy – and others as well.
