The International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI) has published a comprehensive best practice guide for the safe use of flexitanks for the transport of liquid cargoes. According to IUMI, the guide’s objective is to provide underwriters, brokers and their clients with practical guidance to ensure cargoes transported by flexitanks arrive intact at their chosen destination. The paper outlines a range of potential risks including poor stowage, incorrect installation, overloading, material deficiencies, transport issues and others.
Flexible tanks – or flexitanks – are poly film bladders that are filled with a liquid cargo (such as dairy products, wine, fruit juice or non-dangerous oils) and then placed into a standard ISO container for transportation. Continue reading “IUMI issues guidance on mitigating the risks of flexitanks”
The International Institute of Marine Surveying (IIMS) is joining the global community in celebrating 
It seems we have gone full circle. Cargo ships powered by sail were lost to us a century or more ago, and to the current generation such vessels are regarded as outmoded transportation from a bygone era. But now they are back, more sophisticated and sustainable than ever. Recently I read about the Anemos, which has claimed the title of the world’s largest sailing cargo ship as she made her inaugural voyage from Concarneau, South Brittany, France. 