MARINE ENGINEERS' BENEFICIAL ASSOCIATION (AFL-CIO)
         "On Watch in Peace and War Since 1875"

MEBA TELEX TIMES       SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

The Official Union Newsletter

NUMBER 37

In this issue...
CMES 2010 course schedule…MarAd warns on piracy…M.E.B.A. NOAA ship finds WWII Navy boat…In a vocal, chatterbox edition with the gift of gab, we have our say and shoot the breeze with an industry conversation piece that speaks the nautical language of love. Don’t chew the fat with gum-flapping, loud-mouthed newsletters that bend your ear with oral diarrhea – they’re nothing to shout about! Now you’re talking! The voice of maritime reason, the Telex Times is the newsletter that’s on everyone’s lips. Spread the word!

The Calhoon M.E.B.A. Engineering School has released its 2010 curriculum featuring 45 courses to choose from over the next calendar year. For the convenience of our sailing members, the complete schedule will be contained in next week’s edition of the Telex Times.

Applications for these classes will be accepted via US Mail and Fax (410) 822-7220. Applications for classes held during January 1 through June 30 will be accepted NO EARLIER THAN NOVEMBER 1, 2009.

Applications sent prior to the acceptance dates will be discarded with no notice sent to the applicant. Application forms can be obtained at Union Halls, the Calhoon M.E.B.A. Engineering School web site (www.mebaschool.org) , or by calling the school’s Admissions Desk at (410) 822-9600, extension "0". Prior to submittal, carefully read the instructions and qualifications on page two of the application form. One application form cannot be used for multiple registration requests.

The Maritime Administration has issued an advisory to mariners and ship operators that piracy is likely to increase off the Horn of Africa and in the Indian Ocean now that monsoon season has ended. "We must apply the lessons learned from the crew of the MAERSK ALABAMA," said Acting Maritime Administrator David Matsuda, referring to the U.S. crew that thwarted Somali pirates last spring. "We are urging mariners to take defensive measures and not surrender at the first sign of a threat."

This week, the chief engineer and second engineers aboard the Dalnave vessel M/V MYRON N were sentenced to three months of probation with the condition that they serve one month in a community corrections facility. Panagiotis Stamatakis, the chief engineer, and Dimitrios Papadakis, the second engineer, both of Greece, pleaded guilty on July 16, 2009, to using falsified records that concealed improper discharges of untreated bilge waste from the M/V MYRON N.

The government's investigation began in September 2008, when Coast Guard inspectors conducted an examination of the M/V MYRON N, following the ship's arrival in Gravesend Anchorage, N.Y. and subsequently in the Port of Newark, N.J. The inspections uncovered evidence that crew members had installed pipes to bypass the ship's pollution control system and pump untreated bilge directly into the ocean. At their guilty pleas, Stamatakis and Papadakis admitted that they knowingly failed to record those discharges in the ship's official oil record books and presented the false record books to the Coast Guard.

M.E.B.A.-contracted OSG Ship Management needs Chiefs and 1st A/Es for four of their product tankers. Members MUST be qualified with Tankerman PIC or Tankerman Engineer for these positions.

A NOAA research mission conducted aboard an M.E.B.A.-crewed vessel has located and identified the final resting place of the YP-389, a U.S. Navy patrol boat sunk approximately 20 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, NC, by a German submarine during World War II. Six sailors died in the attack on June 19, 1942. There were 18 survivors. The wreck is located in about 300 feet of water in a region off North Carolina known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic," home to U.S. and British naval vessels, merchant ships, and German U-boats sunk during the Battle of the Atlantic.

NOAA and its expedition partners mapped and shot video of the wreck using high-resolution camera equipment, multibeam sonar and an advanced remotely operated vehicle deployed from the M.E.B.A.-crewed NOAA ship NANCY FOSTER. Researchers were able to locate and positively identify the YP-389 by reexamining data from the Duke Marine Laboratory expedition that discovered the USS MONITOR in 1973.

Built originally as a fishing trawler, the YP-389 was converted into a coastal patrol craft and pressed into service after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The vessel was equipped with one 3-inch deck gun to protect the ship from enemy aircraft and surfaced submarines and two .30-caliber machine guns. However, on the day of the attack by the German submarine U-701, the ship’s deck gun was inoperative, and the YP-389 could return fire only with its machine guns. Weeks after the attack on the YP-389, the U-701 was sunk by Army aircraft in the same vicinity as the YP-389.

The three-week research expedition also included a survey of the wreck of HMT Bedfordshire, a retrofitted British fishing trawler that was sent to the United States to combat the German submarine threat early in the war. On May 12, 1942, the Bedfordshire was struck by a torpedo from the U-558. All 37 British and Canadian crew members were killed. Four of the dead British sailors who washed ashore along the beaches of North Carolina are buried in the British cemetery on Ocracoke, NC.

M.E.B.A. members will be supporting a fallen brother a week from today on September 18th for the 8th annual Jay Corcoran Memorial Golf Tournament. Jay was a popular M.E.B.A. member for 22 years who sailed out of the West Coast. On September 11, 2001, he was on his way back to catch his ship, the APL THAILAND, when his airplane was hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center. Since then, a memorial golf tournament has been set up in his name to benefit Norwell, Massachusetts high school students. Norwell was Jay’s hometown. The Foundation has awarded $230,000 in grants over the last eight years. This year’s tournament takes place on September 18th at Bay Pointe Country Club in Onset, Massachusetts. You can sign up for the tournament and/or attend the dinner that evening. Members can also sponsor golf holes for the tournament at $100 apiece. To help support the event, organizers are asking for donations of goods or services for the raffle and silent auction that evening. The Jay Corcoran Memorial Scholarship Foundation is a non-profit organization, and donations are tax deductible. Checks should be made payable to the Jay Corcoran Memorial Scholarship Foundation and mailed to Laura Lundstedt, 112 Pond View Dr., Kingston, MA 02364. For more information call Laura at (781) 585-3318, Tom Piepenbrink at (781) 585-2667 or M.E.B.A. Boston Union hall Rep. Bill Campbell at (617) 261-2338. Bill can be e-mailed at wcampbell@mebaunion.org. 

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