Tuesday, November 25, 2025
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Grapple robot with support boat

German Researchers Build a Grapple Mini-Sub to Remove Trash

Published Nov 24, 2025 11:53 PM by The Maritime Executive

    Ocean litter tech projects generally focus on visible, floating trash that drifts on the surface and washes up on shore. But a team with Technical University Munich (TUM) has taken a different tack and devised an unmanned grapple robot to pick up trash from the bottom, where pollution may be out of sight but not out of the ecosystem.  In harbors and along busy waterfronts, the seabed typically contains an abundance of sunken trash. In one study in the...

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Avatiu

Flag Registry Strains the Cook Islands' Relations With New Zealand

Published Nov 24, 2025 10:13 PM by The Maritime Executive

  The government of New Zealand is displeased with a semi-independent territory, the Cook Islands, which has outsourced its maritime registry to a private firm and ruffled diplomatic feathers. Maritime Cook Islands, a for-profit flag based in Rarotonga, attracted attention for the shadow fleet tankers accumulating on its registry last year - and Auckland has yet to forgive it. Thanks to this dispute, plus the Cook Islands' increasingly close relationship with China, New Zealand has paused foreign aid and de...

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The flat Starlink panel on the stern of a Ukrainian drone boat provides the connection for remote-control (Russian MOD file image)

Study: Starlink Could Be Jammed Using Hundreds of Drone Aircraft

Published Nov 24, 2025 9:11 PM by The Maritime Executive

  One of Ukraine's key advantages in the defense against Russia is the "unjammable" over-the-horizon communication service provided by Starlink, the low earth orbit satcom service provided by Elon Musk's SpaceX. Among other applications, the service has powered Ukraine's long-range drone boats, enabling Ukrainian special forces to dominate the battle for the Black Sea. All major naval powers are developing similar concepts for unmanned, autonomous, remote-controlled and networked drone vessels, and that means a long-term demand for resilient satcom -...

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new containership

HD Hyundai Confirms HMM Order, Pushes to Highest Boxship Orders in 18 Years

Published Nov 24, 2025 8:53 PM by The Maritime Executive

HD Korea Shipbuilding, the holding company for the Hyundai shipbuilding yards, reports it has now booked the highest number of containership orders in 18 years. It said the recently announced order from HMM has driven the company to a new peak last seen in the supercycle in 2007. HMM had announced in October that it was ordering large containerships and tankers as part of its modernization and expansion efforts. The shipping company said the deals, valued...

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MORE STORIES BY CATEGORY

Offshore

The site for Arctic LNG 2 in the Gulf of Ob, early in construction (Novatek)

Despite Sanctions, Russia's Arctic LNG 2 Plant is Up and Running

Adding  Removing text to validate cloudflare update With extensive help from Chinese interests, Russian gas producer Novatek is making headway in its efforts to circumvent Western sanctions on its Arctic LNG 2 plant in the Siberian Arctic.  The remote Arctic LNG 2 facility was designed to be assembled at a large shipyard in three sections, each built on floating concrete pontoons. One by one, the pontoons would be towed into place at a terminal on the Gulf of Ob, then permanently...

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Shipbuilding

Lincoln

U.S. Navy Scales Up Additive Manufacturing for Critical Sub Parts

  Welding equipment manufacturer Lincoln Electric has been a big player in U.S. Navy shipbuilding since at least the Second World War, when a massive construction effort drove demand for its arc welding technology. Today, it has also become a leading player in 3D metal printing, not by selling equipment, but by manufacturing printed parts from start to finish - and once again the Navy is tapping Lincoln's technology to accelerate shipbuilding needs. Additive manufacturing (3D printing) is usually picked...

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Environment

WISTA International President Elpi Petraki

Op-Ed: A Shared Obligation to Protect Our Oceans

  This year’s World Maritime Day theme – Our Ocean, Our Obligation, Our Opportunity – reminds us of our responsibility to safeguard the ocean and highlights the importance of inclusion in supporting a sustainable maritime future, says WISTA International. Our Oceans Generating half of the planet’s oxygen, absorbing around 30% of carbon dioxide emissions, holding nearly 97% of Earth’s water and home to some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, the oceans are critical to our survival. Some...

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Business

containerships Port of Los Angeles

USTR Fees Could Cost Top 10 Carriers $3.2B in 2026, says Alphaliner

There continues to be a lot of speculation in the industry over the full extent of the looming U.S. port fees for Chinese-owned, operated, or built vessels calling at U.S. ports. Industry analyst Alphaliner presented a potentially worst-case scenario based on current deployments that shows the 10 largest container carriers could be confronted with approximately $3.2 billion in fees in 2026 to the U.S., if the USTR program proceeds as planned. The U.S. Trade Representative published its fee...

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