Central Command for Maritime Emergencies

Last updated
Central Command for Maritime Emergencies
Havariekommando
Havariekommando Emblem 2012.png
CCME seal
Co-ordinating body overview
Formed2003
JurisdictionGerman Maritime Emergencies Response
HeadquartersCuxhaven
MottoRüm Hart, klaar Kiming
Employees40
Parent department Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport
Website

The German Central Command for Maritime Emergencies (CCME; German: Havariekommando) is the authority for mutual maritime emergency management in the German EEZ of North Sea and in the Baltic Sea. The federal office provides radar and air surveillance, piloting and emergency tugs for ships that are unable to manoeuvre. Head of CCME is Frigate captain Robby Renner. [1]

Contents

History

By law the German states Lower Saxony, Hanseatic City of Bremen, Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg Vorpommern are responsible for maritime emergency response in their coastal waters. Federal agencies such as the Federal Coast Guard are responsible for certain tasks. The large number of organizations and authorities led to a great need for coordination. The process of German maritime rescue and relief operations has often been criticized as dangerously bureaucratic, too slow and uncoordinated. On October 25, 1998, the Cargo ship M/V Pallas, cargo of lumber caught fire while traveling the North Sea off the west coast of Jutland. Several attempts to get the ship under tow were unsuccessful, and it ran aground four days later off the German island of Amrum, in the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park. 250 tons of fuel oil were lost overboard, causing the biggest oil spill in German history, killing approximately 16.000 sea birds, predominantly common eiders. The case led to political discontent over a lack of coordinated emergency tow capabilities on the German coast, and contributed to the creation CCME. [1]

The Federal Coastal States and the Federal Government authorities founded CCME. On January 1, 2003, the Central Command for Maritime Emergencies (CCME) (in German: Havariekommando) commenced operations. It was established to set up and carry out a mutual maritime emergency management in the North Sea and in the Baltic Sea. It is based in Cuxhaven (Northwest Germany) and is headed by a federal official. [2]

Operation

EEME stationed at Wasserstrassen- und Schifffahrtsamt Cuxhaven Cuxhaven Wasser- und Schifffahrtsamt by-Raboe 01.jpg
EEME stationed at Wasserstraßen- und Schifffahrtsamt Cuxhaven
Maritime traffic control centers in Germany Karte-verkehrszentralen-wsv.png
Maritime traffic control centers in Germany

The Maritime Emergencies Reporting and Assessment Centre is the 24/7 central point of contact for emergencies. In the event of an accident, it is usually necessary to rescue people, which is coordinated by the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre Bremen (MRCC) of the German Sea Rescue Society (DGzRS). The havariekommando is in charge of the German ETV fleet. During daily work routine the CCME consists of about 40 employees, working in five different sections: [2]

Capacity

One of the main capacities of CCME is a number of Emergency tow vessels.

Emergency tow vessel stations

Tug boat Baltic Baltic (Ship) 2010-by-RaBoe-02.jpg
Tug boat Baltic
No.AreaShip nameBollard pull
(in tons)
Typposition of station
1 North Sea Nordic 201chartered tug ship (Fairplay Towage Group)10 sm north of Norderney
2North Sea Mellum 110Multi purpose ship of Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration (WSV)5 sm south-west of Heligoland
3North Sea Neuwerk 110Multi purpose ship of Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration (WSV)5 sm south-west of Süderoogsand
4Baltic Sea Scharhörn 40Multi purpose ship of Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration (WSV) Kiel-Ostsee-Weg
5Baltic Sea Baltic 127chartered tug ship (Fairplay Towage Group)Warnemünde
6Baltic Sea Arkona 40Multi purpose ship of Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration (WSV) Stralsund
7Baltic Sea Bremen Fighter 104chartered tug ship (Boluda Deutschland) Sassnitz

Special ability capacitys

The CCME has access and is in command of units of several organisations with special ability and equipment:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lübeck</span> City in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

Lübeck, officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, is a city in Northern Germany. With around 220,000 inhabitants, it is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and the second-largest city in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, after its capital of Kiel, and is the 36th-largest city in Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dithmarschen</span> District in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

Dithmarschen is a district in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Nordfriesland, Schleswig-Flensburg, Rendsburg-Eckernförde, and Steinburg, by the state of Lower Saxony, and by the North Sea. From the 13th century up to 1559 Dithmarschen was an independent peasant republic within the Holy Roman Empire and a member of the Hanseatic League.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coast guard</span> Maritime security organization

A coast guard or coastguard is a maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to being a volunteer organization tasked with search and rescue without law enforcement authority. In most countries, a typical coast guard's functions are distinct from those of the navy and the transit police, while in certain countries they have similarities to both.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Search and rescue</span> Search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger

Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search is conducted over. These include mountain rescue; ground search and rescue, including the use of search and rescue dogs ; urban search and rescue in cities; combat search and rescue on the battlefield and air-sea rescue over water.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">His Majesty's Coastguard</span> National maritime rescue service covering the United Kingdom

His Majesty's Coastguard (HMCG) is a section of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency responsible, through the Secretary of State for Transport to Parliament, for the initiation and co-ordination of all maritime search and rescue (SAR) within the UK Maritime Search and Rescue Region. This includes the mobilisation, organisation and tasking of adequate resources to respond to persons either in distress at sea, or to persons at risk of injury or death on the cliffs or shoreline of the United Kingdom. Since 2015 it has also been responsible for land-based search and rescue helicopter operations.

<i>Technisches Hilfswerk</i> Civil protection organization

The Bundesanstalt Technisches Hilfswerk is the federal civil protection organisation of Germany. It is controlled by the German federal government. 97% of its more than 80 thousand members (2021) are volunteers.

Responsibilities for traditional coast guard duties in Australia are distributed across various federal, state and community agencies. The de facto coast guard of Australia is the Maritime Border Command, a joint command of the Australian Defence Force and the Australian Border Force which works alongside the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. Each state and territory government have specific maritime safety agencies and police marine units. In addition, there are several private volunteer coast guard organisations which act as auxiliary search and rescue services and maritime safety educators with the largest organisations being the Royal Volunteer Coastal Patrol established in 1937, the Australian Volunteer Coast Guard established in 1961, and Marine Rescue New South Wales established in 2009.

Australian Maritime Safety Authority

Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) is an Australian statutory authority responsible for the regulation and safety oversight of Australia's shipping fleet and management of Australia's international maritime obligations. The authority has jurisdiction over Australia's exclusive economic zone which covers an area of 11,000,000 square kilometres (4,200,000 sq mi). AMSA maintains Australia's shipping registries: the general and the international shipping registers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German Sea Rescue Society</span> National agency responsible for search and rescue in Germanys territorial waters

The German Maritime Search and Rescue Service is responsible for Search and Rescue in German territorial waters in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, including the Exclusive Economic Zone.

Northern Germany is a linguistic, geographic, socio-cultural and historic region in the northern part of Germany which includes the coastal states of Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Lower Saxony and the two city-states Hamburg and Bremen. It contrasts with Southern Germany, Western Germany and Eastern Germany.

The United States Coast Guard is the coastal defense, search and rescue, and maritime law enforcement branch of the United States Armed Forces and is one of the country's eight uniformed services. It carries out three basic roles, which are further subdivided into eleven statutory missions. The three roles are:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wasserschutzpolizei</span> German river police

The Wasserschutzpolizei is the river police that patrols the waterways, lakes and harbours of Germany around the clock. The WSP are part of the Landespolizei. The Federal Police maintains 16 patrol craft and helicopters are part of the Coast Guard (Küstenwache) and assigned to coastal BPOL stations. The watercraft include six offshore patrol vessels, e.g. those of the Bad Bramstedt class, as well as a number of fast inshore vessels and one tugboat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emergency tow vessel</span> Type of ship used for towing disabled vessels across high seas to safe waters

An emergency tow vessel, also called emergency towing vessel, (ETV) is a multi purpose boat used by state authorities to tow disabled vessels on high seas in order to prevent dangers to man and environment. The disabled vessel is either towed to a safe haven or kept in place against wind and current until commercial assistance by tug boats has arrived on site or until it has been repaired to the extent of being able to manoeuvre on its own. The need for ETVs as a preventive measure has arisen since the number of available commercial salvage tugs was reduced while potential dangers from individual vessels have increased. E.g. Spain has fourteen, Turkey has eleven, Germany operates eight, Norway has seven, France has five, Sweden three and the Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, Iceland and Finland each have one official emergency tug boat. Australia also operates emergency response vessels. The United Kingdom's four strong ETV fleet was to be disbanded in September 2011 due to budget cuts but the two vessels operating in Scottish waters received an extension of contract until the end of 2011.

M/V Pallas, callsign C6LO9, IMO number 7039206, was a 147-metre (482 ft) cargo ship built in 1971. On 25 October 1998, her cargo of lumber caught fire while traveling the North Sea off the west coast of Jutland. The ship ran aground on 29 October off the German island of Amrum, in the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park. Around 200–300 tons of fuel oil was lost overboard and caused Germany's most notable maritime environmental disaster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allied Forces Baltic Approaches</span> Military unit

Allied Forces Baltic Approaches (BALTAP) was a Principal Subordinate Command (PSC) of the NATO Military Command Structure, with responsibility for the Baltic Sea area. It was in existence from 1962 to 2002 and consisted of the Danish Armed Forces, units of the West German Bundeswehr and allied wartime reinforcements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Sophia</span> European Union Military Operation in the Mediterranean Sea

Operation Sophia, formally European Union Naval Force Mediterranean, was a military operation of the European Union that was established as a consequence of the April 2015 Libya migrant shipwrecks with the aim of neutralising established refugee smuggling routes in the Mediterranean. The operational headquarters was located in Rome. The EU mandate for the operation ended on March 31, 2020. Operation Irini is the successor operation.

SMS <i>Camäleon</i> (1860) Gunboat of the Prussian and German Imperial Navy

SMS Camäleon was the lead ship of the Camäleon class of steam-powered gunboats of the Prussian Navy that was launched in 1860. A small vessel, armed with only three light guns, Camäleon saw little active use. She served during the Second Schleswig War of 1864 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, but saw no action in either conflict. Her peacetime career was limited to survey work in 1865 and limited tender duties in and around Kiel in 1867–1868. In poor condition by 1872, she was stricken from the naval register and used as a storage hulk in Kiel. She was broken up for scrap some time after 1878.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Climate change adaptation strategies on the German coast</span> Climate change adaptation strategies

Climate change adaptation strategies on the German coast include European, national, and regional politics, different economic and civilian sectors as well as coastal protection. In general, climate change refers to statistically identifiable changes in climate properties that persist over a longer period of time. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) defines it as a change in climate caused by human activity that can be observed in addition to natural climate variability. This can be described as anthropogenic climate change. Climate change poses local level impacts on the German coast and for the present and future, suitable adaptation strategies are necessary. In 2008, the Federal Cabinet of Germany decided on a German Climate Change Adaptation Strategy with the objective of creating a national action framework for reducing the risks for the population, habitats as well as the economy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre Bremen</span>

The Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre Bremen is responsible for coordinating air-sea rescue for the German sea-area of North Sea and Baltic Sea. It covers a shoreline of 3.660 km length and is owned and operated by German Maritime Search and Rescue Service at their headquarters in the Hanseatic City of Bremen. The MRCC works along with the Central Command for Maritime Emergencies (CCME) in Cuxhaven.

The Minden is a ship built in 1985 as a lifeboat as one of a series of seven rescue cruisers of the Deutschen Gesellschaft zur Rettung Schiffbrüchiger in the 23.3 Meter class. The ships were built between 1980 and 1991 by the Schweers shipyard in Berne-Bardenfleth and Abeking & Rasmussen in Lemwerder.

References

  1. 1 2 Preuschoff, von Olaf (2021-11-18). "Dr. Robby Renner übernimmt Leitung des Havariekommandos von Hans-Werner Monsees". Feuerwehr-Magazin (in German). Retrieved 2022-02-03.
  2. 1 2 "Havariekommando - Homepage". www.havariekommando.de. Retrieved 2022-02-03.
  3. "Manövrierunfähiger Frachter auf Nordsee: Lage entspannt sich". Die Welt. 30 January 2022.
  4. "THW und Havariekommando unterzeichnen Kooperationsvereinbarung". Bundesanstalt Technisches Hilfswerk (THW) (in German). April 29, 2019. Retrieved 2022-02-03.