Svalbard, also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range from 74° to 81° north latitude, and from 10° to 35° east longitude. The largest island is Spitsbergen, followed by Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya. The largest settlement is Longyearbyen.
Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norway.
Bear Island is the southernmost island of the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago. The island is located in the western part of the Barents Sea, approximately halfway between Spitsbergen and the North Cape.
Franz Josef Land, Frantz Iosef Land, Franz Joseph Land or Francis Joseph's Land is a Russian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. It is inhabited only by military personnel. It constitutes the northernmost part of Arkhangelsk Oblast and consists of 192 islands, which cover an area of 16,134 square kilometers (6,229 sq mi), stretching 375 kilometers (233 mi) from east to west and 234 kilometers (145 mi) from north to south. The islands are categorized in three groups separated by the British Channel and the Austrian Strait. The central group is further divided into a northern and southern section by the Markham Sound. The largest island is Prince George Land, which measures 2,741 square kilometers (1,058 sq mi), followed by Wilczek Land, Graham Bell Island and Alexandra Land.
Hopen is an island in the southeastern part of the Svalbard archipelago (Norway). Hopen was discovered in 1596 by Jan Cornelisz Rijp during the third expedition by Willem Barentsz, trying to find the Northeast Passage. Later, in 1613, its name was given by Thomas Marmaduke of Hull, who named it after his former command, the Hopewell.
A salvage tug, known also historically as a wrecking tug, is a specialized type of tugboat that is used to rescue ships that are in distress or in danger of sinking, or to salvage ships that have already sunk or run aground.
On 26 March 1997, the 300-ft merchant vessel MV Cita pierced its hull when running aground on rocks off the south coast of the Isles of Scilly in gale-force winds en route from Southampton to Belfast. The incident happened just after 3 am when the German-owned, Antiguan-registered 3,000 tonne vessel hit Newfoundland Point, St Mary's.
Marine salvage is the process of recovering a ship and its cargo after a shipwreck or other maritime casualty. Salvage may encompass towing, re-floating a vessel, or effecting repairs to a ship. Today, protecting the coastal environment from spillage of oil or other contaminants is a high priority. Before the invention of radio, salvage services would be given to a stricken vessel by any ship that happened to be passing by. Nowadays, most salvage is carried out by specialist salvage firms with dedicated crew and equipment.
MV New Carissa was a freighter that ran aground on a beach near Coos Bay, Oregon, United States during a storm in February 1999 and broke apart. An attempt to tow the bow section of the ship out to sea failed when the tow line broke, and the bow was grounded again. Eventually, the bow was successfully towed out to sea and sunk. The stern section remained on the beach near Coos Bay. Fuel on board the ship was burned off in situ with napalm, but a significant amount was also spilled from the wreckage, causing ecological damage to the coastline.
Atlantic Salvor is a US-flagged ocean-going tugboat owned and operated by Donjon Marine of Hillside, New Jersey. Sailing under her original name Mister Darby until 1998, the boat was built by Halter Marine Inc. and launched on 1 February 1977. She was involved in the salvage operation following the wreck of New Carissa.
Uliaga Island is the northernmost member of the Islands of the Four Mountains group in the Aleutian Islands of southwestern Alaska. The island's name is probably derived from the Aleut place name ulaĝa, which is itself derived from ulaẍ - "bearberry." The triangular shaped island measures about 2.4 miles (3.9 km) across and consists of a single stratovolcano cone that reaches a height of 2,913 feet (888 m). The island has an area of 3.44 square miles (8.9 km2). No eruptions have been recorded in historical times, though it is thought to have been active at some time during the Holocene Epoch.
The economy of Svalbard is dominated by coal mining, tourism and research. In 2007, there were 484 people working in the mining sector, 211 people working in the tourism sector and 111 people working in the education sector. The same year, mining gave a revenue of 2.008 billion kr, tourism NOK 317 million and research 142 million. In 2006, the average income for economically active people was NOK 494,700, or 23% higher than on the mainland. Almost all housing is owned by the various employers and institutions and rented to their employees; there are only a few privately owned houses, most of which are recreational cabins. Because of this, it is nearly impossible to live on Svalbard without working for an established institution. The Spitsbergen Treaty and Svalbard Act established Svalbard as an economic free zone and demilitarized zone in 1925.
The RMS Mülheim was a German cargo ship that was built in Romania and launched in May 1999. It was wrecked on 22 March 2003 at Land's End, United Kingdom.
Francisco Morazan was a 1,442 GRT cargo ship that was built in 1922 as Arcadia by Deutsche Werft, Hamburg, for German owners. She was sold in 1934 and renamed Elbing. She was seized by the Allies in the River Elbe, Germany in May 1945, passed to the United Kingdom's Ministry of War Transport and renamed Empire Congress. In 1946, she was allocated to the Norwegian Government and renamed Brunes.
Herakles was a pusher vessel owned by Finnish towing and marine salvage company Alfons Håkans Oy Ab. The ship, originally built as salvage tug Into in 1967, was converted to a pusher in 1991 to be chartered to Rautaruukki Oyj and later ESL Shipping Ltd as the third pusher vessel for the Finnpusku system, a Finnish integrated tug and barge system built in the mid-80s.
MV Canadian Miner was a Canadian laker that was part of the fleet of Upper Lakes Shipping from 1994–2011. Initially constructed as Maplecliffe Hall in 1966, the ship was renamed Lemoyne in 1988 before becoming Canadian Miner in 1994. In 2011, the name was shortened to just Miner. In 2011 the vessel was taken out of service and sold for scrapping. While en route to the scrapyard in Turkey, the ship ran aground off Nova Scotia in 2011. The vessel was broken up in 2014 in Nova Scotia.
Franz Josef Land, an uninhabited archipelago located in the Arctic Ocean, Barents Sea and Kara Sea, may have been discovered by the 1865 expedition of the Norwegian sealing vessel Spidsbergen captained by Nils Fredrik Rønnbeck. However, the discovery was never announced and the existence of the territory only came to public notice following the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition of 1872, which named the archipelago in honor of Franz Joseph I of Austria. Benjamin Leigh Smith led the next expedition in 1880, which continued the work of the first expeditions in investigating the southern and central parts of the archipelago. Concurrent expeditions followed in 1896, Nansen's Fram expedition and the Jackson–Harmsworth Expedition, which met by accident. These two journeys explored the northern area and the flanks of Franz Josef Land.
The SS Arrow was an oil tanker built by Bethlehem Steel Company, Sparrows Point, Baltimore, Maryland in 1948 as the tanker Olympic Games. Renamed Sea Robin in 1960 and finally Arrow in 1962, the ship was a Liberian-registered tanker owned by the Sun Navigation Company. At 551.2 feet in length and 68.3 feet in width, with a draft of 29.9 feet, she was an enlarged version of the standard American World War II tanker design and one of the oldest tankers in the fleet of Aristotle Onassis. The Arrow ran aground and spilled its load of oil into Chedabucto Bay on February 4, 1970. This remains the most significant oil spill off Canada’s East Coast, with some 10,000 tonnes. Only the MV Kurdistan accident has come close, spilling about 6,000 tons of oil after breaking apart in the Cabot Strait on March 15, 1979.
The EDRO III was a cargo ship, built in 1966 by Kaldnes Mekaniske Verksted at Tønsberg in Norway.
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