JFK rescuer honored after 64 years

AN elderly villager in the Solomon Islands has been honored by the US Navy for a crucial, but little remembered, contribution to world history - the day, 64 years ago, when he saved the life of the future American president John F. Kennedy.

US Navy Secretary Donald Winter presented gifts including an American flag to Eroni Kumana, a native scout for the Allied forces, who went to the aid of Kennedy and his comrades during the Guadalcanal campaign in August 1943. Mr Kumana, who is now in his mid-80s and nearly deaf, paddled 56km through Japanese-controlled waters to summon help, carrying a message carved into a coconut by the future president. He was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for "extremely heroic conduct".

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USS Alabama returns to water

Fleet Public Affairs Center Det. Northwest USS Alabama is officially floating again after its 20-month dry-dock period ended Aug. 21.

The Alabama was officially dry-docked Jan. 18, 2006. Overall maintenance is scheduled for completion in the spring of 2008, which means the Alabama should be ready to start sea trials, finish the recertification process and return to the Navy as an operational unit.

During Alabama’s dry-dock period, it endured 11 hull cuts which had to be welded back together and made water tight. The crew of Alabama has to put the ship through its paces by testing all the new equipment and then the crew has to get recertified to take the ship back out to sea.

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J. Ray McDermott sends jacket to India from Louisiana

J. Ray McDermott project staff at the Morgan City fabrication yard successfully completed the load-out of a 9,015-ton jacket built for Reliance Industries Limited as part of an engineering, procurement, construction and installation contract/purchase order undertaken at J. Ray company facilities worldwide.

The load-out, which took just over 23-hours from start to finish, was the culmination of just over 12 months of hard work fabricating the jacket for the KG-D6 field on the east coast of India. Before embarking on its 13,375-nautical mile journey around the world, the jacket’s first stop was Pascagoula, MS where it rendezvoused with a Fast Transport Vessel (FTV). After being offloaded from the FTV, the jacket and cargo barge will be towed for approximately 12 days to the East Coast of India.

The jacket was built at J. Ray’s Morgan City fabrication yard. The piles and topsides are currently being fabricated at the company’s Jebel Ali yard in the United Arab Emirates, with the piles scheduled for load-out in the near future and the topsides scheduled for sail away in early 2008.

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Safmarine takes delivery of 4,154-TEU newbuild

The Safmarine Makutu, the fourth in a series of panamax containerships on order by Safmarine, has been delivered by Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI).

The newbuild was recently named at the HHI Shipyard in Ulsan, South Korea. The 4,154-TEU vessel will join her sister ships, the Safmarine Mafadi, Safmarine Mulanje and Safmarine Meru, on the Safari 1 service between Asia and Southern Africa in September. The Safmarine Makutu will replace the Maersk Toba, a similar sized vessel, on Safari 1. The AP Moller Maersk-owned container line's Safari services will continue to use 13 vessels: seven vessels are deployed on Safari 1, and six on Safari 2. A statement from the shipping line said that seven new vessels are set to join Safmarine's fleet in 2008.

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Tropical depression forms in Atlantic

A tropical wave in the Atlantic Ocean gathered into Tropical Depression 6 (TD6) late last day and further strengthening was likely, the US National Hurricane Centre said in its latest advisory.

At about 2200 GMT, TD6 was located about 180 miles (295 kilometres) east-south-east of the Windward Islands, moving west at 16 miles per hour with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph. The hurricane centre said TD6 could become Tropical Storm Felix, the Atlantic hurricane season's sixth named storm, by Saturday.

The current forecast track for the system shows it moving across the southern Caribbean, then making landfall on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula by Wednesday afternoon as a minimal category 1 hurricane with winds of about 85 mph.

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