# Two officers found guilty in a "magic pipe" case



## non descript (Nov 18, 2005)

From today's Tradewinds newspaper 

_A federal jury in Texas has found General Maritime and two officers guilty in a "magic pipe" pollution case, the company and prosecutors said Wednesday. 
The New York tanker owner's Portuguese subsidiary faces a maximum $1m fine plus as much as five years in probation. 
Chief engineer Antonio Rodrigues and first engineer Jose Cavadas face up to five years in prison and fines of up to $250,000. 
The Genmar DefianceAll were convicted of failing to maintain an oil record book and presenting a materially false oil record book aboard the 100,000-dwt Genmar Defiance (built 2002) in November 2007. 
General Maritime, the Peter Georgiopoulos-led owner of 23 tankers, said it plans to appeal the conviction, as well as to make motions for acquittal and a new trial. An attorney for the company could not be immediately reached Wednesday. 
The New York-listed owner and the two men were indicted in June in the US federal court in Corpus Christi under the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships. (Read the story here.) 
The US Justice Department says Cavadas ordered engine room crew to hook up a hose between the Defiance's bilge pump and the overboard discharge, bypassing the oily water separator and dumping bilge waste into the ocean.. 
Two days later, prosecutors argued, Cavadas and Rodrigues told a crew member to link a hose from the ship's fresh water supply to the separator's oil content meter, thus "tricking" the oil content meter. 
"By tricking the oil content meter, the oily water was permitted to be discharged directly overboard in violation of international law," the Justice Department said. 
While the Defiance was docked at Valero's Texas refinery, two crewmen gave the Coast Guard a photograph of the illegal connections. 
"These three convictions are the result of crewmembers who had the courage to speak up," Assistant Attorney General Ronald Tenpas said. 
Sentencing is set for 10 February. _

By and Copyright of Eric Martin in Stamford for Tradewinds newspaper


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## Geoff_E (Nov 24, 2006)

Yes; But where did the real "order" come from??


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## McCloggie (Apr 19, 2008)

Probably no "order" as such Geoff. That is the problem.

McC


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## non descript (Nov 18, 2005)

I know nothing about the case, but it may be some comfort to see the opening words that: the *"federal jury in Texas has found General Maritime and two officers guilty..."*


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## John Cassels (Sep 29, 2005)

Similar sort of thing ; Did an on-hire survey many years ago and wanted to
have a look inside one of the ballast tanks ( centre DB) . Found that the
bottom 5 cm of the sounding pipe had been cropped off and a 5 cm extra
striking plate put in. Checked the other centre DB's and they were all the
same .
Not pollution related ,I know , but the same idea.


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## NZSCOTTY (May 20, 2006)

John Cassels said:


> Similar sort of thing ; Did an on-hire survey many years ago and wanted to
> have a look inside one of the ballast tanks ( centre DB) . Found that the
> bottom 5 cm of the sounding pipe had been cropped off and a 5 cm extra
> striking plate put in. Checked the other centre DB's and they were all the
> ...


Good to see your an honest chap John and not take the bottle and brown envelope on offer!!


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## John Cassels (Sep 29, 2005)

NZSCOTTY said:


> Good to see your an honest chap John and not take the bottle and brown envelope on offer!!


Who says I didn't !. Only quoted what I found !!.


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## Tam Broon (Apr 4, 2008)

John Cassels said:


> Similar sort of thing ; Did an on-hire survey many years ago and wanted to
> have a look inside one of the ballast tanks ( centre DB) . Found that the
> bottom 5 cm of the sounding pipe had been cropped off and a 5 cm extra
> striking plate put in. Checked the other centre DB's and they were all the
> ...


Maybe I am missing something here, what is the problem you are trying to highlight?
Striking plates corrode over the years due to breakdown of the coating especially in ballast tanks, in fact some ships have not even been originally fitted with striking plates. If left unattended this would and has in some cases resulted in corrosion penetration of the hull. Cropping the sounding pipe and fitting a "doubling plate" is a very common practice in order to effect a good safe repair in these cases.

Tom


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## John Cassels (Sep 29, 2005)

There is no problem being highlighted , I was only making a contribution to
a thread where a "pipe "is being used in a fraudulent manner.
Cropping a sounding pipe and fitting a doubler may well be common practice
but not to the extent of 50mm.
It was purely an attempt to defraud charterers in any subsequent draft
survey as was eventually proven.


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## Supergoods (Nov 25, 2007)

It is not unheard of for the striker plate to be above the tank bottom, the question is was the striker plate height correctly recorded on the tank table used.


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## John Cassels (Sep 29, 2005)

Supergoods said:


> It is not unheard of for the striker plate to be above the tank bottom, the question is was the striker plate height correctly recorded on the tank table used.


That's the whole idea , the striker plate being above the tank bottom.

In this case , it was so obvious , it was very easily proven.


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## Derek Roger (Feb 19, 2005)

What difference would 2 inches make in a ballast tank ?? 
I tend to agree it was a repair and not done for any other reason >
A fuel or cargo tank would be another matter if the tank calibration tables were not changed to reflect the loss of 50 mm on a sounding .

Derek


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## non descript (Nov 18, 2005)

To a certain extent I must be missing the point (not unusual) but there is a certain logic that a sounding taken using a false bottom/depth would give an corresponding false tonnage in the tank; a subsequent sounding, taken using the same pipe with false bottom/depth would give a corresponding false tonnage; but the comparison of the two (false) figures would be comparing like with like, and no falseness?

Using a different sounding rod for the delivery figures to the one used for the redelivery figures … now that would be cute and I can quite see that cutting 5 or even 2 inches off the end of the rod would be ‘interesting’. Of course one would need to make sure one uses the different rods at the appropriate times. (Jester)


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## John Cassels (Sep 29, 2005)

Thanks Tonga , you've nearly got it.

If one sees an extra striking plate of 50mm tack welded onto the original plate
then ( to me in any case) it was pretty obvious what was at hand.

What the others seem to miss is the effect of having 2" ballast in every
centre DB ( tanks therefore showing up as empty) on the initial draft survey
and on the final outurn survey , tanks drained. It was a long time ago but
memory seems to indicate it was in the region of 350 LT . Prior delivery , ship
had been trading on the open market in usually high value ore concentrates.

You can see how much owners would pocket every trip.


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## non descript (Nov 18, 2005)

JC,
You make a very valid point. – If the tanks being sounded are water ballast, then yes, the difference between dry tank (which is not a dry tank but has a false raise of 50mm thanks to an unrecorded striker plate) is quite useful. By stressing that the tank being measured is for water-ballast, it is more reasonable to compare empty and full, as there is, in theory, no situation where these water-ballast tanks are half filled, for they are either pressed up or dry. 

My other observation (comparing like-with-like) was purely connected with the situation in terms of the Fuel Oil Double Bottoms, where there is an obvious case for the fuel level to be somewhere between dry and full (and of course never ‘pressed up’) – so a false level caused by the 50mm striker plate in a FO Tank will record the same falseness at each reading.
(Thumb) 
Mark


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## Cap'n Pete (Feb 27, 2006)

The problem with these cases is the spate of "whistle-blowing" ratings whose only reason for reporting their senior officers is to receive huge (up to half a million dollars) rewards from the US courts.

The connection of the fresh water line to the oil content meter may have been entirely innocent, as this is the only means of flushing through the meter is it gets blocked with debris. However, to an untrained rating, particularly one on 400 dollars a month who wants to go home a peso millionaire, this may appear suspicious.

Ratings are liable to lie if they can rely on received thousands of dollars in reward money.


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