Hello Roland,

The link you found is a revelation indeed. Cleaning up waters is a noble quest.

Plastic garbage is, by definition, confined to flotsam. The first time I saw this addressed was in a dock in Liverpool in about 1965 where a scrap merchant had converted a small boat to scoop garbage on board. Moving on and it seems the problem has not gone away. If the problem merits consideration of a large specialised vessel to mother-ship a fleet of smaller and probably more complex vessels then the issue certainly deserves plenty of comment on the forums.

My first comment is that if it is feasible to provide side openings in the mothership then why has this not been incorporated into bulkers so that the existing bulk stevedoring processes can be finally confined to the dustbin? I have hammered this shortcoming, hauling stuff over the ships' rail, several times on the forum and is gratifying to find agreement. Especially if the providers of the link seem to accept that transfer can be done on the high seas which would make most custom bulk terminals completely redundant. I'd never thought of that until this morning!

Secondly, a downer, does not exploit the 'flotsam' condition. The stuff is already floating. Does it really need mothering? Maybe it does. Most logging firms just gather tremendous rafts of logs and tow them behind a small tug: admittedly in calmer waters. I question the need for satellite vessels, at least as shown. Accept that the limit of gathering is the sea condition and accept that when you cannot safely collect then you cannot safely lighter. Bad weather stuffs the job. In ocean conditions it is not realistic to expect offshore authorities to finance expensive intermittent activities of that scale. What is more realistic is fishing. Adapt trawlers to drag floating surface gathers laden with garbage into shore. To my shame I have forgotten the name of this fishing technique but I remember that it worked very well around the British Isles in all weathers. It probably worked elsewhere before factory ships came along. Why not build robust tugs to drag flotsam around. I appreciate that wind drag would require robust tugs but these would be justified as recognition of their fuller availability. A point to consider is that if a floating boom is employed the a pair of tugs will gather and guide plentiful flotsam very much better than a single looped gathering noose. If mothership is used then the tug pair can attach the boom ends to the sides of a ramp on a whaler, Japanese or Russian, and haul the flotsam onboard while the said pair go in search of more flotsam. It will improve the whalers credibility and cash flow!

This is wonderful topic and I hope that whalers and fishermen can give much needed guidance to engineers, naval architects and ecologists alike.

Now what about jetsam? ■