Covert Shores – There is a burning ship abandoned off the west coast of the Americas. On August 6th there was a serious fire aboard the Chinese car carrier (a specialised ship which delivers cars for export) Min Jiang Kou (IMO 9991771) in the Pacific. This is a useful news hook for an article I have been planning for a while: cause of the fire, or at least its significant factor, was that the ship uses high-flammable (/explosive) LNG as a fuel. Here’s a quick overview of the trend in highly dangerous fuels aboard merchant ships, with an eye on Defence relevance.