For a number of years, we have followed the Planetary Society‘s efforts to launch a solar sail which would be propelled by light radiating from the sun. Yesterday, the society’s LightSail 2 deployed a 32-square-meter solar sail, about the size … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
In early July, the Jubilee Sailing Trust (JST) faced a financial crisis where it needed to raise £1m in five days in order to stay in operation. Fortunately, the charity succeeded in raising the funds in time. Their financial challenges … Continue reading
In January 1968, the French submarine Minerve was underway in the Mediterranean on her way back to her home base in Toulon. Communications from the submarine advised that she would be at her berth in about an hour. Then mysteriously, the diesel-electric … Continue reading
Earlier this year, technicians operating a robotic camera surveying a route for a natural gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea, were surprised to find a 500-year-old shipwreck virtually intact on the seafloor. The ship was found at a depth of … Continue reading
Sailors have navigated by the stars since the dawn of time. Now, fifty years after Neil Armstrong first set foot on the Moon in the Apollo 11 mission, we shouldn’t forget that even the Apollo astronauts relied on sextants to … Continue reading
A world war was raging and German U-boats were sinking merchant ships faster than they could be built, so the United States government decided to build an emergency fleet of standardized ships. The goal was to build the ships quickly … Continue reading
On April 23rd, 1945, the patrol boat USS Eagle 56 was towing targets for US Navy bomber exercises off the coast of Maine. At about noon, there was an explosion around amidships which broke the patrol boat in half. Of … Continue reading
Forty miles south of Washington, D.C., close to Nanjemoy, Maryland is a fleet of ghost ships — the wrecks of hundreds of ships in Mallows Bay, a shallow bay on the Potomac River. It is considered to be the largest … Continue reading
At around 2AM on Monday, OEX, a Santa Cruz 70, owned by John Sangmeister, suffered a catastrophic rudder failure while sailing in the 50th Transpacific Yacht Race. Sangmeister reported that the lower rudder bearing had blown off and the rudder … Continue reading
Last week, US Customs and Border Patrol seized the container ship MSC Gayane, following the seizure of 18,000 kilograms of cocaine, worth an estimated $1.3 billion, by Federal agents while at the dock in the Port of Philadelphia in late June. … Continue reading
Here is an amazing short video of the US Coast Guard overtaking and boarding a drug-running submersible. A Coast Guardsman is seen leaping aboard the submersible while underway and forcing the hatch open to apprehend the smugglers. The capture took … Continue reading
The new design for the AC75s is an engineering marvel. Nevertheless, I am having an argument with myself whether they are works of genius or folly. More specifically whether carbon fiber and foils will have any practical application to real-world … Continue reading
Floating mats of Sargassum seaweed in the center of the North Atlantic were first reported by Christopher Columbus in the 15th century. These mats, although abundant, have, until recently, been limited and scattered. In recent years that has changed dramatically. … Continue reading
If you are near New York harbor on Saturday, July 13th, stop by the South Street Seaport, Piers 16 and 17, from 10AM to 4PM, to help celebrate City of Water Day 2019. In its 12th year, City of Water … Continue reading
Recently, we posted about the MSC Gayane, the container ship seized on Monday by US Customs following a $1.3 billion cocaine bust last month in Philadelphia. We said that the ship was not owned by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) but by … Continue reading