Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, better known as Hedy Lamarr, was born to Jewish parents in Austria on November 9th, 1914, one hundred and one years ago today. At the height of her movie career, she was known as the “most beautiful … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
Last night, right about sunset, the western sky over Southern California was filled by a weird blue-green light streaking across the heavens. Visible as far as Arizona, the mysterious light didn’t look like a meteor. For a time, it was … Continue reading
At the beginning of October, the SS United States Conservancy announced that its board had retained the services of a broker to explore selling the SS United States for scrap “over concerns about the organization’s long-term ability to continue financing the … Continue reading
Queimada Grande is a Brazilian island in the Atlantic Ocean roughly 90 miles from São Paulo. It is off limits to most visitors, not because it harbors secrets or treasure, but rather because it has more snakes, between one and … Continue reading
Off the coast of Europe, offshore wind turbines with an installed capacity of over 6,600 MW generate enough electricity to power almost five million households. In the United States, the number of households powered by offshore wind is almost zero, though, with luck that, is … Continue reading
The Wavertree, an iron-hulled windjammer built in 1885, has been a museum ship in at New York’s South Street Seaport Museum since 1969. In May, the historic ship shifted to the Caddell Dry Dock in Staten Island to undergo stabilization and restoration. … Continue reading
The first reports from accidents are often wrong. In the case of the capsizing of the whale-watching boat, Leviathan II, off Tofino on Vancouver Island with the loss of six passengers, the initial reports from CBC News said that the vessel … Continue reading
My wife and I recently took a trip on the riverboat MV Amatista from the jungle city of Iquitos upriver on the Amazon to the confluence of the Marañón and Ucayali rivers. Before we left, several friends warned us not … Continue reading
From a press release from the National Safety Transportation Board (NTSB): A search team on board the USNS Apache has found the wreckage of a vessel that they believe to be the cargo ship El Faro, which went missing on … Continue reading
A beautiful Friday evening at the Sultana Downrigging Weekend in Chestertown, MD. The schooner Sultana, launched in Chestertown, Maryland, in 2001, serves as an educational vessel for schoolchildren as it travels around the Chesapeake Bay. Now in its fifteenth year, … Continue reading
In early October, the headline in the Philadephia Inquirer was Is the S.S. United States headed toward the scrap yard?. After years of attempting to save the iconic cruise ship, the SS United States Conservancy announced that the SS United States, … Continue reading
In 1998, the whale-watching boat Ocean Thunderer was hit by a wave and swamped, throwing all on board — three passengers and one boat operator — into the waters near Sea Lion Rocks, also known as Plover Reefs, off the western … Continue reading
Ben Talman, a reader and contributor to the Old Salt Blog, visited the Edwin Fox in Picton, New Zealand and took a series of wonderful photos of the historic ship. The Edwin Fox is an East Indiaman built in 1853 of teak in Calcutta, India. … Continue reading
Recently, we posted that five nations were responsible for 60% of the plastic dumped in the world’s oceans. Why is plastic so destructive to the ocean environment? National Geographic put together the short animation below to explain all the damage … Continue reading
MV Leviathan II, a 65′ whale watching boat, sank late yesterday afternoon, off the port of Tofino on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. 27 were aboard when the vessel sank. Five are reported to have died and one person is … Continue reading
For several years now, we have posted about the so-called ocean garbage patches, the great swaths of the oceans where plastic and other floating debris accumulate while riding on vast circular currents. The problem is that an estimated 8 million … Continue reading
In 1998, the United States Naval Academy dropped celestial navigation from its curriculum. If a naval officer wished to know where he or she was, the officer simply had to read the display on a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver. … Continue reading
When Ferdinand Magellan rounded the tip of South America in 1521, he encountered favourable winds. He named the ocean Mar Pacifico meaning “peaceful sea” in Portuguese. Today, Hurricane Patricia, the most powerful tropical cyclone ever measured in the Western Hemisphere, … Continue reading
The US Coast Guard rarely gets enough credit for the remarkable work that they do in routinely rescuing mariners in often extremely dangerous conditions. A new movie, “The Finest Hours“, is coming out this winter, which tells the story of … Continue reading
Yesterday afternoon, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released an updated report on their investigation into the sinking of El Faro in Hurricane Joaquin in early October. The report notes: “In a recorded satellite phone call to the company’s emergency … Continue reading