When dredging a harbor with as long and rich a history as UK’s Portsmouth, there is literally no telling what you may find. The harbor is now being dredged to deepen and widen a four-mile channel to allow the the navy’s … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
Recently, Lt. Taylor Miller of the U.S. Coast Guard was featured in an article in the Washington Post. Lt. Miller is transgender and after a series of early morning tweets by the current occupant of the White House announcing a … Continue reading
A group in Buffalo, New York is sponsoring the first World Naked Sailing Day today. Buffalo is on Lake Erie so there are no shortage of sailboats for those who wish take “bareboating” to a whole new level. The organizers … Continue reading
The best thing that can be said about the “rebuilding” of the Canadian schooner Bluenose II is that is it is over and that the Bluenose II is a lovely vessel. Unfortunately, it took seven years and cost C$24 million (around … Continue reading
Following its epic voyage across the Atlantic, with stops in visiting Iceland and Greenland, the Draken Harald Hårfagre, toured the Great Lakes, traveled down the Erie Canal, stopped by New York City and then wintered at Mystic Seaport Museum. This … Continue reading
The disappearance of Malaysian Air flight MH370, which vanished in March 2014 en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board, remains one of the worlds greatest aviation mysteries. After surveying over 120,000 square kilometers of Indian … Continue reading
Last weekend, we sailed by living history in Oyster Bay. As we were heading toward the gas dock, a beautiful gaff rigged sloop sailed by. It was Christeen, the oldest oyster sloop in the United States. Built in 1883 in Glenwood Landing, … Continue reading
One hundred and one years ago today, on July 27th, 1916, Captain Charles Fryatt was executed by the Imperial German Navy for attempting to ram the German U-boat, U33, with the 1902-built passenger ferry, SS Brussels, owned by the Great Eastern Railway. … Continue reading
Originally posted on gCaptain. Reposted with permission. Christopher Nolan’s movie, Dunkirk, opened Friday to rave reviews. The New York Times calls it “a tour de force …both sweeping and intimate.” The Guardian calls it “utterly immersive” and predicts that the … Continue reading
In May, 2015, we posted, Was a Kayaking “Accident” Really Murder on the Hudson? The question raised by that post has been answered. Angelika Graswald, 37, who had been accused of murdering her fiancée, Vincent Viafore, 46, while on an … Continue reading
After a two year drydocking for restoration work, USS Constitution “Old Ironsides” has returned to the waters of Boston harbor. The frigate is the world’s oldest commissioned warship still afloat. Launched for the first time in 1797, she earned her … Continue reading
One recurring comment related to the collision between the USS Fitzgerald and the container ship ACX Crystal was that the container ship might not have been able to see the destroyer over the containers stacked on deck. There are photographs … Continue reading
In 1867, Royal Navy Captain, and later Admiral, Philip Colomb, worked out a system to send signals by a code of dots and dashed using signal lamps. Since then, navies around the world have used only slightly improved versions of signal lamps … Continue reading
The ship was just a silhouette in the haze as we sailed into New York harbor. We were on the last leg of the delivery of my new/old sailboat Arcturus from southern Virginia to Oyster Bay, Long Island. The ship … Continue reading
The USNS Lewis B. Puller has sailed from Norfolk on its maiden voyage as an expeditionary sea base supporting the U.S. Fifth Fleet. The Puller is the first of two expeditionary sea bases. A sister vessel, the USNS Hershel “Woody” Williams is expected … Continue reading