There are reports of a “small fire” aboard the 19th-century composite clipper ship, Cutty Sark, in Greenwich, UK. Firefighters managed to contain the blaze which is said to have damaged a small part of deck three and associated timbers. The Cutty … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
Last Friday, at Newcastle, the world’s largest coal handling facility, it was a contest of canoes against the colliers. Calling themselves Pacific Climate Warriors, a group of protesters from a dozen Pacific island nations took to traditional outrigger canoes, kayaks … Continue reading
Late Thursday night, the 9,405 DWT Russian general cargo ship Simushir lost power while in a gale off Haida Gwaii, also known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, on the coast of British Columbia, Canada. By Friday morning, the ship was drifting in … Continue reading
PortSide NewYork is hosting a Fundraiser — Resiliency is our Hook, on October 28, 2014. There will be smoky BBQ and sizzling Dixieland Jazz by the Red Hook Ramblers. Good food, good music and good times for a good cause. PortSide … Continue reading
Ebola hysteria continues to spiral out of control. A nurse, who may have handled lab specimens from an Ebola patient at Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, is now being quarantined in her stateroom on the cruise ship, Carnival Magic. The … Continue reading
In December, Antione Vanner’s “Britannia’s X,” the third of his Dawlish chronicles will be published by Old Salt Press. No, the book’s title will not be “Britannia’s X.” From Antoine’s Dawlish Chronicles blog: The title, for now, is “Britannia’s X” – with … Continue reading
The quote by Brendan Foley of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution was pure marketing genius. He said that the Antikythera wreck is “the Titanic of the ancient world.” The Titanic is, after all, the rock star of ship wrecks. No doubt what Foley … Continue reading
We all know Murphy’s Law — “That which can go wrong, will go wrong and at the worst possible time.” Anyone who has spent time around boats or ships also knows that Murphy was undoubtedly a sailor. This came to … Continue reading
Happy 239th birthday to the United States Navy! On Friday, October 13, 1775, the Continental Congress voted to fit out two armed sailing vessels to cruise to attempt to seize arms and stores from Royal Navy transports. The rebel forces were … Continue reading
After posting yesterday about someone who tried to run 1,000 miles across the Gulf Stream to Bermuda in an inflatable hamster cage, and failed, here is a slightly less insane and more successful example of craziness on the water. The video … Continue reading
You really can’t make this stuff up. Extreme runner, Reza Baluchi, attempted to run from Florida to Bermuda, a distance of roughly 1,000 miles, in an inflatable bubble with a metal frame, looking something like a giant hamster wheel. It didn’t go … Continue reading
The story is regrettably familiar. A historic vessel, unable to find a suitable berth, is forced to move elsewhere. Yesterday, Chip Reynolds, Director of the New Netherland Museum and Captain of the replica ship, Half Moon, announced the museum’s intentions to … Continue reading
Just over 60 yeas ago, on September 30, 1954, USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear powered submarine was commissioned in New London, Connecticut. Following commissioning she continued trials and testing, until she put to sea for the first time on January … Continue reading
The hospital ship Jubilee Hope was recently christened by the Princess Royal, in Tanzania on Lake Victoria. The 160 ton ship will provide health services to 150 remote island communities with 400,000 people on the large inland lake. She will be … Continue reading
Last May we posted that marine archaeologist Barry Clifford had announced that he believed that he had located the wreck of Christopher Columbus’ ship Santa Maria which ran aground and sank on Christmas Day 1492 off Haiti near Cap-Haitien. UNESCO has now … Continue reading
We recently posted about video of a “lake monster” in Lake Lagarfljót near Egilsstaðir in Iceland. Notwithstanding that a local panel voted that the “monster” was real, the video has been generally debunked. In Lake Nyos, in the Northwest Region … Continue reading
Another interesting video by Mystic Seaport Museum. Lighting The Way For Ships: Learning about Lighthouses at Mystic Seaport … Continue reading
A waka, a 600 year voyaging canoe, was recently found on the New Zealand’s South Island’s West Coast. The results of a study by University of Auckland researchers appeared recently in the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The waka, … Continue reading
Andrew Haines, a World War II veteran who emigrated from Norway as a child, wanted a Viking funeral. He realized that building a pyre on a full sized Viking ship would be impractical, so Haines decided to build a small … Continue reading
In September, we posted about the discovery of one of two missing ships from the Franklin Expedition of 1845. The two missing ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were both originally built as bomb ships. As bomb ships they were … Continue reading