Oliver Hazard Perry was born near Newport, Rhode Island on August 23,1785. He died of yellow fever on his 34th birthday in 1819. Perry went sea as a midshipman at the age of 13. He was given his first command, … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
Is pod propulsion the best or worse thing to ever happen to cruise ships? Celebrity Cruise Line just cancelled the cruises for the rest of season in Alaska on the Celebrity Millennium due to failures in its pods. It had … Continue reading
A Russian military Zubr-type hovercraft made a surprise arrival at a crowded beach recently in what the Russian defense ministry described as a “tactical mission in a military owned area.” Navy hovercraft surprises sunbathers as it lands on Russian beach … Continue reading
Maine has been experiencing a lobster boom. After catching an average of 20 million pounds of lobster per year for decades, Maine’s 5,500 lobster-men landed a record 125 million pounds of lobsters last year. Will this boom, however, end in a … Continue reading
In May, we posted about the discovery of a rare Howell torpedo by Navy dolphins in the Pacific off San Diego. The Howell torpedo was the first self-propelled torpedo in United States Navy service. Only fifty were built and, until the … Continue reading
In each of the first three races of the the Louis Vuitton finals to determine which challenger will compete for the America’s Cup, the race has been decided by mechanical failure. The series now stands with Emirates Team New Zealand, 2 … Continue reading
Two years ago we posted about the efforts by a Bournemouth University marine archaeology team to save the a mysterious ship known only as the Swash Channel Wreck, after its location off the Dorset coast. The team is now … Continue reading
In the first two races of the Louis Vuitton finals to determine which challenger will compete against the Team Oracle for the America’s Cup, both races were determined by which boat didn’t break before crossing the finish line. In race one, Emirates Team … Continue reading
When the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition‘s three-masted barquentine, Endurance, was crushed in the Antarctic ice, expedition leader, Sir Ernest Shackleton, allowed each man to take off only two pounds of possessions, including their boots. The only exception Shackleton made was Leonard Hussey’s banjo, which weighed … Continue reading
Captain Richard Bailey recently posted a sketch by Scott Kennedy of what the SSV Oliver Hazard Perry will look like under sail. Click here or on the thumbnail to go to the blog post. “Scott has made paintings and drawings of … Continue reading
The press recently has been full of headlines about Ernest Shackleton‘s ill-fated ship, Endurance. The Christian Science Monitor asks, “What happened to Shackleton’s sunken ship?” Radio New Zealand answers the question with “Shackleton’s ship could still be in good condition.” … Continue reading
The headline in Live Science sounds like the premise for a bad SyFi channel made-for-cable movie – Testicle-Biting Fish Invading Denmark. It turns out that a Danish fisherman caught, what is believed to be, a red-bellied pacu, an omnivorous South American freshwater … Continue reading
A massive explosion, followed by a fire, has partially sunk the Indian Navy’s diesel electric submarine INS Sindhurakshak early this morning at the Mumbai naval dockyard. Eighteen officers and sailors were reported to be aboard at the time of the explosion … Continue reading
A family of religious extremists was rescued from their damaged sailboat after becoming lost for many weeks in the Pacific and has been flown back to the United States. In May, Sean and Hannah Gastonguay, with Sean’s father, Mike, and … Continue reading
Erick Higuera’s short film, Baja – the Ocean Geographic Pictures of the Year Winner Howard Hall Award for Outstanding Achievement 2013. An amazing film. Ocean Geographic Pictures of the Year Winner Howard Hall Award 2013 “Baja” project, finally completed after … Continue reading
To celebrate the launch of Margaret Muir’s Admiralty Orders – Book 3 in her Oliver Quintrell series, the first book of the series, Floating Gold is free on Amazon for the next three days. In our review, we called Floating … Continue reading
Until recently only China, France, the United States, Britain and Russia have built and operated nuclear submarines. With the 6,000-ton INS Arihant ready for sea trials, India has joined this elite club. The submarine will be the first Indian-built nuclear submarine to … Continue reading
It is now official. Watching the Discovery Channel makes you stupid, or at the very least, can leave you less informed than when you started watching. A poll shows that more than 70% of those who watched the Discovery Channel’s fake … Continue reading
An Austrian couple, identified only as Irene and Christian, made a distress call last week, on July 31, from their Jeanneau Sun Legende 41, Gobo, in the South Pacific. The three masted barque Picton Castle, sailing in the Cook Islands, charted a … Continue reading
Joan Druett’s The Elephant Voyage is free today and tomorrow, August 7 -8, on Kindle. The Elephant Voyage is a fascinating historical account of a crew who find themselves castaway on a desolate, wind-swept sub-Antarctic island, while on an ill-fated voyage … Continue reading