Toward the end of last year, we posted about the the battle over the continued operation of the SS Badger, the last coal-fired passenger vessel operating on the Great Lakes. To her admirers she is a national treasure. To her detractors she … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
An April Fool’s post that is no joke. At 12:27 a.m. on April 1, 2010, in the Indian Ocean west of the Seychelles, three Somali pirates in a small skiff attacked what they thought was a merchant vessel. It wasn’t. They … Continue reading
A new exhibit has just opened at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. While perhaps not as controversial as the exhibit at the Vancouver Maritime Museum which we posted recently, it includes many whales bones, but, at least to our knowledge, … Continue reading
The ongoing dispute over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands and adjoining waters, has created an opportunity for an outlaw fleet of industrial fishing trawlers to fish, and over-fish, the rich stocks of squid in Argentine waters near the islands. Illegal fishing is estimated to be … Continue reading
The Scottish government ignored the bluff, bluster and threats made by the bilious, billionaire blowhard, Donald Trump, and approved the installation of eleven wind turbines in an experimental offshore wind farm off the coast of Aberdeen. Trump is strongly of the view that the wind … Continue reading
The Vancouver Maritime Museum has an exhibit which opened this month, Tattoos & Scrimshaw: the Art of the Sailor, which has generated a surprising amount of controversy. It seems that some of the scrimshaw on display features explicit erotic scenes. … Continue reading
The SS United States Conservancy is scrambling to raise $500,000 to buy time in their effort to save the ex-passenger liner SS United States. If they fail, the ship could be sold for scrap. The conservancy is exploring potential partnerships with … Continue reading
In the beginning of February, we posted about the flooding of the engine room on the Emma Mærsk, as the ship was entering the Suez Canal. The flooding put 16 feet of water in the engine room of ship, which is … Continue reading
Urban Miyares, a Vietnam vet, is totally blind, suffering from diabetes, has several organ transplants, and a whole number of medical issues, including severe nerve damage in his lower extremities making him a walking paraplegic. He is also the current … Continue reading
A lovely performance by the tug boats Fairplay II and Bugsier 16 the in Port of Rostock-Warnemünde, on June 4, 2011. Dancing Tug Boats … Continue reading
A bit over a week ago there were news reports with headlines that sounded like the plot of a low-budget sc-fi thriller. Huffington Post posted: “Ukrainian ‘Killer’ Dolphins Escape Naval Training Base In Search Of Love, Report Says.” Killer Dolphins … Continue reading
The USS Freedom, the first of the US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), is on her way to Singapore. The press has reported that the ship is intended to show the US’s commitment to counter China in the region. Before … Continue reading
An underwater expedition led by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos successfully recovered the mangled wreckage of two rocket engines from NASA’s Apollo Moon program from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The F-1 engines, which powered the first-stage Saturn V boosters … Continue reading
Interesting news about the US Coast Guard training ship, the barque Eagle. As reported by The Day, The Coast Guard barque Eagle may go to Baltimore for extensive repairs so future officers can keep training on the ship for years … Continue reading
Accomplished historian and archivist, Allan Janus has reviewed the Lord Nelson action figure now available on Amazon. His review: “An excellent action figure of Horatio, Viscount Nelson – complete with sword, eyepatch, empty sleeve and chelengk. The one minor negative is that Nelson’s stance is quite … Continue reading
Carnival Cruise Line pays virtually no Federal taxes, yet without the docks, roads, and airports provided by local, state and the federal governments, it would be unable to operate its cruise line. And, when one of its ships gets into trouble, Carnival … Continue reading
Early on Saturday, the 80 m coaster MV Danio hit the rocks on the Farne Islands off the Northumberland coast, after sailing from Perth, Scotland to Antwerp, Belgium with a cargo of timber. The German-owned, Antigua-registered vessel is stuck near the Longstone Lighthouse, … Continue reading
Over the next several months, Maersk Lines will be giving ten container ships in its fleet nose jobs. They will be cutting off the existing bulbous bows and retrofitting them with new more energy-efficient designs. It all has to do with slow … Continue reading
Just for fun. A video about a geriatric sea otter named Eddie, who plays basketball to help with arthritic elbows. (No, I am not making this up.) Sea Otter Hoop Dreams … Continue reading
As passengers are being flown home from an cancelled cruise on the Carnival Dream, another Carnival Cruise ship, the Carnival Legend, is limping to port with a damaged Azipod. Unlike more conventional designs where the ship’s propeller is connected to a ship’s engine … Continue reading