The state oil company SOCAR reports that over 30 are dead or missing after an Azeri drilling rig in the Caspian Sea caught fire yesterday. The fire started after a storm damaged a natural gas pipeline, causing the platform’s partial … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
Today, Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos announced that it has found the wreck of the galleon San José, what some have called the “holy grail of shipwrecks.” He announced the discovery on Twitter. In June of 1708, during the War of … Continue reading
We recently posted about the possibility of purchasing a custom Viking longship from the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark. If that doesn’t fit your budget, or if you don’t want to have to line up thirty to one hundred able bodied … Continue reading
The octopus is a strange and amazing creature, the most intelligent and agile of all invertebrates. (In May, we posted How Does an Octopus Keep Track of Eight Arms?) Recently, scientists mapped the octopus genetic code and discovered that it is … Continue reading
Looking for the perfect holiday gift? How about an authentic replica Viking longship? A great way to impress the relatives or perhaps get together with 60 close friends to raid a neighboring village. You either can hire a team of researchers … Continue reading
The new $7.5 billion DDG-1000 destroyer, USS Zumwalt, expected to be delivered by Bath Iron Works sometime in 2016, is incredibly high tech and innovative. It features advanced weapons and propulsion systems as well as an inward sloping hull with a ram bow … Continue reading
Overfishing of the world’s oceans is a huge and immediate problem. Back in 2002, the nations participating in the World Summit on Sustainable Development agreed to end overfishing by 2015. Suffice it say, it didn’t happen. Indeed, some scientists are predicting … Continue reading
A group of tall ship enthusiasts are attempting raise money to build and sail an exact replica of the great composite clipper ship, Cutty Sark. The goal is to launch the Cutty Sark II by November 2019, the 150th anniversary of … Continue reading
In the last two months, eleven wooden fishing vessels have drifted ashore from the Sea of Japan on the Japanese coast. On board were 25 badly decomposed bodies. The vessels contained nets and fishing gear and are believed to have come from … Continue reading
The words “blue dragon” and “sea slug” do not seem to go together. The image of a dragon, of any color, and a slug just do not seem to overlap. Nevertheless, the sea slug glaucus atlanticus known as the blue … Continue reading
Happy Thanksgiving! As a “Throwback Thursday” — Thanksgiving edition, here is a short video of the voyage of the Mayflower II across the Atlantic in 1957, under the command of Captain Alan Villiers. Voyage of the Mayflower II, 1957 … Continue reading
This weekend the US Coast Guard recovered 10,000 gallons of benzene from the wreck of a tank barge that sank 78 years ago in Lake Erie. The Coast Guard has pumped the first of 8 tanks on the wrecked barge. In … Continue reading
Great news from the SS United States Conservancy. At the beginning of October, the 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 … Continue reading
Around 1847, Henry Manning, a London carpenter, started building houses in components that could be easily stowed on ships and reassembled by emigrants on the other side of an ocean. Several hundred “Manning cottages” were shipped to Australia. It turns … Continue reading
Scientists have reported the largest whale stranding on record — 337 dead whales were discovered in a remote fiord in the Patagonia, southern Chile. The discovery was made using aerial and satellite photography last June but was first leaked the Chilean … Continue reading