Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia, who steered his ship into a reef off the island of Giglio and then delayed the order to evacuate the sinking ship, resulting in or contributing to the deaths of 32 passengers and crew, was … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
The Sea Kayaker Magazine blog is reporting that Derek Hutchinson, often referred to as the father of sea kayaking, died on Wednesday at the age of 79. Hutchinson literally wrote the book on sea kayaking, even before it was universally called … Continue reading
Congratulations to Richard Bailey who has been appointed captain of the SSV Oliver Hazard Perry, which, when commissioned next summer, will be among the largest and most sophisticated school ships built in America in recent decades. The Oliver Hazard Perry Rhode Island organization … Continue reading
This will be a great couple of weeks around New York harbor for lovers of the music of the sea. “Sailing to Staten Island: The Immigrant Experience” is a free concert Saturday night at the Noble Maritime Collection at Snug … Continue reading
As we have posted about previously, the greatest threat to many species of endangered whales is from ship strikes and entanglement in fishing nets. The dead 50′ fin whale that drifted into Boston harbor recently is a reminder of this. … Continue reading
Video surveillance footage on the dock shows a group of people boarding the 130′ three masted schooner Silva in Halifax harbor at about 1:30 am, early Monday morning. They raised one sail and untied all but one mooring line. Around 5am, the remaining line parted and the … Continue reading
The brigantine Robert C. Seamans, owned and operated by Sea Education Association (SEA) is off on a 37 day Plastics at SEA: North Pacific Expedition 2012 into the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” to examine the effects of plastic debris, including debris generated by … Continue reading
Update: The death toll from the ferry collision has risen to 39 after a nine year old girl, Tsui Hoi-ying, who had been of life support in a Hong Kong hospital, is reported to have died. It only took about … Continue reading
Yesterday we posted about Nannie Dee, the erotic yet frightening witch figurehead on the composite clipper Cutty Sark. The figurehead on Galveston’s tall ship, the 1887 barque Eliisa, is quite different. When the ship was restored in the early 1980s, she was … Continue reading
The figurehead on the Cutty Sark is dramatic – a woman, all in white, wearing a flowing robe which leaves her upper body uncovered. He face is fixed in a scowl or grimace and she is reaching out with one … Continue reading
For close to two hundred years, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was a center for shipbuilding. These days the sprawling site is home to a museum as well as a wide range of light industry. It is also host to quite … Continue reading
Narratively|NYC is a new web magazine with a focus, as the name implies, on narrative journalism involving New York City. For the past week, Narratively|NYC has run new features each day on New York harbor. Worth checking out. Thanks to Carolina Salguero at … Continue reading
The Argentine Navy training ship Libertad and her crew of over 200, docked in port of Tema, Ghana, were seized by a court order obtained by NML Capital Ltd., a subsidiary of Elliot Capital Management, a hedge fund run by the US billionaire Paul Singer. … Continue reading
We have previously posted about unexploded bombs from World War II being exposed by drought along the Rhine and Mosel Rivers in Germany, about similar bombs being found in the port of Marseille and about World War II phosphorus munitions burning two … Continue reading
After a multi-year, £50 million restoration, interrupted by a near catastrophic fire, the composite clipper ship, Cutty Sark, reopened last April. Not everyone was impressed. Andrew Gilligan, the Telegraph‘s London Editor, called the restoration “a clucking, Grade A, … turkey.” In September, the British architectural trade journal, Building Design, awarded … Continue reading
At least 36 people drowned when a ferry carrying more than 120 collided with another vessel and sank last night around 8:30 pm local time near Lamma island off Hong Kong. The ferry was taking staff and family members of … Continue reading
There is a wonderful discussion on the International Guild of Knot Tyers Forum titled “Knots on Mars! (and a few thoughts on NASA’s knots)” by Dfred. I had never given much thought as to how cable bundles on satellites and space craft … Continue reading
On March 29, 2010, the Panamanian-flagged ro/ro MV Iceburg 1 was hijacked by pirates about 10 nautical miles off the port of Aden, Yemen. Her crew of 24, of which 22 are believed to have survived, have been held hostage for 29 months. The … Continue reading
The schooner Bluenose II has been launched in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The local news outlets referred to the event as the “relaunching” of the schooner though as the hull was completely replaced and only some portion of the Douglas fir deck was re-used, it … Continue reading
An interesting article on the day after Nelson’s birthday – after using synthetic mastic, a modern caulking material commonly used in yachts, for the last fifteen year without success, the folks restoring Nelson’s HMS Victory have returned to using hemp oakum … Continue reading