Happy Winter Solstice to all! In the northern hemisphere, today is the shortest day and the longest night of the year. The sun is at its southernmost point of travel, over the imaginary circle on the globe we refer to … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
The Thai navy says 31 sailors are missing after the corvette, HTMS Sukhothai, with a crew of 100 capsized and sank during a storm in the Gulf of Thailand. The ship sank around 23:30 local time Sunday (16:30 GMT) after … Continue reading
Morocco finished fourth in this year’s World Cup, becoming the first Arab and first African team to reach the semifinals in the international soccer tournament. Here is a short video of Moroccan fishermen at sea celebrating a team victory while … Continue reading
The year 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Henry B. du Pont Preservation Shipyard at the Mystic Seaport Museum, the first shipyard built specifically for preservation in the United States, and possibly the world, marking a … Continue reading
Emirates Team New Zealand, famous for winning the America’s Cup, has broken the wind-powered land speed record. Its land yacht Horonuku reached 138.2 miles per hour (222.4 km/h) in 25.3 mph winds on the dry basin of Lake Gairdner in … Continue reading
We recently posted about the rescue of two sailors and a dog from a 30′ sailboat, Atrevida II, off Cape Hatteras by the tanker Silver Muna. While the initial Coast Guard report was accurate, it was also incomplete. The initial … Continue reading
A sperm whale, estimated to be a female between three and five-years-old, died after washing up on Rockaway Beach in New York City on Tuesday. PIX11 reports that the Parks Department was told about the approximately 30-foot sperm whale near … Continue reading
On Sunday, the US Coast Guard Fifth District command center in Virginia was notified that the Atrevida II, a 30’ Catalina sloop, on a passage from Cape May, N.J. to Marathon, FL, was overdue. Onboard were Kevin Hyde, 65, and … Continue reading
On September 12, 1857, the 289-foot-long sidewheel steamer SS Central America sank in a hurricane off the US East Coast. When she sank, 425 of her 578 passengers and crew were drowned and 30,000 pounds (13,600 kg) of gold from … Continue reading
We are two years late in posting this. Nevertheless, it seems like a worthwhile bit of silliness for a Friday afternoon. Back in 2020, a deadly virus was running rampant across the globe. Performance venues and even rehearsals were shut … Continue reading
Last March, we posted about the grounding of the container ship Ever Forward near Baltimore in the Chesapeake Bay. The ship failed to make a turn in the Craighill channel and ran hard aground on a mud flat, where it … Continue reading
An interrupted broadcast of a football game, a newsbreak during a performance by the New York Philharmonic, a weather report followed by an announcement from President Roosevelt that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. Reports of attacks on the Philippines. Here … Continue reading
One hundred and five years ago today, on the morning of December 6, 1917, the French freighter SS Mont-Blanc and the SS Imo, a Norwegian ship chartered to carry relief supplies to Belgium, collided in the Narrows, a strait connecting … Continue reading
A decade after women were allowed to serve in the US Navy’s Silent Service, Lt. Cmdr. Amber Cowan has become the first woman to serve as executive officer on a submarine. Lt. Cmdr. Cowan, who joined the Navy in 2010, … Continue reading
Viking Cruises announced that their expedition cruise ship Viking Polaris was struck by a “rogue wave” in a storm off Antarctica on November 29 at 22:40 local time. The ship was sailing towards Ushuaia, Argentina. One passenger was killed by … Continue reading
When we posted about a man who had been rescued in the Gulf of Mexico by the US Coast Guard after apparently falling off the cruise ship Carnival Valor, we were convinced that there was more to the story. It … Continue reading
After seven years of reconstruction and restoration in Boothbay Harbor, ME, the historic schooner Ernestina-Morrissey returned to her home port in New Bedford, MA earlier this week. “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen the Ernestina-Morrissey sailing into New … Continue reading
When the 51,000 DWT Maltese-flagged tanker Alithina II sailed in ballast from Nigeria to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria she carried a most unusual cargo. Because she sailed in ballast and was riding high in the water, three stowaways were found … Continue reading
More news of orcas attacking sailboats in the Atlantic off the Iberian peninsula, in this case involving a sailing icon. Scuttlebutt Sailing News reports that a pod of orcas attacked Sir Robin Knox-Johnson while sailing his Farr 56 Sanjula, damaging … Continue reading
Here is a well-done short video about the schooner Wyoming, one of the largest wooden ships ever built. Built as a collier in 1909 by Percy & Small in Bath, Maine, she was capable of carrying 6000 long tons of … Continue reading