Just as preparations for moving the world’s oldest surviving clipper ship, the City of Adelaide, to her namesake city in Australia, are getting underway, Peter Maddison, a former councillor from Sunderland, where the ship was built, has occupied the old clipper, … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
Last April we posted, Slavery at Sea ? Abuse of Sailors on New Zealand Chartered Fishing Vessels. Secret papers reveal the government has allowed fishermen from poor countries to be exploited in New Zealand waters. Workers are fishing in rusting boats turned … Continue reading
Last week we posted about a report by to the Russian magazine Vlast that claimed that “Russia [was] … on the verge of the largest man-made disaster since Chernobyl” when a fire broke out on December 29th, 2011 on the K-84 Ekaterinburg, a … Continue reading
The Charles W. Morgan was launched in 1841. She is America’s last surviving wooden whaleship and is the “crown jewel” of the Mystic Seaport Museum collection. She has been undergoing restoration at the Henry B. DuPont Preservation Shipyard at Mystic Seaport … Continue reading
The 15th Annual Fisher Poets Gathering is underway in Astoria, Oregon. As the name suggests, it is a gathering where poets of the sea swap verse, music and stories. Men and women tied to the fishing industry share original poems, … Continue reading
Matt Rutherford set out from Annapolis, Maryland last June 11th with an audacious goal. He intended to sail single-handed entirely around the Americas in a 27′ Albin Vega. He planned to sail a counterclockwise loop up the East Coast, cross the … Continue reading
Fifty two years ago, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and oceanographer Jacques Piccard dove to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the bathyscaphe Trieste. They were the first, and so far, the only humans to have ventured to the deepest … Continue reading
Last week we posted about “Rum Running,” a new documentary which was broadcast last weekend on CBCs “Land and Sea.” It is now online and definitely worth watching. It is a fascinating look at when many sailors in Nova Scotia stopped fishing and became international smugglers during Prohibition in the … Continue reading
The Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine documents the rich and deep maritime history of the region and the town that was famous for its ship captains. The museum has a wonderful set of on-line, searchable, photography collections documenting the area’s ships, … Continue reading
The Pacific Ocean is indeed the world’s largest ocean. It is hard to grasp just how many fisherman from the myriad of islands in the Pacific become lost, are carried away by a storm, break down or run out of … Continue reading
The presumed death toll remains at 32 in the sinking of the Costa Concordia. Today divers located eight more bodies, bringing the number of known dead to 25 while the number of missing and presumed dead dropped to 7. Only … Continue reading
Within the next day or so, two Spanish Air Force C-130 transport planes will land at Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base to load 17 tons of gold and silver coins and other artifacts recovered from the wreck of the Spanish Navy’s Nuestra … Continue reading
Video shot by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), roughly a month after the ship ran aground, shows that the Costa Concordia is not sitting evenly on the bottom. Instead, the 950′ long ship is perched perilously on two rocky outcroppings at the bow … Continue reading
An inflatable fishing boat has survived an attack by a 7 meter long great white shark off Strandfontein, South Africa. The fisherman were fishing for smooth hound sharks, which great whites consider to be very tasty. As reported by IOL … Continue reading
PortSide New York is one of the absolutely best waterfront educational organizations in New York harbor. Centered around the historic coastal tanker Mary A.Whalen, PortSide has sponsored a wide range of great programs ranging from activities for kids and adults, to hosting … Continue reading
In the United States, today is celebrated as Washington’s Birthday, also widely known as Presidents Day. On this the official day of celebration of his birthday, it seems worthwhile to look back on General George Washington’s navy of 1775 and … Continue reading
Two very interesting projects involving commercial sail from the Traditional Sail Professionals Linked-in Group. In Brittany, Avel Marine‘s Project Grand Largue is designing and testing auxiliary sailing rigs for existing fishing vessels. The design features a bipod mast and easily handled sails. The rig has … Continue reading
These are busy days in ocean rowing. The Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge has finishing up and the Bouvet Guyane Solo Atlantic Rowing Race 2012 is well underway. There have been races across the Indian Ocean and races are scheduled for the Pacific. It … Continue reading
The schooner Ernestina, Ex. Effie M.Morrissey, was built in 1894 for the Gloucester fishing fleet. Under Captain Bob Bartlett she sailed to within 600 miles of the North Pole, and later brought immigrants to the U.S. under the power of … Continue reading
Three stories this weekend of oil spills, a successful oil transfer and opportunities lost in mitigating a spill. Two barges collided on the Mississippi River on Friday upriver from New Orleans. A roughly 3,500 barrel capacity double hulled tank barge suffered damage … Continue reading