Rebuilding a historic ship has got to be part craftsmanship, part engineering, and part treasure hunt. In the case of the oldest surviving sailing whale ship, the Charles W. Morgan at Mystic, CT, one of the challenges has been finding good quality shipbuilding timber. … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
The US Postal Service is issuing a set of four stamps honoring the US Merchant Marine throughout its history. The four stamps feature a clipper ship modeled after the Sovereign of the Seas, launched in 1852; an auxiliary steamship, based on the ships of the Collins Line; a … Continue reading
Photographer Scott Haefner and a few of his friends snuck aboard ships in the Suisan Bay Reserve Fleet near San Francisco, CA and photographed and documented the rusting fleet. Fascinating images. The Mail Online ran an article today about his work. For more images, see Haefner’s site: … Continue reading
On a hazy summer’s morning I happened to see the topsail schooner Unicorn leave the gas dock at Liberty Landing marina on the Hudson River. The Unicorn is a particularly lovely topsail schooner converted from a North Sea fishing … Continue reading
The Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Invincible was sold to Turkish scrappers last February. Now bids are open for the sale of HMS Ark Royal. While scrapping seems a likely outcome the tender allows that “alternatively the vessel may be purchased for re-use/refurbishment for non-warlike purposes.” … Continue reading
June 8th is officially World Ocean Day, “a global celebration of ocean conservation,” sponsored by the United Nations since 2008, and coordinated internationally by The Ocean Project and the World Ocean Network. The theme for this year and next is : Youth – … Continue reading
And speaking of “music of the sea”, an intriguing story from Australia. When Matt Waller, a tour operator in Neptune Bay, Australia, attached speakers to shark cages and played the heavy metal band AC/DC, he discovered that the great white sharks became … Continue reading
The 32nd Annual Sea Music Festival at Mystic Seaport starts this Thursday night, June 9th, and runs through Sunday, June 12th. More than 5,000 people gather each year to hear Mystic Seaport’s Chantey Staff along with a solid core of performers … Continue reading
Traditionally, ships in port use auxiliary generators to power shipboard electrical systems. APL, the Singapore based container lines, is now going “cold-iron,” shutting down the auxiliary generators on their ships docking when calling on Oakland, California and using shore power instead to meet the their … Continue reading
Archeologists cannot say for sure what the lead pipe which penetrates the hull of a nearly 2,000 years old wreck of a Roman ship off the town of Grado in Italy was used for. Some think that it was a supply … Continue reading
June 25th of this year is being celebrated as the “Day of the Seafarer.” We will be joining with other bloggers and journalists from around the world to say “thank you” to the world’s 1.5 million seafarers for the invaluable and often overlooked contribution that … Continue reading
The 31-meter Turanor, a catamaran yacht fitted with 536 square meters of photovoltaic panels, has successfully sailed halfway around the world, from Monaco to Brisbane, Australia, powered solely by the sun. The Turanor‘s captain and crew are half way toward … Continue reading
Dead zones are areas where there is too little oxygen in the water to support fish and other aquatic life. They are usually caused by fertilizers and/or other organic materials causing algae blooms which deplete the oxygen in the water. Dead zones in the … Continue reading
Until I saw the video I didn’t grasp just how large this anchor is. It is believed to be from the pirate Blackbeard‘s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, which ran aground in 1718 while trying to enter Old Topsail Inlet in North Carolina, now known … Continue reading
Rear Adm. Sandra Stosz has been named as the 40th Superintendent of the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Ct. She is the first woman to lead one of the nation’s five military service academies. New leader takes the … Continue reading
Last July we posted about divers finding intact bottles of champagne, believed to date from between 1782 and 1788, in the hold of a shipwreck on the Baltic seabed. In November, a bottle of the “world’s oldest champagne” was opened and tasted by … Continue reading
A recent report by Greenpeace directly contradicts Japanese government assurances that the radiation in the water near the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is being dispersed and diluted over time. Significant levels of radioactive contamination have been recorded in local seafood. Greenpeace: Japan nuclear plant radiation accumulating … Continue reading
If a group of birds are a flock, a group of whales is a pod, and fish gather in schools, what would one call a group of Noah’s arks? A fleet would be the easy answer, but that somehow doesn’t … Continue reading
On June 1, 1813, one hundred and ninety eight years ago today, the British frigate HMS Shannon defeated and captured the USS Chesapeake in single ship combat. Captain James Lawrence on the Chesapeake was mortally wounded during the battle. His … Continue reading
The good news is that the events were more like the Carnival Splendor than the Titanic. No one died. No ships were lost to icebergs. Nevertheless, there was high drama, bordering on the operatic, on the cruise ship MSC Opera on its … Continue reading