Oliver Hazard Perry‘s message to his superiors was brief: “We have met the enemy and they are ours; two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop.” Perry’s victory at the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813, was one … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
The two headlines in the BBC are from the same day and posted only an hour apart. The first reads “World’s oldest clipper ship transported to Australia.” The second – “City of Adelaide clipper ship export ban sought.” Both … Continue reading
It is around 13 feet long, appears to have horns and stinks to high heaven. A carcass washed ashore on Luis Siret Beach in Villaricos, Spain which is being widely referred to a “sea monster.” Perhaps a bit small to … Continue reading
Oliver Hazard Perry was born near Newport, Rhode Island on August 23,1785. He died of yellow fever on his 34th birthday in 1819. Perry went sea as a midshipman at the age of 13. He was given his first command, … Continue reading
Is pod propulsion the best or worse thing to ever happen to cruise ships? Celebrity Cruise Line just cancelled the cruises for the rest of season in Alaska on the Celebrity Millennium due to failures in its pods. It had … Continue reading
A Russian military Zubr-type hovercraft made a surprise arrival at a crowded beach recently in what the Russian defense ministry described as a “tactical mission in a military owned area.” Navy hovercraft surprises sunbathers as it lands on Russian beach … Continue reading
Maine has been experiencing a lobster boom. After catching an average of 20 million pounds of lobster per year for decades, Maine’s 5,500 lobster-men landed a record 125 million pounds of lobsters last year. Will this boom, however, end in a … Continue reading
In May, we posted about the discovery of a rare Howell torpedo by Navy dolphins in the Pacific off San Diego. The Howell torpedo was the first self-propelled torpedo in United States Navy service. Only fifty were built and, until the … Continue reading
In each of the first three races of the the Louis Vuitton finals to determine which challenger will compete for the America’s Cup, the race has been decided by mechanical failure. The series now stands with Emirates Team New Zealand, 2 … Continue reading
Two years ago we posted about the efforts by a Bournemouth University marine archaeology team to save the a mysterious ship known only as the Swash Channel Wreck, after its location off the Dorset coast. The team is now … Continue reading
In the first two races of the Louis Vuitton finals to determine which challenger will compete against the Team Oracle for the America’s Cup, both races were determined by which boat didn’t break before crossing the finish line. In race one, Emirates Team … Continue reading
When the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition‘s three-masted barquentine, Endurance, was crushed in the Antarctic ice, expedition leader, Sir Ernest Shackleton, allowed each man to take off only two pounds of possessions, including their boots. The only exception Shackleton made was Leonard Hussey’s banjo, which weighed … Continue reading
Captain Richard Bailey recently posted a sketch by Scott Kennedy of what the SSV Oliver Hazard Perry will look like under sail. Click here or on the thumbnail to go to the blog post. “Scott has made paintings and drawings of … Continue reading
The press recently has been full of headlines about Ernest Shackleton‘s ill-fated ship, Endurance. The Christian Science Monitor asks, “What happened to Shackleton’s sunken ship?” Radio New Zealand answers the question with “Shackleton’s ship could still be in good condition.” … Continue reading
The headline in Live Science sounds like the premise for a bad SyFi channel made-for-cable movie – Testicle-Biting Fish Invading Denmark. It turns out that a Danish fisherman caught, what is believed to be, a red-bellied pacu, an omnivorous South American freshwater … Continue reading