A 150′ foot long fishing trawler carried away last March by the tsunami off the east coast of Japan has been spotted drifting in the Pacific Ocean, 120 miles off Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada. About 5 million tons of debris … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
The waters around Tampa Bay may appear to step back in time tomorrow as the World War II Victory ship SS American Victory leaves the dock for her first cruise in nearly three years. The critically acclaimed “Re-Live History Cruise” will feature reenactors, … Continue reading
Divers have found five more bodies in the wreckage of the Costa Concordia which ran aground and sank on January 13, 2012 off the island of Giglio, Italy. The presumed death toll remains at 32, with only two of the roughly 4,200 passengers and … Continue reading
If HMS Hermione, commissioned in 1783, became a symbol of Royal Navy cruelty and bloody mutiny, the French light frigate l’ Hermione, commissioned in 1779, would become a symbol of American independence. On March 21, 1780, the 23 year old Gilbert du … Continue reading
There were two frigates, both named Hermione, both launched within a few years of each other. The British HMS Hermione would become a symbol of cruelty and bloody mutiny, whereas the French Hermione would carry the young Gilbert Motier, better known as … Continue reading
Thanks to Dexter Donham for pointing out this trailer for Vanishing Sail, a documentary still under production and expected to be out in 2013. Filmed in the Grenadines, Vanishing Sail looks at the sailing vessels that once were both the lifeblood of Caribbean commerce. From … Continue reading
The twenty eight year old bulk carrier Oriental Nicety was recently sold for scrap for $16 million. The ship was originally a tanker and has four owners and as many names. She is best known as the Exxon Valdez, the single hull … Continue reading
Earlier this month, 90 year old Winnie Breegle spoke at the 2012 Women’s History Month celebration at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Panama City, FL. She had quite a story to tell. Not only was she a WAVE (Woman Accepted for Volunteer Emergency … Continue reading
We posted previously about “Pirates and Privateers,” a documentary on CBC’s Land and Sea. The 20 minute documentary is now available on-line. It presents a distinctive view of piracy and privateering from the perspective of the Canadian Maritimes, not often seen by those of us … Continue reading
The luxury cruise ship Silver Shadow may have lived up to its name on Friday morning when it collided with a container ship in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. There were no reported injuries on the cruise ship, though passengers reported being knocked off their … Continue reading
James Cameron wants to dive to deepest part of the ocean – the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, 35,800 feet (5.8 nautical miles) below the surface. To do so, he plans on using a single person submersible designed to dive … Continue reading
Alan Villiers was the great chronicler of the last days of sail. In 1918, at the age of 15, he left home in Melborne, Australia to go to sea. His first love would always be the full rigged sailing ships … Continue reading
In 1904 and 1905, archaeologists Haakon Shetelig and Gabriel Gustafson excavated a burial mound at the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold county, Norway that contained a well-preserved Viking ship. The Osberg ship was reconstructed and has became Norway’s largest tourist … Continue reading
Coelacanths apparently evolved in their current form around 400 million years ago. They were thought to have gone extinct 65 million years ago, during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction – that is, until 1938 when a fisherman in South Africa pulled one up … Continue reading
Way back in 1984, I worked for Malcom McLean’s United States Lines, when the 4,400 TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) containership, the American New York, was delivered. She was this first of McLean’s fleet of “Jumbo Econships.” In those days, he … Continue reading