In honor of Black History Month, an updated repost about the first African-American pilot in the US Navy, Jesse L. Brown. The story goes that when young Jesse Leroy Brown worked in the cotton fields of Mississippi beside his sharecropper … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
For several years, we have followed the search for and the ultimate discovery of the schooner Clotilda, believed to be the last ship to carry enslaved Africans to the United States. Now, descendants of the survivors are commemorating the discovery … Continue reading
Officials from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) have confirmed that Brig Niagara, Pennsylvania’s Flagship, will sail the Great Lakes again this summer. Erie News Now reports that because of concerns over COVID-19, Niagara hasn’t sailed since 2019 — … Continue reading
In late January, we posted about how the cruise ship Crystal Symphony, which had been bound for Miami, suddenly changed course and diverted to the Bahamas, after a United States federal judge ordered the ship seized over a lawsuit regarding … Continue reading
The government of Iceland has announced an end to commercial whaling by 2024. “There are few justifications to authorize whale hunting beyond 2024,” when current quotas expire, Minister of Fisheries and Agriculture Svandís Svavarsdóttir said in an op-ed in Friday’s … Continue reading
The Dutch-owned Margiris supertrawler, the second largest fishing vessel in the world, dumped more than 100,000 dead blue whiting in the Bay of Biscay off France’s Atlantic coast near La Rochelle, last Thursday. The Pelagic Freeze-Trawler Association (PFA) — which … Continue reading
Last Wednesday, it was widely reported that Rotterdam would dismantle the center span of a historic railroad bridge to allow the 417-foot-long, three-masted sailing yacht built for billionaire Jeff Bezos to access the sea. The fully rigged superyacht apparently has … Continue reading
In early January, we posted about two memorial Antarctic expeditions on the 100th anniversary of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s death. One of the expeditions, Endurance22, organized by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, hopes to locate, survey, and film the wreck of … Continue reading
Congratulations to rowers Jessica Oliver and Charlotte Harris who finished five days ahead of their nearest rivals in the pairs category of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge when they rowed into Antigua on January 26 after starting from La Gomera … Continue reading
Here is a story well worth retelling; an updated repost in honor of Black History Month; the remarkable story of Robert Smalls. On May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls, a 23-year-old slave, who served as the pilot of the Confederate armed transport, CSS Planter, … Continue reading
On Sunday, 30 seconds before the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was due to take off from Florida, the launch was scrubbed when a cruise ship sailed into the launch hazard area. Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas ventured into the … Continue reading
Russia planned on holding naval exercises off the coast of Ireland. Fishermen from County Cork on Ireland’s southern coast saw the exercises as a threat to their livelihood and threatened to continue fishing as usual, despite the threatened use of … Continue reading
A ground-breaking study suggests that bottom trawling, a fishing practice in which heavy nets are dragged along the seabed, may be releasing more than a billion metric tons of carbon every year, which is comparable to carbon dioxide produced by … Continue reading
Iceberg A68a, once the world’s largest iceberg, is now gone, broken up into chunks too small to track. While the iceberg is recent history, scientists are still studying its impact. In 2017, a massive iceberg broke off from Antarctica’s Larsen … Continue reading
In February 2021, researchers on the German research vessel Polarstern discovered, quite by accident, the largest fish breeding area ever found near the Filchner Ice Shelf in the south of the Antarctic Weddell Sea. A towed camera system filmed thousands … Continue reading
It is cold here on the west bank of the Hudson River. Really cold. For most sailors that means bundling up and waiting for spring. For a special breed of hearty yachtsmen and women, the weather is perfect for sailing … Continue reading
The Nippon Foundation in partnership with Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., and Shin Nihonkai Ferry Co., Ltd., successfully completed a demonstration test of the world’s first fully autonomous ship navigation systems on a large car ferry, conducted on the Iyonada Sea … Continue reading
SkyNews reports that three British women, one of whom has incurable cervical cancer, have shattered the world record for rowing across the Atlantic in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. Kat Cordiner and teammates Abby Johnston and Charlotte Irving arrived in … Continue reading
The Crystal Symphony left from Miami on January 8 on a two-week cruise and was supposed to return to the same port on Saturday. After a United States federal judge ordered the ship seized over a lawsuit regarding unpaid fuel … Continue reading
Jean-Jacques Savin, a 75-year-old French adventurer, described his attempt to row across the Atlantic Ocean solo from Portugal to the Caribbean, as his “last challenge at sea.” Sadly, that challenge ended in tragedy. Savin was found dead inside his boat … Continue reading