Congratulations to Murdoch McGregor, who was named Sailor of the Year 2021 at the British Yachting Awards. At the age of 82, Murdoch McGregor completed a 1,900-mile trip around the UK in June. The 80-day-long solo voyage in his 23-foot … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
Happy New Year to all! Here is a poem by Cicely Fox Smith, from Full Sail: More Sea Songs and Ballads, sung as a ballad by Larry Kaplan. New Year by Cicely Fox Smith … Continue reading
Tonight, many will watch in person, online, or on television, as a jeweled ball drops in Times Square in New York City at exactly midnight to mark the arrival of the New Year, 2022. In past years, the crowd in … Continue reading
We recently posted about how on the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, over 1,000 military families have been forced from their homes and suffered illness by drinking water apparently contaminated by petroleum from a leaking, World War II … Continue reading
Yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC) updated its color-coded list of ships that tracks where passengers or crew have tested positive for Covid-19. The list is updated multiple times a week. The agency currently identifies 86 ships where the … Continue reading
Kites may be returning to provide wind-assisted propulsion to commercial ships. In January of next year, the 5,200 dwt Ro/Ro Ville de Bordeaux, chartered by Airbus and operated by Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, will begin testing a 500-square-meter half-size demonstration version … Continue reading
Seventeen years ago, Hurricane Ivan destroyed an oil-production platform in the Gulf of Mexico. The wells associated with the platform have been leaking ever since and may be one of the largest and longest-running offshore spills in US history. Now, … Continue reading
An interesting article from the New York Times — In 2019, a team of researchers confirmed that a wooden wreck resting in the murky waters of the Mobile River in Alabama was the schooner Clotilda, the last known ship to … Continue reading
Home for Christmas — Old Style, a poem by Cicely Fox Smith, performed by Daniel Kelly from his Ukulele Christmas Singalong 2021. Home for Christmas – Old Style – Ukulele Christmas Singalong … Continue reading
An updated holiday season repost. Saint Nicholas, long associated with Christmas and gift-giving, is also the patron saint of ships and sailors. The St. Nicholas Center notes: “Many ports, most notably in Greece, have icons of Nicholas, surrounded by ex-votos … Continue reading
Last week, just before the start of the third race in the SailGP Australian Sail Grand Prix in Sydney, Ben Ainslie’s Great Britain Team collided with Nathan Outteridge’s Japan Team. The crew onboard the British F50 were focussing on closing … Continue reading
Recently, the Washington Post featured a profile of CJ Perez, an 18-year-old female sailor who recently joined the US team of SailGP. SailGP is an international sailing competition using high-performance F50 foiling catamarans, where teams compete across a season of … Continue reading
Whether as a holiday gift or just great reading for the New Year, check out the latest nautical fiction from Old Salt Press authors Alaric Bond, Joan Druett, Antione Vanner, and Seymour Hamilton. The Seeds of War, (The Fighting Sail … Continue reading
Last Tuesday, Neal Moore, 50, paddled his 16-foot red Old Town Penobscot canoe into New York harbor completing an epic 7,500-mile journey across America in over 22 months, traveling through 22 states, while paddling on 22 rivers. For 675 days, … Continue reading
In 2014, we posted about the deployment of a prototype 30-kilowatt-class Laser Weapon System (LAWS) on the USS Ponce, an Austin-class amphibious transport dock, for field testing in the Persian Gulf. Last week, the Navy announced that the amphibious transport … Continue reading
On June 21, 1898, HMS Albion sat on the launching ways at the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company at Blackwall. The launching that would soon end in tragedy was also one of the first disasters to be captured on film. … Continue reading
In early November, we posted that the United States Maritime Academy at King’s Point had paused Sea Year, a program that sent cadets to sea aboard commercial ships, after a female midshipman at the school shared an account in September of … Continue reading
The three-volume The Principall Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation, written by Richard Hakluyt in 1599, and published bound as two books, were only expected to sell for between £3,000 and £5,000. Instead, they sold at an … Continue reading
Yesterday, we posted a grim post The Threat from Thwaites, Antarctica’s Riskiest Glacier about the potential collapse of the glacier’s ice shelf within a few years resulting in a rise in global sea levels by several feet. While researching the … Continue reading
At a meeting of the American Geophysical Union yesterday, scientists from The International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) discussed the rapid retreat of Thwaites glacier and the implications that will have on our planet in the coming years. Thwaites, often referred … Continue reading