Severe weather off the east coast of Australia has left beaches in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales and on the Gold and Sunshine coasts covered in a thick layer of sea foam, attracting crowds of curious locals, … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
At roughly this point in the last sailing of the Vendee Globe in 2016-2017, 5 boats had been forced to retire after being damaged by collisions with UFOs, unidentified floating objects. In this year’s race, 18 of the 33 boats … Continue reading
Sail-assist propulsion on commercial ships is developing rapidly, featuring a range of technologies including rotor sails, rigid wing sails, ventilated turbo sails, and even conventional fabric sails. One thing that all these rigs have in common, however, is that when … Continue reading
Today, steel was cut for the first National Security Multi-Mission Vessel (NSMV) at Philly Shipyard, Inc. The NSMV is designed to be a state-of-the-art training vessel for America’s state maritime academies. The ship will also be available to support humanitarian … Continue reading
A year ago we posted about the innovative ideas and products developed by the Dutch firm, eConowind. They have developed a Ventfoil, a fixed airfoil-shaped spar with an internal fan that uses boundary layer suction to generate thrust. Ventfoils can … Continue reading
Today, the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine have begun to be distributed in the United States. It seems like a good time to look back at the voyage of the orphan boys in the vaccine ship that sailed … Continue reading
This is a wonderful half-hour documentary hosted by Tom Cunliffe about Jolie Brise. Jolie Brise is a gaff-rigged pilot cutter/racing yacht built and launched by the Albert Paumelle Yard in Le Havre in 1913 to a design by Alexandre Pâris. … Continue reading
Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL) has reached a coal transport deal with Tohoku Electric Power Co., Inc., which will use a new 99,000 DWT collier equipped with a retractable wing sail propulsion system, known as the Wind Challenger. Construction of … Continue reading
The US Navy has selected Captain Amy Bauernschmidt as the first woman to command a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Capt. Bauernschmidt was selected for the position by the fiscal year 2022 aviation major command screen board. It has not been announced … Continue reading
Yesterday afternoon saw unusual traffic on the Hudson River in New York’s inner harbor. A humpback whale was seen swimming in the Hudson, off Pier 84, on Monday afternoon. The whale is no stranger to New York waters. Gotham Whale‘s … Continue reading
Last week, the container ship ONE Apus lost or had damaged over 1,900 containers in a storm in the Pacific. The lost or damaged containers representing close to 25% of the ship’s cargo. The casualty represents more containers than are … Continue reading
An interrupted broadcast of a football game, a newsbreak during a performance by the New York Philharmonic, a weather report followed by an announcement from President Roosevelt that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. Reports of attacks on the Philippines. Here … Continue reading
The one-year-old, 14,000 TEU capacity container ship, ONE Apus, has set a dubious new record. It encountered severe weather about 1,600 nautical miles northwest of Hawaii while sailing from Yantian in China to Long Beach, California. In the violent storm, … Continue reading
On December 2, Initiatives-Coeur, being sailed by Sam Davies off South Africa in the Vendee Globe Race, came to a crashing halt. Davies describes the collision: “ It was as if I had run aground on a rock at the … Continue reading
Of the 33 IMOCAs which started the Vendee Globe Race, four have officially abandoned. Two, Hugo Boss and Arkea Paprec, were damaged after striking Unidentified Floating Objects (UFOs). A third boat, Sam Davies’ Initiatives Coeur was also damaged by a … Continue reading
Unidentified Floating Objects (UFOs) continue to take their toll on the Vendee Globe Race fleet. Yesterday, Sam Davies, sailing Initiatives Coeur, and Sébastien Simon, sailing Arkea Paprec, each hit UFOs which seriously damaged their boats. Davies reports: “I was sailing … Continue reading
The US Navy has decided to scrap the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard, which burned for more than four days this summer in San Diego. The cost and time required to rebuild the gutted ship would be simply too great to … Continue reading
High drama on the high seas. Kevin Escoffier was in third place in the Vendee Globe Race, sailing in the “Roaring Forties” about 840 miles south of Cape Town, when his boat PRB broke in half. He sent a brief … Continue reading
For the last four years, the “Lost Colony” replica 16th-century ship Elizabeth II has been stuck in Manteo, NC. The ship, with a draft of 8 feet, has not been able to leave the harbor because the channel has not … Continue reading
After leading the fleet in the early days of the race, Alex Thomson, sailing on the IMCO 60 Hugo Boss, has withdrawn from the Vendee Globe single-handed around the world race. Thomson has diverted to Cape Town, South Africa after … Continue reading