A Christmas repost from a few years ago. Spirobranchus giganteus are beautiful underwater creatures, only about 1.5 inches tall, which look like tiny decorated Christmas trees. They are almost too attractive to be described as what they are, tube-building polychaete … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
We hope everyone is having a joyous holiday season. Here is a repost of a beautiful version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem “Christmas at Sea,” performed by Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, better known as Sting. Sting – Christmas At Sea … Continue reading
Every year, the Christmas Ship, with the support of the US Coast Guard and volunteer groups, delivers Christmas trees to families in need in Chicago’s communities. This year was no exception, but because of the pandemic, it was a bit … Continue reading
In November we posted that the world’s largest iceberg, dubbed A68a, was drifting on a collision course with the island of South Georgia. The iceberg calved from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice-shelf in 2017. The berg weighed roughly one trillion tons … Continue reading
Ship scrapping is a slow and methodical process. A ship is typically run up on the scrapping ways, which can be a concrete platform or a sloping sandy beach. As burners cut away the upper sections of the ship, it … Continue reading
According to an ancient sailors’ legend, we are in the middle of the Halcyon days – seven days of calm on either side of the winter solstice. The legend says that the halcyon bird builds a floating nest on the … Continue reading
One of the great things about writing historical fiction is discovering odd sets of facts, often buried in the archives, that capture both the desperation and the madness of a given time. Often, as the cliche goes, you just can’t … Continue reading
On Monday night, December 21, the planets Jupiter and Saturn will appear closer together in the night sky than they have on any night since March 4, 1226. At their closest alignment, the planets will be a tenth of a … Continue reading
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
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