The Battle of Leyte Gulf was fought seventy-five years ago this week between the US and Australian navies and the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was the largest naval battle of World War II and by some standards the largest naval … Continue reading
Category Archives: History
The RV Petrel has located the wreckage of the Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi, sunk in the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The ship is the second of two sunken Japanese carriers that the Petrel has located two days apart. … Continue reading
The Long Beach Bar Light was built in 1871 as a “screwpile” lighthouse on the North Fork of Eastern Long Island, off Orient, New York. Because a screwpile lighthouse is a lighthouse that stands on thin piles that are screwed … Continue reading
When Simeon Lowell moved his boat-building business to Amesbury, Massachusetts in 1793, I wonder whether he could have possibly imagined that the boat shop would still be producing boats, dories, and skiffs 226 years later. Lowell’s Boat Shop is the … Continue reading
Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, died almost exactly a year ago. Nevertheless, his passion for underwater archeology lives on in the operation of the Research Vessel Petrel, which is fully funded by Allen’s estate. The ship’s mission is to … Continue reading
One open question about the Bronze Age in the Middle East was where the tin was sourced. Bronze is an alloy of primarily copper and tin. Recently, scientists identified the surprising source of tin ingots found in three shipwrecks off … Continue reading
Civilian divers were on an archeological dive on the London, a Royal Navy ship built-in 1656 which exploded and sank in 1665 in the Thames Estuary. They were shocked to find a large World War II bomb in the wreck. … Continue reading
The recent activation by TRANSCOM of 28 cargo ships, makes it a good time to take a look back at eight iconic shps from the 1970s still in service today. When I was a young student of naval architecture at … Continue reading
Here is a wholly random question. When and where was William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet first performed on shipboard? The first recorded shipboard performance of Hamlet, and one of the earlier performances anywhere, was in September 1607 on the East India Company … Continue reading
More evidence that the first travelers to the Americas may have been sailors. The classic theory of the arrival of early people in North America was the Clovis model. The theory was that early humans migrated to North America by … Continue reading
I recently came across a reference for a “nocturnal for both bears.” It sounded, at first, like a piece of music written by Mussorgsky or perhaps Prokofiev, which it isn’t. It is a device used for telling time at night … Continue reading
Recent video of the extremely well-preserved wreck of Franklin’s ship Terror may shed new light on the many mysteries of Franklin’s lost expedition. In 1845, Captain Sir John Franklin departed England in command of two specially outfitted ships, Erebus and … Continue reading
Given all the economic damage being done by needless trade wars, it seems worthwhile to recall the ship that opened the trade with the United States’ first trading partner, China. The new nation had won the Revolutionary War but had … Continue reading
Apparently, Monday was World Photography Day. In its honor, a bit belatedly, here is a photo of Brunel’s revolutionary ship, SS Great Britain, taken in 1844. Not only is it believed to be the first photograph of the Great Britain, but … Continue reading
Sad news reported by ClassicSailboats.org. The 114-year-old sailing yacht Iolaire was lost off Ibiza in late July. She ran ashore after an uncontrolled jibe and sank. The crew escaped without injury. Iolaire, previously owned for over half a century by … Continue reading
Today is “National Rum Day” in the United States. Why? Why not? In observation of the day, it seems worthwhile to consider the role of rum at sea. Before there was rum, there was water. The problem with water was … Continue reading
Forty years ago today, on the third day of the 605-mile Fastnet Race, an unexpectedly strong storm struck the fleet with tragic results. The fleet of 303 sailing yachts had set off on August 11,1979 in clear weather with calm … Continue reading
For Throw Back Thursday (TBT) and in belated honor of yesterday’s National Lighthouse Day, here is a repost from several years ago about Hamilton’s lighthouse. The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, marking the shoals which have become known as the “graveyard of … Continue reading
At about 9AM on January 15, 1942, the British tanker Coimbra, bound from Bayonne, NJ for Halifax, laden with 8,038 tons of lubricating oil, sank after being struck by two torpedoes fired by the German submarine U-123 off the southern shore … Continue reading
Coast Guard Day in the United States is this Sunday, August 4th, commemorating the founding of the U. S. Coast Guard as the Revenue Marine on August 4, 1790, by the Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. On the ex-USCG … Continue reading