This morning was overcast and threatening rain on the West bank of the Hudson River. Fourteen years ago, on September 11, 2001, it was a sunny, clear day. A Nor’westerly wind was blowing and the air was cool and crisp. … Continue reading
Category Archives: History
In her long and varied career, the historic cutter Lilac has had many jobs. She served as a lighthouse and buoy tender — bringing supplies to lighthouse and maintaining aids to navigation. She also fought ship fires and rescued the keepers on … Continue reading
One hundred and fifteen years ago today, on September 8, 1900, the city of Galveston Texas was struck by what today would be classified as a Category 4 hurricane, with winds of 145 mph and a storm surge of 14 feet. Somewhere … Continue reading
This weekend, the 31st Annual Gloucester Schooner Festival was held, culminating in the Mayor’s Cup Schooner Race. The Esperanto Cup, representing the large schooners, was won by the schooner Columbia, built in 2014, a steel replica of the W. Starling Burgess designed … Continue reading
On July 10, 1985, agents of the French government planted mines and blew up Greenpeace‘s Rainbow Warrior in the port of Auckland, New Zealand to prevent the ship to be used to protest a planned French nuclear test in Moruroa. Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned … Continue reading
Recently, it was reported that the Prime Meridian, as marked at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, is off by 102 meters, over the length of an American football field. The Prime Meridian is the arbitrary line marking 0 degrees … Continue reading
In 2014, we posted about a German fisherman who found a 101 year old message in a bottle. It was then the oldest message ever found in a bottle. Now, a bottle containing a message that was tossed overboard between … Continue reading
In Marvel comics and movies, the mobile headquarters of the fictional intelligence/defense agency S.H.I.E.L.D. is a flying aircraft carrier, referred to as a “Helicarrier.” In the comic books, the flying aircraft carrier first appeared in 1965, which raises the obvious question — … Continue reading
Navy divers, working with the United States Army Corps of Engineers, are attempting to raise what is left of the 250′ long CSS Georgia, an ironclad warship from the Civil War, in preparation for dredging the Savannah River. The river is … Continue reading
Spirits of the Passage: Stories of the Transatlantic Slave Trade opened yesterday on board the ex-USCG cutter Lilac at Hudson River Park’s Pier 25. The exhibit explores the transatlantic slave trade through a display of nearly 150 historical objects, many salvaged from sunken … Continue reading
Last year, the wreck of a the clipper ship, Noonday, was located just west of San Francisco. There was no great mystery where the ship sank in 1863, as the submerged rock where she struck has been known as Noonday Rock ever since. … Continue reading
Divers exploring the wreck of the Gribshunden have recovered a figurehead of a sea monster with ‘lion ears and crocodile-like mouth’ which has lay on the bottom of the Baltic Sea for roughly 500 years off the coast of Ronneby in southern Sweden. … Continue reading
Today, on the 225th anniversary of George Washington signing of the legislation establishing the Revenue-Marine, the predecessor to the United States Coast Guard, President George Washington and his Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, returned to Federal Hall in New … Continue reading
On July 30, 1715 the Spanish Terra Firme and New Spain fleets, bound from Havana to Spain, were hit by a hurricane off the coast of Florida. Eleven ships were blown up on to the reefs and sank. Only one ship … Continue reading
Back in 2011, we posted a short quiz: Is Kick’em Jenny a Dutch rockabilly singer, a Dutch Celtic Symfo-Folk band or an active submarine volcano on the floor of the Caribbean Sea? The answer is yes to all three. I am not sure … Continue reading
Fifty one years ago this week, on July 23, 1964, the scallop trawler Snoopy was trawling off Currituck Sound, NC. During World War II that stretch of the coast earned the grim nickname, Torpedo Alley, when German U-boats sank nearly 400 ships in the … Continue reading
Was the wreck of three-masted bark, Annie C. Maguire, which very conveniently wrecked at Portland Head Light on Christmas Eve 1886, simply an insurance scam? It is said that the ship wrecked so close to the light that the lighthouse … Continue reading
A new musical is coming to Broadway this summer, which features a ship’s captain and stage sets with lots of ship’s rigging. It is based on the story of Captain John Newton and the song Amazing Grace. The musical is described: … Continue reading
Today I went aboard El Galeon Andalusia, at South Street Seaport. The ship is billed as “a 170 foot, 495 ton, authentic wooden replica of a galleon that was part of Spain’s West Indies fleet.” It is a intriguing ship that has … Continue reading
Last week provided a rare opportunity to glimpse over 400 years of sailing ship history in three ships, tied up almost side by side, at New York’s South Street Seaport. Berthed on the south side of Pier 15, El Galeon Andalucia is a replica of a … Continue reading