The recent sinking of the Concordia yawl, Winnie of Bourne, brought to mind just how remarkable this class of boats indeed is. Winnie of Bourne was raised from the bottom near the entrance of Nantucket harbor just two days after she sank, … Continue reading
Category Archives: History
Four years ago, workers excavating at the new World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan uncovered the remains of an 18th century wooden merchant ship. The ship was found 20 feet below street level, is roughly 30 feet in length and was probably buried intentionally as land … Continue reading
In 1665, HMS London, a 64-gun second-rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy, exploded in the Thames Estuary off Southend. Recent dives on the wreck have recovered a wide range of artifacts and remains. As reported by the … Continue reading
Two years ago we posted about how a team of scientists at the Texas A&M University Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation were using freeze-drying to preserve large sections of French explorer’s Robert LaSalle’s flagship, La Belle, which sank in Matagorda Bay in … Continue reading
The crows nest, as a shelter for the lookout on whaling ships sailing the icy waters of the Arctic, was by all indications, invented by Captain William Scoresby around 1807. (See yesterday’s post: Crow’s Nests : Part 1 — Melville & … Continue reading
The first of a two-part post on crows nests. Who would have thought that a crow’s nest deserves such attention? A reader commented on the lack of a crow’s nest in the video of the Charles W. Morgan under sail … Continue reading
One of the great stories from ancient history is of Archimedes Burning Mirrors. Legend has it that Archimedes designed a series of curved mirrors to reflect and focus the rays of the sun and that these mirrors were used to set a … Continue reading
National Geographic has published breathtaking photographs and video of the Swedish warship Mars, which exploded and sank in the first battle of Öland in 1564. Because the ship sank in the dark, cold waters of the Baltic Sea, where the … Continue reading
The composite clipper, City of Adelaide, built in 1864, is the world’s oldest surviving clipper ship. Between 1864 and 1887 the ship made 23 voyages from London and Plymouth to Adelaide, South Australia. Approximately a quarter of a million Australians … Continue reading
We posted earlier today about the USS Slater’s dazzle camouflage paint. Dazzle, sometimes referred to as razzle dazzle, is a very different approach to camouflage. Where most camouflage attempts to hide an object or person, dazzle camouflage on ships uses … Continue reading
In 2010, we posted about a shipwreck in the Baltic, off the Åland Islands of Sweden, in which 30 bottles of champagne and 5 bottles of beer were found intact in the wreckage. In 2011, two bottles of the champagne were … Continue reading
The Atlantic Monthly has a wonderful feature this month — World War I in Photos: The War at Sea by Alan Taylor. Moving troops and supplies by sea was vital to all armies involved in the war. The battle for … Continue reading
In New York City, there is a story told about Gallus Mag, the bouncer at the ‘Hole in the Wall‘, a bar and brothel on Water Street on the East River waterfront in the mid-1800s. Standing well over 6’ tall, she … Continue reading
There is a magic to ship’s figureheads. In Conrad’s Mirror of the Sea who wrote about the ships and figureheads that he saw on London’s docks: It was a noble gathering of the fairest and the swiftest, each bearing … Continue reading
Good News — the State of Pennsylvania has committed $4.8 million for a major overhaul of the Brig Niagara. As reported by YourErie.com: “Maintaining the Brig Niagara, a sea-going legacy of American freedom and the sacrifices of the men who sailed her … Continue reading
Two years ago, we posted about the the 150th anniversary of the seizure of the Confederate armed transport, CSS Planter, by Robert Smalls, a 23 year old mulatto slave, and eight fellow slaves. Smalls, who had served as the pilot of the … Continue reading
In early 2012, we posted about claims made by Greg Brooks of Sub Sea Research that they had found “the worlds richest shipwreck,” the British freighter, SS Port Nicholson, carrying a secret cargo of 71 tons of platinum, sunk by the … Continue reading
Columbus’ flagship, Santa Maria, ran aground and sank on Christmas Day 1492 off Haiti, on Columbus’ first voyage to the New World. Now after more than a decade’s research, underwater explorer Barry Clifford believes that he has found the wreck of … Continue reading
When the Cunard liner RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine during World War I, on May 7, 1915, with the loss of 1,198 passengers and crew, the Germans claimed that the ship was carrying high explosives, which the British … Continue reading
Would the world’s first purpose-built oceangoing roll-on/roll-off ship make a good museum? The Maritime Administration (MARAD) is offering the USNS Comet to a qualified public and non-profit organization for use as a memorial, a museum and/or in “other non-commercial enterprises.” Built at … Continue reading