This is the tale of two very different men, from different places and different times. The first was a Welshman named John Roberts, though he took the name Bartholomew when he began his wildly successful but extremely short career as … Continue reading
Category Archives: History
We recently posted about a serious molasses spill in Honolulu harbor which has killed 26,000 fish and may have longer term consequences for the harbor ecology. Rick Austin was kind enough to forward an article about a far larger and … Continue reading
On Wednesday I raised the question – is history just a sea story? I found in researching my novel, Hell Around the Horn, that two memoirs written about the voyage of the British windjammer, British Isles, on which the novel … Continue reading
What is history? What is fiction? These seem to be straightforward questions. The conventional answer would be that history is what happened and fiction are the stories that we make up. In writing my recent novel I was faced with … Continue reading
Of all the things worth remembering on 9/11, one incredible event is often overlooked. After the attack, all the bridges, tunnels and rail lines in and out of New York City were shut down. Somewhere between 300,000 and one million people … Continue reading
Two hundred years ago today, in what would become known as the Battle of Lake Erie, a squadron of ships under the command of Oliver Hazard Perry defeated and captured a Royal Navy squadron at Put-in-Bay in Lake Erie off the … Continue reading
In 1970, fisherman discovered a shipwreck in about 85 feet of water, ten miles off the Absecon Inlet on the New Jersey coast. For more than 40 years, divers have visited the unidentified wreck. Now the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration … Continue reading
Oliver Hazard Perry‘s message to his superiors was brief: “We have met the enemy and they are ours; two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop.” Perry’s victory at the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813, was one … Continue reading
The two headlines in the BBC are from the same day and posted only an hour apart. The first reads “World’s oldest clipper ship transported to Australia.” The second – “City of Adelaide clipper ship export ban sought.” Both … Continue reading
Oliver Hazard Perry was born near Newport, Rhode Island on August 23,1785. He died of yellow fever on his 34th birthday in 1819. Perry went sea as a midshipman at the age of 13. He was given his first command, … Continue reading
In May, we posted about the discovery of a rare Howell torpedo by Navy dolphins in the Pacific off San Diego. The Howell torpedo was the first self-propelled torpedo in United States Navy service. Only fifty were built and, until the … Continue reading
Two years ago we posted about the efforts by a Bournemouth University marine archaeology team to save the a mysterious ship known only as the Swash Channel Wreck, after its location off the Dorset coast. The team is now … Continue reading
When the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition‘s three-masted barquentine, Endurance, was crushed in the Antarctic ice, expedition leader, Sir Ernest Shackleton, allowed each man to take off only two pounds of possessions, including their boots. The only exception Shackleton made was Leonard Hussey’s banjo, which weighed … Continue reading
Herman Melville was born on this day, August 1, in 1819, in a boarding house on the site of 6 Pearl Street, in the Financial District of lower Manhattan in New York City. I invite you to join me in … Continue reading
This Sunday, July 28, 2013 at 2 PM, the Noble Maritime Collection at Snug Harbor will host the Staten Island premiere of the documentary Shellshocked: Saving Oysters to Save Ourselves. Bob Wright and his musical group Harbortown will perform songs from their album … Continue reading
Almost exactly a year ago, we posted that Odyssey Marine Exploration had recovered approximately 48 tons of silver from the wreck of the SS Gairsoppa, a 412-foot British cargo ship which was torpedoed in February of 1941 by a German U-boat. The wreck … Continue reading
Two groups on opposite coasts of the United States are frantically working to save the 1895 built, SS Olympia, Admiral Dewey’s flagship in the Battle of Manila Bay and the last, just barely, surviving war ship from the Spanish-American War. The Mare … Continue reading
A new video released by the Bermuda Department of Conservation Services explores the wreckage of the British mail steamship “Caraquet” which came to grief on the island’s reefs 90 years ago. Caraquet 1864 – Bermuda Shipwrecks from Conservation Services on … Continue reading
This September, a fleet of tall ships will reenact the 1813 Battle of Put-in-Bay, Ohio, also known as the Battle of Lake Erie. The reenactment is part of the Great Lakes Tall Ships Challenge which kicks off today in Cleveland, OH through the … Continue reading
My wife and I recently saw “The Boat Factory” a two actor play, starring Dan Gordon and Michael Condron, which celebrates the sprawling Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland. That’s right, a play about a shipyard. But not just any … Continue reading