Bill King, one of the last surviving World War II submarine commanders and a single-handed circumnavigator, died yesterday at his home at Oranmore Castle in County Galway, Ireland. His family issued a statement which reads, “Commander Bill DSO, DSC submariner and … Continue reading
Category Archives: History
The first word one associates with speed under sail is probably not barge. Nevertheless, Thames River barges are no slackers when the wind is blowing. Recently, the folks at Cambria Trust posted a photo of a GPS screen on restored … Continue reading
The story goes that around 1856, a man from Missouri named Thomas built a “windwagon,” a “prairie clipper” to sail the Western plains. Unfortunately, despite sailing around 100 miles down the Santa Fe trail, his “Prairie Clipper Company” was not a … Continue reading
In 2010, the headline read, Modern cargo ships slow to the speed of the sailing clippers. The article was subtitled, “Container ships are taking longer to cross the oceans than the Cutty Sark did as owners adopt ‘super-slow steaming’ to … Continue reading
One year and one day after the Battle of Lake Erie, an American squadron, under the command of Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough, defeated the Royal Navy on Lake Champlain in a bloody battle at Plattsburgh Bay. The Battle of Plattsburgh turned back an invasion … Continue reading
The best known naval battles of the War of 1812 were single ship duels between US Navy frigates and ships of the Royal Navy. Nevertheless, the two most important American naval victories of the War of 1812 were fought in fresh water, hundreds of miles from the ocean. … Continue reading
Last January we posted that the composite clipper ship City of Adelaide would begin her voyage by barge and then ship to her namesake city in Australia by March, “if all goes well.” As is not unusual is this sort of project, … Continue reading
Last week it was announced that the wreck of SS Terra Nova, the ship that had carried Robert Scott on his ill-fated quest to be the first to reach the South Pole, had been located off Greenland. In July, the … Continue reading
I am very fond of William Faulkner’s maxim, “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.” What brought this to mind was recent news from the Chatham Historic Dockyard in Kent. Back in 1995, parts of a ship’s framing was found … Continue reading
On August 19, 1812, the 44-gun USS Constitution met the 38 gun HMS Guerriere in single ship combat off the coast of Nova Scotia. During the battle the Constitution earned her nickname “Old Ironsides” when the British 18 pound shot was seen to bounce off … Continue reading
When the Swedish warship Vasa was raised from the seabed in 1961, to prevent her her waterlogged timbers from shrinking and cracking, the hull was sprayed, inside and out, continuously with polyethylene glycol for 17 years, followed by 9 years of slow drying. The British … Continue reading
Researchers at the University of Delaware have discovered the wreck of the 215 foot long, three masted sailing ship, W.R. Grace, which sank in a hurricane near Cape Henlopen in 1889 . Shipwreck mystery solved … Continue reading
Divers may have found the wreck of a British privateer, Port-au-Prince, which was sunk off the island of Lifuka in the Ha’apai island group of Tonga, in December 1806. The ship was attacked by Tongan warriors on the orders of King Finau ‘Ulukalala II. The Tongans … Continue reading
Tipped off by fisherman who caught amphorae in their nets, the wreck of a Roman merchant ship, believed to date from between the 1st century B.C. and the 2nd century, has been located in 230 feet of water near the Italian port city of … Continue reading
In 1606, the Duyfken, commanded by Willem Janszoon, became the first European vessel to sail to the continent of Australia. In 1999, in an act of “experimental archaeology,” a replica of of the Dutch ship was built in Freemantle, Australia. The … Continue reading
Two hundred and twenty years ago today on August 4th, 1790, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton established the Revenue Cutter Service, predecessor to the United States Coast Guard. (In 1915, the service merged with the United States Life-Saving Service and adopted its current name.) So … Continue reading
Today is the birthday of Herman Melville, one of the greatest American writers. He was born in 1819 on Pearl Street in downtown Manhattan, almost directly across the Hudson from where I am now writing this post. He will always … Continue reading
Billionaire and philanthropist, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is loaning his 126 metre superyacht Octopus to the British Royal Navy to mount an expedition to locate and raise the bell from the battle cruiser HMS Hood (51) sunk by the German battleship Bismark in the Denmark … Continue reading
Yesterday we posted about the possible discovery of a German WWII submarine sunk in the Churchill River in Labrador, Canada. Now we have learned that the German World War II submarine U-550 has been located in the Atlantic, 70 miles … Continue reading
Searchers using side scanning sonar believe that they may have located a German U-boat from World War II on the bottom in the Churchill River not far from Muskrat Falls in Labrador, Canada, more than 100 kilometres from the ocean. German submarines operated … Continue reading