The destroyer USS Zumwalt was commissioned about three weeks ago. It is the latest and greatest, most high tech destroyer in the fleet. At a cost of around $4 billion dollars, it is also the most expensive destroyer ever built. … Continue reading
Category Archives: Current
On a day distracted by a momentous national election, here is something wholly unrelated — the beautiful creatures called velella velella. As lovely as they are, these jellyfish, also known as “purple sailors” or “by-the-wind sailors,” can be an unwelcomed visitor. Last spring, … Continue reading
The mystery of the Acre (Akko) Tower shipwreck may be closer to being solved. The Jerusalem Post reports that 100 hundred brass nails may have given away the secret. Discovered in 1966, the wreck was long assumed to be a British naval … Continue reading
Today, 29 sailors set off from Les Sables-d’Olonne, France in the eighth Vendée Globe single-handed round-the-world yacht race. The 24,000 mile circumnavigation will be sailed non-stop and without assistance along the clipper route: down the Atlantic Ocean to the Cape … Continue reading
A Canadian diver swimming off Pitt Island near the Haida Gwaii archipelago, on Canada’s west coast, was looking for sea cucumbers, but didn’t find any. Instead, the diver, Sean Smyrichinsky, found a dummy nuclear bomb lost in a plane crash in … Continue reading
Alain Thébault is known as designer and skipper of the record breaking ocean-going hydrofoil Hydroptère, which in 2009, was the first sailing boat to sail faster than 50 knots over a measured mile. Now, Thébault is working on a very different project. … Continue reading
The shipbreaking yard in Gadani, Pakistan is one of largest shipbreakers in the world and is literally where ships go to die. Tragically, workers too often die there as well. A series of explosions yesterday in a tanker being broken up at … Continue reading
The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) USS Montgomery suffered another hull crack, this time while transiting the Panama Canal on Sunday. “Under control of the local Panama Canal Pilot, the ship impacted the center lock wall and sustained an 18-inch-long crack … Continue reading
Last month, we posted about the tragic death of Jose Fernandez and two of his friends who died when their 32′ open boat in slammed into a rock breakwater at high speed off South Beach, Miami, FL at around 3AM on … Continue reading
We are about six months behind on this update, but it is a worthwhile topic to catch up on. In January of 2015, we posted The Vagina Kayak and Japanese Genital Politics, which was the story of a Japanese artist, Megumi … Continue reading
In the end of August, we posted about the Obama administration‘s four-fold expansion of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument,a marine sanctuary northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands. Now, twenty-four countries and the European Union have reached an agreement to establish … Continue reading
While much of the focus has been on the melting of the Arctic ice cap, recent studies highlight the dramatic melting of ice shelves at the other end of the globe. On the west side of Antarctica, giant glaciers form ice shelves … Continue reading
The historic USCG CutterTamaroa will soon be sunk as an artificial reef in the Atlantic Ocean 25 miles south of Cape May Point, New Jersey. The old ship has had a remarkable history. Built in 1943 as USS Zuni, the 205-foot … Continue reading
In just three years since the release of the documentary, Blackfish, the world of captive orcs in the United States has undergone dramatic change. The 2013 documentary focused specifically on the death of an orca trainer, Dawn Brancheau, who was killed by … Continue reading
In 1606, Captain Willem Janszoon, in command of the Dutch ship Duyfken, became the first European to discover Australia. Now a replica of the Duyfken has completed a voyage to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Dutchman Dirk Hartog and his crew, the first Europeans to … Continue reading