Deep-sea mining may provide the material necessary to create our latest and greatest electronics, electric cars and battery backup systems. The mining may also damage the environment and worsen climate change. In 2018, we posted about the discovery of huge … Continue reading
Category Archives: Current
Friday night I had the great pleasure to meet Orly Orlyson and to watch the US premiere of Cosmic Birth, the remarkable documentary that he co-directed, at the Explorer’s Club in Manhattan. Orly is an entrepreneur and the founder of … Continue reading
The dive boat Conception was a death trap. It was a wooden vessel with a single narrow and steep stairway from the lower berthing deck and a small emergency exit hatch. When a fire broke out on September 2, 34 … Continue reading
A year ago, we posted about the search for a berth for the Liberty ship John W. Brown. Now, the ship, the last surviving troopship from World War II, must find a new home by the end of the year … Continue reading
After several near boom years, the Maine lobster fishery is being slammed by the current trade war between the United States and China. From June 2018 to June 2019, after the duties were in place, live lobster exports to China … Continue reading
In recent weeks there been considerable interest generated by an application for a patent filed by the US Navy for a compact cold fusion nuclear reactor. For decades, “cold fusion” has been the holy grail of clean energy research. Progress … Continue reading
The submarine USS Grayback, one of the most successful US Navy submarines in World War II, has been located in 1,400 feet of water off Okinawa. The submarine was sunk in February 1944, on her tenth war patrol after sinking … Continue reading
Last week, we posted a video promoting the Port of New York and New Jersey made in the 1950s. Here is a similar if very different video made by RKO focussing on the Manhattan waterfront around 1937, at the height … Continue reading
Apparently, lightning strikes twice as often over shipping sea lanes than over the ocean as a whole. Wired recently published an article about research that comes to that conclusion and suggests an answer to the question. They note that it … Continue reading
A three-year project to research Wind-Assisted Sail Propulsion (WASP) has been launched in Europe supported by €5.4Mn (about $6 million) in funding provided by the Interreg North Sea Europe program, part of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The project … Continue reading
A year ago we posted about the testing of two modern Rotor Sails installed on the MV Maersk Pelican, a 110,000 DWT Long Range 2 product tanker. The 30-meter tall and 5-meter diameter rotors were predicted to reduce fuel consumption … Continue reading
Suspected Niger River Delta pirates operating in the Gulf of Guinea have kidnapped 13 sailors from two ships in the last several days. The first abductions took place early Saturday morning at the port of Cotonou in Benin. Pirates kidnapped … Continue reading
For just over a century, an 80-foot long iron sand-dumping scow has been stuck on a rock in the raging currents of the Niagara River just upriver from the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. After a powerful storm blew through … Continue reading
The RV Petrel continues its amazing streak of underwater discoveries. Now, it has located the wreckage of what is believed to be the USS Johnston at a depth of 20,400 ft in the Philippine Sea. The wreck is believed to … Continue reading
Hurtigruten, a Norwegian ferry and expedition cruise operator, has put into service, MS Roald Amundsen, the world’s first hybrid electric-powered expedition cruise ship. The 530-passenger ship has twin battery banks that operate in conjunction with the ship’s four diesel generators … Continue reading
The so-called Ohio River ghost ship does not seem to be really haunted, except perhaps by a long and illustrious past. A vessel of many names, she has been known as Celt, Sachem, USS Phenakite, Sightseer, and Circle Line V. … Continue reading
I recently came back from a voyage on a small ship along the west coast of Iceland. One of the highlights of the trip were stops in ports in the Westfjords, an isolated peninsula in the northwest of the island. … Continue reading
We recently posted about the proposed testing of an amphibious electric flying car on the Hudson River, which may or may not be a good idea. On the other side of the Atlantic on the River Seine, tests are ongoing … Continue reading
One hundred and forty-two years ago today on October 27th, 1877, the three-masted iron-hulled merchant sailing ship Elissa was launched in Aberdeen, Scotland. She is now a museum ship at the Texas Seaport Museum. In honor of her birthday, here … Continue reading
Climate change deniers can choose to ignore the overwhelming scientific consensus of man-made climate change all they want. How long they will continue to deny the evidence before their own eyes? Two immediate examples — Fox Island and the US … Continue reading