Great news about the schooner Nathaniel Bowditch. In February, we posted about the foreclosure and auction of the 82 foot long schooner. There were no bids at the auction in Camden, ME, which ended after 27 seconds. The future of … Continue reading
Category Archives: Lore of the Sea
Back in the 70s, the advent of oceangoing ships with wheeled cargo introduced the shipping community to the Ro-Ro (roll-on/roll-off.) Since then acronyms with an “o” sound have gained in popularity. General cargo and container ships became Lo-Los (lift-on/lift-off). Combination … Continue reading
Yesterday, Horizon Line, a US Flag Jones Act container ship operator, announced that it was ending operations. It had sold its Alaskan service to Matson, its Hawaiian operations to Pasha Group, and would be shutting down its operations to Puerto … Continue reading
In the US, today is Veteran’s Day, when we honor those who have served in the military. It coincides with Armistice Day, the anniversary of the signing of the armistice which ended World War I, on the 11th hour of the … Continue reading
Recently, the BBC published an article titled WW1: The indestructible warship. The article refers to the Graf Goetzen. Calling her the “indestructible warship” seems to be a bit of an exaggeration. As warships go, she was not very impressive and … Continue reading
Thanks to Richard Pekelney for passing along the link to a wonderful panoramic and audio tour of the USS Pampanito, a World War II Balao class Fleet submarine museum and memorial that is open for visitors daily at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. … Continue reading
In September, the wreck of one of the two ships in Franklin’s lost expedition of 1845 was located near the the Victoria Strait in Canada. As both ships in the expedition were similar sized bomb vessels, modified for exploration, it was initially unclear whether … Continue reading
I have mixed feeling about modern supermaxi monohulls. They are complicated, expensive sailing wedges — pointy in the bow and broad and flat on the stern. But they are really fast, and watching Jim Clark‘s new 100’ carbon fiber speed-demon … Continue reading
In Lake Champlain this summer, on July 31, near Scotch Bonnet, cryptozoology enthusiasts Katy Elizabeth and Dennis Hall recorded underwater audio which sounds remarkably like echolocation of a marine mammal. They say that it sounds like a beluga whale. Beluga … Continue reading
An estimated quarter of a million people lined the docks and the shore at St. Malo in Brittany to watch the start of the Route du Rhum Race, the 4,500 mile trans-Atlantic singlehanded race to Guadeloupe, which is sailed every … Continue reading
I am fond of one photo I took of the Kalmar Nyckel at the Sultana Downrigging Weekend in Charlestown, MD last weekend. It shows two sailors, who appear to be starting to downrig the sprit topsail yard. They are standing … Continue reading
Many of these “mind blowing facts” don’t seem that surprising, but they do get the bottom line right — “For an industry that basically runs the world economy most people know very little about the enormous complex that touches almost … Continue reading
Photos from the Sultana Downrigging Weekend in Chestertown, MD. A touch rainy, cold and windy but still a great time. Along with the schooner Sultana were the pinnance Kalmar Nyckel, and the schooners Lady Maryland, Pride of Baltimore II and A.J. Meerwald. A … Continue reading
Just over 100 years ago, the World War I hospital ship, SS Rohilla, ran aground in a gale less than a mile off the North Yorkshire coast, near Whitby, with the loss of 85 crew and passengers. SS Rohilla had left Scotland on 30 October … Continue reading
In honor of Halloween, here is a troubling account of a modern-day haunted ship. The LNG Taurus was one of a series of ten Moss-Rosenberg type 125,000 cubic meter Liquefied Natural Gas ships (LNG) ships built by General Dynamics in Quincy … Continue reading