We all know Murphy’s Law — “That which can go wrong, will go wrong and at the worst possible time.” Anyone who has spent time around boats or ships also knows that Murphy was undoubtedly a sailor. This came to … Continue reading
Category Archives: Lore of the Sea
Happy 239th birthday to the United States Navy! On Friday, October 13, 1775, the Continental Congress voted to fit out two armed sailing vessels to cruise to attempt to seize arms and stores from Royal Navy transports. The rebel forces were … Continue reading
After posting yesterday about someone who tried to run 1,000 miles across the Gulf Stream to Bermuda in an inflatable hamster cage, and failed, here is a slightly less insane and more successful example of craziness on the water. The video … Continue reading
You really can’t make this stuff up. Extreme runner, Reza Baluchi, attempted to run from Florida to Bermuda, a distance of roughly 1,000 miles, in an inflatable bubble with a metal frame, looking something like a giant hamster wheel. It didn’t go … Continue reading
The story is regrettably familiar. A historic vessel, unable to find a suitable berth, is forced to move elsewhere. Yesterday, Chip Reynolds, Director of the New Netherland Museum and Captain of the replica ship, Half Moon, announced the museum’s intentions to … Continue reading
Just over 60 yeas ago, on September 30, 1954, USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear powered submarine was commissioned in New London, Connecticut. Following commissioning she continued trials and testing, until she put to sea for the first time on January … Continue reading
The hospital ship Jubilee Hope was recently christened by the Princess Royal, in Tanzania on Lake Victoria. The 160 ton ship will provide health services to 150 remote island communities with 400,000 people on the large inland lake. She will be … Continue reading
Last May we posted that marine archaeologist Barry Clifford had announced that he believed that he had located the wreck of Christopher Columbus’ ship Santa Maria which ran aground and sank on Christmas Day 1492 off Haiti near Cap-Haitien. UNESCO has now … Continue reading
We recently posted about video of a “lake monster” in Lake Lagarfljót near Egilsstaðir in Iceland. Notwithstanding that a local panel voted that the “monster” was real, the video has been generally debunked. In Lake Nyos, in the Northwest Region … Continue reading
Another interesting video by Mystic Seaport Museum. Lighting The Way For Ships: Learning about Lighthouses at Mystic Seaport … Continue reading
A waka, a 600 year voyaging canoe, was recently found on the New Zealand’s South Island’s West Coast. The results of a study by University of Auckland researchers appeared recently in the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The waka, … Continue reading
Andrew Haines, a World War II veteran who emigrated from Norway as a child, wanted a Viking funeral. He realized that building a pyre on a full sized Viking ship would be impractical, so Haines decided to build a small … Continue reading
In September, we posted about the discovery of one of two missing ships from the Franklin Expedition of 1845. The two missing ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were both originally built as bomb ships. As bomb ships they were … Continue reading
Just over a year ago, I was surprised — shocked might be a better word — to hear of a play about a shipyard. The Boat Factory was set in Harland & Wolff of Belfast, the shipyardyard that built theTitanic as well as roughly 1,700 … Continue reading
In 2011, we posted about the Elissa I.P.A. (India Pale Ale) brewed by the Saint Arnold Brewing Company, which bills itself as Texas’ oldest craft brewery. The Elissa I.P.A. was named after Elissa, the official tall ship of the state of Texas. Every … Continue reading