The death toll in the sinking of the Korean passenger ro-ro ferry Sewol has risen to 171 with 130 still missing. The ferry capsized and sank in the Yellow Sea last Wednesday, April 16th, on a voyage from Incheon to … Continue reading
Category Archives: Lore of the Sea
Last week, stories started appearing on the Internet about a satellite image on Apple maps, of what was described as something large swimming just below the surface in Loch Ness. Had satellite photography captured an image of the Loch Ness … Continue reading
Happy Earth Day! Then again, I have always thought that we lived on a misnamed planet. The word “earth” is a synonym for dirt while 71% of the planet is covered by water. Perhaps we should be saying Happy Ocean Day! … Continue reading
Are passenger ro-ro ferries inherently unsafe? No one knows why the passenger ro-ro ferry Sewol capsized last Wednesday off the south-west coast of Korea. There are indications that poor crew training and inadequate safety and evacuation procedures may have contributed … Continue reading
Recently the folks at Sailing Scuttlebutt commented that it looked as if the boats in the Stark Raving Mad 2014 Heineken Regatta were being sailed by “peeps,” the ubiquitous, if largely inedible, marshmallow candies, sold in the United States and … Continue reading
If you are in the New York area on Saturday, April 26th, be sure to stop by the South Street Seaport to celebrate a Spring revival with the grand reopening of Pier 16 and the Street of Ships. Capt. Jonathan Boulware, … Continue reading
The gillnetter Phyllis A., built in 1925, is the oldest fishing vessel in Gloucester, Massachusetts, which calls itself, America’s oldest seaport. The Phyllis A. Marine Association, Inc.is raising money to promote the history of gillnetting in Gloucester, Massachusetts, through the … Continue reading
Whale sightings in and around New York harbor are getting less and less unusual. Unfortunately, the most recent sighting was of a dead fin whale caught on the bow of a container ship near Port Elizabeth. A necropsy is being … Continue reading
What was intended as a four-day field trip to the Korean resort island of Jeju for high school students and their teachers ended in tragedy when the ferry sank off several miles north of Byeongpung Island, on the west coast of … Continue reading
We posted recently about a rare lunar eclipse tetrad, a sequence of four total lunar eclipses, each six months apart. The first of these total lunar eclipses was last night around 2:30 AM EST. I confess. I didn’t stay up. Fortunately … Continue reading
In March, we posted about “The Captain Rose House of 1773 & Kit Burns Rat Pit of 1870,” at 273 Water Street in Lower Manhattan. In addition to being the third oldest building in Manhattan, the building has a rich … Continue reading
Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) clearly has a sense of humor. Their new advertising campaign harkens back to the glory days of 1980s cop shows to remind us that, like bulletproof vests, lifejackets don’t save people’s lives unless they’re worn. Lifejackets … Continue reading
As part of a new exhibit, Rough Medicine: Life and Death in the Age of Sail, at the South Australia Maritime Museum, sail maker Don Lucas was asked to sew a shroud for a child, actually a child-sized manikin, fortunately, to … Continue reading
A wonderful story. Thanks to Irwin Bryan for passing it along. German Fisherman Finds ‘World’s Oldest Message In A Bottle’ … Continue reading
The Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) USS Freedom, the first of her namesake class and one of two different LCS designs, was recently deployed to Singapore for ten months in order to demonstrate the capabilities of the ship described by … Continue reading