We are two years late in posting this. Nevertheless, it seems like a worthwhile bit of silliness for a Friday afternoon. Back in 2020, a deadly virus was running rampant across the globe. Performance venues and even rehearsals were shut … Continue reading
Category Archives: Lore of the Sea
Last March, we posted about the grounding of the container ship Ever Forward near Baltimore in the Chesapeake Bay. The ship failed to make a turn in the Craighill channel and ran hard aground on a mud flat, where it … Continue reading
An interrupted broadcast of a football game, a newsbreak during a performance by the New York Philharmonic, a weather report followed by an announcement from President Roosevelt that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. Reports of attacks on the Philippines. Here … Continue reading
One hundred and five years ago today, on the morning of December 6, 1917, the French freighter SS Mont-Blanc and the SS Imo, a Norwegian ship chartered to carry relief supplies to Belgium, collided in the Narrows, a strait connecting … Continue reading
A decade after women were allowed to serve in the US Navy’s Silent Service, Lt. Cmdr. Amber Cowan has become the first woman to serve as executive officer on a submarine. Lt. Cmdr. Cowan, who joined the Navy in 2010, … Continue reading
Viking Cruises announced that their expedition cruise ship Viking Polaris was struck by a “rogue wave” in a storm off Antarctica on November 29 at 22:40 local time. The ship was sailing towards Ushuaia, Argentina. One passenger was killed by … Continue reading
When we posted about a man who had been rescued in the Gulf of Mexico by the US Coast Guard after apparently falling off the cruise ship Carnival Valor, we were convinced that there was more to the story. It … Continue reading
After seven years of reconstruction and restoration in Boothbay Harbor, ME, the historic schooner Ernestina-Morrissey returned to her home port in New Bedford, MA earlier this week. “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen the Ernestina-Morrissey sailing into New … Continue reading
When the 51,000 DWT Maltese-flagged tanker Alithina II sailed in ballast from Nigeria to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria she carried a most unusual cargo. Because she sailed in ballast and was riding high in the water, three stowaways were found … Continue reading
More news of orcas attacking sailboats in the Atlantic off the Iberian peninsula, in this case involving a sailing icon. Scuttlebutt Sailing News reports that a pod of orcas attacked Sir Robin Knox-Johnson while sailing his Farr 56 Sanjula, damaging … Continue reading
Here is a well-done short video about the schooner Wyoming, one of the largest wooden ships ever built. Built as a collier in 1909 by Percy & Small in Bath, Maine, she was capable of carrying 6000 long tons of … Continue reading
Yesterday, the US Coast Guard rescued an unidentified passenger who had gone overboard in the Gulf of Mexico from the cruise ship Carnival Valor on a voyage from New Orleans to Cozumel. While most cases of passengers who fall or … Continue reading
Happy Thanksgiving to those on this side of the pond and below the 49th parallel. (The Canadians celebrated the holiday in October.) What do whaling ships, a child’s nursery rhyme, a female magazine editor, and Abraham Lincoln have to do … Continue reading
Last week, we posted about the drone attack on the 50,000 DWT product tanker Pacific Zircon, off the coast of Oman. Investigators sent aboard to assess the damage and to collect debris from the drone determined that the tanker was … Continue reading
LightSail 2, the Planetary Society‘s solar sailing spacecraft, is no more. On November 17th, the crowdfunded solar sailing spacecraft burned in a blaze of glory as it re-entered earth’s atmosphere after traveling 8 million kilometers (5 million miles) powered only … Continue reading
In the words of Yogi Berra, “It’s like deja vu all over again.” Masks and vaccination mandates are returning to the cruise industry, at least for many cruise ships calling in Australia. In March of 2020 at the beginning of … Continue reading
A belated happy birthday to Canadian singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, who turned 84 the day before yesterday. Often referred to as Canada’s greatest songwriter, Lightfoot is also a sailor, having owned and sailed the 39′ Sundown and the 45′ Golden Goose. … Continue reading
Having overfished its own coastal waters, China is aggressively deploying a global fishing fleet to exploit fishing grounds thousands of miles from its shores. The New York Times reports that over the last two decades, China has built the world’s … Continue reading
The 50,000 DWT product tanker Pacific Zircon was struck by a bomb-carrying drone off the coast of Oman on Tuesday night. The ship is operated by Singapore-based Eastern Pacific Shipping, a company ultimately owned by Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer. In a … Continue reading
Congratulations to Rear Admiral Joanna Nunan, a retired US Coast Guard two-star admiral, recently appointed to be the superintendent of the US Merchant Marine Academy at King’s Point, NY, the first woman appointed as superintendent in the academy’s eight-decade history. … Continue reading