This morning we posted about the possibility of the immediate lay-up of the UK’s flagship, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal. We now read that one of the two new £3 billion aircraft carriers will never carry aircraft and may sail into lay-up or be put … Continue reading
Category Archives: Lore of the Sea
If the recommendations of a UK defense review are implemented, Britain will have the same capacity to launch aircraft from ships as Nelson did, which is to say, none at all, prior to 2019 when new aircraft carriers come into service. Defence … Continue reading
Two years ago, an article appeared in Scientific American, Slippery Ships That Float on Air, describing the various attempts to reduce frictional resistance on ship’s hulls by injecting air bubbles or introducing pockets of air beneath the hull. At the time, the … Continue reading
The Brooklyn Navy Yard, in New York on the East River in Wallabout Basin, has always seemed to me to be equal parts working industrial park, living museum, and ghost town. The land was purchased by the Federal government in 1801 … Continue reading
The Summerwind, a 1929 Alden schooner, donated to the US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point just last year by Mr. and Mrs. J. Don Williamson, won the Class AA division of the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race on corrected time. The other … Continue reading
In 2007 the schooner Virginia won the great Chesapeake Bay Schooner race, establishing a record time which remains unbeaten. This year, sadly, while the other schooners raced, she remained tied to a dock in Norfolk, Virginia. Cash-strapped Schooner Virginia appears dead in the water … Continue reading
Six sailors have crossed the starting line on the Velux 5 Oceans single-handed around the word race. They are all sailing Eco 60 class sailboats. As the race begins we thought it worthwhile to take a look at this “new” class of … Continue reading
The story goes that the pirate, Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, once mixed gunpowder in his rum, set the rum on fire and then drank the explosive mixture, sort of an early 18th century flaming jello shot, but with more incendiary and less … Continue reading
We recently have had several posts regarding rogue waves – a review of Susan Casey’s new book The Wave and the BBC Documentary Freak Waves. Oceanographers generally dismissed reports of rogue waves as wild exaggerations or “sea stories,” until a rogue wave was documented … Continue reading
Today is Blog Action Day where bloggers around the wold are posting about a common theme – water. Most, no doubt, will be blogging about the almost a billion people in the world who do not have access to clean drinking water. … Continue reading
The SA Agulhas is South Africa’s ice-strengthened polar research vessel. The ship recently completed a five day voyage with an all woman crew and on her arrival in Port Elizabeth Harbor was guided into port by a woman harbor pilot. As part of National … Continue reading
Tomorrow is International Blog Action Day, when bloggers around the world get together to blog about a common theme. This year that theme is clean water. Will a few thousand, or even hundreds of thousands, of the chattering class posting about clean water … Continue reading
Today in the Bucks County Courthouse in Pennsylvania, a 20-inch-long and 22-inch-tall model of the Mayflower, the ship that carried English separatists, known as Pilgrims, to Massachusetts in 1620, will go on public display for the first time in the United States. The … Continue reading
Around Fells Point and Baltimore’s Inner Harbor will be a glorious place for any schooner lover to be this evening. There will be a parade of sail of the over forty schooners who are participating the 21st Annual Great Chesapeake Bay … Continue reading
Today, October 13th, is celebrated as the birthday of the United States Navy, not to be confused with Navy Day, which is celebrated on October 27th. The current “birthday” may have more to do with bragging rights than real birthdays. For many years, the … Continue reading
The Center for Whale Research is using a novel approach to tracking orca whales. They are using the only operational zeppelin in the United States, the Airship Eureka, on loan from Farmers’ Insurance, the company that sponsors the zeppelin, which donated … Continue reading
This morning around 4:56 UTC the Cypriot container ship Jork Ranger collided with the Greek tanker Mindoro, carrying jet fuel off the Scheveningen coast in the North Sea. The collision caused a fuel spill from a five-meter wide puncture in the … Continue reading
The Mall Gallery in London has a show of work by the Royal Society of Marine Artists from Wed October 13 to Sat October 23, 2010. Royal Society of Marine Artists … Continue reading
According to one study the US has enough offshore wind to power the country four times over. In Europe there are currently 830 wind turbines now installed and grid connected, totalling 2,063 MW in 39 wind farms in nine European … Continue reading
Today is Columbus Day in the United States (and Thanksgiving Day in Canada. Happy Thanksgiving Canadians.) Columbus Day is celebrated tomorrow in Spain. Every year about this time, various scholars and pundits emerge to denigrate the memory of the Genoese naviator and explorer. There were indeed many things … Continue reading