Cruise Ship Viking Orion Denied Port Entries Due to “Biofouling” — What Happened?

Eight hundred passengers, reported to be mostly Americans, found themselves stranded on the cruise ship Viking Orion off South Australia for seven days after the ship was denied permission to dock in Adelaide, Christchurch, Dunedin, and Hobart, due to marine growth … Continue reading

More Than 275 Artifacts Recovered from Franklin Expedition’s HMS Erebus

A team of researchers conducted 56 dives over 11 days in September on the wreck of the HMS Erebus from the 1845 Franklin Expedition near Gjoa Haven recovering more than 275 additional artifacts from the historic shipwreck. The newly retrieved artifacts … Continue reading

Mystic Seaport Celebrates 50th Anniversary of the Opening of the Henry B. du Pont Preservation Shipyard

The year 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Henry B. du Pont Preservation Shipyard at the Mystic Seaport Museum, the first shipyard built specifically for preservation in the United States, and possibly the world, marking a … Continue reading

Update: Atrevida II Rescue & the High Cost of Sailing Unprepared

We recently posted about the rescue of two sailors and a dog from a 30′ sailboat, Atrevida II, off Cape Hatteras by the tanker Silver Muna. While the initial Coast Guard report was accurate, it was also incomplete. The initial … Continue reading

Tanker Silver Muna Picks Up Overdue Sailors Off Delaware Coast

On Sunday, the US Coast Guard Fifth District command center in Virginia was notified that the Atrevida II, a 30’ Catalina sloop, on a passage from Cape May, N.J. to Marathon, FL, was overdue. Onboard were Kevin Hyde, 65, and … Continue reading

SS Central America — Ship of Gold & the $114,000 Pants

On September 12, 1857, the 289-foot-long sidewheel steamer SS Central America sank in a hurricane off the US East Coast. When she sank, 425 of her 578 passengers and crew were drowned and 30,000 pounds (13,600 kg) of gold from … Continue reading

Coast Guard: Distracted Pilot on Cell Phone Prior to Grounding of Container Ship Ever Forward in Chesapeake

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

Radio Broadcasts Reporting Attack on Pearl Harbor 81 Years Ago Today

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

Remembering the Halifax Explosion of 1917 & the Boston Christmas Tree

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

Lt. Cmdr. Amber Cowan — First Woman XO on US Navy Submarine

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

Passenger Dies on Antarctic Cruise After Viking Polaris is Hit by Rogue Wave

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

Against All Odds, Cruise Passenger Survives 20 Hours in the Gulf of Mexico After Going Overboard From Carnival Valor

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

Historic Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey Returns to New Bedford

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

Three Stowaways Found Perched on Tanker’s Rudder on 11 Day Voyage

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

Man Rescued After Going Overboard on Carnival Valor — Thanksgiving Mystery or Miracle?

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

Thanksgiving Repost — Whaling Ships, Sarah Josepha Hale, Mary’s Lamb & a Liberty Ship

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

Update: US Navy Confirms Tanker MV Pacific Zircon Hit by Iranian Shahed-136 Drone

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