Portside New York is a maritime hub and cultural space whose centerpiece is the historic coastal tanker Mary Whalen. Portside is based this summer on pier 11 in the Atlantic Basin, Red Hook, Brooklyn. On Saturday, July 3rd, Portside is hosting the Big … Continue reading
Category Archives: Ships
In October of 1898, the wooden steamship L.R. Doty disappeared in Lake Michigan in a storm with seventy mile an hour winds and thirty foot waves. Her crew of 17 and two ship’s cats were lost. A group of … Continue reading
In 1898, the Chauncy Maples was built at the shipyard of Alley & McLellan in Glasgow. She was then disassembled into 3,481 parts and shipped out for reassembly at Monkey Bay as a missionary/hospital steamer on Lake Malawi. Now, one hundred and … Continue reading
An interested court case between a private salvor and the State of New York appears to have been settled in favor of the state. The salvor, Northeast Research, claimed the 19th century schooner, which it claims is the Caledonia. … Continue reading
USS Forrestal arrives in Phila. to await fate The aircraft carrier Forrestal arrived in Philadelphia Friday morning to await its fate. The ship, decommissioned in 1993 in Philadelphia after 38 years in service, had been moored next to the Saratoga … Continue reading
It was a fun family event, in many respects. I showed up at the southwest corner of Manhattan, where I thought Reid Stowe on the schooner Anne would sail by and found a group of Stowe’s family and friends had … Continue reading
On April 21, 2007, Reid Stowe sailed from the Hudson River on the schooner Anne. His goal was to stay at sea for 1,000 days without touching a port or being resupplied. It would be the the longest sea … Continue reading
Busy days in the Gulf of Mexico. On the surface above the continuing Deepwater Horizon disaster yesterday, a drill ship attempting to contain the oil was struck by lightning and caught on fire shutting down containment operations. Reportedly, operations resumed today. BP: Oil … Continue reading
Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of Captain Scott‘s departure from Cardiff on his ill-fated expedition to reach the South Pole. The tall ship Stavros S Niarchos sailed across Cardiff Bay, reenacting the departure of Scott’s ship, the Terra Nova. The Royal Navy’s HMS … Continue reading
This August 26th will be the one hundredth anniversary of Mother Teresa‘s birth. The Empire State Building in New York City changes its lighting for major holidays and special events. The Catholic League has requested that the building be lit blue and … Continue reading
Zeb Tilton was a legendary schooner captain from Martha’s Vineyard. “Zeb-Schooner Life,” a documentary of his life and times is being screened tonight at 6:30 by the National Maritime Historical Society at the Hendrick Hudson Free Library in Montrose, NY. Commentary will … Continue reading
Last week, one of my favorite tall ships, the Portuguese Sail Training Ship Sagres visited San Diego, California. This weekend, on the Gulf Coast in Pascagoula, Mississippi, the US Navy christened the USS San Diego, a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship. Not to be too critical … Continue reading
Late last month, the secret was revealed – when Bob Ballard discovered the Titanic in 1985, he was actually on a secret mission to find two sunken US submarines, the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion, both of which had sunk in the Atlantic in … Continue reading
Yukon protects Klondike shipwreck site Just months after a team of archeologists revealed their discovery of a historic Klondike shipwreck in waters north of Whitehorse, the Yukon government has declared the sunken A.J. Goddard sternwheeler a historic site symbolizing the … Continue reading
It is such a relief that we never really have to worry about the very wealthy among us running out of places to spend their money. Here may be but the latests example of where those with more money than sense can drop … Continue reading
The SS Robin, built in 1890, is the last remaining steam coaster in the world. She will soon be moved to a custom built pontoon barge which will support the old ship and serves as space for a floating museum. … Continue reading
Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jacques Cousteau. It is hard to overstate Cousteau’s influence as an inventor, writer, filmmaker, explorer and ecologist. His first book, the Silent World, written with Frédéric Dumas in 1953, was a memoir which … Continue reading
Last week at the Shanghai World Expo, the SunTech Guosheng solarsailor, an innovative 31.5 meter solar-powered passenger vessel sailed on its maiden voyage on the Huangpu River. The vessels is owned by Suntech Power Holdings, the world’s largest producer of … Continue reading
Last Thursday, the mellifluous blast of the SS Normandie‘s steam whistle once gain reverberated across the piers of the South Street Seaport in New York. The blowing of the steam whistle celebrated the anniversary of the arrival of French luxury liner to New York seventy five years … Continue reading
Julian Stockwin made a comment on Twitter this morning (what is the past tense of “to tweet?” by the way) regarding women on submarines. He noted that Norway has had women serving on submarines for decades. Indeed, the US … Continue reading