Delayed for months by both hurricanes and the pandemic, Versabar’s heavy-lift catamaran VB-10,000, nicknamed the “Golden Arches,” arrived yesterday at St. Simons Island, GA to begin the scrapping of the wrecked car carrier, Golden Ray. The car carrier rolled on its … Continue reading
Category Archives: Ships
One hundred and forty-three years ago today on October 27th, 1877, the three-masted iron-hulled merchant sailing ship Elissa was launched in Aberdeen, Scotland. She is now a museum ship at the Texas Seaport Museum. In honor of her birthday, here … Continue reading
The Greek Navy minesweeper HS Kallisto was cut in half following a collision with the containership Maersk Launceston. The stern of the minesweeper apparently sank following the collision while the bow was taken under tow by salvors. The minesweeper’s crew … Continue reading
Seven people were detained after British special forces stormed the Liberian registered tanker, Nave Andromeda, that was suspected of having been hijacked off the Isle of Wight. The BBC reports that sixteen members of the Special Boat Service (SBS) ended … Continue reading
Two hundred and fifteen years ago today, in 1805, the Royal Navy, commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets in the Atlantic off Cape Trafalgar. The decisive victory ended French plans to use the combined … Continue reading
A rescue is underway to save 62 seafarers stranded on Gough Island in the South Atlantic, one of the most remote islands in the world. The fishing/research vessel, Geo Searcher, is reported to have sunk after hitting rocks about a … Continue reading
Australia’s only home-built icebreaker will soon leave their shores. The icebreaker Aurora Australis, affectionately nicknamed Orange Roughy, is ending her more than thirty-year career serving Australia. Launched at Carrington Slipways in New South Wales in 1989, the ship helped Australia … Continue reading
In late August, we posted about how the 99-year-old four-masted steel bark Sedov set off to transit the Arctic by the Northern Sea Route to reach her home port of Kaliningrad. She has now almost completed the voyage, passing the … Continue reading
On New Year’s Eve, in 20-foot seas and high winds, the 130′ crab boat Scandies Rose operating off the Alaska Peninsula, developed a starboard list and suddenly capsized. Two of the seven crew were able to don exposure suits and … Continue reading
Both the US Navy and the Chinese Navy are working to develop “ghost fleets” of drone ships. The US Navy has been working on developing unmanned vessels since at least 2016. Four years ago, we posted about Sea Hunter, the … Continue reading
I suppose if you plan on smuggling a painting by Picasso worth close to $29 million, using a superyacht might be a stylish choice. For Spanish billionaire Jaime Botin, however, it didn’t work out too well. Forbes reports: Despite a … Continue reading
Today, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the US Navy officially named the newest of the future Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, not after a president, a senator, an admiral or a historic battlefield. Instead, they named the carrier after … Continue reading
Here is wonderful drone footage by Ryan Smith of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy‘s school ship TS Kennedy as it departs for its Sea Term 2020. The ship sails down Buzzard’s Bay bound for Panama where it will transit the Canal. … Continue reading
Will the Titanic II ever be built? And if so, when will it sail? Back in 2012, billionaire Australian businessman Clive Palmer announced the construction of a modern “replica” of the doomed passenger liner RMS Titanic which sank after striking … Continue reading
On Tuesday around 3:35 PM the Coast Guard in Galveston, TX was notified that a fishing boat, the 82′ long Pappy’s Pride, had collided with the 600-foot chemical tanker Bow Fortune. The fishing boat had capsized and four crew were … Continue reading
We are having a relatively warm January with significantly fluctuating temperatures. Similar weather conditions 101 years ago, coupled with a shoddily built storage tank, caused the Great Boston Molasses Flood, which inundated Boston’s North End sending a wall of molasses, … Continue reading
One of the better ways to tell if a model works at predicting the future is to run it in reverse to see how well it predicts the past. Climate change models so far have had their limitations. Most current … Continue reading
In addition to more than 24 people who have died in the terrible Australian bushfires, an incredible number of animals have also perished. Estimates of wildlife deaths range from millions to a billion animals. More than 25.5 million acres of … Continue reading
Good ideas are rarely new. Container ships revolutionized liner shipping in the 1960s and 70s. Nevertheless, the idea of carrying cargo in easily handled standardized containers goes back at least 2,000 years. I was reminded of this when reading about … Continue reading
As we have previously posted, the restored Liberty ship, John W. Brown, was at risk of becoming homeless when its five-year agreement for berthing at Rukert Terminals’ Pier C in Canton, Maryland expired last September. Now, if all goes well, … Continue reading