Last October, the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard completed the year-long dismantling of the US Navy nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Narwhal (SSN-671). Commissioned in 1969, the submarine was a one-of-a-kind, an experimental design that would become one of the most successful … Continue reading
Category Archives: Ships
The salvage of the stranded car carrier Golden Ray is accelerating. Salvors on the heavy-lift barge VB-10,000 are using a heavy chain to cut the ship into sections to be carried away by barge. The recently completed the second cut, separating … Continue reading
Thanks to Captain Richard Bailey for mentioning the time ball on the Titanic Memorial in the Financial District of downtown New York City. We neglected to mention it in our post “Watching the Ball Drop — the Nautical Origins of … Continue reading
A video for a Sunday afternoon. In March, the US Navy officially commenced Ice Exercise (ICEX) 2020 in the Arctic Ocean with the construction of a temporary ice camp, Camp Seadragon, and the arrival of two US Navy fast-attack submarines. … Continue reading
Almost a decade ago, the container ship MV Rena ran hard aground on Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga on New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty. The ship, carrying 2,100 containers and 1,700 tonnes of heavy fuel, would break up resulting in New Zealand’s … Continue reading
Salvors on the heavy-lift barge VB-10,000 have begun making the second cut through the hull of the stranded car carrier Golden Ray which rolled over in shallow water shortly after departing the Port of Brunswick, Georgia on St. Simons Sound … Continue reading
Ship scrapping is a slow and methodical process. A ship is typically run up on the scrapping ways, which can be a concrete platform or a sloping sandy beach. As burners cut away the upper sections of the ship, it … Continue reading
One of the great things about writing historical fiction is discovering odd sets of facts, often buried in the archives, that capture both the desperation and the madness of a given time. Often, as the cliche goes, you just can’t … Continue reading
Sail-assist propulsion on commercial ships is developing rapidly, featuring a range of technologies including rotor sails, rigid wing sails, ventilated turbo sails, and even conventional fabric sails. One thing that all these rigs have in common, however, is that when … Continue reading
A year ago we posted about the innovative ideas and products developed by the Dutch firm, eConowind. They have developed a Ventfoil, a fixed airfoil-shaped spar with an internal fan that uses boundary layer suction to generate thrust. Ventfoils can … Continue reading
Today, the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine have begun to be distributed in the United States. It seems like a good time to look back at the voyage of the orphan boys in the vaccine ship that sailed … Continue reading
This is a wonderful half-hour documentary hosted by Tom Cunliffe about Jolie Brise. Jolie Brise is a gaff-rigged pilot cutter/racing yacht built and launched by the Albert Paumelle Yard in Le Havre in 1913 to a design by Alexandre Pâris. … Continue reading
Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL) has reached a coal transport deal with Tohoku Electric Power Co., Inc., which will use a new 99,000 DWT collier equipped with a retractable wing sail propulsion system, known as the Wind Challenger. Construction of … Continue reading
The US Navy has selected Captain Amy Bauernschmidt as the first woman to command a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Capt. Bauernschmidt was selected for the position by the fiscal year 2022 aviation major command screen board. It has not been announced … Continue reading
The one-year-old, 14,000 TEU capacity container ship, ONE Apus, has set a dubious new record. It encountered severe weather about 1,600 nautical miles northwest of Hawaii while sailing from Yantian in China to Long Beach, California. In the violent storm, … Continue reading
The US Navy has decided to scrap the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard, which burned for more than four days this summer in San Diego. The cost and time required to rebuild the gutted ship would be simply too great to … Continue reading
High drama on the high seas. Kevin Escoffier was in third place in the Vendee Globe Race, sailing in the “Roaring Forties” about 840 miles south of Cape Town, when his boat PRB broke in half. He sent a brief … Continue reading
Yesterday, we posted about a head to head race between trimarans Sodebo and Maxi Edmond de Rothschild/Gitana 17 attempting to win the Jules Verne Trophy. While the race for the trophy is against the clock, the two boats that sailed within hours … Continue reading
Early Wednesday, two 100′ long foiling maxi-trimarans, Sodebo and Maxi Edmond de Rothschild/Gitana 17 set out to race around the globe to attempt to win the Jules Verne Trophy. Sailing within hours of each other, Sodebo crossed the starting line, which … Continue reading
After being delayed by hurricanes, the pandemic, and a broken link in the cutting chain, the heavy-lift catamaran VB-10,000, nicknamed the “Golden Arches” is now making good progress on the first cut to slice the stricken car carrier, Golden Ray … Continue reading