Last week, we posted a video promoting the Port of New York and New Jersey made in the 1950s. Here is a similar if very different video made by RKO focussing on the Manhattan waterfront around 1937, at the height … Continue reading
Category Archives: Ships
Apparently, lightning strikes twice as often over shipping sea lanes than over the ocean as a whole. Wired recently published an article about research that comes to that conclusion and suggests an answer to the question. They note that it … Continue reading
A three-year project to research Wind-Assisted Sail Propulsion (WASP) has been launched in Europe supported by €5.4Mn (about $6 million) in funding provided by the Interreg North Sea Europe program, part of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The project … Continue reading
A year ago we posted about the testing of two modern Rotor Sails installed on the MV Maersk Pelican, a 110,000 DWT Long Range 2 product tanker. The 30-meter tall and 5-meter diameter rotors were predicted to reduce fuel consumption … Continue reading
For just over a century, an 80-foot long iron sand-dumping scow has been stuck on a rock in the raging currents of the Niagara River just upriver from the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. After a powerful storm blew through … Continue reading
Here is a wonderful video from the 1950s focusing on the Port of New York, which the narrator proclaims is the “Best Port in the World.” It is wonderful to watch the old style cargo handling — hoisting bags, boxes, … Continue reading
The RV Petrel continues its amazing streak of underwater discoveries. Now, it has located the wreckage of what is believed to be the USS Johnston at a depth of 20,400 ft in the Philippine Sea. The wreck is believed to … Continue reading
Hurtigruten, a Norwegian ferry and expedition cruise operator, has put into service, MS Roald Amundsen, the world’s first hybrid electric-powered expedition cruise ship. The 530-passenger ship has twin battery banks that operate in conjunction with the ship’s four diesel generators … Continue reading
The so-called Ohio River ghost ship does not seem to be really haunted, except perhaps by a long and illustrious past. A vessel of many names, she has been known as Celt, Sachem, USS Phenakite, Sightseer, and Circle Line V. … Continue reading
I recently came back from a voyage on a small ship along the west coast of Iceland. One of the highlights of the trip were stops in ports in the Westfjords, an isolated peninsula in the northwest of the island. … Continue reading
One hundred and forty-two 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 Battle of Leyte Gulf was fought seventy-five years ago this week between the US and Australian navies and the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was the largest naval battle of World War II and by some standards the largest naval … Continue reading
Back in January, Richard V. Spencer, Secretary of the Navy, made a promise to President Trump that the advanced weapons elevators on the new carrier USS Gerald R. Ford would be operational by the end of the summer or the … Continue reading
The RV Petrel has located the wreckage of the Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi, sunk in the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The ship is the second of two sunken Japanese carriers that the Petrel has located two days apart. … Continue reading
Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, died almost exactly a year ago. Nevertheless, his passion for underwater archeology lives on in the operation of the Research Vessel Petrel, which is fully funded by Allen’s estate. The ship’s mission is to … Continue reading
The strange saga of the USCGC Acushnet continues. Back in 2011, Acushnet, the oldest serving cutter in the U.S. Coast Guard was put up for sale. She was purchased by a con-man named Vernon Officer who bought the cutter using … Continue reading
The Swedish Navy’s headquarters is returning to a vast underground naval base beneath Muskö in the Stockholm Archipelago in response to a perceived threat of a Russian attack. The vast underground cold war fortress can shelter warships and submarines and … Continue reading
Last month, China’s Shanghai Jiangnan-Changxing Shipyard launched the CMA CGM Jacques Saadé, the first in a new fleet of nine French-flagged, 23,000-TEU, LNG-powered containerships that will join the group’s fleet in 2020 on the French Asia Line. Not only will … Continue reading
The North Korean handysize bulk carrier Wise Honest has been sold in a sealed bid auction. The proceeds of the auction will go to compensate the family of Otto Warmbier, the American student who died in 2017 shortly after being … Continue reading
The Solaris, a solar-powered tour boat owned by the Hudson River Maritime Museum in Kingston, NY will provide trips across the Hudson River on Saturday and Sunday, October 19 and 20. (They also previously offered trips at the end of … Continue reading