The National Transportation Safety Board announced Thursday that U.S. Navy salvage tug Apache has located the bridge deck of El Faro roughly a mile from the main wreckage of the ro/ro cargo ship. 33 crew died when the 790-foot long ship sank in Hurricane … Continue reading
Category Archives: Ships
On November 7th, two balsa rafts set out from Lima, Peru, bound for Easter Island on the Kon-Tiki 2 expedition. The voyage is both an homage to Thor Heyerdahl’s famous voyage on the raft Kon-Tiki in 1947 and a voyage … Continue reading
At the beginning of October, the SS United States Conservancy announced that its board had retained the services of a broker to explore selling the SS United States for scrap “over concerns about the organization’s long-term ability to continue financing the … Continue reading
The Wavertree, an iron-hulled windjammer built in 1885, has been a museum ship in at New York’s South Street Seaport Museum since 1969. In May, the historic ship shifted to the Caddell Dry Dock in Staten Island to undergo stabilization and restoration. … Continue reading
The first reports from accidents are often wrong. In the case of the capsizing of the whale-watching boat, Leviathan II, off Tofino on Vancouver Island with the loss of six passengers, the initial reports from CBC News said that the vessel … Continue reading
From a press release from the National Safety Transportation Board (NTSB): A search team on board the USNS Apache has found the wreckage of a vessel that they believe to be the cargo ship El Faro, which went missing on … Continue reading
A beautiful Friday evening at the Sultana Downrigging Weekend in Chestertown, MD. The schooner Sultana, launched in Chestertown, Maryland, in 2001, serves as an educational vessel for schoolchildren as it travels around the Chesapeake Bay. Now in its fifteenth year, … Continue reading
In early October, the headline in the Philadephia Inquirer was Is the S.S. United States headed toward the scrap yard?. After years of attempting to save the iconic cruise ship, the SS United States Conservancy announced that the SS United States, … Continue reading
In 1998, the whale-watching boat Ocean Thunderer was hit by a wave and swamped, throwing all on board — three passengers and one boat operator — into the waters near Sea Lion Rocks, also known as Plover Reefs, off the western … Continue reading
Ben Talman, a reader and contributor to the Old Salt Blog, visited the Edwin Fox in Picton, New Zealand and took a series of wonderful photos of the historic ship. The Edwin Fox is an East Indiaman built in 1853 of teak in Calcutta, India. … Continue reading
MV Leviathan II, a 65′ whale watching boat, sank late yesterday afternoon, off the port of Tofino on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. 27 were aboard when the vessel sank. Five are reported to have died and one person is … Continue reading
The US Coast Guard rarely gets enough credit for the remarkable work that they do in routinely rescuing mariners in often extremely dangerous conditions. A new movie, “The Finest Hours“, is coming out this winter, which tells the story of … Continue reading
Yesterday afternoon, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released an updated report on their investigation into the sinking of El Faro in Hurricane Joaquin in early October. The report notes: “In a recorded satellite phone call to the company’s emergency … Continue reading
Happy Trafalgar Day! Today is the 210th anniversary of the overwhelming Royal Navy victory over the French and Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. After considerable research, Admiral Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory has now been repainted to more accurately … Continue reading
NASSCO Shipyard in San Diego delivered Isla Bella, the world’s first LNG-powered container ship to TOTE Maritime. The 3100 TEU 764-foot long ship, the first of two 764-foot long Marlin Class container ships, should dramatically decrease emissions and increase fuel efficiency … Continue reading
On October 9th, the schooner Phoenix dragged her anchor in a storm in Port Townsend harbor, Washington. She ended up sinking, holed on the rocks of the breakwater. The good news is that, after a week underwater, the schooner was … Continue reading
The recent rain in the Carolinas has been close to unprecedented. Meteorologists have referred to it as the “1,000-year rainfall.” Another way to describe it is that it was “enough rain to float a battleship.” In this case, however, that … Continue reading
I happened to come across an absolutely magnificent video by Pierre Henkart. Beautiful video and editing of the Pride under sail as well as great shots of sail handling by the crew. Definitely worth the 5 minutes and 40 seconds to watch. … Continue reading
This summer, the French 60′ foiling trimaran Hydroptere sailed 2215 nautical miles from Los Angeles to Hawaii. The winds were not favorable and the passage was not terribly fast at about 11 days, compared to the four day record set by the 110-foot … Continue reading
Maersk Line has posted a 3-minute time lapse of the M/V Adrian Maersk, 6,000 TEUs, passing through the newly expanded New Suez Canal. As reported in Maritime Executive: The New Suez Canal was inaugurated by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in a ceremony … Continue reading