Despite having a damaged rudder, the American super-maxi Comanche was first across the finish line in this year’s Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race, leading the next closest boat, Rambler by roughly 50 miles. This is the first time since 1998 that an … Continue reading
Category Archives: Ships
The American yachts Comanche and Rambler are battling over the lead in the Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race, which has turned into a major boat-breaker. Twenty-nine boats, representing a quarter of the fleet, have retired from the race, most with damage from … Continue reading
Happy Boxing Day and with it a wild beginning to this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart Race. The race began with three yachts colliding at the starting line. The Chinese Ark 323, Lupa of London, and Cougar II were forced to … Continue reading
Back in the early 200s, the US Navy began a program to build a new class of Littoral Combat Ships, LCS, which were intended to be fast, agile and, at least by US Navy standards, relatively inexpensive, which could operate … Continue reading
The nuclear submarine USS Georgia is now in drydock at the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay. The Georgia was returning after a long international deployment when it ran into buoy No. 23, located at the entrance to the channel leading to the boat’s … Continue reading
In May, we posted that Star Clippers is building the world’s largest square-rigged passenger ship, a near-replica of the five-masted barque France II commissioned in 1911. Last week, the keel of the as of yet unnamed ship was laid in the Brodosplit … Continue reading
The tanker Navigator Europa, moored outside the Targa LPG export terminal, caught fire today, shutting down a section of the Houston Ship Channel. The tanker is reported to be carrying ethylene, a chemical used in making plastic. The cause of the fire … Continue reading
Today I saw the movie, “In the Heart of the Sea,” directed by Ron Howard and somewhat loosely based on Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. How was it? The movie was … Continue reading
Today in theaters in the US, the movie “In the Heart of the Sea” opens. It is based on Nathaniel Philbrick’s book, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. (I will be reviewing the movie tomorrow.) … Continue reading
This week, the beach in Melbourne, Florida was suddenly covered with thousands of yellow and red cans and freeze-dried bricks of Cafe Bustelo brand espresso coffee. Yesterday, packages of Ramen noodles started washing ashore at nearby Port St.Lucie. In Fort … Continue reading
The USS Zumwalt, DDG 1000, the largest and most expensive destroyer ever built for the US Navy, headed down the Kennebeck River from Bath Iron Works, in Bath, Maine yesterday, on its way to sea trials in the open Atlantic. Depending … Continue reading
Minutes before the beginning of the attack on the warships of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Japanese Imperial Navy planes bombed the nearby U.S. Naval Air Station on the east coast of Oahu, destroying twenty-seven Catalina PBY seaplanes on … Continue reading
We recently posted about the possibility of purchasing a custom Viking longship from the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark. If that doesn’t fit your budget, or if you don’t want to have to line up thirty to one hundred able bodied … Continue reading
The new $7.5 billion DDG-1000 destroyer, USS Zumwalt, expected to be delivered by Bath Iron Works sometime in 2016, is incredibly high tech and innovative. It features advanced weapons and propulsion systems as well as an inward sloping hull with a ram bow … Continue reading
A group of tall ship enthusiasts are attempting raise money to build and sail an exact replica of the great composite clipper ship, Cutty Sark. The goal is to launch the Cutty Sark II by November 2019, the 150th anniversary of … Continue reading
In the last two months, eleven wooden fishing vessels have drifted ashore from the Sea of Japan on the Japanese coast. On board were 25 badly decomposed bodies. The vessels contained nets and fishing gear and are believed to have come from … Continue reading
Happy Thanksgiving! As a “Throwback Thursday” — Thanksgiving edition, here is a short video of the voyage of the Mayflower II across the Atlantic in 1957, under the command of Captain Alan Villiers. Voyage of the Mayflower II, 1957 … Continue reading
This weekend the US Coast Guard recovered 10,000 gallons of benzene from the wreck of a tank barge that sank 78 years ago in Lake Erie. The Coast Guard has pumped the first of 8 tanks on the wrecked barge. In … Continue reading
Great news from the SS United States Conservancy. At the beginning of October, the 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 … Continue reading
Around 1847, Henry Manning, a London carpenter, started building houses in components that could be easily stowed on ships and reassembled by emigrants on the other side of an ocean. Several hundred “Manning cottages” were shipped to Australia. It turns … Continue reading