Tall ship Gazela Primeiro, the official tall ship of Philadelphia, carried 30 dories when it fished the Grand Banks of the Atlantic Ocean. A dory is a small wooden boat used by a solo fisherman who tended a long line … Continue reading
Category Archives: Ships
Last April, we posted about the capsizing and sinking of the South Korean ro/ro ferry Sewol with the loss of over 300, dead and missing. Yoo Byung-eun, the effective owner and manager of Chonghaejin Marine Company, which operated the ferry, had been the … Continue reading
PortSide New York, the organization behind the historic tanker Mary A. Whalen, is having an amazing marine hardware fundraising sale. From their press release: If you think a full-sized bollard makes the perfect doorstop, or that a collection of shackles … Continue reading
Two years ago we posted about how a team of scientists at the Texas A&M University Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation were using freeze-drying to preserve large sections of French explorer’s Robert LaSalle’s flagship, La Belle, which sank in Matagorda Bay in … Continue reading
The crows nest, as a shelter for the lookout on whaling ships sailing the icy waters of the Arctic, was by all indications, invented by Captain William Scoresby around 1807. (See yesterday’s post: Crow’s Nests : Part 1 — Melville & … Continue reading
The first of a two-part post on crows nests. Who would have thought that a crow’s nest deserves such attention? A reader commented on the lack of a crow’s nest in the video of the Charles W. Morgan under sail … Continue reading
What a wonderful juxtaposition. The whaling ship Charles W. Morgan, built in 1841, and recently rebuilt by the Mystic Seaport Museum, sailing with humpback whales as they migrate across Stellwagen Bank off Massachusetts. No harpoons were in evidence and the whales did … Continue reading
The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance is hosting its seventh annual City of Water Day festival this Saturday, July 12th, at multiple locations in New York Harbor. Festivities will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. This year Hoboken is joining in the fun, hosting … Continue reading
I believe that this is the first straight-out restaurant review that we have done on the Old Salt Blog. Then again the Grand Banks Oyster Bar on the schooner Sherman Zwicker is not your typical restaurant. Sherman Zwicker is a … Continue reading
National Geographic has published breathtaking photographs and video of the Swedish warship Mars, which exploded and sank in the first battle of Öland in 1564. Because the ship sank in the dark, cold waters of the Baltic Sea, where the … Continue reading
HMS Pickle is for sale on Ebay, with a minimum opening bid of £69,500.00, no reserve and five days left in the auction. The topsail schooner is a replica of the first ship to bring the news of Nelson’s great … Continue reading
The US Coast Guard in Florida faced an unusual challenge earlier this week. Virtually the entire crew, 19 out of 21, on the 35,362 dwt Korean bulk carrier JS Comet had become seriously ill with symptoms of food poisoning and needed to … Continue reading
In just over a week, salvors expect to start pumping air into sponson tanks welded along the hull of the Costa Concordia to refloat the ship. Prior to the refloating, Italian police have released footage showing the underwater interior of the wrecked … Continue reading
Today, Great Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II christened the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth. As the ceremony was held in Rosyth, Scotland, the queen christened the ship with a bottle of whiskey from the Bowmore Distillery, rather than the … Continue reading
The composite clipper, City of Adelaide, built in 1864, is the world’s oldest surviving clipper ship. Between 1864 and 1887 the ship made 23 voyages from London and Plymouth to Adelaide, South Australia. Approximately a quarter of a million Australians … Continue reading
The owners of the product tanker Arsenal lost contact with the ship while she was underway in the South China Sea near the Anambas Archipelago, Indonesia. Fearing that the ship might have been hijacked by pirates, they contacted the Indonesian … Continue reading
We posted earlier today about the USS Slater’s dazzle camouflage paint. Dazzle, sometimes referred to as razzle dazzle, is a very different approach to camouflage. Where most camouflage attempts to hide an object or person, dazzle camouflage on ships uses … Continue reading
In April we posted about the drydocking of USS Slater, the last World War II destroyer escort still afloat in the United States, at Caddell Dry Dock in Staten Island. Yesterday, her repairs completed, newly cleaned, and painted, she returned to her … Continue reading
In 2010, we posted about a shipwreck in the Baltic, off the Åland Islands of Sweden, in which 30 bottles of champagne and 5 bottles of beer were found intact in the wreckage. In 2011, two bottles of the champagne were … Continue reading
In January 1841, the Hillman Brothers shipyard on the Acushnet River in New Bedford, MA delivered a new whaleship, the Charles W. Morgan. Yesterday, the Charles W. Morgan, the only surviving wooden whaling ship, sailed back into New Bedford, where she was built more than 170 … Continue reading