Last July, we posted about Christeen, the oldest oyster sloop in the US, built in 1883, which is still sailing on Oyster Bay, NY. Oyster Bay is on the North shore of Long Island. Not far away on the South shore in Great South Bay, an oyster sloop of similar vintage is also still sailing. The oyster sloop Priscilla built in 1888 is owned and operated by the Long Island Maritime Museum of West Sayville, NY. Priscilla was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006.
We recently posted about various devices and schemes for cleaning plastic and other flotsam from harbors and waterways. Roberta Weisbrod was kind enough to point out another great example of such a device — Baltimore’s Inner Harbor Water Wheel, or “Mr. Trash Wheel” as it is known to locals.
Mr. Trash Wheel is a water-wheel and solar powered conveyor system which lifts drifting trash from the water and drops it into a hopper barge, to be towed away to a disposal center. Since the start of operations in 2014, Mr. Trash Wheel has removed over a million and a half points of trash from the harbor. This includes 628,192 plastic bottles; 724,625 polystyrene containers; 9,935,220 cigarette butts; 7,919 glass bottles; 519,443 grocery bags; and 718,201 chip bags.
Mr. Trash Wheel has worked so well that other trash wheels are being installed all around the harbor. Professor Trash Wheel was installed last year in Canton and a third wheel is planned for the Gwynns Falls. This summer, the City of Baltimore announced that they were installing Captain Trash Wheel in Masonville Cove on the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River.
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“Black Sam” Bellamy
The Whydah Pirate Museum announced this week, that last year human bones were found near the wreck of the pirate ship Whydah on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The bones were located in an area close to where a pistol, which possibly belonged to the ship’ captain, Samuel Bellamy, had been recovered. Forensic scientists from the University of New Haven in Connecticut are now comparing the DNA from the bones to a DNA sample given by one of Bellamy’s living descendants in the United Kingdom.
Samuel, “Black Sam” Bellamy had one of the shorter careers as a pirate, lasting roughly one year. Nevertheless, in that time he and his crew captured at least 53 ships, valued at $137 million in 2017 dollars – making him one of the wealthiest pirate in recorded history.
Until a few days ago, everything seemed promising for the award-winning UK yacht builder Oyster Marine. Oyster had a record year in 2017. Their order-book stood at $70 million and they had gotten a great response to their Oyster 745 on display at the Düsseldorf 2018 boat show in January. Cruising World magazine honored the model as ‘Best Luxury Cruiser’ in its 2018 Boat of the Year Awards. Then, on Monday, an announcement was made — Oyster Marine is being liquidated. 400 jobs are expected to be lost.
What happened? The simplest answer may be that private equity gives and private equity takes away. The firm’s current owner, the Dutch private equity firm, HTP Investments, is believed to have withdrawn its financial support for the firm.
In 2016, we posted about a public-private partnership between the State of Maryland and the replica Baltimore clipper, Pride of Baltimore II. It appears likely that the partnership may not be renewed, leaving a $500,000 shortfall in funding which may curtail this year’s sailing season unless sufficient money can be raised.
From the Pride of Baltimore II organization press release:
“Pride of Baltimore II remains one of the world’s most revered tall ships, delighting crowds wherever she sails,” said Pride of Baltimore, Inc. board chair Captain Eric Nielsen. “We will use 2018 to reassess the ship’s future, working closely with our partners in the public and private sectors to make sure we don’t witness the end to Pride’s wonderful history.”
This morning around 8:32 a.m. an alert went out over an AccuWeather app to cell phones from the Gulf Coast to Maine — “Severe Weather Alert: Tsunami Warning … in Effect Until 9:48 AM ET. ” Fortunately, no massive wave was inbound for the East Coast.
The alert was a test by the National Weather Service which somehow was picked up by the AccuWeather app. Verge reports that the alert — which was meant as a test of transmission times for actual alerts — was apparently flagged as a genuine alert by the AccuWeather app, causing users with notifications enabled to wake up to a tsunami warning this morning. According to the NWS’s Miami branch, the tsunami test is one that is conducted monthly, but apparently, something went wrong this month that triggered the alerts for AccuWeather users. The false alarm was sent to residents across the East Coast and some parts of the South, including Houston, New Orleans, Charlotte, Charleston, and the New England area.
The Pride of Baltimore II Facebook page has some very bad news about Melbourne Smith.
Red Sails is a documentary by Michael Maloney about the remarkable Thames sailing barges, which continued to ply their trade well into the 20th century before being replaced by diesel trucks. The documentary interviews bargemen about their lives aboard the sailing barges and also follows the rebuilding and the relaunching of the Thames sailing barge Cambria, which was the last British registered vessel to carry a commercial cargo under sail alone, retiring only in 1970. Thanks to David Rye for contributing to this post.
Red Sails from Michael Maloney on Vimeo.
DCV Driftmaster, Photo: Chris Gardner
As the problem of trash and plastic in our waters gets worse, new (and a few older technologies) are being used to respond. They range from small and functional, like the Seabin, a sort of high tech floating bucket designed to collect floating trash in marinas, to RanMarine‘s Waste Shark, an autonomous surface drone which the developers describe as “trash-eating, data-collecting, carbon-zero and safe.”
The Maritime Administration identifies Captain Hugh Mulzac as The First African-American Shipmaster. Mulzac was the captain of the Liberty ship Booker T. Washington in 1942. Without intending any disrespect to the memory of Captain Mulzac, he was not the first African American shipmaster, by a wide margin. Of the 2,500 masters who captained the American whaling ship fleet of the 18th and 19th centuries, at least 63 were men of color, for example.
To find the first African-American shipmaster, you need to go back more than 200 years. Who was the first? That is hard to say. Paul Cuffe is a good candidate.
The South Street Seaport Museum‘s historic Georges Banks fishing schooner Lettie G. Howard will be spending the next two summers in Lake Erie at the Erie Maritime Museum in a collaboration with the Flagship Niagara League. The schooner will be partnering with the Brig Niagara. Lettie G. Howard will offer day sails on Lake Erie from Erie, PA, while Niagara visits other ports during the 2018 and 2019 sailing seasons.
“The Flagship Niagara League has been working toward this collaboration for three years; to finally see it come to fruition is just incredible. The collaboration with South Street Seaport Museum and with the schooner Lettie G. Howard, will give us the opportunity to expand our services while enhancing the visitor experience at the Erie Maritime Museum,” Executive Director Shawn Waskiewicz told YourErie.com.
Panther John
Last weekend in Tampa, FL was the annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival. The festival has been a yearly event for the better part of a century. It celebrates the life and times of the “Last Buccaneer,” the pirate Jose Gaspar, also known as Gasparilla, a Spanish Admiral turned brigand who seized over 400 ships between 1789 and 1821. His treasure, none of which has ever been found, is said to be buried all along the Gulf Coast.
Gasparilla’s exploits are legendary. Perhaps, mythological might be an even better description, as there is no evidence that Jose Gaspar ever existed.
My latest novel, Evening Gray Morning Red, has received not one, but two, wonderful reviews on the Pirates and Privateers blog, by Cindy Vallar and Irwin Bryan, respectively.
Excerpts from Cindy Vallar’s review: “Gripping nautical and historical fiction at its best… Spilman deftly brings the period, people, and situation to life in a way that a history can never achieve. … From first page to last, he whisks readers back in time to stand beside Thom and Johnny and experience all the emotions and intrigue they do. When the back cover closes, it’s like leaving good friends. You miss being with them, but the voyage was more exciting and fulfilling than you ever imagined. Highly recommended.” Click here to read the review in its entirety.
An excerpt from Irwin Bryan’s review: “This novel is a well concocted tale from start to finish. As with his other books, when you read Evening Gray Morning Red, you’re captivated by this author’s rich descriptions and events and escape from your own thoughts and reality.” Click here to read the entire review.
On Wednesday, much of the world will be able to watch a blue moon, a supermoon and a blood moon, all at once. A blue moon is a term for a second full moon in a given month. There was a full month on the first of January so the second on the 31st will be the blue moon, even if the pigmentation doesn’t actually change.
It so happens that the full moon will also be a supermoon, which is to say that the full moon will be at perigee — its closest approach to Earth in a single orbit — making it appear slightly larger and brighter.
But wait! There is more! On Wednesday, there will also be a total lunar eclipse. As the shadow of the earth crosses the face of the moon it will turn it an orange or red, which is why a lunar eclipse is often called a blood moon.
So there you have it — a blue, super, blood moon. The last time the three events aligned was in 1982 and the next won’t occur until 2037.
Recently, we posted about the times when New York harbor froze solid. While that is a very unusual occurrence in New York City, a bit farther up the Hudson River, the river freezing over is a yearly event. In the summertime, before the river was spanned by bridges, numerous ferries plied the waters allowing people and wheeled vehicles to cross the river. In the wintertime, things were more challenging when the ice kept the ferries tied to the docks.
As long as the ice on the frozen river was thick and smooth enough people could walk across or even take horse-drawn sleighs. Things got a bit tricky when the ice was melting or just freezing, or when currents would break the ice into huge moving sheets and islands.
Here is a story told by Richard Heppner in Hudson Valley One of Lloyd Plass and his ill-fated cross-Hudson Rickenbacker taxi service:
A documentary about a shipyard in Faversham, Kent where over 1200 vessels were built and launched between 1916 and 1969. The narrowness of Faversham Creek was no barrier to the launching of such large ship. Vessels were simply launched sideways.
The film was directed and produced by Michael Maloney for Countrywide Productions. See cwideprods.co.uk for more information.
A Sideways Launch from Michael Maloney on Vimeo.
Preussen under full sail
We recently posted about the five-masted full-rigged cruise ship Royal Clipper, a modern sailing ship designed as an homage to the great five-masted windjammer Preussen. We are very pleased to have a guest post about the mighty windjammer by Robin Denny:
With the Peking now back in her home port of Hamburg, perhaps it is opportune to mention another of the Flying P sailing ships, the great Preussen. A five-masted full-rigged ship, 482′ LOA, with square sails on all masts, she was one of the fastest sailing ships, matching the Clippers with speeds up to 20 knots.
Built in Geestemünde, Germany, she was launched in May, 1902 with her hull, masts, spars and rigging, both cable and rods, all being of steel. She proved to be a well found and weatherly, sailing, among other destinations, to Chile, Japan and New York, where most of New York turned out to welcome her.
On Tuesday, a reporter in Alabama announced that he believed that he had found the burned wreckage of the schooner Clotilda, the last vessel to carry slaves to the United States. The wreckage was exposed following a winter “bomb cyclone” weather front, which caused extremely low tides in the area, exposing the wreckage. There is no firm confirmation that the wreckage is that of the schooner Clotilda, but the location, dimensions, and condition of the wreck strongly suggest that the wreckage is the slave ship. Clotilda was a two-masted schooner, 86 feet long, 23 feet of beam, and had a copper-sheathed hull. The wreck was found on the Mobile River just off Twelvemile Island by Ben Raines of AL.com.
The international slave trade had been illegal in the United States since 1807, but that didn’t stopped the slavers. Local lore suggests that the voyage of the Clotilda began as a wager between Timothy Meaher, a wealthy Alabama ship and shipyard owner, and friends from New England, that he could smuggle slaves from Africa into the United States without being caught.
“Vampire Squid from Hell” sounds like a low budget horror movie from the 1950s. It isn’t. It is a small cephalopod which lives in the deep oceans.
There are two important things that one should know about the species with the scientific nameVampyroteuthis infernalis, which means, literally, the “vampire squid from hell.” The creature is not a vampire. Nor is it a squid. Despite the confused taxonomy, the vampire squid is a strange and wonderful creature in its own right.
The vampire squid is neither squid nor octopus but a more primitive form of cephalopod, virtually a living fossil, dating back to a time before the squid and octopus split into separate orders. The vampire squid is only about a foot long and lives in deep water in temperate oceans. It is no bloodsucker. It eats “marine snow,” organic detritus drifting down from the upper layers of the water column. Apparently, the creature’s jet-black to pale reddish body was the basis for the vampiric name.
Fifty years ago today, on January 23, 1968, North Korea seized the U.S. Navy intelligence ship USS Pueblo while operating in international waters. One sailor was killed and 82 were taken prisoner. The Pueblo was commanded by Lloyd “Pete” Bucher. He and his crew were charged with spying on North Korea. Commander Bucher and his crew were released the following December after enduring 11 months of brutal captivity at the hands of the North Koreans. Pueblo is still listed as a commissioned U.S. Navy vessel — the only one held by a foreign nation. The ship is a now a tourist attraction in Pyongyang, North Korea.