Among the fleet of ships and boats that make up the fleet at the Mystic Seaport Museum, the Danish lighthouse tender Gerda III, built in 1926, is a ruggedly attractive double-ender. Nevertheless, she could easily be overlooked. That would be a mistake. Gerda III played an important role in an audacious and risky rescue mission to save Jewish refugees from Denmark in 1943.
When it became apparent that the invading Germans intended to round up Danish Jews and send them to concentration camps, the Danes began a desperate effort to rescue the Jews. A flotilla of fishing and cargo vessels assembled to smuggle the refugees to safety in neutral Sweden. Gerda III was based in the fishing village of Gilleleje, only about 11 miles from Sweden. About one-fifth of the Danish Jews escaped to Sweden via Gilleleje.
In October of 1943, Hanny Sondig, the 19-year-old daughter of the boat’s manager, took command of Gerda III with a crew of four and nightly smuggled groups of 10 to 15 Jewish refugees in the tiny hold of the lighthouse tender. In the two-week evacuation, over 300 refugees were smuggled aboard Gerda III. Ultimately, more than 7,000 Jews were smuggled out of Demark. Only 481 were captured by the Germans and sent to camps.
Following the recent collisions between US Navy destroyers and merchant ships, various internet sites posted the AIS tracks of the collisions. Well, they posted half the AIS tracks anyway. The merchant ships used AIS while the Navy did not. While US Navy ships have AIS transponders onboard they do not transmit their positions nor apparently do Navy crews regularly consult the receivers showing the location and course of other ships. It was possible to track merchant ships’ courses but not the destroyers’. That now appears to be about to change. The Navy appears ready to finally switch their AIS transmitters on.
I will be participating in Jersey City’s 
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Hurricane Irma absolutely devastated many islands in the Caribbean. Now, in the aftermath of the catastrophic storm, aid is being sent by a small armada of ships and boats from governments, corporations and private citizens.
Two Scottish brothers, eight-year-old, Ollie and five-year-old, Harry Ferguson, are too young to go to sea themselves, so instead, they sent their toy pirate sailing ship on a voyage from the fine old port of Peterhead, Aberdeenshire earlier this year. The toy was a plastic Playmobil ship, named suitably Adventure. With the help of their father, the boys modified Adventure to make more a seaworthy craft. They added ballast and polystyrene foam to help it stay afloat. They also included a note asking anyone who finds the boat to send them a picture and launch Adventure back into the sea.