Lightsail 2 — Sailing on an Ocean of Light

Posted on by April 14, 2019

A post not about the sea, but about sailing on the ocean of light from the sun. The idea for solar sailing dates back to 1610, when Johannes Kepler observed that comet tails point away from the sun as if pushed by a celestial wind.  In a letter to Galileo, he wrote, “Provide ships or sails adapted to the heavenly breezes, and there will be some who will brave even that void.”

Back in 2014, we posted about The Planetary Society’s Lightsail project, an attempt to launch a solar sail which would be propelled by the momentum of photons of light radiating from the sun. Their first attempt with a prototype was largely successful and since the non-profit society has been raising money and arranging a launch window to send their 32-square-meter solar sail Lightsail 2 into orbit as a light propelled earth satellite. Lightsail 2 is expected to be launched sometime in 2019 aboard a Falcon Heavy rideshare mission called STP-2.  

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Canadian Premiere of Trapped in Typhoon Alley, the Mystery of MV Derbyshire

Posted on by April 12, 2019


Originally published in gCaptain.com. Reposted with permission. 

Discovery Channel (Canada)’s new documentary series, “Disasters at Sea,” premieres on April 16th at 10 PM ET.  The first episode, “Trapped in Typhoon Alley,” looks at the mysterious sinking of the Capesize Ore/Bulk/Oiler MV Derbyshire, with the loss of 42 aboard, in Typhoon Orchid in 1980.  To this day, the Derbyshire remains the largest British flagged ship ever to have been lost at sea. What happened to the mighty ship would be a perplexing mystery and the subject of considerable controversy for more than twenty years.

The disappearance of the MV Derbyshire in 1980 was a shock to many in the world of shipping. In the 1970s and 80s, bulk carriers were sinking at a rate one ship lost every three to six weeks, usually with the loss of all hands. Many of these bulkers were older, often literally worn-out, poorly maintained with ill-trained crews, and operated by fly-by-night owners. 

The Derbyshire was not one of these ships. Continue reading →

Judge Threatens to Block Carnival Cruise Ships from Docking in US Ports

Posted on by April 12, 2019

On Wednesday, a federal judge decided to get Carnival Corp.‘s attention. U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz said she is considering temporarily blocking the largest cruise corporation in the world from docking its ships at ports in the United States as punishment for a possible probation violation. A final decision will come in a hearing in June.  The Miami Herald reports that Judge Seitz wants company chairman Micky Arison and president Donald Arnold to attend that hearing. 

“The people at the top are treating this as a gnat,” Judge Seitz said. “If I could, I would give all the members of the executive committee a visit to the detention center for a couple of days. It’s amazing how that helps people come to focus on reality.”

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Reefing the Patriot’s Point Submarine USS Clamagore

Posted on by April 10, 2019

For several years, there has been an ongoing discussion at the Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum about what to do with the World War II era, USS Clamagore. The 1945 built Balao-class submarine has been an exhibit at the museum in Charleston, SC since 1981, but has become too costly to maintain. Current plans are to sink the submarine as an artificial reef. The primary question now is when.

Unfortunately, it is not as easy as it might sound to sink the submarine. The vessel has to be stripped of toxic materials and chemicals and wholly cleaned and prepared before it can be sent to the bottom.

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Three Sailors in the Fog — Will You Get in Trouble With the Captain?

Posted on by April 29, 2019

The Dutch general cargo ship Alana Evita, on a voyage from Hamburg to Avonmouth, was recently anchored in the Bristol channel off Minehead, in Somerset, UK. Rather than go ashore in Minehead, three of her personnel; a Russian, a  Filipino and a Dutchman; decided to try the beer across the channel in the Welsh town of Barry. They set off on the ship’s 13′ rigid inflatable boat.

They arrived in Barry, soaking wet from the crossing, and pull the inflatable up on the beach, only to find that all the local pubs had already closed. Several news accounts describe the men as “drunken sailors,” which seems doubtful given the shuttered pubs. So, disgruntled, if not drunken, the three sailors find a hotel to spend the night.

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Flying P Liner Pommern Reopening to the Public With New Exhibits at New Dock

Posted on by April 8, 2019

The Flying-P Liner Pommern will soon be open to the public again at a new dock with new exhibits in Mariehamn, on the Åland Islands of Finland. The 1903 built, steel, four-masted bark has been closed to the public since September 2016. Now, after extensive refurbishment and repair, she will be reopening in May 2019.

The Åland Maritime Museum Trust has made a major investment in a new visitor experience on board the windjammer. The exhibition ‘Pommern – 100 days under sail” intends to make the ship come alive with the crew’s own stories. It is designed to be an exciting experience based on real events on actual voyages, where the visitors get to explore the ship and to sense the presence of her elusive crew. Continue reading →

Search for the Lost Ships of Cortés Finds Ancient Anchor

Posted on by April 8, 2019

Cortés ordering his fleet to be destroyed may be one of the iconic moments in history. In 1519, Hernán Cortés led an expedition of 11 ships from Cuba to Mexico. On arriving in Mexico, the crews found themselves vastly outnumbered by the Aztecs and many were on the verge of mutiny, intending to sail back to Cuba. Cortes ordered the 10 remaining ships of his fleet destroyed. (One ship had already been sent back to Cuba with news of the landing.) There is disagreement as to whether the ships were burned, scuttled or run up on the beach. When reinforcements and supplies arrived a year later, Cortés had those 16 ships destroyed as well.

500 years later, where the ships were destroyed remains a mystery. Now, however, an international team of archaeologists is searching for the wreckage of the lost fleets. They may have found the first clue in an anchor with a well-preserved wooden stock. Wood samples from the stock were sent to two different laboratories, and their testing suggests the samples came from a tree felled between 1417 and 1530, the general time period of the conquest of Mexico. The wood of the stock may also be a type of red oak indigenous to northern Spain.

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Galveston’s Tall Ship Elissa — Sailing in Her 142nd Year

Posted on by April 7, 2019

A video by Mike Headley of the Galveston’s tall ship Elissa on her yearly sail. She is a three-masted barque built in Aberdeen, Scotland and launched in 1877. She is now a museum ship at the Texas Seaport Museum.

SAILING ON THE ELISSA

The Great Barrier Reef is Dying, Climate Change is the Culprit

Posted on by April 5, 2019

Photo: Gergely Torda/ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

The Great Barrier Reef, off Australia’s east coast, is 1,400 miles long, covers 133,000 square miles and can be seen from outer space.  It may be dying before our eyes.  “We thought the Barrier Reef was too big to fail,” says Professor Andrew Baird, chief investigator at the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Australia, “but it’s not.” 

Since 2016, half of all coral in the Great Barrier Reef has died. The reef was blanketed by dangerously hot water in the summer of 2016, strangling and starving the corals, causing what has been called “an unprecedented bleaching event.” Then 2017 proved to be almost as bad. The two years was the first back to back bleaching events ever recorded. There are serious concerns that there may be another bleaching event in 2019.

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Search for Lost Containers Reveals 16th Century Shipwreck

Posted on by April 4, 2019

Copper plate bearing Fugger family marks

In early January, we posted about the containership ship MSC Zoe which lost 350 containers over the side in a storm off the Frisian Islands of the Netherlands. Now, a Dutch salvage team, looking for lost containers from the Zoe, has discovered a shipwreck believed to date from around 1540 on the North Sea bottom.

The shipwreck is said to be the oldest sea-going ship ever found in Dutch waters. The ship was loaded with copper plates bearing the symbol of the Fugger family, a merchant banking family based in Augsburg in Germany, which for a time also held a monopoly over copper production.  The ship estimated to be 30m by 7m could have been carrying as much as 5,000 kg (five tonnes) of copper.

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Submarines Flying the Jolly Roger, the Tradition Behind the Pirate Flag

Posted on by April 3, 2019

Flag flown by HMS Safari in WW II

The National Museum of the Royal Navy at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard has a new exhibition — Jolly Roger: A Symbol of Terror and Pride. The website describes the exhibition as telling the story of the skull and crossbones flag, commonly known as the Jolly Roger, which has been associated with pirates for centuries. They also comment that “the history of its use by the Royal Navy who started flying the flag from First World War submarines is lesser known.”

Why did Royal Navy submarines fly pirate flags? Continue reading →

River Cruiser Viking Idun Collides with Chemical Tanker Near Antwerp

Posted on by April 2, 2019

Just after Midnight, on April 1, the river cruiser Viking Idun collided with a laden chemical tanker, Chemical Marketer, in the Netherlands’ Western Scheldt. The river cruise ship was sailing from the port of Antwerp to Ghent while the tanker was bound for Antwerp. Both ships were damaged above the waterline. No pollution was reported resulting from the collision. 

No injuries were reported aboard the tanker but five people on Viking Idun suffered minor injuries, according to emergency services. Four were passengers, all cared for on board by medical staff. One crew member was transferred to a hospital for closer investigation. 117 passengers were aboard at the time of the collision.

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On Lake Michigan — the Glorious Ice Shards of Spring

Posted on by March 31, 2019

One of the more paradoxical signs of spring along parts of Lake Michigan are the wild and wonderfully weird  ice shards which pile up in fantastic geometric patterns along the shoreline. As the lake begins to thaw, water underneath the ice pushes broken sheets up to the surface, forming jagged otherworldly landscapes of jagged ice. Here is a video of photographs taken along the shore of South Haven, MI, by Joel Bissell for MLive.com. Thanks to Irwin Bryan for contributing to this post.

Gorgeous ice shards are piling up along Lake Michigan

Queen Mary Operators Plan to Remove B-427 ‘Scorpion’ Submarine

Posted on by March 31, 2019

Are you interested in acquiring a Foxtrot-class Soviet-era submarine? If so, the folks at Urban Commons, the operators of the hotel and tourist attraction Queen Mary in Long Beach may want to talk to you. They have a well-used submarine that they would seriously like to get rid of.

The submarine is a diesel-electric patrol submarine that was built in the Soviet Union in 1971. Designated B-427, it served in the Soviet Pacific fleet for 23 years. After decommissioning, she was loaned to Australian National Maritime Museum for display as a museum vessel between 1995 and 19998.

In 1998, the submarine was moved to Long Beach, California and was berthed next to the Queen Mary. The submarine was opened to the public as the “Podvodnaya Lodka B-427 Scorpion.” The submarine was a Long Beach tourist attraction for almost two decades. It was not well maintained, however. In 2012, the submarine partially flooded and in 2016, it was closed to visitors.  

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