SV Kwai — Cargo and Passenger Service Under Sail in the South Pacific

Posted on by June 28, 2018

We recently posted about crewing opportunities for the auxiliary-sail trading vessel Tiare Taporo operating from the Cook Islands. The Tiare Taporo is, however, not the only commercial sailing vessel serving the Cook islands. The SV Kwai will soon be departing on its 45th voyage from Hawaii calling on the islands of Kiritimati (Christmas Island), Tabuaeran (Fanning) and Teraina, (Washington Island) as well as the Northern Cook Islands of Penrhyn, Rakahanga, Manihiki, Nassau, and Pukapuka.

The SV Kwai is 43 meters (140 ft), with a beam of 7 meters (23 ft), draws 3 meters (10 ft), has a tonnage of 179 RT and is ketch rigged. While equipped with a main engine and generator, the goal is to operate under sail 90% of the time. SV Kwai has been carrying cargo and passengers between Hawaii and the Line and Cook Islands since 2006. 

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Grouper Eats Lionfish — Does the Invasive Fish Face Local Predators?

Posted on by June 28, 2018

Sometime in the 1990s, two different species of lionfish made it into the waters of the Atlantic off Florida. Native to the Indo-Pacific, the venomous, predatory fish spread rapidly, decimating local reef fish in the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean. Lacking local predators to stop its spreading, the lionfish have been described as “one of the most aggressively invasive species on the planet“. So far, the most effective means of slowing the spread of the fish is for divers to spear them, a relatively slow and challenging approach.

I recently came across a video from 2015, showing a grouper eating a lionfish. Groupers and sharks are natural predators for the lionfish in the Pacific, but the Atlantic and Caribbean groupers have been slow to adapt to considering the new invader as a food source. Are local groupers and other predators developing a taste for lionfish? About the video: Continue reading →

Trade War Hits Maine & Alaskan Fishermen

Posted on by June 26, 2018

Photo: Greta Rybus for The New York Times

We recently posted about concerns that the current Maine lobster boom may collapse in time due to climate change. The fishing industries in Maine and Alaska are facing a far more immediate challenge, however. New US tariffs on steel and aluminum and retaliatory tariffs on lobster imports by China could drive up costs and cut lobster exports while giving Canadian lobstermen an advantage. Likewise, retaliatory tariffs on salmon and other Alaskan seafood could seriously hurt their fishing industry. 

As of July 6th, China will impose an additional 25% tariff on Maine lobster. China buys about a fifth of American lobster exports, valued at $137 million. The tariff is expected to give Canadian lobster exporters, who are not subject to the tariff, an advantage in the Chinese market.

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Antarctica Melting Three Times as Fast as a Decade Ago

Posted on by June 25, 2018

Photo: BARON REZNIK/FLICKR

A new study from the journal Nature makes a terrifying observation — the rate at which Antarctic ice is melting has tripled from only a decade ago. This is significant as more than 60 percent of the freshwater on Earth is locked in Antarctica’s ice sheets. The continent has lost nearly three trillion tons of ice since 1992.

The New York Times reports that the continent is now melting so fast, scientists say, that it will contribute six inches (15 centimeters) to sea-level rise by 2100. That is at the upper end of what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated Antarctica alone could contribute to sea level rise this century.

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Looters of Wreck of HMS Hermes Found Guilty

Posted on by June 24, 2018

HMS Hermes

Last year we posted about warships from World War II that had vanished after illegal scrappers literally cut them up and hauled the steel away. Here is a news item on theft on a different scale and with a better outcome. Recently two divers, Nigel Ingram, 57, and John Blight, 58, were found guilty of looting items from the World War I wreck of the HMS Hermes in the English Channel. The two divers stole more than 100 items,  including a torpedo hatch, launch panels, and chinaware. The total value of items stolen from the wreck was reported to be more than £150,000.

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Maud Returns Home — Home Trip 2018

Posted on by June 23, 2018

Maud Returns Home – Facebook

For several years, we have been following the attempts to raise Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen‘s research ship Maud from where it has been sitting in ice and mud for close to 90 years. To say that the conditions in Cambridge Bay off the Nunavut territory of northern Canada have been challenging would be an understatement. Over the last eight summers, a team of Norwegians has been working to raise and ultimately return Maud back to Norway. In the summer of 2017, they achieved a major milestone — successfully towing the Maud on the barge Jensen out of  Cambridge Bay to Aasiaat on West Greenland. They are now preparing for the final leg of the journey.

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A Look Inside the Abandoned Soviet Sub in Amsterdam

Posted on by June 21, 2018

A group of “urban explorers” ventured out to climb aboard an abandoned Soviet submarine tied up in the Maritime Quarter, the former NDSM shipyard in Amsterdam North, in the Netherlands. The submarine was built in 1956 or 1957. It was designated 4711 B-80, and is variously described online as either a Zulu or a Foxtrot Class submarine. (The B-80 appears to be one of the last of the earlier Zulu class.) 

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Is the Collapse of the Maine Lobster Industry on the Horizon?

Posted on by June 21, 2018

Today, the New York Times featured an article titled — “Climate Change Brought a Lobster Boom. Now It Could Cause a Bust.” The article suggests that while rising water temperatures due to climate change have brought a boom in the Maine lobster catch, increasing temperatures may lead to a collapse of the fishery.  This concern is nothing new. Five years ago, we posted “The Ecology and Economics of Lobster – Will The Maine Lobster Boom End in a Bust?”   Increasingly, the signs of a bust are becoming more ominous.

The NYTimes quotes Dave Cousens, who stepped down as president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association in March, “Climate change really helped us for the last 20 years.” But, he added, “Climate change is going to kill us, in probably the next 30.”

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Over 190 Feared Dead After Sumatran Ferry Sinks in Lake Toba

Posted on by June 20, 2018

Lake Toba

A ferry across Lake Toba in North Sumatra sank on Monday in bad weather and a reported 192 are missing and feared dead. Only 18 survivors have been rescued. Rescuers looking for additional survivors have been hampered by high winds and rain. The ferry’s legal capacity is reported to have been between 43 and 60 passengers, depending on the sources, with a comparable number of personal floatation devices (PFDs) aboard. 

Lake Toba is a popular tourist destination and at 450m (1,500ft) deep one of the deepest lakes in the world. The lake was created by an ancient volcano eruption. Ferries run between a scenic island in the middle and towns on the shore.

Sadly, Indonesia, a country of some 18,000 islands, has one of the world’s worst ferry safety records.  Continue reading →

Livestreaming of NOAA Shipwreck Exploration off Hatteras

Posted on by June 18, 2018

Okeanos Explorer

On June 25th, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will be investigating an unidentified shipwreck 40 miles off the coast of Hatteras Island using a robotic submersible launched from the research vessel Okeanos Explorer.  The exploration will be livestreamed with viewing at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island. The broadcast will take place in the aquarium’s Neptune’s Theater from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.  Coastal Review Online reports: 

Visitors will be able to ask guest experts questions who will point out significant developments and even communicate directly with the Okeanos archaeological team. The UNC Coastal Studies Institute will also be on hand to present a 3-D underwater shipwreck video shot in North Carolina waters, and offer educational interpretation of that diving adventure. Continue reading →

The Last U-Boat Captain, Reinhard Hardegen, & the Tanker Coimbra

Posted on by June 18, 2018

I recently saw two stories in the press that happen to overlap. 

Captain Reinhard Hardegen

The first story was the report of the death of Reinhard Hardegen at 105 years old. Hardegen was believed to have been the last surviving German U-boat commander from World War II. He also ranked among the most successful U-boat captains of the war, sinking 22 merchant ships with a capacity of 115,656 GRT, over five patrols.  

Two of Korvettenkapitän Hardegen‘s patrols were on the East Coast of the United States as part of Operation Drumbeat. With US and Canadian patrol ships diverted to protect British shipping, five German U-boats attacked shipping along the North American East Coast from Newfoundland to the Caribbean. In less than seven months, U-boat attacks destroyed 22 percent of the tanker fleet and sank 233 ships in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The U-boats killed 5,000 seamen and passengers, more than twice the number of people who perished at Pearl Harbor. On Hardegen’s two patrols in command of U-123 during Operation Drumbeat, he sank eighteen ships totaling over 100,000 GRT. 

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Matriarchs of Sail Training — the Five Sisters of the Gorch Fock Class

Posted on by June 17, 2018

Gorch Fock

Three years ago, the BBC published an article with the clickbait title of “Why is the US still using a Nazi tall ship?”  The article was about the USCG Cutter Eagle and was OK as far as it went. The title itself was absurd and was largely ignored in the body of the text. 

The Eagle was built as the Horst Wessel, one for five sail training ships built at Blohm & Voss, Hamburg, largely for the German Kriegsmarine prior to World War II. They were all near sisters of the Gorch Fock, a three-masted barque, delivered in 1933. And yes, they served as school ships under the Nazis, before being divided up as war reparations at the end of World War II. Despite the ignoble first owners, these five ships have had an oversized impact on sail training in the world’s navies. Remarkably, the four of the original ships which saw service all survive to this day and three are still actively sailing. The Gorch Fock design has also influenced training ship designs around the globe. 

Gorch Fock ex Tovarishch ex Gorch Fock Continue reading →

True Facts About The Mantis Shrimp

Posted on by June 16, 2018

A quirky video for a Saturday. The mantis shrimp is an intriguing, colorful and frankly, rather frightening creature. Fortunately, most types grow no more than about 4″ long, although the zebra mantis shrimp found from East Africa to the Galápagos and the Hawaiian Islands can often grow to 15″ and an 18″ monster was caught off Ft. Peirce, FL in 2014. 

True Facts About The Mantis Shrimp

Great White Shark Cafe

Posted on by June 15, 2018

For many years, scientists had thought that great white sharks traveled north and south along the Pacific coast of America, feeding in waters close to shore. Then researchers at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station began tagging white sharks with satellite tracking tags. Rather than staying along the coast, great whites were traveling a thousand miles out into the Pacific in the winter and spring and congregating in an area which the researchers nicknamed the “White Shark Cafe.” (As cafes go, it is quite large with a radius of around 250 kilometers, although as compared to the scale of the Pacific, it is tiny.)

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