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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Sail and Work in the South Pacific — Tiare Taporo Seeking Crew

Posted on by June 14, 2018

Ever dream of sailing the Pacific on an inter-island trading ship? Well, the Auxiliary-Sail Trading Vessel Tiare Taporo, based in the Cook Islands is looking for crew.  This sounds like a fascinating opportunity for the right individuals.  From a notice by Pacific Schooners: 

The Auxiliary-Sail Trading Vessel Tiare Taporo is a full powered 300-ton steel ketch rigged cargo & passenger vessel serving the tropical Cook Islands, South Pacific Ocean, west of Tahiti. We are seeking mariners who are looking for professional & vocational positions in the marine industry as well as offering apprentice training opportunities. Plenty on-the-job training included. This is the unique opportunity to engage in real inter-island trade and service. 

Continue reading →

China Hacks the Sea Dragon — Secret Plans of Anti-Ship Missile

Posted on by June 13, 2018

The Washington Post has reported that Chinese government hackers have broken into the computers of a Navy contractor, stealing more than 600 GB of highly sensitive data related to undersea warfare — including secret plans to develop a supersonic anti-ship missile for use on U.S. submarines by 2020. The stolen data includes, “signals and sensor data, submarine radio room information relating to cryptographic systems, and the Navy submarine development unit’s electronic warfare library.”  The data also includes plans to the Sea Dragon. 

What is the Sea Dragon? Continue reading →

Archipelago New York — a Modern Day Exploration, Book Talk, June 18th

Posted on by June 12, 2018

In 1614, Dutch sailor Adriaen Block explored the over 70 islands of the archipelago between the mouth of the Hudson and Fisher’s Island. Four hundred years later, photographer, videographer, and writer Thomas Halaczinsky, set off on his 30-foot sailboat, on a multi-year journey, covering 3,000-miles, to trace Block’s course across the watery world in the shadows of a mighty city and nearby seaways. The photographic and literary logbook of his journey has recently been published as Archipelago New York.  

On June 18th, at 6:00pm, there will be a party and book talk to celebrate the publication at Rizzoli Bookstore at 1133 Broadway, between 25th and 26th Street, in Manhattan. The illustrated book talk begins at 6:15 pm.

Continue reading →

Sea of Trash Near Bali, the Bad & the Slightly Less Bad News

Posted on by June 11, 2018

Manta Point is a popular dive spot off the southernmost shore of Nusa Penida Island, near Bali, Indonesia.  Divers are attracted by the large number of manta rays which congregate there. On March 3rd, a British diver, Rich Horner, found far more than mantas at Manta Point. He found himself swimming in a sea of plastic garbage. His video of swimming through the mass of debris and trash has gone viral.  It is disturbing to watch. The video is the bad news. The good news or perhaps the less bad news is that the video doesn’t tell the whole story. 

Continue reading →

US Navy Review Shows Failure in Basic Seamanship

Posted on by June 9, 2018

The deaths of 17 sailors in the separate collisions with merchant ships of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain has raised fundamental questions about the seamanship of US naval officers on the two ships, and by implication, the fleet as a whole. A three-month internal review conducted by senior U.S. surface fleet leaders of the seamanship and ship handling skills of new deck officers has yielded deeply concerning results.

The review found some or significant concerns with the ship-handling skills of nearly 85 percent of its junior officers, and that many struggled to react decisively to extricate their ship from danger when there was an immediate risk of collision, according to an internal message obtained by Defense News.

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Norfolk’s Harborfest, Slavery & Remembrance

Posted on by June 9, 2018

Norfolk’s forty-second annual Harborfest is now underway. It is described as the “largest, longest-running, free maritime festival in the nation.” This year there are seven traditional sailing vessels from Virginia and Maryland participating, including the Godspeed of Jamestown, Alliance of Yorktown, the Sultana of Chestertown, the Schooner Virginia of Norfolk, and Bonny Rover of Newport News.

Some, however, particularly African Americans in Norfolk, have long boycotted the festival based on the decades-old rumors that the nautical festival tacitly celebrates the slave trade. Festival organizers dismiss the rumors as an “urban legend.” Harborfest started 42 years ago when the Norwegian tall ship Christian Radich docked three blocks from Town Point in Norfolk and has grown since then.

Continue reading →

Project Natick — Microsoft Tests an Underwater Data-Center

Posted on by June 8, 2018

Although we speak of the internet as being in “the cloud,” an estimated 95 percent of internet communication is carried on cables on the bottom of the sea. Now Microsoft is exploring moving computer data centers beneath the sea, as well. Microsoft has recently dropped a 40-foot long data-center pod about 100 ft below the surface onto the seafloor off the coast from the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, north of Scotland. The pod is phase 2 of Project Natick. Microsoft previously dropped a slightly smaller 30-foot Natick pod off the coast of California in 2016 

Quartz reports: The logic is sound: Bringing data centers close to hubs of computing power benefits customers, enabling smoother web surfing or game playing by cutting down the back-and-forth between users and servers. Microsoft says nearly half the world’s population lives within 150 km (120 miles) of the ocean. And because oceans are uniformly cool below a certain depth, keeping the machines under the sea would cut down the cooling costs that make up a large chunk of the operating budget of data centers.

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Ben Lecomte Begins Attempt to Swim Across the Pacific

Posted on by June 7, 2018

French-born swimmer Ben Lecomte has set off on a 5,500-mile record attempt to swim across the Pacific Ocean from Japan to California. The 51-year-old professional distance swimmer will swim for eight hours a day for more than six months as he heads towards the US west coast. If he succeeds in his attempt, Lecomte will be the first person to swim across the Pacific.

The BBC reports: Preparations for the trip have taken more than six years, but Mr. Lecomte has been targeting the challenge for much longer.

In 1998, he made the first known solo trans-Atlantic swim covering 6,400km (4,000 miles) in 73 days. When he finally reached dry land in France, his first words were “never again”, but he was soon looking for a new challenge. Continue reading →

Remembering Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Higgins Boat on D-Day

Posted on by June 6, 2018

I am aware of only one man who was praised by both Eisenhower and Hitler. A repost on the anniversary of D-Day.

General Dwight David Eisenhower said that “Andrew Higgins … is the man who won the war for us. … If Higgins had not designed and built those LCVPs, we never could have landed over an open beach. The whole strategy of the war would have been different.”  Adolph Hitler referred to Andrew Higgins as the “new Noah,” though his admiration was more begrudging. On the 74th anniversary of the Normandy landings, better known as D-Day, it seems worthwhile to remember Andrew Higgins and the amazing Higgins boat.

Continue reading →