SSV Oliver Hazard Perry is the largest civilian sailing school vessel in the United States and the first ocean-going full-rigged ship to built in the U.S. in over 100 years. Her accommodations hold 32 people overnight in addition to her 17 professional crew. And speaking of professional crew, the Oliver Hazard Perry Rhode Island organization is looking for applicants for all positions for the spring/summer 2018, including captain, mates, engineers, ABs, deckhands, steward, bosun, medical officer, and program manager. To learn more, click here.
A new study has found record quantities of microplastics in sea ice. The study, published this week in Nature Communications, demonstrates “just how pervasive this type of pollution has become in every last corner of our planet,” says Melanie Bergmann, one of the study’s authors. The researchers found extremely high concentrations of plastic in their samples—up to 12,000 particles per liter of sea ice, or about 45,000 particles per gallon. The majority of particles were microscopically small.
The ice cores were gathered from five regions throughout the Arctic Ocean in the spring of 2014 and summer of 2015. They were taken back to the laboratory, where they were analyzed for their unique plastic “fingerprint”. The BBC reports that the “plastic fingerprint” from the ice samples suggests they were carried on ocean currents from the huge garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean or arose locally due to pollution from shipping and fishing. More than half of the microplastic particles within the ice were so small that they could easily be ingested by sea life, said Ilka Peeken of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, who led the study.
Here is a short and beautiful video to end the week. The video by Paul Demonte features two historic vessels in New York harbor — the 1907 built tug Pegasus and the Hudson River railroad barge, Lehigh Valley No. 79, home of the Waterfront Museum.
Tug & Barge: A New York Harbor Love Story from Paul Demonte on Vimeo.
A new race is being organized for 2019 and 2020 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the Strait of Magellan in 1520. Dubbed the “Cape Horn Race,” it will have four legs:
- The Cape Horn Transat — Gibraltar to Buenos Aires, November 2, 2019
- The Cape Horn Team Challenge — Buenos Aires to Ushuaia. December 29, 2019
- The Cape Horn Cup Chile, Round Cape Horn Island Race — January 19, 2020
- The Magellan Grand Prix — Punta Arenas to Punta del Este — February 8 – 18, 2020
The race was conceived in 2006 by Alec Honey and the late Rear Admiral Roberto Benavente of the Chilean Navy. Alec Honey raced around Cape Horn on January 23, 1974 as the navigator onboard Great Britain 2 in the first Whitbread Round the World Race of 1973-1974, the predecessor to the Volvo Ocean Race.
We have been following the grim saga of the murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall since last August. Ms. Wall disappeared after going on a trip in Copenhagen harbor onboard Peter Madsen’s private submarine, UC3 Nautulis, as part of an interview. The submarine sank under mysterious circumstances and Ms. Wall disappeared. Mr. Madsen was rescued and subsequently charged with murder. Ms. Wall’s dismembered torso washed onto a nearby beach eleven days later.
A court in Copenhagen has found Mr. Madsen guilty of premeditated killing — equivalent to murder — in the death of Ms. Wall and has sentenced Madsen to life in prison.
The extremely small ship Adventure sails on. Last year we posted about the Playmobil toy pirate ship, named Adventure, launched by brothers Ollie and Harry Ferguson, 9 and 6 years old, respectively, from the port of Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. After adding ballast and flotation to the just less than two-foot-long craft, the brothers sent Adventure to sea, with a note asking anyone who found the little ship to contact the boys and then send Adventure on its way.
Last summer the unlikely craft sailed about 390 miles to Denmark, then on to Sweden and then Norway. In Norway, it was taken aboard the full-rigged training ship, Christian Radich, which, late last year carried the craft into the Atlantic and launched it off the coast of Mauritania. A GPS tracker was also added to the tiny vessel. Recent reports have Adventure off the coast of South America, bound roughly for Barbados. Continue reading
John Fisher
Years ago, when I sailed briefly on tall ships, I heard that the two most at-risk groups when going aloft were total novices and the most experienced old hands. The novices knew little, while the experienced sailors grew complacent. This came to mind in reading new details which have emerged related to the tragic death of John Fisher, a sailor on the Volvo Ocean 65 Sun Hung Kai-Scallywag, who was lost at sea after being knocked overboard in the Southern Ocean last month. A few salient points:
I realize that I am in a rut. Every Earth Day, I say the same thing. Over 70% of the surface of this planet is covered by water, so referring to the planet as “earth” is just wrong. But be that as it may, the misnamed planet is still called Earth and Earth Day is a worthwhile celebration of protecting the planet, both the soil and the watery portions. Below is a TED talk by one of the world’s great sailors, Dame Ellen MacArthur, about what she learned when she was sailing around the world alone. As she circled the globe alone, she began thinking about the idea of “the circular economy,” an intriguing insight. Definitely worth watching.
The surprising thing I learned sailing solo around the world | Dame Ellen MacArthur
Remember when Lord Horror-show Nelson defeated Napolean Cumberbatch at the Battle of Trafalgar Square? No? Good, because it never happened. Once again, here is an excerpt from Cunk on Britain, Episode 2, in which the clueless Philomena Cunk thoroughly mangles the history of Britain. Here is about 2 minutes of silliness. If you would like to watch the entire episode, click here.
The lobstermen of Maine are known for their independence. They don’t often ask for help. Like many other states, Maine has been struck hard by the opioid crisis. In many coastal communities, opioid addiction is taking a serious toll, particularly on lobstermen. How serious the problem is hard to say. Of the 376 people who died of drug overdoses in Maine last year, one cannot identify how many were fishermen as the state doesn’t keep records by profession. Anecdotally, however, the number appears to be disproportionately high. Some estimate that up to 50% of the stern men working in the $1.6 billion dollar a year industry have or have had problems with addiction.
CBS News reports on one survivor: Josh Kane has spent more than 15 years fishing off the coast of Maine. For 10 of those years, he struggled with an opioid addiction as his fellow lobstermen looked the other way.
On Tuesday, the 149 passengers on Southwest Airline’s Flight 1380 were shocked when about 20 minutes after takeoff from New York, the plane’s left engine exploded, blowing a hole in the fuselage. The rapid depressurization sucked one woman passenger partially out of the plane. The explosion also damaged the left wing and the flaps.
The plane, a 737-700, had lost one of its two engines. Not only was the power reduced by half but the thrust, which had been balanced between the two engines, was now coming from only the right side of the plane. The plane immediately went into an uncontrolled left roll of 40 degrees. Fortunately for all aboard, the pilot in command of the plane, brought the plane under control and made an emergency landing at the Philadelphia airport. While, tragically, the woman closest to the explosion died and six others were injured, in the hands of a less skilled pilot, all 149 aboard the plane would have likely died.
Captain Shults is among the only 6.2 percent of commercial pilots in the United States who are women. She is also one of the first females to be trained as a fighter pilot by the US Navy. She was the first woman to fly a US Navy F/A-18 Hornet.
Researchers have located huge deposits of rare-earth metals in seabed mud off the Japanese island Minamitorishima, located 1,150 miles southeast of Tokyo. The discovery could have a major impact on both the Japanese and the world economy. Rare-earth metals are essential to modern technologies and are used in smartphones, hybrid vehicles, rechargeable batteries, wind turbines, light emitting diodes, compact fluorescent lamps, screen display panels, and many medical and military technologies.
In recent years, China has had a near monopoly on the production of rare-earth metals, extracting 85 to 95 percent of the world’s rare-earth metal supply from large clay deposits in the country’s south. Despite their name, rare earth metals are actually not particularly rare although they are difficult to find in deposits from which they can be economically extracted.
Aerial surveys attempting to identify endangered right whales have spotted swarms of basking sharks, in groups from 30 to up to 1,400, swimming in the waters from Long Island to Nova Scotia. Researchers who study the normally solitary sharks are not quite sure why. Nevertheless, reviews of the data suggest that such gathering are not that unusual. NOAA issued a press release on the sightings which said in part:
The reason why the animals congregate has not been clearly determined, although it is thought to be related to feeding, socializing, and/or courtship given behaviors in other shark species.
The Flettner fleet is growing slowly but steadily. The LNG powered cruise ferry Viking Grace has become the latest commercial ship and the first passenger vessel to install a modern Flettner rotor sail. The 80-foot-tall rotor is expected to save fuel and to reduce carbon emissions by around 900 tonnes annually on the ship which runs between Turku, Finland and Stockholm, Sweden. The 57,565 GRT ferry, with a passenger capacity of 2,800, was also the first large passenger ferry to be powered by liquified natural gas (LNG) when it was delivered in 2013. The modern Flettner rotor designed, fabricated, and installed by Norsepower, is expected to save around 300 tonnes of LNG per year. Viking Line is currently building a new ship which will feature two Flettner rotors.
One hundred and six years ago today, the White Star liner Titanic sank after striking an iceberg. Over 1,500 lives were lost. Here is a repost from 2012 of Joseph Conrad’s commentary on the sinking.
In June of 1912, Joseph Conrad wrote “Some Reflections on the Loss of the Titanic” for the English Review. While best known as a novelist, his comments reflect his years as a ship’s officer in both sail and steam. He finds little to like in the events of that night in April, one hundred years ago today, or the events which followed. A few of Conrad’s thoughts on the media, icebergs, the design of unsinkable ships, biscuit tins and the romanticizing of needless death.
On the Media:
He was offended by what we would all the media circus following the sinking. “It is with a certain bitterness that one must admit to oneself that the late _S.S. Titanic_ had a “good press.” ….. the white spaces and the big lettering of the headlines have an incongruously festive air to my eyes, a disagreeable effect of a feverish exploitation of a sensational God-send.”
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