Not All Rescues End Well — the Death of Anne Dufourmantelle, Risk-Taker

Posted on by August 5, 2017

In mid-July we posted about a group of 80 strangers who formed a human chain to rescue 10 people carried out in a rip current into the Gulf of Mexico off Panama City Beach in the Florida panhandle. All ten were saved. No one was seriously hurt.

Not all rescues end well, however, and while it is more pleasant to focus on those that do, I think it is also important to look at those whose outcome can be tragic. 

Anne Dufourmantelle, 53, died recently attempting to rescue two children in danger, swimming off the coast of Pampelonne beach, near St.-Tropez, France. Ms. Dufourmantelle was a highly regarded philosopher and psychoanalyst, known for her work that praised living a life that embraced risk.  

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Navy Finds Captain “Ultimately Responsible” for USS Antietam Grounding in Toyko Bay

Posted on by August 4, 2017

These have been rough times for US destroyers and cruisers deployed to Japan. The US Navy has found that the former commanding officer of the USS Antietam, Captain Joseph Carrigan, was “ultimately responsible” for the cruiser running aground and spilling roughly 1,100 gallons of hydraulic fluid into Tokyo Bay in January.  

The command report issued in April was obtained last week by Stars and Stripes though a Freedom of Information Act request.  The grounding took place on January 31st. Captain Carrigan was relieved of his command on March 1st.

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Dredging Portsmouth Harbor — Cannon, Anchors, Bombs and a Skull

Posted on by August 3, 2017

When dredging a harbor with as long and rich a history as UK’s Portsmouth, there is literally no telling what you may find.  The harbor is now being dredged to deepen and widen a four-mile channel to allow the the navy’s new 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, to dock. In the process of completing this work, the BBC reports that 20,000 items have been discovered, ranging from a human skull, to cannon, to shoes, anchors, clay pipes, and sea mines.  The artifacts are believed to range in age from the 18th century to the recent past.

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Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft — ” I Will Not Break Faith” with Transgender Coast Guard Personnel

Posted on by August 2, 2017

Recently, Lt. Taylor Miller of the U.S. Coast Guard was featured in an article in the Washington Post. Lt. Miller is transgender and after a series of early morning tweets by the current occupant of the White House announcing a ban on transgender personnel in the US military, she said, “I feel very unwanted. Mortified and embarrassed.”

USCG Commandant Admiral Paul Zukunft reached out to Lt. Miller and to other twelve transgender members of the US Coast Guard to express his support. As reported by The Hill: Zukunft said he contacted Lt. Taylor Miller, the Coast Guard’s first openly transitioning officer who was featured in a Washington Post article last week.

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Inaugural World Naked Sailing Day — Sounds Like a Bad Idea to Me

Posted on by August 1, 2017

Photo:Nico

A group in Buffalo, New York is sponsoring the first World Naked Sailing Day today. Buffalo is on Lake Erie so there are no shortage of sailboats for those who wish take “bareboating” to a whole new level. The organizers suggest that August 1, or 8/1, is an auspicious date as the number 8 turned sideways might suggest a woman’s breasts, while the number 1 is the most phallic of Arabic numbers. Apparently, the event was inspired by World Naked Bike Riding Day and World Naked Gardening Day.

World Naked Sailing Day seems like a remarkably bad idea to me. Don’t get me wrong, I like naked. I have spent considerable time on nude beaches appropriately déshabillé and will do so again as the opportunity presents itself. Nevertheless, I don’t think I will be sailing nude anytime soon, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with modesty.  First, I burn easily and applying sun screen effectively everywhere that can burn takes time and care.  It is amazing how much the parts you miss can hurt when they do inevitably burn.   

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“Rebuilding” Bluenose II — 7 years & $24M

Posted on by July 31, 2017

The best thing that can be said about the “rebuilding” of the Canadian schooner Bluenose II is that is it is over and that the Bluenose II is a lovely vessel.  Unfortunately, it took seven years and cost C$24 million (around US$ 20 million) to complete the “reconstruction and rebuilding,” which, in fact, was effectively the construction of a wholly new schooner. 

The original Bluenose was a Canadian fishing and racing schooner from Nova Scotia built in 1921. The schooner became famous for winning the International Fishing Challenge Cup off Gloucester, Massachusetts for many years.  The Bluenose is considered by many to be an iconic symbol of Canada.  The schooner appears on the Canadian dime and the current Nova Scotia licence plate.

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Draken Harald Hårfagre: A Viking Long Ship at Mystic Seaport

Posted on by July 28, 2017

Following its epic voyage across the Atlantic, with stops in visiting Iceland and Greenland, the Draken Harald Hårfagre, toured the Great Lakes, traveled down the Erie Canal, stopped by New York City and then wintered at Mystic Seaport Museum. This summer, the largest Viking long ship built in modern times has been on display at the Seaport museum.  A US East Coast tour in 2018 is currently being planned.

Draken Harald Hårfagre: A Viking Ship at Mystic Seapor

Undersea Discoveries in the Failed Search for MH370

Posted on by July 29, 2017

The disappearance of Malaysian Air flight MH370, which vanished in March 2014 en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board, remains one of the worlds greatest aviation mysteries. After surveying over 120,000 square kilometers of Indian Ocean and reportedly spending $160 million, the search for the missing plane was finally called off last January.

Even though the plane was not found, the information gathered during the massive search, however, may provide fishermen, oceanographers and geologists with insight into the region in unprecedented detail, said Charitha Pattiaratchi, professor of coastal oceanography at the University of Western Australia.

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Christeen — Oldest Oyster Sloop in the US

Posted on by July 28, 2017

Last weekend, we sailed by living history in Oyster Bay. As we were heading toward the gas dock, a beautiful gaff rigged sloop sailed by. It was Christeen, the oldest oyster sloop in the United States.  Built in 1883 in Glenwood Landing, New York, she returned to the hamlet of Oyster Bay, New York in 1992. Over the next seven years the WaterFront Center helped raise funds to restore and relaunch the old sloop. She currently serves as a working museum ship, offering educational tours of Oyster Bay and Cold Spring harbor. Christeen was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1992. 

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Captain Charles Fryatt: Executed for Ramming a U-Boat

Posted on by July 27, 2017

One hundred and one years ago today, on July 27th, 1916, Captain Charles Fryatt was executed by the Imperial German Navy for attempting to ram the German U-boat, U33, with the 1902-built passenger ferry, SS Brussels, owned by the Great Eastern Railway.

In March of 1915, near the Maas light-vessel off the Dutch coast, U33 surfaced and ordered the Brussels to stop. Captain Fryatt believed that the submarine was loading a torpedo to sink the ferry and he ordered full speed ahead attempted to ram the submarine, forcing it submerge without damage. SS Brussels escaped and Captain Fryatt was awarded a gold watch by the Admiralty for valor. The watch was inscribed: Presented by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to Chas. Algernon Fryatt Master of the S.S. ‘Brussels’ in recognition of the example set by that vessel when attacked by a German submarine on March 28th, 1915.

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Movie Review — Nolan’s “Dunkirk,” Immersive Tour de Force, Incongruous Muddle, or Both?

Posted on by July 26, 2017

Originally posted on gCaptain. Reposted with permission.

Christopher Nolan’s movie, Dunkirk, opened Friday to rave reviews. The New York Times calls it “a tour de force …both sweeping and intimate.”  The Guardian calls it “utterly immersive” and predicts that the movie “will doubtless become the definitive cinematic depiction of this remarkable chapter of history.” I saw the film last night and while I generally agree with many of the points made by the reviewers, I found the movie to be somewhat of an incongruous muddle, and with containers cranes, no less. 

The movie is, as one might expect, based on the evacuation of over 300,000 British and French troops over 8 days in June, 1940 from the beaches of Dunkirk, France — one of the greatest maritime rescues in history. While under attack by German fighters and dive bombers, an entire British Army was saved by a mix of Royal Navy destroyers and other naval vessels, as well as by an armada of close to a thousand private and commercial craft, sailing back and forth across the channel to ferry the troops to safety. 

How does one capture both the very human experience of being on the beach and on the boats and ships at Dunkirk, while also communicating the vast sweep of the evacuation? How can any movie-maker compress 8 days of horror and heroism into just over 100 minutes of screen time?  Continue reading →

Update: Hudson River Kayaking “Accident” Was Homicide After All

Posted on by July 25, 2017

Photo: Allyse Pulliam

In May, 2015, we posted, Was a Kayaking “Accident” Really Murder on the Hudson? The question raised by that post has been answered. Angelika Graswald, 37, who had been accused of murdering her fiancée, Vincent Viafore, 46, while on an early season kayaking trip on the Hudson River near Bannerman Island, has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of criminally negligent homicide.

The story initially sounded like a case of unprepared kayakers getting into trouble with tragic results. Continue reading →

USS Constitution “Old Ironsides” Leaves Drydock

Posted on by July 25, 2017

After a two year drydocking for restoration work, USS Constitution “Old Ironsides” has returned to the waters of Boston harbor. The frigate is the world’s oldest commissioned warship still afloat. Launched for the first time in 1797, she earned her famous nickname in battles during the War of 1812. She was later memorialized in the poem Old Ironsides by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

As reported by the Washington Post: The ship enters dry dock about every 20 years for below-the-waterline repairs. The most recent work included replacing 100 hull planks and installing 2,200 new copper sheets, 500 of which were signed by nearly 100,000 museum visitors, according to USS Constitution Museum President Anne Grimes Rand, who called the ship “a wonderful symbol for our democracy.  It was meant to last for 10 or 20 years, and to have (the) ship here more than 200 years later, it needs constant care,” Rand said.

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What Could the Captain of the ACX Crystal See? Container Ship Visibility & Maneuvering

Posted on by July 23, 2017

One recurring comment related to the collision between the USS Fitzgerald and the container ship ACX Crystal was that the container ship might not have been able to see the destroyer over the containers stacked on deck. There are photographs of containers on ACX Crystal stacked five high on deck forward of the house. Exactly how far forward did the ship’s blind spot extend? Was the view of of the USS Fitzgerald obscured by the containers stowed on the 2,858 TEU container ship? Are standards for container ship visibility too lax?

No doubt the answers to these questions will be answered in the multiple ongoing investigations. The answers will depend on the specifics of the container stow plan on the ACX Crystal as well as the ship’s draft and trim.

Visibility, however, may only be part of the story. Maneuverability — the ability to stop and/or turn the ship — can be even more important.

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Navy Testing Ship to Ship Texting with Signal Lamps

Posted on by July 24, 2017

In 1867, Royal Navy Captain, and later Admiral, Philip Colomb, worked out a system to send signals by a code of dots and dashed using signal lamps. Since then, navies around the world have used only slightly improved versions of signal lamps to send secure messages over short distances between ships. The system has lasted because it relatively simple and effective. Nevertheless, signaling with light is not without its problems. The technique is fairly slow and requires trained personnel skilled in the use of Morse Code to make it work.

Now, the US Navy is testing a high-tech version of the old signal lamps which use computer operated lights to flash signals, potentially much faster and more accurately than the old manual lamps. Sailors will be able to send messages over the updated signal lamp systems in the same way they send text messages over their smart phones. The devices being tested are referred to as Flashing Light to Text Converter (FLTC) systems. The FLTC is, in some respects, an old and proven technology updated for the iPhone generation.

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