In early December, we posted about Stanley Paris’ attempt at a solo circumnavigation in his 63′ Kiwi Spirit after suffering a variety failures to rigging and sails, Paris has decided to give up the attempt and sail for Cape Town. Today, he posted the following message on his blog:
Last Wednesday, I watched Chasing Shackleton, a documentary about the the Shackleton Epic Expedition led by Tim Jarvis which recreated Shackleton’s epic 800 mile lifeboat voyage in 1916 across the Southern Ocean from Elephant Island to South Georgia to seek help for his stranded crew. (See our previous posts about the expedition here.) They attempted to reenact the voyage as accurately as possible by replicating the lifeboat, the clothes, the food and the navigational gear. One unavoidable element was entirely new — the support boat and the documentary crew. The support boat was a requirement of the Antarctic authorities and the documentary was required by economics. There was no feasible way to fund the expedition without it. The documentary crew apparently proved to be as challenging as the elements.
There are great things going on in Rhode Island. When completed this year, the SSV Oliver Hazard Perry will be the first ocean-going full-rigged ship to be built in the U.S. in 100 years and the largest civilian sail training vessel in America. With a sparred length of almost 200 feet, she will carry 14,000 square feet of sail on three masts. Based in Newport, SSV Oliver Hazard Perry will be Rhode Island’s official sailing education vessel and flagship non-profit maritime campus, offering experience-based, core learning opportunities to a diverse student population, including those with disabilities.
Seven weeks of Youth Adventure Summer Camp are already scheduled for July and August. The six day camps will accommodate 30-34 students between the ages of 13 -18. The ship’s itinerary for these sessions will include the historically rich ports of Newport, Nantucket, Boston, Portsmouth, NH and Greenport, NY. The ship will sail with a professional crew of 15.
One of the great stories from ancient history is of Archimedes setting fire to Roman ships during the Siege of Syracuse, 214–212 BC, by using “burning mirrors”, mirrors that focused the rays of the sun and generated enough heat to set the attacking ships on fire. There is considerable debate to this day whether the “burning mirrors” were possible or simply historical folklore. Archimedes “burning mirrors” came to my mind recently when reading about an office tower under construction in London which has been accidentally melting cars, frying eggs and starting fires in a manner that sounds remarkably like Archimedes “burning mirror” death ray.
USS Monitor 1862
For several years now, there has been a webcam of the 90,000 gallon treatment tank where the 120 ton wrought iron turret of the USS Monitor is being preserved by electrolysis and desalination. After spending 111 years underwater, the turret will need to spend roughly another 15 years in the tank before it is stable enough to be displayed in the open air. If you go to the webcam now, however, all you will see is a tarp over the tank. A webcam for the tank where the ship’s 20-ton steam engine and steam condenser are being preserved is also tarped over. The Monitor laboratory at the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News, Virginia has been shut down by a lack of Federal funding. Fortunately, shutting down the 5,000 square foot Monitor laboratory does not impact the rest of the museum’s operations or displays.
This has been a season of extreme weather. While Australia is suffering a record heat wave, the US and Europe have been battered by a series of ugly winter storms and frigid temperatures. Here is a song with an appropriate video for those of us in the northern hemisphere trying to keep warm. It is not strictly nautical though Gordon Bok has sung so many wonderful songs about boats, ships and the sea, that his music always seems to me to have a salty air.
Waves from Hercules hit Porthcawl harbour
I will admit to having mixed feelings about assigning names to winter storms. Hurricanes are momentous enough to be worthy of names, but most winter storms, nasty and dangerous though they may indeed be, don’t seem worth naming. I will admit however, that the recent Winter Storm Hercules lived up to its name.
When Winter Storm Hercules roared across the US mid-west and East Coast last week, it brought heavy snow and dangerous winds, leaving thousands without power and resulting in the deaths of at least 16 people. Parts of the North East saw two feet of snow fall.
When Hercules crossed the Atlantic it brought its own havoc to the coasts of Europe and the UK. Continue reading
Baby/Grace
OK, this is odd. A few days after New Years, a fisherman spotted a small dog treading water several miles from shore in Tampa Bay, on the west coast of Florida. The dog, which was wearing a red collar and a pink rhinestone name tag, which read “Baby,” appeared well cared for, and other than being cold after paddling in the 68 degree water for who knows how long, was healthy. The dog was implanted with a pet microchip, which when scanned revealed the dog owner’s name. The strange thing is that the dog was reported missing two years ago and the phone number associated with the name on the microchip.
How “Baby” ended up treading water two miles from shore in Tampa Bay, two years after being reported missing, remains a mystery. The dog’s current caretakers attempted to track down the original owner. After having no luck, the mystery dog was adopted by Kathy Klein of St. Petersburg, who renamed her Grace.
MV Akademik Shokalskiy
What is more powerful than an icebreaker? The answer is: the wind. Following a wind shift, the expedition cruise ship, MV Akademik Shokalskiy, and Chinese icebreaker Xue Long or Snow Dragon have broken free from the pack ice off Antarctica. The wind, which had been packing the ice against the ships, shifted, opening paths to clear water.
The Akademik Shokalskiy became trapped in the ice in Commonwealth, Antarctica on Christmas Eve. The Snow Dragon was the largest of three icebreakers sent to free the stricken ship. While rescuing the 52 passengers, using its helicopter to shuttle passengers to the Australian icebreaker, Aurora Australis, the Chinese icebreaker also became stuck in the pack ice. The America heavy icebreaker, Polar Star, which had been on its way to assist the ice-bound ships has returned to its original mission, breaking ice to the McMurdo base in the Ross Sea.
Today is the 123rd anniversary of Zora Neale Hurston‘s birthday. She is being honored by Google with a graphic on the main search page. Hurston is considered to be one of the pre-eminent African-America writers of the 20th century. She did not really write about ships or the sea. Nevertheless, the opening lines from her best known novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God is a favorite of mine.
Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time.
Strolling on New York’s East River 1867
Much of the US is suffering under a “polar vortex,” which has plunged temperatures into single digits and wind chills well into negative numbers. Here on the west bank of the Hudson River the temperature is around 4 F with a wind chill of negative 14 degrees F. Fortunately, the forecast is for more seasonable weather in a few days. So as we huddle in the cold, it seems worthwhile to look back at even colder winters where the east River, the Hudson and much of New York harbor simply froze.
Despite tidal currents that can run up to four knots, New York’s East River has frozen at least a dozen times between 1780 and 1888. The East River isn’t actually a river. It is a tidal strait tidal strait connecting Upper New York Bay to Long Island Sound. Nevertheless, it froze often enough so that after the particularly hard winter of 1866-1867,there was a public outcry that lead ultimately to the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
On Sunday, the USCG Cutter Hollyhock was conducting an ice escort for six Great Lakes ore boats.in Northern Lake Michigan. The Hollyhock is a 225 feet long, Juniper Class Seagoing Buoy Tender displacing 2.000 long tons. Following close behind, perhaps too close as it turns out, was Interlake’s Mesabi Miner, a 1,000 foot long, 60,000 dwt bulk carrier.
As reported by the Times Herald : The Hollyhock was breaking ice, cutting a line west, and hit a hard spot in the ice, said Keith Showalter, operations specialist first class for the USCG Sector Sault Ste. Marie. The 1,004-foot Mesabi Miner was astern of the Hollyhock and hit the Hollyhock’s stern. Showalter said the Hollyhock sustained significant damage to its stern and fantail. The Mesabi Miner sustained damage to its bow.
Fortunately, no one was injured and no pollution was reported. The Hollyhock proceeded to St. Ignace, Mich to undergo a damage assessment. Thanks to Mike Cox for passing the news along.
We have recently posted about Slocum gliders, autonomous underwater vehicles, capable of extended voyages and used by oceanographers to map ocean conditions. Saildrone, a company in California, has recently launched a 19′ long by 7′ wide autonomous trimaran sailing drone capable of carrying an oceanographic sensor payload of 220 pounds. On October 1st, Saildrone-1 set off from San Francisco and arrived 34 days later in Kaneohe, Hawaii. Since then Saildrone-1 has successfully sailed over 100 days at sea in the Pacific covering 5873 miles at an average speed of 2.5 knots. The designers and builders of Saildrone suggest that their drone will prove to be far less expensive than traditional research ships. They believe it will be useful for buoy replacement, shark tracking and the study of ocean acidification. It looks like an interesting design. My only concern is collision avoidance, if many of these autonomous drones are sent to sea.
The USCGC Polar Star is on its way to attempt to break free two ice-bound ship off Antarctica. So far, three icebreakers have attempted to free the the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, which has been stuck in Antarctic ice south of Tasmania since Christmas Eve. The Chinese ice breaker, Xue Long or Snow Dragon, has now become stuck in the ice as well, after successfully evacuating the passengers from the cruise ship by helicopter to the Australian icebreaker, Aurora Australis. The Polar Star sailed from Sydney on Saturday and is expected to arrive at the stricken ships, which are roughly 1,500 miles south of Hobart, around January 12th.
Will the Polar Star succeed where the other icebreakers failed? If she succeeds, it will come down to one word – horsepower. Continue reading
Click on the graphic for a larger image.
The New York Times has a wonderful account of the rescue of John Aldridge, a commercial fisherman who fell off a lobsterboat in the middle of the night last July, over forty miles off Montauk, Long Island, NY. Aldridge spent 12 hours in the water using his boots flotation. The article by Paul Tough is well worth reading. It is available on-line : A Speck in the Sea.
Mario Vittone, of gCaptain, gives his take on the article in: Trying Very Hard To Die: The Preventable Disease in Commercial Fishing. As might be inferred by the title, the tone is acerbic, but Vittone does make good points. Too many commercial fisherman die needlessly in a working culture that has traditionally lacked a due focus on safety.
Commercial fishing is dangerous. As noted by the Center for Public Integrity: Commercial fishing is the deadliest vocation in the United States.Four years running, from 2007 to 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics ranked commercial fishing as the most dangerous occupation in the United States. From 2000 to 2010, the industry’s death rate was 31 times greater than the national workplace average.
According to the CDC of 545 commercial fishermen who died while fishing in the U.S.:
- More than half of all fatalities (279, 51%) occurred after a vessel disaster
- Another 170 (31%) fatalities occurred when a fisherman fell overboard
- Another 56 (10%) fatalities resulted from an injury onboard
- The remaining 40 (7%) fatalities occurred while diving or from onshore injuries
Thanks to Rebekah Harris for contributing to the post.
Every year I go to the New York Boat Show. In recent years, it has been a sad pilgrimage. Where once a wide range of boat types were represented, for the past decade or so most of the boats on the floor have been cookie cutter power boats. This year there were literally no sail boats in the show at all, with the exception of a couple of nice day-sailers and kayaks at the Hobie booth and a Sunfish at the Dory Shop.
Sadder still was the paucity of marine vendors. Many of the usual suspects were missing. West Marine and Defender Industries apparently didn’t think it worth showing up. A bad economy, poor priced show space or the growth of on-line shopping. Whatever the reason, I could find essentially nothing that I wanted to buy, which was a first.
The Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis, currently carrying passengers rescued from a stricken Antarctic expedition cruise ship, has been told to stand by to assist the Chinese icebreaker, Snow Dragon, as necessary. The icebreaker Xue Long, or Snow Dragon, notified rescue authorities that its crew was concerned about “their ability to move through heavy ice in the area”, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said on Friday afternoon.
Second Antarctic rescue Aurora Australis on standby to free icebreaker
I am surprised that the Vikings didn’t discover this first. The Vikings did, after all, develop a sun compass for use on sunny days and used sunstones to find the direction of the sun when it was overcast. One might have though that they would have perfected the defecating dog compass, as well.
Recently, researchers have documented that when dogs defecate they usually align their bodies along the magnetic north-south axis, not unlike the needle of a magnetic compass.
Dogs align themselves with Earth’s magnetic field when it comes time to poop
All 52 passengers have been airlifted from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy by a helicopter from the Chinese Icebreaker Xue Long or Snow Dragon. The passengers were ferried to the Australian ice breaker Aurora Australis. Both icebreakers had attempted, but failed, to break through the ice, which has trapped the expedition cruise ship off Antarctica south of Tasmania since Christmas Eve. The 22 Russian crew members will stay aboard the the MV Akademik Shokalskiy to await a shifting in the ice to allow the ship to depart for open water. The ship has been restocked with provisions by the Chinese helicopter which ferried out the passengers.
Disturbing video of the Giant Yellow Duck exploding shortly before a New Year’s Day celebration in the northern Taiwan port city of Keeling. it is unclear what caused the duck to explode though some are speculating that it was attacked by eagles. The duck has had a difficult tine in its visit to Taiwan. While it attracted 4 million visitors in its month stay in Kaohsiung, it needed to be deflated and taken ashore when Typhoon Usagi hit the island.
We have followed the travels of Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman‘s inflatable sculpture “Spreading Joy Around the World,” better known simply as the Giant Yellow Duck. In June, we posted about its visit to Hong Kong, and in September its arrival in Pittsburgh. The almost 60 foot tall inflatable sculpture inspired by a bath toy has traveled to 13 cities in nine countries on its journey around the world. Thanks to Kevin Boatman Foster for pointing out the recent explosion on Facebook.