Just for fun. A video about a geriatric sea otter named Eddie, who plays basketball to help with arthritic elbows. (No, I am not making this up.)
Azipod
As passengers are being flown home from an cancelled cruise on the Carnival Dream, another Carnival Cruise ship, the Carnival Legend, is limping to port with a damaged Azipod. Unlike more conventional designs where the ship’s propeller is connected to a ship’s engine by a shaft through the hull, the Azipod contains an electric motor in a rotating pod connected to the propeller. Because the pod can rotates it serves as both the ship’s propulsion and its rudder. The Carnival Legend has two Azipods and one is apparently broken.
The “World’s Oldest Beer” to be will soon be brewed again by an Åland brewery in Finland. In 2010, we posted about the discovery in a shipwreck in the Baltic off Finland’s Åland archipelago which contained what was believed to be several bottles of the worlds oldest champagne and five bottles of the world’s oldest beer. Both the champagne and the beer are believed to date from the 1780s. A bottle of the Veuve Clicquot champagne subsequently sold at auction for 30,000 euros ($43,500.)
The beer recovered from the wreck has been analysed by the Technical Research Centre of Finland. The analysis is being used by the Stallhagen brewery to recreate the beer. The new “shipwreck” brew is expected to hit the shelves in time for summer 2014. A portion of the proceeds from each sale will go to support “marine archaeological research as well as conservation programmes to improve the quality of the marine environment,” according to Johan Ehn, Culture Minister in the Åland government.
The story sounds disturbingly familiar – a Carnival cruise ship with generator problems, overflowing toilets and passengers sent home from an interrupted cruise. The good new is that the generator failure on the Carnival Dream, the largest cruise ship operated by Carnival Cruise Line, occurred on Wednesday while the ship was dockside at Philipsburg, St. Maarten, in the eastern Caribbean. The power has said to be restored to the ship but the ship is still unable to sail. Passengers onboard the ship will be flown home rather than completing the remainder of their cruise back to Florida. The ship’s next voyage which was scheduled to depart on Saturday, March 16 has also been cancelled. The ship is reported to have suffered some sort of damage to its electrical system following a test of the emergency generator.
Here is a video of the scuttling of HMS Implacable in 1949. She was originally the French Navy’s Téméraire-class ship of the line Duguay-Trouin, launched in 1800. The Duguay-Trouin fought in and survived the Battle of Trafalgar, only to be captured by the British in the Battle of Cape Ortegal and renamed Implacable. When scuttled in 1949, HMS Implacable was the second oldest ship of the Navy after HMS Victory. There were major protests against her disposal, but given the post-War austerity, the British government decided against the cost of her restoration. In 1947 the British government had offered her to the French, who also declined the offer based on restoration costs. The Implacable’s figurehead and stern galleries were removed prior to scuttling and are on display in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, while her capstan is on display at the maritime museum at Rochefort.
The protests over the scuttling of HMS Implacable are believed to have contributed to the British government’s decision to preserve the clipper ship Cutty Sark. Thanks to Andrew Reinbach for pointing out the video on Facebook.
The Alaskan high-tech ferry MV Susitna cost $78-million to build. More than just a ferry, it is also an ice-capable amphibious assault vessel for the Navy, which was supposed to have carried commuters from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough (or Mat-Su as it is known) across upper Cook Inlet. Mat-Su’s largest city is Wasilla, best known as the home of Sarah Palin. The ferry project was championed by the late Sen. Ted Stevens, who was famous for the “bridge to nowhere,” a proposed $400 million bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island, Alaska. The “bridge to nowhere” was subsequently cancelled. Likewise, the Susitna has never been put into service. The Mat-Su borough is now trying to give the ferry away to anyone who will take it.
We recently posted about a report by the journal Marine Policy which estimated that around 100 million sharks are being killed each year in the commercial fisheries, a rate far higher than is sustainable for most shark species. On Monday, delegates to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting in Bangkok voted to provide addition protection for five threatened species of sharks – oceanic whitetip sharks, porbeagle sharks, scalloped hammerheads, great hammerheads and smooth hammerheads. They also voted protection for two species of manta rays. The votes must still be confirmed in a plenary session later this week. The actions will not ban shark and ray fishing but will regulate the number of fish caught.
I am very pleased and excited to be speaking with Norman Brouwer and Captain Margaret Flanagan at the Working Harbor Committee of New York and New Jersey program “Sailing Ships at Work – Then and Now.” The presentation is on April 10th at the Community Church of New York, 40 E. 35th Street, in New York City. It is shaping up to be quite a program. If you are in the area be sure to stop by and say hello.
Join the WHC for an evening of film, discussion and refreshments as we revisit the great Age of Sail and highlight today’s use of sailing vessels to transport cargo. We will also venture into the future to look at some revolutionary designs for large sail-assisted cargo vessels. With the rising cost of fuel, designers are investigating new ways to add wind energy to a ship’s power plant. Are we headed for a new Age of Sail?
Photo: Tampa Bay Times
An outbreak of Red Tide, a deadly algae bloom, in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida is killing a record number of endangered Florida manatees. The Red Tide bloom has been killing at least 10 manatees a day and shows no sign of letting up any time soon, according to state biologists. Roughly 40% of the state’s manatee population of only 4,00-5,000 lives in the area impacted by the bloom. The current Red Tide bloom affects about 70 miles of the southwest Florida coast, extending along the shores of Sarasota County south through the middle of Lee County.
The Norwegian soft drink Solo produced by Ringnes, Oskar Sylte, Aass, and Mack is extremely popular in Norway but virtually unknown in the United States. To increase visibility in other markets, the firms have had built a 24′ (8M) bottle in which they will place a case of Solo, an orange drink, and a “12 square meter personal letter to the finder.” The bottle is insured and equipped with navigation lights required for a drifting object in international waters, as well as solar panels, satellite-communications, tracking technology and a custom camera which will upload an image every 8 hours. Controversial Norwegian celebrity-adventurer Jarle Andhøy will be on hand to launch the bottle from Tenerife in the Canary Islands, on Wednesday March 13th at 11.30am.
Explorer Launches the World’s Largest Message-in-a-Bottle
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In a race from Long Beach to San Diego, one sailor died and five were rescued after the sailboat Uncontrollable Urge lost steering. The Associated Press is reporting that the crew sent a mayday call during a race but then declining help from the Coast Guard and other boaters as their boat drifted in rough seas. The crew abandoned ship after the boat was swept onto rocks off San Clemente Island. When the Coast Guard reached the crew, they found 36-year-old Craig Thomas Williams unresponsive in the water, the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s office said.
This death comes almost a year after nine deaths in two separate accidents during sailboat races off the California coast. Five sailors died on April 14, 2012, in the in Farallones Race off San Francisco. On April 28, 2012, four sailors died when the sailboat Aegean ran aground on North Coronado Island.
Research has suggested that dolphins give themselves names by using a use a “signature whistle.” Scientists now believe that other dolphins can mimic these whistles to call out to their fellow dolphins by name. As reported by NBC News, Other than humans, the dolphins are the only animals known to do this, according to the study, published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The big difference with bottlenose dolphins is that these communications consist of whistles, not words.
Dolphins call each other by name
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A brand new copy of a 4,000 year old craft was paddled out on a short maiden voyage in Falmouth, Cornwall on Wednesday. Christened the Morgawr after a mythical monster of Falmouth Bay, she is a 50 foot long, six-ton replica of a Bronze Age boat, which was built by a team of 50 volunteers over the last eleven months at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.
Calling all Sea Goddesses and would-be Sea Goddesses. Applications are now being accepted for the Maine Sea Goddess Pageant. The Pageant is open to 20 young women who are single, a high school (or equivalent GED) graduate, not more than 21 years of age, and a Maine resident. The young woman chosen as Sea Goddess receives a $2,000 cash award and represents the Maine lobster fishing industry at events in Maine and across New England throughout her one-year reign. This year’s Maine Lobster Festival Sea Goddess Coronation will take place on Wednesday evening, July 31, the first day of the 66th annual Maine Lobster Festival, which will be held on the Rockland waterfront from Wednesday through Sunday, July 31st through August 4. Applications are being accepted through April 15, 2013. The application and supporting information must be postmarked no later than April 15 but no earlier than March 1. Please mail to: Maine Lobster Festival Coronation Committee, P.O. Box 552, Rockland 04841. For information, call pageant chairwoman Sharon Lombardo at 594-4559 or 691-5203.
You might call it the greenhouse effect, though it is not directly related to climate change. A dead sperm whale which washed ashore last year in Andalusia, in southern Spain, was found to have died from ingesting plastic sheets used in the construction of greenhouses in that region. The whale had over 17 kilogrammes (37 pounds) of garbage blocking its stomach, including some 30 square metres (36 square yards) of plastic canvas, said Renaud de Stephanis, a marine biologist at the Donana Biological Station, which is run by the Spanish National Research Council. “There were a dozen metres of plastic rope, plastic sheeting used on the outside of greenhouses, and plastic sheeting used inside and even two flower pots.”
Beached sperm whale in Spain dies after eating large amounts of plastic
A team of archaeologists think that they may have found the first Viking sunstone. Two years ago we posted about Viking sunstones, the legendary, and indeed considered by many to be mythical, devices which allowed Viking navigators to locate the position of the sun even on heavily overcast or cloudy days. See our previous post – Did Vikings Navigate with ‘Sunstones’? Researchers had theorized that the sunstones were polarizing crystals that allowed Viking navigators to pinpoint the sun’s location based on variation in the polarized light as seen through the crystal. They had tested the theory with a polarimeter, a device that measures polarization. Until recently, no one one had found an actual Viking sunstone to test the theory.
Today in Japan, the US Navy officially decommissioned the minesweeper USS Guardian. On the Tubbataha Reef, where the ship ran aground on January 17, salvage operations have again been delayed by bad weather. The salvage plan is to cut the ship into pieces and to haul it away. Salvage divers have been cutting away at the crippled ship and the crane ship MV Jascon 25 has been hoisting the sections onto barges. The salvage operations have been repeatedly delayed by wind and waves. The USS Guardian ran aground on a reef in the Philippines’ Tubbataha National Marine Park. The park is a World Heritage Site in the Sulu Sea, 640 kilometers (400 miles) southeast of Manila.
Retiree Edd Hale writes in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette about surrendering his status as an armchair sailor to sail the Great Lakes in the Brig Niagara, a replica of the Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry‘s flagship on which he won the Battle of Lake Erie, one of the most important naval battles in the War of 1812.
Edd writes: My childhood dreams of sailing in tall ships were pretty much unknown to my parents and friends. After all, tall ships were something from a time long, long ago and sailing on them seemed only a boy’s fantasy. But above my bed were several small prints of sailing ships, and I once built a huge model of the clipper ship Cutty Sark. I did tell people from time to time that had I been born in the last century (which at that time meant the 19th century), I probably would have gone to sea.
Instead, I became a history teacher and spent most of my 35-year career in the eighth grade, where my curriculum included the golden age of exploration and sail. My students heard about ships and navigation and great voyages of discovery — all from a teacher who had never set foot on a sailing ship. I was the quintessential armchair sailor.
Read the rest of the essay.
The Next Page: Aboard the US Brig Niagara, armchair sailor no more
Two men and a woman brought pizza and beer aboard the 82′ sailing yacht Darlin in the Sausalito Yacht Harbor late Sunday or early Monday and proceeded to take the boat to sea, only to run aground in shallow water near Pacifica State Beach in Sausalito. The owner of the Darlin saw his yacht on the television coverage of the grounding and reported it stolen. The apparent thieves repeatedly declined assistance and refused to leave the grounded boat. A standoff ensued for several hours with the Coast Guard and local authorities. Ultimately, Pacifica police arrested Leslie Gardner, 63, Dario Mira, 54, and Lisa Modawell, 56, on suspicion of grand theft and conspiracy. Each of the three was being held on more than $1 million bail. The yacht Darlin was removed at high tide with reported damage to the rudder and keel. Thanks to Phil Leon and Bob McKane for contributing to the post.
There are two wonderful newsletters for keeping up with what is going on in the world of nautical fiction – Astrodene’s Nautical Fiction Log Book, sponsored by David Haye’s Historic Naval Fiction website and Quarterdeck sponsored by McBooks Press. The March edition of Quarterdeck features George Jepson’s interview of author Helen Hollick and Julian Stockwin writing about life aboard a man-of-war, while the March Astrodene’s Nautical Fiction Log Book features author and historian, J. D. Davies, and provides a run down of the new releases in nautical fiction and non-fiction. Both newsletters are free and well worth subscribing to.