Body Found in Mysterious Debris Field in Atlantic Off St John’s River

The US Coast Guard has identified Guillermo Gonzales Losada, 49, as the man found dead in a debris field of parts of a boat, ten life jackets, flares and an oily sheen in the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday, off the coast of Florida, about 22 miles east of the entrance to the St. Johns River. The man was identified through his Venezuelan passport. His last known address was in Miami.  The Coast Guard says that it had not received reports of a missing boat.   Coast Guard boats and planes are searching the area for potential survivors. Thanks to Bob McKane for passing along the news.

Man found off Atlantic Beach in ocean debris by United States Coast Guard identified

One Hundred Million Sharks Killed Each Year – and Why it Matters

stop_shark_fishing_3A new report, published in the journal Marine Policy, assesses the the impact of commercial fishing on sharks and estimates that around 100 million sharks are being killed each year.  The rate is higher than sustainable for most shark species and is believed to driven by the continued demand for shark fins for soup in China.  There is hope that proposals to regulate the trade in five of the most threatened species of shark will be approved at the the meeting of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species now being held in Bangkok, Thailand.  Similar proposals narrowly failed in the previous meeting in 2010.

Shark kills number 100 million annually, research says

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Brig Eye of the Wind Certified as Sail Training Vessel

Eye of the Wind

Eye of the Wind

The brig 132′ Eye of the Wind has had a long and varied career.  Built in 1911, by C Lühring of Brake, Germany, as a topsail schooner named Friedrich, she was initially put into the hides trade with South America.  Later she would carry cargo in the Baltic and North seas, and then fish for herring off the coast of Iceland. In 1969, after being converted to a motor ship, she was nearly lost to a fire. Rebuilt in 1973 and renamed Eye of the Wind, she went on to be featured in a number of movies, inlcuding The Blue Lagoon, White Squall, Tai-Pan and Nate & Hayes.  She also served as the flagship for Operation Drake – a two year scientific expedition for young people.  Recently, the Eye of the Wind has been certified as a Class A Sail Training Vessel.  Thanks to Tom Russell on the Linked-in Traditional Sail Professionals group for passing along the news.

Tall Ship “Eye of the Wind” as a certified sailing school ship

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Attack Submarine HMS Ambush Joins Fleet on the Clyde

hms_ambushHMS Ambush, the second of the Astute Class of Royal Navy attack submarines, has officially joined its fleet on the Clyde.. The £1.6bn nuclear-powered 7,400-tonne vessel has been undergoing sea trials since arriving at its home port at Faslane in September and is is due to enter operational service later this year.

Attack submarine HMS Ambush joins fleet at Faslane 

With luck, HMS Ambush will not share the problems of the first of the class, HMS Astute, which has been described as rustly, leaky and slow.  The Astute suffered from an embarrassing grounding, electrical and hydraulic failures, and a murder aboard ship.

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BP Deepwater Horizon Civil Suit, TV Advertising, and A Third Year of Dead Whales and Dolphins

I don’t watch a lot of television, though it seems every time that I turn the set on I see another commercial touting how wonderful things are on the Gulf of Mexico. The sun is shining, the beaches are beautiful, and the food is tasty.  The commercials are intended to attract tourists dollars to the Gulf Coast  and they are all paid for by BP.   There are other commercials where BP employees address the camera to talk about their commitment to the Gulf and all the good and wonderful things that they and the company are doing.  There is no mention, of course, of BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill that killed eleven workers and spilled an estimated 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf.  It was the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.

If the commercials do not mention the spill, it is the center of conversation in a civil trial that began last week  where BP may face up to another $17 billion in penalties and fines. This in addition to the $4.5 billion criminal settlement in which BP pleaded guilty to eleven felonies last year.

BP Facing Up to $17 Billion in Penalties in Civil Trial

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Updates – USS Guardian Salvage Finally Underway, Shell 2013 Alaska Drilling Cancelled & Emma Mærsk in Repair Yard

Stack of USS Guardian hoisted by crane ship. Photo:PCG

Stack of USS Guardian hoisted by crane ship. Photo:PCG

Three quick updates on recent posts – the salvage of the USS Guardian is finally underway, Shell Oil has cancelled plans for Alaskan arctic drilling for 2013 due to rig problems; and the Emma Mærsk has arrived at a shipyard for repairs after engine room flooding in the Suez Canal.

After running aground on a reef in the Philippines’ Tubbataha National Marine Park on January 17, the salvage of the Navy minesweeper USS Guardian is finally underway. Crane ships will break the ship up in place.  The salvage was delayed by bad weather and the time required to assemble the salvage vessels. The Philippine Coast Guard has set a target deadline of March 23 for the removal of the ship.   Read more at – PCG confident of beating deadline for USS Guardian’s dismantling

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Titanic II – Part 2: And About Those Life Boats ….

titanic-lifeboats-onlook-siNo discussion of the Titanic II is complete without a mention of the lifeboats. The lack of adequate lifeboats on the original Titanic was a major contributor to the deaths of over 1,500 passengers. Unfortunately, as reported in the press, it appears that the new ship will not have adequate lifeboat capacity to meet the current Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) rules. Frankly, we think that  this  is  carrying  authenticity  a bit too far.  As reported by the Daily Mail and elsewhere:

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Titanic II – Part 1 : Downton Abbey on the North Atlantic, Cruising as Performance Art

TitanicIIHow should we think about the RMS Titanic? Was the ship, which sank with a loss of over 1,500, a major maritime tragedy? Or was it just the backdrop for a historical drama about wealth and class conflict – a sort of Downton Abbey on the North Atlantic?  The questions came to mind when Australian billionaire Clive Palmer unveiled his plans for building  Titanic II, a near replica to the ill-fated Titanic, with more lifeboats and at least one fewer iceberg. His vision of the ship, which he plans to have built in China and be in service by 2016, seems to lean decidedly toward historical melodrama.

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US Court: Sea Shepherds are “the Very Embodiment of Piracy”

sea-shepherdLate Monday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the anti-whaling extremists and reality TV show stars, the Sea Shepherds, are indeed pirates.  In his ruling, Judge Alex Kozinski wrote: ” When you ram ships, hurl glass containers of acid, drag metal-reinforced ropes in the water to damage propellers and rudders, launch smoke bombs and flares with hooks; and point high-powered lasers at other ships, you are, without a doubt, a pirate…  The activities that Cetacean [the Japanese whalers] alleges Sea Shepherd has engaged in are clear instances of violent acts for private ends, the very embodiment of piracy.”

US court brands whale activists Sea Shepherd ‘pirates’

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Writing Nautical Fiction: Seymour Hamilton Interviews Alaric Bond

alaricbond

Alaric Bond & Seymour Hamilton

Seymour Hamilton recently sat down for a trans-Atlantic interview with Alaric Bond. They discussed Bond’s Fighting Sail series of novels, in particular, and about writing nautical fiction, in general.  It was a fascinating conversation. Seymour Hamilton is the author of the nautical fantasy series, The Astreya Trilogy.  Alaric Bond has written five excellent novels in his Fighting Sail series. See our review of his latest – Patriot’s Fate.

Click on the arrow below to listen to the interview.

Overhauling the Clipper Stad Amsterdam

Clipper Stad Amsterdam2_790It is generally considered rude to look under a lady’s skirt, though when the lady is a ship in a drydock, it is usually OK.   The three masted steel clipper Stad Amsterdam was built in 2000 and now after 13 years of service is undergoing a major overhaul at Damen Shiprepair in Vlissingen, the Netherlands. She should return to service sometime early June.  It is a great opportunity to look at the graceful lines of her hull, normally hidden below the waterline. The ship was designed by Gerard Dijkstra who modeled her after the mid-19th century frigate Amsterdam. She has been described as a “modern extreme clipper in historical perspective.” She is a very fast ship capable of sailing along at an easy 15 knots. Video of the Stad Amsterdam under sail after the jump.

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16th Century Replicas – Basque Whaler Planned & San Salvador 60% Complete In San Diego

sanjuanIn the construction of replica sailing ships, the 18th century is reasonably well represented. The 17th also has not been left out.   Replicas of Columbus’ ships have ensured that 15th century replicas still sail.  Recently two replica ships from the 16th century have been in the news, one in the planning stages and the other nearly completed.

In around 1556, the Basque whaling ship San Juan sank in Red Bay in Labrador. In 1978, Parks Canada archaeologists discovered the wreck of the 250-ton ship, the oldest European wreck yet discovered in America, north of Florida.  As reported by the Ottawa Citizen: The 450-year-old San Juan, a jumble of thick beams and broken barrels lying in shallow waters off the site of a 1560s-era whaling station in the Strait of Belle Isle, is to be resurrected by a team of Spanish maritime heritage experts planning to construct a full-scale, seaworthy replica of the original 16-metre, three-masted vessel.  

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Anti-Doping Testing for Ice Fisherman? Ice Fishing As An Olympic Sport?

Photo: Darren Hauck for The New York Time

Photo: Darren Hauck for The New York Time

Another post to be filed in the category “you can’t make this stuff up.”  There is an article today on the front page of the New York Times titled, “Dope Tests in Ice Fishing? No, Beer Doesn’t Count.”   It reports that after spending a week on a frozen lake, the competitors in the World Ice Fishing Championship all had to provide urine samples to the United States Anti-Doping Agency so that the agency could run tests to detect steroids and growth hormones. As noted by the Times, there are “drugs not normally associated with the quiet solitude of ice fishing.”  Unlike in many other sports, competitive cycling comes immediately to mind, the drugs are not likely to help ice fishermen. “Fishing officials puzzled over whether doping would even help anglers jigging for panfish, roughfish and crappie.”   The obvious question is why?

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Drones & the Queen’s Ex-Plane Monitor Impact of Seaweed & Climate Change

Scientists at the University of Birmingham are using drones on loan from NASA and a plane that once belonged to the Queen of England, now outfitted with electronics to study seaweed and climate change.  They are studying how climate change is impacting natural processes.  One area that they are examining involves chemicals created by seaweed and their impact on the ozone layer. Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing the news along.

Drones monitor impact of seaweed

The Deep – Academy Awards, Survival and the Selkie

This year’s nominee from Iceland for best foreign film in the Academy Awards is The Deep (Djúpið) directed by Baltasar Kormákur.  The movie is based on a true story. In 1984, a fishing boat sank off the south coast of Iceland.  Four of the five fisherman drown in the icy water.  Only Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, the 22 year old helmsman, (called Gulli in the film) survived, swimming in the 5° C ocean for a nearly unbelievable six hours and then walking barefoot for another two hours across through ice and snow before finding help.  Guðlaugur Friðþórsson became equal parts national hero and scientific oddity. Subsequent MRIs revealed that his body fat was almost like the fat of a seal, several times thicker and two to three times more dense than that of the average male.  Perhaps the legend of the selkie is not so far fetched.

The Deep (Djúpið) Official Trailer (HD)- english subtitles

Russian Ghost Cruise Ship MV Lyubov Orlova Spotted Off The Coast Of Ireland

1-anundatedhanFor almost a month, the small cruise ship MV Lyubov Orlova has been adrift in the Atlantic Ocean, a “ghost ship” without power, lights or passengers, except for the rats left aboard.  The 295′ ice strengthened cruise ship, built in Yugoslavia in 1976, has been abandoned twice – once by her owners in St John’s, Newfoundland in 2010 and once by Transport Canada. The ship was recently spotted drifting over a thousand miles off the coast of Ireland.

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Coast Guard Winds Up Hearings on the Sinking of HMS Bounty

bountychiefmate1The US Coast Guard has wrapped up eight days of hearings on the sinking of the replica of the HMS Bounty on October 29th of last year.  Two died in the sinking, crew member Claudine Christian and Captain Robin Waldridge whose body has never been found.  The hearings, which were streamed live on-line, were gripping, at times difficult to watch and yet hard to turn away from. For those who missed them, the first several days are posted on Youtube by Wavy TV 10, while days three through eight have been posted on Youtube by Zach Lash.

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Sailing the Roaring Fourties on the Swedish Ship Götheborg

A wonderful video of the Swedish ship Götheborg sailing in the Roaring Forties. The ship is a replica of the Swedish East Indiaman of the same name which sank in 1747. The ship is described as the world’s largest operational wooden sailing vessel.

Roaring Fourties

Trevor Grills of the Port Isaac’s Fisherman’s Friends, Dies at 54

Trevor Grill was a self employed builder from Port Isaac on Cornwall’s rugged north coast, who enjoyed getting together with friends to sing sea shanties and folk songs.  The group came to call themselves the Port Isaac’s Fisherman’s Friends and they performed at various gigs, from bars to folk festivals, in the area for around fifteen years.  Then in 2010, they were thrust into the spotlight when Universal Records offered then a recording contract worth £1 million.

Trevor Gills died earlier this month in an accident at a concert hall in Guildford, Surrey, where he had been due to perform with the Fisherman’s Friends. He was 54. The band’s tour manager, Paul McMullen, also was killed in the accident. Grills is survived by his wife, Lesley, and three sons, Mark, Paul and Josh. Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing along the sad news. Below, Trevor Grills leading the Fisherman’s Friends in “The Last Leviathan.”

Trevor Grills obituary

TREVOR GRILLS (HD) – FISHERMAN’S FRIENDS – LAST LEVIATHAN

‘Super-Mega-Pod’ of Dolphins Spotted Off Coast of California

A huge group of an estimated 10,000 dolphins was sighted off the coast of San Diego last week. Captain Joe Dutra, of Hornblower Cruises, called the gathering of adult and juvenile common dolphins a “super mega-pod.” Dolphins typically travel in pods of 15 to 200 animals. Last month an unusually large pod of 23 gray whales was also seen migrating off the Southern California coast.

‘Super-pod’ of dolphins spotted off coast of California