Enough Rain to Float a Battleship

Posted on by October 17, 2015
Photo: Doc Searls

Photo: Doc Searls

The recent rain in the Carolinas has been close to unprecedented.  Meteorologists have referred to it as the “1,000-year rainfall.”  Another way to describe it is that it was “enough rain to float a battleship.” In this case, however, that was not a metaphor but literally what happened with the battleship USS North Carolina, which had been sitting firmly in the mud near shore on the Cape Fear River, in Wilmington, North Carolina.  Flooding due to heavy rains added to the already high tides from the super blood moon eclipse resulting in an over 5-foot rise in the river, which proved enough to float the ship. The last time the battleship floated was in 2010. The river also flooded the parking lot causing the Battleship North Carolina Museum to close for several days.

Battleship floats as a result of rain, flood

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California Kayak Fisherman and the Hammerhead Shark

Posted on by October 5, 2015

Mark McCracken was out fishing for bonito half a mile off Gaviota State Beach, near Santa Barbara, when a hammerhead shark started bumping and circling his kayak. Mark, to his credit, didn’t panic, paddled toward shore and kept striking the shark with its paddle as it approached. The shark “followed me all the way into about three feet of water,” McCracken said. “Even after I got out of my kayak and made it to the beach he was sitting right there…it was pretty creepy.”

L. Francis Herreshoff & QUIET TUNE

Posted on by October 6, 2015

L. Francis Herreshoff was the son of naval architect, Nathanael Greene Herreshoff and the father of yacht designer and naval architect Halsey Herreshoff. L. Francis was widely respected as was a boat designer, naval architect, editor and author of books and magazine articles. Here, Doug Hylan speaks of L. Francis Herreshoff and QUIET TUNE, one of his designs.

Halsey Herreshoff on How Nathanael Herreshoff Designed His Boats

Posted on by October 5, 2015

Yacht designer Halsey Herreshoff at the Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol, Rhode Island, describing how his grandfather Nathanael Greene Herreshoff carved rather than drew the boats that he designed.  The more interesting question may not be how Captain Nat carved the models but why. Read on after the page break.

How Herreshoff Designed His Boats

The most interesting question may be not how Nat Herreshoff designed his boats, but why carve them rather than draw lines plans? Continue reading →

The Amazing Herreshoff Brothers, Part 2 — Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, Wizard of Bristol

Posted on by October 5, 2015

captainnatWhen Nathanael Green Herreshoff was around 16, he began to work for his elder brother, John Brown Herreshoff, in his boat yard in Bristol, RI. To work as an apprentice was a traditional way to learn the skills and techniques to become a successful yacht or ship designer and builder. Nathanael Herreshoff took a different course, however. At 19 her went to the Massachusetts Institute of technology and earned a degree in mechanical engineering. After graduation, he took a position with the Corliss Steam Engine Company in Providence, Rhode Island and worked for the firm for eight years. At the age of 30 in 1878, Nathanael returned to Bristol and became a partner with his elder brother in the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company.

The unusual aspect of the partnership was that while his older brother, John Brown, known in the family as J.B., was highly successful boatbuilder, he was also blind. His blindness had not prevented him from being a skilled manager and a gifted businessman. The addition of the Nathanael as a partner added a skilled designer and engineer to the firm.

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The Amazing Herreshoff Brothers, Part 1 — John Brown Herreshoff, the Blind Boatbuilder

Posted on by October 5, 2015

jbherreshoffIn 1859, 18 year old John Brown Herreshoff of Bristol Rhode Island, accepted his first commission to design and build a yacht. The fact that J.B., as he was known, was blind, having lost his sight at 15, didn’t seem to slow him down. He became known as the “blind boat builder.”

In 1863, J.B. took on space in an old tannery, hired a crew of shipwrights and established what would become the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company. In their first year, they built nine sailing craft, ranging from twenty-two to thirty-five feet long. The business continued to prosper and in 1868, the shop built its first steamer, followed by another in 1870, Seven Brothers, a pioneering fishing steamer. By 1874, J.B.’s yard had built upwards of 250 yachts and boats.

In 1878, J.B. formed a partnerships with his brother Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, seven years his junior. Together they improved the coil boiler designed by their oldest brother, James, and used the improved design in steam torpedo boats which they built for the U.S. Navy, as well as for the navies of Great Britain, Spain, Russia and Peru.

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The Herreshoff Legacy

Posted on by October 5, 2015

For the next five days, we will be posting about the amazing legacy of the Herreshoff family on American yacht design and construction. Today we begin with the restoration of the yacht Doris, the first yacht built to the Universal Rule, developed by Nathanael Herreshoff. Then we will review the careers of John Brown Herreshoff, the blind boatbuilder, and Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, known as the Wizard of Bristol.  Next naval architect and yacht designer, Halsey Herreshoff, will explain how his grandfather, Captain Nat, carved models of his designs. We will follow by a look at Quiet Tune, a design by L. Francis Herreshoff, the son of Nathanael and the father of Halsey Herreshoff.

Restoring the Sloop Doris of 1905

Posted on by October 5, 2015
doristrailer

Photo: The Day/Sean D. Elliot

Drivers on Interstate 95 in Connecticut may have been surprised recently to see the 78-foot, wooden yacht Doris traveling by trailer down the highway, on her way to restoration and a new life. The 1905 built sloop is believed to be the largest surviving wooden yacht from the famous Herreshoff Manufacturing Company of Bristol, Rhode Island.  Doris has been stored at Crocker’s Boat Yard in New London for the past 30 years or so, was moved to the Taylor & Snediker Yacht Restoration company of Pawcatuck. The yacht was scheduled to be scrapped at the end of August 2013, but a new, currently anonymous, owner was found. New England Boating reports that “Taylor & Snediker may employ up to 9 workers to work full time for the next 5 years on Doris. When the work is completed, most of the original frames, planking and other components will have been replaced.”

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Williwaw & Hydroptere — Foiling Tris Sailing the Open Pacific

Posted on by October 5, 2015
williwaw

Williwaw

This summer, the French 60′ foiling trimaran Hydroptere sailed 2215 nautical miles from Los Angeles to Hawaii. The winds were not favorable and the passage was not terribly fast at about 11 days, compared to the four day record set by the 110-foot trimaran Geronimo in November 2005. Nevertheless, as most hydro-foiling sailboats are limited to relatively calm water, the ocean passage was itself an achievement. Hydroptere was not however, despite all claims, the “the first flying hydrofoil to cross an ocean.” In fact, she was not the first by almost a half century.

In the late 1960s and early 70s, an engineer named Dave Keiper designed and built the world’s first hydrofoil sailing yacht, a 32-footer named Williwaw. Keiper cruised 20,000 miles around the Pacific sailing twice to Hawaii from the West Coast and back and then on to the South Pacific as far as New Zealand in 1976. Keiper died of heart failure on June 27, 1998 at the age of 67.  Keiper’s book Hydrofoil Voyager: WILLIWAW, From Dream To Reality and Toward the Sailing Yacht of the Future has recently been republished.  A video of Willawaw underway:

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Timelapse – Sailing Down the Expanded Suez Canal

Posted on by October 5, 2015

Maersk Line has posted a 3-minute time lapse of the M/V Adrian Maersk, 6,000 TEUs, passing through the newly expanded New Suez Canal. As reported in Maritime Executive: The New Suez Canal was inaugurated by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in a ceremony held at the port city of Ismailiya on August 6.  The $8 billion project took 11 months to complete, included the widening and deepening of 35 kilometers of the existing Canal up to a depth of 24 meters, as well as digging and creating 37 kilometers of the so-called ”second lane,” running parallel to the existing Canal.

Update: Saildrones in the Bering Sea

Posted on by October 5, 2015

In January 2014, we posted Saildrone Sails the Pacific, about a 19′ long by 7′ wide autonomous trimaran sailing drone capable of carrying an oceanographic sensor payload of 220 pounds.  In October of 2013, Saildrone-1 set off from San Francisco and arrived 34 days later in Kaneohe, Hawaii.  This summer, two Saildrones have been sailing in the challenging conditions in the Bering Sea. Two drones were launched from Dutch Harbor, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. They sailed to St. Paul, then up through the Bering Sea up to Nome, then Norton Sound, mapping the Yukon delta. Then they sailed back to Dutch Harbor, a distance of 4,500 miles.  The ongoing development of Saildrones is a collaboration among researchers at NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), the Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO) at the University of Washington, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and Saildrone Inc.

El Faro — a Ro/Ro not a Container Ship and Why that Mattered

Posted on by October 5, 2015

elfaro3El Faro was often referred to in the media as a container ship. It is an easy mistake to make as the file photos showed her carrying stacks of containers on the main deck.  El Faro, ex-Puerto Rico, ex-Northern Lights, was built as a roll-on roll-off ship in 1975 at Sun Shipbuilding. She underwent several refurbishments and as she carried containers on deck, might have been called a ro-con. Nevertheless, below decks, she was designed to carry wheeled vehicles. When she sank she was carrying 391 containers topside and 294 cars, trucks and trailers below deck. Why is this important? Tragically, it may help explain what happened to the ship and her crew.

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