Superstorm Sandy Reveals Shipwrecks and Shuts Down the Statue of Liberty

Posted on by November 17, 2012

When Superstorm Sandy came ashore roughly two weeks ago, she uncovered at least two shipwrecks.  On Fire Island, New York, the storm washed away dunes east of Davis Park revealing the remains of a wooden ship believed to be a post-Civil War cargo vessel built before 1880.  Experts from the Long Island Maritime Museum are conducting more research to attempt to identify the ship.

In Surf City, NC, Sandy also uncovered a fragment the William H. Sumner, a 489-ton, 165-foot three-masted schooner whose young captain died under suspicious circumstances after running the ship aground in 1919.

In New York harbor, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are closed while storm damage is being assessed.   Fortunately the statue itself suffered no damage but the facilities, including docks, offices and even brick walkways were significantly damaged. The Statue of Liberty had been closed for a year for renovations prior to the storm and had only been opened for six hours prior to Sandy sweeping into the harbor.  Ellis Island’s invaluable cache of historical documents and records was not harmed by the storm, but there was considerable damage to docks and buildings reported.

Sandy damage to Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island

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Kito de Pavant Hit by Fishing Boat, Retires from Vendée Globe

Posted on by November 12, 2012

A collision with a fishing boat has taken Kito de Pavant, sailing for Groupe Bel, out of the Vendée Globe non-stop round-the-world single-handed yacht race, two days into the race and only a  day after Marc Guillemot was forced to drop out a keel failure on his boat,Safran. The collision damaged the outrigger, bowsprit, deck and hull of his boat, though fortunately, de Pavant was not injured.


Les images de Groupe Bel après l’accident by VendeeGlobeTV

Update: ARA Libertad – Standoff Intensifies as Sailors Brandish Weapons

Posted on by November 12, 2012

In early October, we posted about the Argentine Navy training ship Libertad, a 300′ three masted full rigged ship, that had been seized in the port of Tema, Ghana as a result of a court order obtained by NML Capital Ltd., a subsidiary of Elliot Capital Management, a vulture fund run by the US billionaire Paul Singer.  The conflict intensified last week when the ship’s crew drew guns when the port officials attempted to board and move the ship to another berth.  The ship had previously raised its gangway. The officials attempted to board via a crane but  stopped when faced by armed crew.  The Libertad is currently occupying a central berth in  the port and is blocking the unloading of some 20 other vessels.

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Marc Guillemot on Safran Retires from Vendée Globe with Broken Keel After One Day’s Racing

Posted on by November 12, 2012

Safran with intact titanium keel

Marc Guillemot, sailing Safran, was a favorite to win the Vendée Globe non-stop round-the-world single-handed yacht race, yet only one day into the race, he was forced to turn back due to a broken keel.  Fifty miles into the race, he reported hearing a “loud bang.”  Guillemot’s Open 60 class boat, Safran, features a hollow titanium fin keel, a fairly radical departure from the solid steel keels first used in the design.  Guillemot’s team does not have a spare keel, forcing him to retire from the race.

This is not the first time that Guillemot has faced a keel failure. In the 2009 Vendée Globe, Safran lost her keel 900 miles from the finish of the race, yet Guillemot made it across the finish line and placed third overall.

Samantha Davies & the Vendée Globe Non-Stop Round-the-World Single-Handed Yacht Race

Posted on by November 9, 2012

Her French competitors refer to her as La Petite Anglaise.  Tomorrow, when the twenty boats in Vendée Globe non-stop round-the-world single-handed yacht race set off from Les Sables-d’Olonne, France, Samantha Davies will be the only woman in the race.  When she sails tomorrow, she will be waving goodbye to her husband and her Romain, and 14-month-old son, Ruben.   Davies is an experienced single handed sailor, placing fourth on corrected time in the 2008-2009 Vendée Globe as well as sailing in numerous other major races.

Samantha Davies: ‘My partner’s Vendée Globe will be harder than mine’

IMOCA – Vendée Globe 2012 – Savéol – Samantha Davies

Old Orchard Shoals Light Swept Away by Superstorm Sandy

Posted on by November 8, 2012

Before and after Sandy

The United States Coast Guard Notice to Mariners reads simply – Old Orchard Shoals Light  STRUCT DEST. The Old Orchard Shoals Light was built in 1893 in New York’s outer harbor off Staten Island near Great Kills Beach. The 51-foot tall cast iron spark plug lighthouse stood for 119 years until Superstorm Sandy destroyed it on October 30th.

Staten Island’s Old Orchard Light, a New York Harbor stalwart for 119 years, is swept away

Seventy Years Ago Today – Torpedoman Phelps and the Last Ranger Over the Side on the USS Bernadou

Posted on by November 8, 2012

USS Bernadou (DD-153), At sea during the North African invasion operation, November 1942. The ship’s mast had been removed to facilitate her role in the landings at Safi, Morocco on 8 November 1942

A guest post by Stephen Phelps:

Today is the 70th anniversary of the WW II invasion of North Africa, which began with the assault and landing in the port of Safi by USS Bernadou, a WW I-vintage destroyer that had been stripped down for stealth and draft. My father, Stephen E. Phelps, was a torpedoman aboard her that day; his station as the ship drove into the port was as a loader on that forward 4″ gun.

Captain Braddy grounded the ship in order to disembark his 200 Army Rangers. As the Rangers went over the side the ship continued to take small arms fire and the sailors were helping the soldiers over the bows and onto the landing nets with all their gear. As the last Ranger climbed over, with my father helping him, they looked into each other’s eyes. My father said, “Good luck, soldier,” and the Ranger said, “You, too, sailor.”

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Mitik’s Wild Ride and a Brooklyn Aquarium Under Siege by the Sea

Posted on by November 8, 2012

Mitik Photo: Alaska Sea Life Center

Mitik is the name given to a 234-pound 15-week-old orphaned walrus rescued from the open ocean off Alaska in early October. The walrus calf was transported aboard a FedEx cargo jet, accompanied by a veterinarian and a handler, and delivered to the New York Aquarium, part of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and one only a handful of aquariums in the United States to exhibit walruses.

Then less than a month after Mitik’s arrival, the aquarium, located in Brooklyn just off the Coney Island Boardwalk, was swamped by the storm surge from “superstorm” Sandy. The floodwaters knocked out the aquarium’s electrical transformers and damaged its electrical distribution system and mechanical equipment, rendering emergency generators useless. It also ruined the pumps and motors that operate critical life support systems for the entire collection of 12,000 fish and marine mammals, including oxygenation, filtration and heat.

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The “Superstorm”, the Nor’easter and Monster Roll

Posted on by November 7, 2012

Just over a week ago, we here in New York and New Jersey were hit by a “superstorm,”  the convergence of Hurricane Sandy and a Noreaster.  Now just as power is being restored to many areas and damage to washed out neighborhoods is being assessed, a second Nor’easter is bearing down on us with rain, snow and high winds.  Many are asking what’s next?  Plagues of locusts? Sea monsters?   In that vein, here is a “proof-of-concept” for a feature film about sushi chefs fighting sea monsters.  Because you never know.

Monster Roll

Charles W. Morgan Day at Mystic Seaport

Posted on by November 7, 2012


This Saturday November 10, 2012, from 10 a.m. – 7:30 p.m,, the Mystic Seaport Museum is celebrating the 71st anniversary of the arrival in Mystic of the whale ship Charles W. Morgan.  The Morgan was launched in 1841 and is the last wooden whaler and the world’s oldest surviving merchant vessel.  Admission to the museum will be free and a spectacular fireworks show is promised in the evening.

Charles W. Morgan Day

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Spade-toothed Beaked Whale, the Rarest of All Whales, Beached in New Zealand

Posted on by November 6, 2012

Photo: New Zealand Department of Conservation

Spade-toothed beaked whales (Mesoplodon traversii) are so rare that they had never been seen alive.  Until recently, the only evidence of their existence were portions of three skulls found in 1872 and in the 1950s in New Zealand  and in 1986 on an island off Chile. Then, on New Year’s Eve in 2010,  two spade-toothed beaked whales, a mother and a calf, were found stranded on Opape Beach on the North Island where they died.  Researchers took tissue samples but misidentified the whales as the more common Gray’s beaked whales. The researchers then buried the whales on the beach.  Subsequently, the tissue samples were analysed and found to be from rare spade-toothed beaked whales. The skeletons of the buried whales have now been dug up, though the skull of the mother whale, which was not buried as deeply as the calf, is believed to have been washed away.

NZ beaching proves rarest of whales exists

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HMS Bounty Survivors Interviewed on ABC’s Good Morning America

Posted on by November 15, 2012

The crew of the HMS Bounty was interviewed on ABC’s Good Morning America this morning. Note: the video of the ship sailing in high seas was shot when the Bounty sailed from Maine to Puerto Rico in 2010.

HMS Bounty Survivors: Crew of Ship Sunk During Hurricane Sandy Speak of Lost Shipmates

Falling Overboard, Robin Beth Schaer’s Love Letter and Farewell for the Bounty and Her Captain

Posted on by November 5, 2012

Robin Beth Schaer an American poet and sailor who served as a deckhand aboard the HMS Bounty has a written, Falling Overboard,  a beautifully evocative essay which she describes as “My love letter and my farewell for my ship Bounty and her captain, lost in the storm.”  It was published in the Paris Review Daily. The first paragraph:

At first, I couldn’t sleep on the ship. At night, bunked beneath the waterline, I put my hand against the wooden hull and imagined dark water on the other side pressing back. I lay awake holding my breath, picturing the route I would swim through a maze of cabins and hatches if the ship went down. In port, Bounty had looked tremendous: one hundred and eighty feet long, three masts stretching a hundred feet into the sky, and a thousand square yards of canvas sails. But underway, with ocean spreading toward horizon in every direction, she was small, and inside her I was even smaller.

Read Falling Overboard in the Paris Review. 

USCG Rescuers of the Crew of the HMS Bounty

Posted on by November 5, 2012

U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd class David Weydert.

There are no real super-heroes, but as far am I am concerned the closest human beings that come to that designation are the search and rescue teams of the United States Coast Guard.  From the rescue swimmers, who dive into high seas and icy waters, to the helicopter pilots and winch operators, who create as stable a platform as possible while being buffeted by high winds, to the pilots and crew of the HC-130J Hercules aircraft who located the ship in distress and stands by during the rescue, they are an amazing group of professionals who perform close to super-human rescues.

Last Tuesday, we posted an amazing video of members of the crew of the HMS Bounty being rescued by a United States Coast Guard rescue helicopter.  The rescue is dramatically described in the Coast Guard Compass, the Official blog of the US Coast Guard – Shipmate of the Week – Rescuers of the HMS Bounty.

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New York/New Jersey & Super-storm Sandy – Disaster from the Sea & Relief from the Sea

Posted on by November 3, 2012

USS Wasp

The super-storm Sandy swept in from the Atlantic on Monday night, leaving millions without power, destroying thousands of homes, killing scores and dramatically rearranging the landscape of the Jersey shore. Many New York subways went underwater. Fuel supplies are extremely low as gas stations initially lacked power to pump fuel and now lack supplies. Two of the three local refineries are shut-down due to the storm.

While relief is being sent from all over the country, much is coming by sea.  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that a flotilla of ships and barges began unloading gasoline in New York to help ease the shortages. The U.S. government also issued a Jones Act waiver on Friday allowing foreign tankers in the Gulf of Mexico to supply the Northeast with fuel after Hurricane Sandy.

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