Why Did the Greenwich Meridian Shift?

Posted on by August 31, 2015
prime meridians

Prime Meridian 1854, dotted by GPS solid

Recently, it was reported that the Prime Meridian, as marked at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, is off by 102 meters, over the length of an American football field. The Prime Meridian is the arbitrary line marking 0 degrees of longitude. All other longitude is notionally measured from the Prime Meridian. The Meridian was established by Sir George Airy in 1851 and now 164 years later, it appears that Airy got it wrong.  So how could this sort of mistake have been made? How did they catch it? Does this mean that all other lines of longitude are also off by over 100 meters?

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Clipper Round the World Race Starts

Posted on by August 30, 2015

Today, the Clipper Round The World Yacht Race began from St Katherine’s Docks, London.  Twelve teams are competing in the world’s longest ocean race of 40,000 nautical miles.  While the captains of the twelve boats are all professionals, the 700 crew members from 41 different countries are all amateurs, 40% of the whom never sailed prior to signing up for the race. The race is sailed roughly every two years.  This is the tenth race since the event was founded in 1996 by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, who was the first person to sail solo non-stop around the world. Thanks to Phil Leon for contributing to this post.

COUNTDOWN CONTINUES TO CLIPPER ROUND THE WORLD RACE

The Soaring Body-Count of the Migrant Flood

Posted on by August 29, 2015
Photo: Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Photo: Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have been forcing upwards of 3,000 migrants a day from their homes. These desperate refugees often seek new lives in Western Europe, traveling by both land and sea. The most dangerous route is across the Mediterranean from northern Africa to Italy and Greece. We have posted a dozen times about the tragedy that has awaited too many of these migrants in overloaded boats and ships. The tragedies only continue.  Just last Thursday, two overloaded refugee boats, carrying an estimated 500 people, sank off Libya. Roughly 200 are missing and feared drowned. The UN says estimates that 2,400 migrants have died trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year.  In 2014, over 3,400 died attempting to make the crossing.

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Quadrofoil Electric Hydrofoil Watercraft

Posted on by August 28, 2015

Quadrafoilq2I hate jet-skis. They are noisy, exhaust-spewing and dangerous. I am amazed that more people don’t get killed by running them into other boats or seawalls, or just by falling off. I recently came across a potential alternative to these noxious beasts — the Quadrafoil, the first all-electric hydrofoiling personal watercraft.  As reported by Gizmag:

The radically finned Quadrofoil is described as a hydrofoiling personal watercraft (PWC), but unlike other PWCs the Quadrofoil produces marginal noise pollution, zero emissions, and creates only the tiniest of waves. As a result, the company claims the quad-finned watercraft could in theory access more environmentally sensitive areas where noise and wave disturbances are prohibited. (Video after the page break.)

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The Newest Oldest Message in a Bottle

Posted on by August 27, 2015

oldestbottlepostcardIn 2014, we posted about a German fisherman who found a 101 year old message in a bottle. It was then the oldest message ever found in a bottle. Now, a bottle containing a message that was tossed overboard between 1904 and 1906, making it at least 109 years old, may take the title. The newest-oldest bottle washed up on the beach on the German island of Amrum, and was found by a Marianne Winkler, a retired postal worker on vacation with her husband Horst, in April of this year.

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Where is the North Korean Submarine Fleet?

Posted on by August 26, 2015
North Korean Sang-O submarine captured by South Korea in 1996.

North Korean Sang-O submarine captured by South Korea in 1996.

Something very strange has happened on the Korean peninsula.  More than 50 North Korean submarines — about 70% of the country’s known fleet — have reportedly left their bases and disappeared from South Korea’s military radar.  They also represent most of the North Korean Navy, which in addition to submarines, has relatively few surface combatants, roughly a half dozen frigates and an equal number of corvettes. What makes the deployment of the submarines even odder is that it coincides with a de-escalation of tensions between the two Koreas.  On Monday, the two countries announced a plan to lift the “semi-state of war” prompted by a land-mine explosion that injured two South Korean soldiers on August 4.  The two countries are technically at war, living under a cease-fire agreement since 1953.

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Wreck of the USS Macon — Flying Aircraft Carrier

Posted on by August 25, 2015
ussmacon

USS Macon

In Marvel comics and movies, the mobile headquarters of the fictional intelligence/defense agency S.H.I.E.L.D. is a flying aircraft carrier, referred to as a “Helicarrier.”  In the comic books, the flying aircraft carrier first appeared in 1965, which raises the obvious question — why was Marvel so far behind the times?

The US Navy had two flying aircraft carriers in the 1930s. The two sister rigid airships, USS Macon (ZRS-5) and USS Akron (ZRS-4), each carried five single-seat Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk for scouting or two-seat Fleet N2Y-1 for training.  The airships were designed to serve as long range scouts to locate and report on enemy ships, using onboard scout planes, which the airships could both launch and recover. The were intended to be the high-tech early-20th-century version of 18th century frigates, which also served as the “eyes of the fleet.”

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Snug Harbor Shanties, A Short Documentary — Singing the History that Can’t be Found in Textbooks

Posted on by August 24, 2015

snugharborshantyMy novel, The Shantyman, begins with a fictionalized Bill Doerflinger recording the tale told by a retired ship’s captain of a shantyman who saved his ship and its crew. The old captain lives close to the sailor’s retirement home, Sailor’s Snug Harbor, on Staten Island, NY.

The real Bill Doerflinger did indeed record shanties in the 1930s and 1940s at Sailor’s Snug Harbor. These days, a group of lovers of the songs of the sea from around the New York metropolitan area gathers every month at Snug Harbor to sing shanties at the William Main Doerflinger Memorial Shanty Sessions. The group meets to sing the old songs in the same hall where Doerflinger recorded shanties sung by the retired sailors.

Gabriel Baron and Leia Grossman are producing a short documentary, Snug Harbor Shanties, about the shanty sessions and the singers who have been getting together for close to two decades to sing timeless songs of ships and the sea. They are raising money to complete the documentary on Indiegogo. I have donated to the cause and invite all lovers of sea shanties to join with me.  Click here to learn more.

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Pride of the Ladies’ Gunboat Association — CSS Georgia Artifacts Recovered

Posted on by August 23, 2015
Propeller from the CSS Georgia. US Army Corps of Engineers photo by Michael Jordan

Propeller from the CSS Georgia. US Army Corps of Engineers photo by Michael Jordan

Navy divers, working with the United States Army Corps of Engineers, are attempting to raise what is left of the 250′ long CSS Georgia, an ironclad warship from the Civil War, in preparation for dredging the Savannah River.  The river is being dredged to allow for larger ships to call, following the widening of the Panama Canal.

The ship was also know as the Ladies’ Ram or the Ladies’ Gunboat as it was built with money raised by the Ladies’ Gunboat Association. Led by the women of Savannah, statewide fundraising resulted in over $115,000 in donations used to build the ship.

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Mysterious Whale Deaths on the Coast of Alaska

Posted on by August 22, 2015
bearswhale

Bears feeding on dead whale

Since May, 30 dead whales have been found along the coast of Alaska. This compares to a total of five dead whales reported for all of last year.  According to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 11 fin whales, 14 humpback whales, one gray whale, and four unidentified cetaceans have been found stranded on Alaskan beaches. Because so many of the locations are remote, researchers have only been able to examine one whale carcass so far.  There are also reports of an additional six dead whales found along the coast of British Columbia.

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Spirits of the Passage: Stories of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Opens on the Cutter Lilac

Posted on by August 21, 2015

sotpLilacSpirits of the Passage: Stories of the Transatlantic Slave Trade opened yesterday on board the ex-USCG cutter Lilac at Hudson River Park’s Pier 25.  The exhibit explores the transatlantic slave trade through a display of nearly 150 historical objects, many salvaged from sunken ships, and was created by the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum. The museum was established by diver Mel Fisher, a treasure hunter who found the sunken wrecks of the Spanish galleons Nuestra Senora de Atocha and Santa Margarita. The exhibit will be on display through Sunday, September 27. The ship is open free to visitors from 4:00 to 7:00 pm on Thursdays and 2:00 to 7:00 pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

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Sail Amsterdam 2015 — Sail In Parade

Posted on by August 20, 2015

Sail Amsterdam bills itself as the world’s largest nautical festival. Every five years, more than 600 ships navigate along the North Sea Canal before mooring in and around the IJhaven in Amsterdam. The ninth edition of SAIL Amsterdam takes place from 19 to 23 August 2015.  The festival features an impressive flotilla of vessels of all shapes and sizes; from tall ships, to traditional Dutch craft to Volvo Ocean racers and smaller private yachts. Crowds of 2-3 million visitors are expected to attend. Here is a video of the Sail In Parade. Thanks to Irwin Bryan for contributing to this post.

Sail Amsterdam 2015 Sail In Parade

The Clipper Ship Noonday & the Ships of Badger’s Island

Posted on by August 19, 2015
Noontime

Noontime

Last year, the wreck of a the clipper ship, Noonday, was located just west of San Francisco. There was no great mystery where the ship sank in 1863, as the submerged rock where she struck has been known as Noonday Rock ever since. Nevertheless, the exact location of the ship had been lost until the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration surveyed the area with the help of a remote-controlled submarine equipped with sonar and video. The ship remains buried beneath bottom and will be left undisturbed.  In 1934, the ship’s bell from the Noonday was recovered when it became entangled in the net of a fishing trawler.

Noonday was the last clipper ship built at the Fernald & Pettigrew shipyard on Badger’s Island in the Piscataqua River at Kittery, Maine, directly opposite Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  Noonday was built for Henry Hastings, of Boston, who also commissioned the previous clipper ship from the yard, named Midnight.

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Dame Ellen MacArthur — Circling the Globe and the Circular Economy

Posted on by August 18, 2015

In 2005, Ellen MacArthur broke the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe, sailing 27,354 nautical miles in 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes 33 seconds at an average speed of of 15.9 knots. Recently she gave a TED talk about the perspective that she gained sailing around the world alone. She returned with new insights into the way the world works, as a place of interlocking cycles and finite resources, where the decisions we make today affect what’s left for tomorrow. She proposes a bold new way to see the world’s economic systems: not as linear, but as circular, where everything comes around.

The surprising thing I learned sailing solo around the world

Learn more at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Dream Symphony — a Clipper Ship for the 21st Century

Posted on by August 17, 2015

dreamsymphonyWhen delivered sometime in 2016, Dream Symphony will be a clipper ship for the 21st century. Like the 19th century clippers, Dream Symphony will carry an impressive cloud of sail and like the clippers, it will be built of wood.  That alone is remarkable as Dream Symphony is 462’7″ft (141m) long. Historically, wooden vessels could not be built longer than around 300′ long.

Conventional carvel planked wooden construction was just too flexible for longer ships. The longest schooner ever built was the Wyoming, which was 350′ on deck. Despite being heavily strapped with iron, the ship flexed and twisted in heavy seas, opening her seams and requiring constant pumping to keep her dry.

To avoid the traditional limitations of wooden vessels, Dream Symphony is built of glued layers of wood laminates. The whole structure is highly engineered and the product of extensive finite element modeling. The wood/epoxy laminates are also protected by fiberglass on the outer hull surfaces.

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