Old Salt Blog

According to the historic coating specialists, Michael Crick-Smith and Ian Crick-Smith, the current black and orange-yellow color scheme of Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory is “an early 20th century invention of what an 18th century warship looked like.”  Based on their study of hundreds of fragments of the original paint surfaces, they have concluded that the original ochre was a much paler yellow instead of what they refer to as “that hideous orange.” Many interior spaces were also said to be less elaborately and brightly colored than they are now on the famous ship.

Paint detectives uncover true colours of Nelson’s victorious flagship 

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This morning, the press was abuzz with reports that last Monday, in the Mediterranean off Cyprus, US Navy SEALS boarded and took control of an oil tanker, Morning Glory, which had recently loaded a cargo of Libyan oil in the port of Sidra. The SEALs conducted the operation from the guided missile destroyer USS Roosevelt (DDG-80).  The Morning Glory was returned to Libyan waters with a team of sailors from a second US Navy destroyer, USS Stout, aboard.   There were no causalities reported in the raid.

The press has used a variety of adjectives to describe the tanker. It has been referred to as “hijacked“, “rogue“, “rebel“, “diverted” and “mystery.”  The ship entered the port under a North Korean flag but North Korea denied that the ship was still under its registry.  Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby described the Morning Glory as “a stateless vessel seized earlier this month by three armed Libyans.”

So, who owns the Morning Glory?  Who owns the oil?  And why did Navy SEALs seize the ship?

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A re-post from four years ago that seems appropriate today.  So Happy Pi day and a toast to Hakudo Maru, the Japanese celestial shipbuilder.

Some call today Pi day, as the first three digits of the date (3.14) are the first three digits of the constant pi used to calculate the circumference and area of a circle.   Which makes it a good day to raise a glass to toast Hakudo Maru.

By Japanese naming convention, merchant and private ship names end in the word “Maru,” meaning circle.    There are several explanations for this convention, including that ships were thought of as floating castles and maru represents the defensive “circles” that protected the castle.  Another explanation is that the suffix honors, Hakudo Maru, the celestial being in Japanese mythology who is said to have come to Earth 5000 years ago and taught humans how to build ships.  A toast to Hokudo Maru.

My favorite explanation is that maru represents the hope that the ship leaves port, travels the world, and returns safely to home port, representing the complete circle of a successful voyage.