Great Lakes Ice Nearing Record

Posted on by February 16, 2014

greatlakes1The Great Lakes between the United States and Canada were formed by the passage of ice at end of the last glacial period around 10,000 years ago. They are now being covered by near record ice once again (although, not not by glaciers.)  Ice now covers more than 88% of the Great Lakes approaching the 90.7% of 1994 and the 94.7% record set in 1979.

The Great Lakes form the world’s largest group of fresh water lakes and contain 21% of the world’s surface fresh water. The area covered with ice is now approaching the total land area of Great Britain.

One interesting aspect to the ice coverage on the Great Lakes is how widely variable it has been from year to year. In 2012 the maximum ice coverage was only around 12%, rising only to 38% last year. The ice coverage over the last 40 years have been roughly 51%.

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Wave Kills Passenger on MS Marco Polo While Valentine’s Day Storm Slams UK

Posted on by February 15, 2014

Marco_Polo_Bergen_2010A unusually large wave killed an 85 year old man and injured a woman in her 70s on the cruise ship MS Marco Polo in the English Channel, as it headed for its home port of Tilbury, in Essex.  Both were airlifted from the ship but the man died later. The Marco Polo was returning from a 42 day voyage when it was struck by the massive wave.  The ship sailed from Tilbury on January 5 and is carrying 735, mainly British, passengers and 349 crew.

Wave kills Marco Polo cruise ship passenger in Channel

The latest storm, in a winter of severe storms, struck the UK on Valentine’s Day.  CNN reports that nearly 6,000 homes have been inundated along the Thames Valley and elsewhere following England’s wettest January in 2½ centuries.  Continue reading →

The Loch Ness Monster Has Gone Missing!

Posted on by February 15, 2014
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Faked Nessie Photo from 1934

Recently, the press has been abuzz with the lack of sightings of Loch Ness monster.  There have been no sightings of the famous beastie in the last 18 months.  The Daily Mail asks “Is Nessie DEAD?”  The BBC notes: No Loch Ness Monster sightings for first time since 1925. Given the explosion of digital photography, it seems unlikely that if the monster was splashing about that someone would not have captured at least a cell phone photo. There is a cash prizes for the best sighting photo given by Nessie enthusiasts yearly, yet only three photographs were submitted of recently reported sightings. These turned out to be, respectively — a wave, a duck, and a photograph from Lake Champlain, Vermont.   This is the longest period without sighting since the modern Loch Ness monster craze began in 1933.

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Building New York With Ships’ Ballast — Cobblestones, Blitz Bricks & Bristol Basin

Posted on by April 23, 2014

bristolbasisIn the almost 6,000 miles of streets, roads and highways in the five boroughs of New York City, only about 15 miles are still paved with cobblestones. As noted by the New York Times: Starting in the 17th century, cobblestones (cobbling refers to the shaping of the stones) began to replace the city’s oyster shell and dirt streets. Round stones were used until the introduction of flat oblong granite, known as Belgian block, which was brought in as ship ballast. … In the mid-to-late 19th century, cobblestones began to be phased out as a primary material, in favor of less expensive concrete. 

One major concrete highway along the Manhattan side of the East River, the FDR Drive, has a foundation built, in part, of ballast bricks of a much newer vintage.   Continue reading →

Was Albert Einstein a Lousy Sailor ?

Posted on by February 12, 2014
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Prof. Albert Einstein on board of his sailing boat which he was given by friends. (photograph: A.Harms)

The first word that comes to mind when thinking of Albert Einstein is probably not “sailor.”  Nevertheless, Einstein enjoyed sailing and appears to have done at least some of his most important work while on sailing vacations.  A friend described sailing as, “his favorite of all pastimes.”  Remarkably, Einstein is said to never have learned how to swim. 

It is unclear when Einstein started sailing. In 1929, a group of admirers, including the American banker Henry Goldman, had a sailboat built for him as a present for his 50th birthday. It seems an unlikely gift unless Einstein was already a sailor, or at least had a strong interest in sailing. The boat was named Tümmler (German for Porpoise) and was a centerboarder with a fractional Bermuda rig, about 23′ long with a beam of 7.7′ and a sail area of roughly 215 square feet.  The boat had a 5hp engine, a galley stove, a head and berths for two.

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The Oldest Indian Ocean Shipwreck and the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea

Posted on by February 11, 2014

Roman Trade ShipSometime around the 60 CE, a Greek merchant, whose name is lost to history, wrote a guide, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.  Periplus is the Latinization of the Greek word περίπλους (periplous, contracted from periploos), literally “a sailing-around.”  While Erythraean literally means “red,” the guide includes what we now call the Red Sea, as well as the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the Bay of Bengal. The Periplus was organized into 66 short chapters, each usually only a paragraph in length, and served as both a Coast Pilot and merchant’s guide to trading in the ports along the coast. Trade in the region was expanding dramatically as roughly 100 years before the Romans had annexed Egypt and now had access to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

Beyond written records, such as Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, there have been few artifacts of this trade.  Soon archaeologists will start to excavate a shipwreck off the Sri Lankan fishing village of Godavaya. The shipwreck is believed to date from roughly the same period as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.  The wreck, the oldest located so far in the Indian Ocean, is in 110′ feet of water and is described as “a concreted mound of corroded metal bars and a scattering of other ancient cargo, including glass ingots and pottery, that have tumbled around on the seafloor for hundreds of years amid strong currents and perhaps even the occasional tsunami.”  Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.

Indian Ocean’s Oldest Shipwreck Set for Excavation

NTSB: “Captain’s Reckless Decision to Sail” Led to Bounty Sinking

Posted on by February 10, 2014

bountysinkingThe NTSB Report conclusion came as no real surprise. Captain Robin Walbridge; who was lost along with a crew member, Claudene Christian, in the sinking of the replica of the HMS Bounty; should never have taken the ship to sea with the well forecast approach of Hurricane Sandy.  That is the bottom line.

Depending on your particular perspective, the focus could be placed on the relatively inexperienced crew, the material used in caulking while in the shipyard, the discovered rot in the hull, or the mal-functioning bilge system and lack of functioning back-up pumps. None of this would necessarily have mattered if the captain had sought to take the ship to a harbor of refuge, rather than attempting, and coming very close to succeeding, to sail around the hurricane.

The NTSB determined that the probable cause of the sinking was “was the captain’s reckless decision to sail the vessel into the well-forecasted path of Hurricane Sandy, which subjected the aging vessel and the inexperienced crew to conditions from which the vessel could not recover. Contributing to the sinking was the lack of effective safety oversight by the vessel organization.”

National Transportation Safety Board – Marine Accident Brief : Sinking of Tall Ship Bounty

Strong Pacific Trade Winds Slowing Warming

Posted on by February 10, 2014
Colour shading shows observed temperature trends (°C per decade) during 1992–2011 at the sea surface

Colour shading shows observed temperature trends (°C per decade) during 1992–2011 at the sea surface

Joseph Conrad, who claimed not to be a sentimentalist when came to the life at sea, waxed poetic when writing of the trade winds:  In the middle belt of the earth the Trade Winds reign supreme, undisputed, like monarchs of long -settled kingdoms…, whose traditional power, checking all undue ambitions, is not so much an exercise of personal might as the working of long-established institutions. … The regions ruled by the northeast and southeast Trade Winds are serene…. Those citizens of the ocean feel sheltered under the aegis of an uncontested law, of an undisputed dynasty. There, indeed, if anywhere on earth, the weather may be trusted. (Mirror of the Sea) 

A recent study suggests that the power of the “monarchs of the Trade Winds“, as Conrad refers to them, may be even more powerful and less serene than we thought.  After seeing dramatic increases in global temperatures in the last decade, the rate of temperature increase has flattened out in the last decade. Until recently, no one was able to explain the slow down in warming.  Researchers writing in the journal Nature Climate Change think that they have the answer. Continue reading →

Sleeping Beauty — Britain’s WWII Motorized Submersible Canoe

Posted on by February 12, 2014

med_diving_canoeIn World War II, the British government set up the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe. An unusual group, they were also known as “the Baker Street Irregulars,” (because their headquarters was on Baker Street in London.)  They also earned the nickname “Churchill’s Secret Army” and the “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.”  The SEO operated Station IX, a secret factory for designing commando equipment in a mansion called ‘The Frythe‘ north of London near the town of Welwyn.

One particularly unusual weapon developed at Station IX, was the Motorized Submersible Canoe (MSC). Continue reading →

Why Didn’t José Salvador Alvarenga Die of Scurvy in 13 Months at Sea?

Posted on by February 8, 2014

jose2José Salvador Alvarenga, the fisherman who apparently drifted for 13 months at sea in open boat, has been released from the hospital in the Marshall Islands.  How is it possible that he could have survived for over a year, while drifting more than 6,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean? Why didn’t he die of scurvy, like so many sailors on long voyages under much better conditions? Scurvy can be a very serious illness if one is without Vitamin C for more than a few months. During the 18th century, for example, scurvy killed more British sailors than enemy action.

The Associated Press spoke with Claude Piantadosi, a professor of medicine at Duke University and author of the book The Biology of Human Survival, and asked just these questions.

Q: Without fruit and vegetables, wouldn’t he have developed scurvy?

A: Actually, unlike humans, birds and turtles make their own vitamin C, so fresh meat from those creatures, especially the livers, would provide sufficient vitamin C to prevent scurvy. British sailors used to get scurvy because they ate preserved meat which had oxidized and lost its vitamin C.

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Melville’s Billy Budd – From Unfinished Manuscript, to Novella, to Broadway Play, to Opera, & Film

Posted on by February 8, 2014
The British tenor Mark Padmore as Captain Vere in “Billy Budd.” Photo: Joshua Bright for The New York Times

The British tenor Mark Padmore as Captain Vere in “Billy Budd.” Photo: Joshua Bright for The New York Times

The Glyndebourne Festival Opera’s Michael Grandage production of Benjamin Britten’s opera, Billy Budd, opened last night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music(BAM.)

Herman Melville’s Billy Budd was his last work, which almost died with him in 1891. The unfinished manuscript was found by a Melville biographer and was first published in 1924.  Since then it has re-emerged as a Broadway play, several movies, Britten’s opera, and at least one pop song.

Herman Melville‘s life and work are full of irony and contradiction. Continue reading →

Desperate Voyagers — Three Dead, Two Missing off Florida; Italy Rescues 1,100 Migrants in Med

Posted on by February 7, 2014
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Photo: Marina Militare

The two stories were drastically different and yet fundamentally the same. Off Florida on Thursday, roughly 75 miles northeast of West Palm Beach,  Zeeland, a Royal Netherlands Navy patrol craft bound for Key West, spotted and rescued seven on an overturned 24′ open console style power boat. Three others were reported to have died and two are missing. Those rescued were described as migrants. Where they departed from has not yet been reported. The U.S. Coast Guard has deployed a fast response cutter and a helicopter to help in the search off the southern Florida coast.

Also on Thursday, the Italian Navy rescued 1,100 migrants attempting to reach the country by crossing the Mediterranean Sea on small boats. As reported by Reuters, “Patrol helicopters identified the overcrowded rafts on Wednesday and four navy vessels participated in the rescue which ended early on Thursday, a statement said. The navy gave no details about the nationalities of the migrants.

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No, Noah’s Ark Was Not Round (& No Cannibal Rats)

Posted on by February 6, 2014
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Dr. Finkel and the Tiny Tablet Photo: AP/Sang Tan

We recently endured the media farce in which dozens of newspapers and websites reported that “a ghost ship filled with cannibal rats may be headed straight for Britain,” even though the ship has probably sunk and the bit about the rats started out as an April Fools joke.  We now have multiple media accounts that “new evidence suggests Noah’s ark may have been round.”   The only problem here is that the evidence is not so new, the “discovery” is four years old, and it really doesn’t apply to Noah’s ark.

Raw Story had fun with the sloppy reporting, posting their own version of the story, “Noah’s Ark revealed to be filled with cannibal rats, drifting toward British coast.”

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USS “Forest Fire” on Her Way to the Flames of the Cutting Torches

Posted on by February 5, 2014

USS_Forrestal1The USS Forrestal left Phildelphia yesterday, under tow on her way to a scrap yard in Beaumont, Texas.  The USS Forrestal (CV-59) was the first US “supercarrier” and the first American aircraft carrier to be built with an angled flight deck, steam catapult, and an optical landing system.  When she was commissioned in 1955, she was the largest aircraft carrier ever built.  While the ship had a long and active career, she will probably be best remembered, however, for a series of deadly fires, starting with one in 1967 which killed 134 sailors and injured 161.   Continue reading →