In the list of the world’s 25 largest operating offshore wind farms, 11 are based off the United Kingdom. Denmark has five; China three; Belgium and the Netherlands each have two, while Germany and Sweden each have one. Don’t look for the United States in the list, because the US has no offshore wind farms, despite having one of the longest and windiest coast lines in the world.
With luck, that may begin to change before too long. Cape Wind, a project to build an offshore wind farm offshore wind farm on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, recently signed a deal with Siemens for 130 3.6-megawatt wind turbines. Siemens is also reported to be likely to take $100 million equity stake in the project.
As important as the deal itself, was the date that the contract was signed. If Cape Wind had failed to show that they had made a substantial start on the project by December 31, 2013, they would have lost a U.S. investment tax credit that would cover 30 percent of its estimated $2.6 billion in construction costs.
MSC Monterey
Two recent items on sharks in the news — a photobombing shark off the coast of California and Australian sharks posting warnings on Twitter.
By definition, shipping is the ultimate offshore industry. For most, the business of shipping is largely invisible, literally beyond the horizon. I recently came across two representations of global shipping – a plot developed from ship’s logs from the 18th and 19th centuries and an animation of a week’s shipping traffic using AIS and satellite technology from 
The Chinese icebreaker 
On July 9, 1866, Captains Hudson and Fitch with their dog, Fanny, sailed from New York in a three masted full-rigged 26 foot long boat named “Red, White, and Blue.” They arrived in Margate in in East Kent, UK on August 16th. While the rigging was conventional, if diminutive, “Red, White, and Blue’s” hull was a galvanized metal lifeboat. The trip was intended to publicize a new metal lifeboat design by New York boat builder, O.K. Ingersoll. The words “Ingersoll’s Improved Metallic Life Boat” were written on both sides of the hull.
The brochure for for the cruise liner 
There was a 
President Obama recently nominated 
A recent article in