US & UK Navies Suffer Sailor Shortage, Cutting Crews on Carriers & Laying Up Frigates

Posted on by January 7, 2024

This year, the US and Royal navies have fallen short of meeting their recruiting goals, leaving both navies with more ships’ billets than they have personnel to fill them.

In 2023, the US Navy missed its goal of recruiting 37,700 active-duty enlisted sailors by over 7,000, almost 20% short of its target. It also recruited 2,080 officers, almost 18% short of its 2,532 officer goal. It also missed its reserve goals by a wide margin, hitting 3,000 enlisted reservists, or almost 45% short of the 5,390 it wanted. Reserve officers also fell short by 40% hitting 1,167 of the 1,940 goal.

The impact of the recruiting shortfall has been immediate. Forbes reports that in the face of a massive shortage of Navy sailors, America’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), has downsized, cutting the crew aboard by hundreds of sailors. Continue reading →

Global Fishing Watch Uses AI to Reveal That Up to 75% of Large Fishing Vessels Avoid Being Tracked

Posted on by January 6, 2024

Way back in 2015, we posted – Can Big Data Stop Overfishing? Will Google’s Global Fishing Watch Succeed? The post described a new project in which Google partnered with SkyTruth and Oceana to produce a tool to track global fishing activity, in hopes of identifying and cracking down on illegal fishing. Known as Global Fishing Watch (GFW) the interactive web tool uses satellite data to provide detailed vessel tracking and aims to harness the power of citizen engagement to tackle the issue of overfishing.

Now, almost a decade later, the answer to our original question “Will Google’s Global Fishing Watch succeed?” is a muddled “yes” and “no”.

The good news is that GFW has succeeded in using artificial intelligence algorithms (AI) to identify vessels in satellite images of the oceans.

The bad news is that an analysis of the data reveals that up to three-quarters of large fishing boats and about a quarter of energy and transport ships are “dark vessels” that do not publicly share their location, as required by international regulations.

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Update: Oli & Sylph VI, First Cat Across the Finish Line in 78th Sydney to Hobart Race

Posted on by January 5, 2024

We recently posted about Oli the cat, sailing with Captain Bob Williams and co-skipper  Chris Warren, on Sylph VI,  in the two-handed division of the 78th Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.  Oli and his crew finished the race, begun on Boxing Day, on January 1st at 8 AM. 

Technically, Sylph VI, a 12m (40ft) yacht built in 1960, and the oldest yacht in the fleet, was the last yacht to complete the race. (At least 18 of the fleet did not finish the race.)  So while not the fastest yacht in the 103-boat Sydney to Hobart race, Sylph VI was clearly the fastest yacht with a cat aboard — the unchallenged winner of the “feline class.”  (Oli was also the first feline seafarer in the 78-year history of the grueling regatta.)

ABC News Australia reports that the cat and crew of Sylph VI were greeted by about 40 fans on Hobart’s waterfront. The crew of another Sydney to Hobart yacht, Showdown, left Oli a personalized cat carrier so he could join in the traditional post-race beer at Customs House pub.

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The End for the Falls of Clyde? Hawaii Seeking New Contractor to Remove Ship From Honolulu Harbor

Posted on by January 4, 2024

The State of Hawaii is moving closer to removing the historic four-masted iron-hulled ship Falls of Clyde from Honolulu harbor, where it has languished since 2008.  Though owned by the nonprofit Friends of the Falls of Clyde, the state government took over the vessel’s management seven years ago over safety concerns. Falls of Clyde is the only remaining iron-hulled four-masted full-rigged ship and the only surviving sail-driven oil tanker in the world.

A Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) statement notes that the ship is severely corroded, leaking, and has lost its structural and watertight integrity. It presents a risk of structural failure and sinking, threatening harbor safety and maritime operations.

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On New Year’s Day — RMS Warrimoo, In Several Places and Times at Once

Posted on by January 1, 2024

Here is a repost of wonderful sea story suitable for New Year’s Day. It also appears to be more or less true. RMS Warrimoo was an Australian/New Zealand passenger ship, launched in 1892. The ship is best remembered for crossing the intersection of the international dateline and the equator at precisely the turn of the century from 1899 to 1900. Here is how the story is usually told:

The passenger steamer SS Warrimoo was quietly knifing its way through the waters of the mid-Pacific on its way from Vancouver to Australia. The navigator had just finished working out a star fix and brought the master, Captain John Phillips, the result. The Warrimoo’s position was latitude 0 degrees x 31 minutes north and longitude 179 degrees x 30 minutes west.

The date was 30 December 1899. Know what this means? First Mate Payton broke in, we’re only a few miles from the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line.

Captain Phillips was prankish enough to take full advantage of the opportunity to achieve the navigational freak of a lifetime. He called his navigators to the bridge to check and double-check the ship’s position. He changed course slightly to bear directly on his mark. Then he adjusted the engine speed. The calm weather and clear night worked in his favor. At midnight the Warrimoo lay on the Equator at exactly the point where it crossed the International Date Line! Continue reading →

Shooting War Heats Up in Red Sea as US Helicopters Sink 3 Houthi Boats

Posted on by December 31, 2023

On Sunday morning, Dec. 31, at 6:30am (local time) the container ship Maersk Hangzhou issued a second distress call in less than 24 hours reporting being under attack by four Iranian-backed Houthi small boats. The boats, originating from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen, fired at the container ship, getting to within 20 meters of the ship, and attempted to board.

As the ship’s security forces attempted to hold the attackers at bay, helicopters from the USS Eisenhower carrier group arrived and the Houthis opened fire on them.

“The small boats fired upon the US helicopters with crew-served weapons and small arms,” Central Command said in a statement. “The US Navy helicopters returned fire in self-defense, sinking three of the four small boats, and killing the crews. The fourth boat fled the area. There was no damage to U.S. personnel or equipment.” Central Command did not say how many had been killed, but in a statement later on Sunday the Houthis said that 10 of their fighters were dead.

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New Year’s Repost: Watching the Ball Drop — the Nautical Origins of a New Year’s Tradition

Posted on by December 31, 2023

The USNO Millennium Time Ball

Tonight, millions will watch in person, online, or on television, as a jeweled ball drops in Times Square in New York City at exactly midnight to mark the arrival of the New Year, 2024. After several years in which the crowd in Times Square has been limited due to the pandemic, expectations are for close to a million revelers to be crammed together in the square this evening.

Regardless of the turnout, the ball will drop at midnight. The six-ton Waterford crystal ball covered in 32,276 LED lights will not actually be “dropped” but lowered from a flag pole on the roof of One Times Square. In New York City, the tradition dates back to 1907. But where did the tradition of dropping a ball to mark the time originate?  

The practice dates back to 1829 and was related to helping sailors calculate their position at sea. Here is an updated repost.

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A Cat Makes History in the Sydney to Hobart Race

Posted on by December 27, 2023

The Rolex Sydney to Hobart Race is considered to be one of the premiere mixed-fleet yacht races in the world. Setting sail every year on Boxing Day, this year’s race attracted 103 yachts.

This year, for the first time in its 78-year history, the race also includes a cat. No, not a catamaran. The race does not allow multihulls. The cat in question is a feline named Oli sailing on Sylph VI, a 12m (40ft) yacht built in 1960, in the two-handed division. 

The BBC notes that there’s no record of any feline seafarers in the grueling regatta. Carrier pigeons – sure: they were once used to send messages back to shore and have graced many a deck during the ocean classic. But cats? No.

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Ukrainian Missiles Strike Russian Landing Ship Novocherkassk in Crimean Port

Posted on by December 26, 2023

Today, the Ukrainian Air Force said that it had destroyed the Novocherkassk, a large landing ship, in the Crimean port of Feodosia overnight. Russia’s Defense Ministry told the Tass state news agency that the ship had been damaged in an attack using “aircraft-guided missiles,” but did not say whether the vessel had been permanently disabled.

Unverified videos posted to social media reportedly show very large explosions seen at the Feodosia port after the attack. According to Ukraine’s Air Force, the vessel suffered secondary explosions and will be difficult to repair.

The BBC reports that one person was killed in the attack, according to the Russian-installed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov. Several others were reportedly hurt. Six buildings were damaged and a small number of people had to be taken to temporary accommodation centers, Mr. Aksyonov added.

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NASA’s NGC 2264 — Twinkling Christmas Tree Cluster 2,500 Light Years From Earth

Posted on by December 25, 2023

Merry Christmas! Here is a composite image and video of NGC 2264, also known as the “Christmas Tree Cluster,” that shows the shape of a cosmic tree with the glow of stellar lights.

According to NASA:  NGC 2264 is, in fact, a cluster of young stars — with ages between about one and five million years old — in our Milky Way about 2,500 light-years away from Earth. The stars in NGC 2264 are both smaller and larger than the Sun, ranging from some with less than a tenth of the mass of the Sun to others containing about seven solar masses.

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Update Storm Pia Aftermath : MS Maud Reaches Bremerhaven Safely, Mayview Maersk Loses More than 40 Boxes Overboard

Posted on by December 24, 2023

MS Maud (16,151 GT, 668 passengers and crew) in Bremerhaven next to MS World Dream (150,695 GT, 3,690 passengers and crew) Photo: Facebook

We recently posted about the Hurtigruten cruise ship MS Maud that was disabled during the North Sea storm Pia on Thursday. The Maud arrived in Bremerhaven yesterday, under tow, after suffering damage by a rogue wave to the bridge deck resulting in the loss of navigational systems and a temporary loss of power. There are no reports of serious injuries to her passengers and crew.

Maud was not the only ship to be impacted by storm Pia. The 18,270 TEU ultra-large-container ship Mayview Maersk, which sailed from Bremerhaven around the time that the Maud was arriving, lost at least 46 containers off the North Jutland coast of Denmark in storm Pia. No injuries were reported among the crew. 

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Hurtigruten’s MS Maud Damaged by Rogue Wave in North Sea Storm — Under Tow to Germany

Posted on by December 22, 2023

The cruise ship MS Maud was returning to the UK from a 14 night Northern Lights cruise when it was caught in a severe storm in the North Sea. During the storm, the ship was struck by a rogue wave, shattering the windows on the bridge deck. The flooding of the bridge deck resulted in a temporary loss of power as well as damage to the ship’s navigation systems and radars. There were also reports of a loss of bridge steering control that was taken over by an engine room backup.

The 266 passengers and 131 crew members aboard the Maud are safe, according to the Danish Joint Rescue Coordination Centre. 

The ship, owned and operated by cruise company HX, a unit of Norway’s Hurtigruten Group. left Floroe in Norway on Thursday and was due to arrive in Tilbury in the UK on Friday.  The Maud is now being towed to Bremerhaven in Germany, Danish authorities said.

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Repost on the Winter Solstice — Shortest Day & Longest Shadows, or No Shadow At All

Posted on by December 21, 2023

Happy Winter Solstice to all! In the northern hemisphere, today is the shortest day and the longest night of the year. The sun is at its southernmost point of travel, over the imaginary circle on the globe we refer to as the Tropic of Capricorn. Today is also the day in which a person standing outside at noon in the northern hemisphere, outside of the tropics, would cast the longest shadow. If you are on the Tropic of Capricorn, however, at noon today, you would have no shadow at all. 

Reading an article in The Sailors’ Magazine and Seamen’s Friend, Volume 43, Issue 3, of  1871, got me thinking about shadows and the solstice. (I will admit that this is more than a touch odd.) It seems that at an 1871 gathering at the Chicago Academy of Sciences, a Rev. Mr. Miner, of Canada presented a paper called “The Snow Line” in which he observed, “Should a man start from the Tropic of Cancer at the winter solstice and walk 18 miles per day northward for six months, his shadow would remain nearly the same each day at noon.”  If instead of starting at the Tropic of Cancer one began at the Tropic of Capricorn, you might do away with your noon shadow altogether. 

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“Fat Leonard,” Center of US Navy Bribery Scandal, Extradited to US in Prisoner Swap with Venezuela

Posted on by December 20, 2023

The Washington Post reports that Leonard Glenn Francis, known as “Fat Leonard,” the fugitive defense contractor who admitted to a $35 million bribery scheme in the largest corruption scandal in U.S. military history, has been arrested and returned by Venezuela to the United States as part of a major prisoner swap between the estranged countries, President Biden said Wednesday. 
 
Venezuela is also releasing 10 Americans detained by the government of Nicolás Maduro, Biden said.

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Jubilee Sailing Trust Shutting Down After Fundraising Efforts Fail

Posted on by December 19, 2023

After years of financial struggle, the Jubilee Sailing Trust has announced the closure of the company that owns and operates the tall ship SV Tenacious.

The charity Jubilee Sailing Trust (JST) was founded in 1978 and has taken over 55,000 people to sea. The future of a charity offering sailing experiences to disabled people is uncertain after its associated company went into administration.

The SV Tenacious is a modern British wooden sail training ship, specially designed in the 1990s. When completed in 2000, it was the largest wooden ship to be built in the UK for over 100 years. Along with the STS Lord Nelson, the two vessels are the only tall ships in the world that were built so that both disabled and non-disabled people can sail as crew, not passengers.  The Lord Nelson was put up for auction in June of 2023. 

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