USS Chesapeake, from frigate to mill
Last Sunday, we posted about the authorization for the construction of the first six frigates for the US Navy in 1794. The folks at Maritime Great Britain were kind enough to pass along two related stories.
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Indian Coast Guard ship Sangram
On Sunday the MV Maersk Kensington reported an attempted boarding by pirates while underway off the southern coast of India. The Indian navy ship Suvarna and Coast Guard ship Sangram responded, intercepting the Iranian fishing trawler Morteza which had been hijacked and was being used as a pirate mother ship. After a three hour running battle, the Indian forces captured 16 pirates and freed 16 hostages, 12 Iranians and 4 Pakistanis.
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Mystic Seaport is featuring a traveling exhibit from Philadelphia’s Independence Seaport Museum – Skin & Bones, Tattoos in the Life of an American Sailor. The exhibition runs through September 5, 2011.
Skin and Bones – Tattoos in the Life of the American Sailor
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New facial reconstruction technology applied to the skull of one of the members of the ill-fated Franklin expedition may rewrite accepted history. The skeleton long believed to be that of Henry Le Vesconte, a lieutenant aboard HMS Erebus, is now believed to be that of Harry Goodsir, an assistant surgeon and naturalist on the expedition.
New Identity for Arctic Explorer Emerges 140 Years Later
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Photo: Gordon James
The 86m fast catamaran ferry, Condor Vitesse, collided with a fishing vessel this morning, seriously injuring a French fisherman.
UPDATE: The fisherman injured in the crash subsequently died.
French fisherman seriously injured in ferry crash
The Condor Vitesse, travelling between St Malo in France and St Helier, Jersey, collided with the boat at about 0750 BST on Monday. There were three French nationals on the fishing boat. Two of them were taken to the Vitesse. It is thought the fisherman is in a serious condition.
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The fourth leg of the Velux Five Oceans Singlehanded Round the World Race is underway as the four competitors set off from Punta del Este, Uruguay bound for Charleston, South Carolina. The racers are currently sailing at north at around ten knots all within 3 nautical miles of each other. Brad Van Liew, the American sailing Le Pingouin, the winner of the last three legs, is again in the lead, but separated from two of the competitors by only one nautical mile.
No one needs to be reminded that the sea is a dangerous place, and nowhere more so than where it meets the shore. Sion Milosky, one of the world’s great big wave riders, died last week at 35 while surfing off the California coast.
Two hundred and seventeen years ago today, March 27, 1794, the United States Congress authorized the construction of six frigates, the first ships of the United States Navy, the USS Constitution, the USS Chesapeake , the USS Constellation , the USS President, the USS United States, and the USS Congress. The ships were designed to be heavy frigates – longer and faster than the conventional frigates of their day, able to stand and fight against any ships their size and fast enough to evade larger ships of the line. Innovative structural design involving diagonal bracing allowed US shipbuilders to build longer and faster frigates than was previously thought practical. The ships more than held their own against the Royall Navy. The six frigates were also significantly over budget and delivered later than anticipated, a tradition proudly upheld in military contracting to this day.
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Every US naval ship and most American merchant ships carry aboard a copy of the American Practical Navigator, which most refer to simply as Bowditch, after Nathaniel Bowditch, the author of the first edition in 1802. On March 26, 1773, Nathaniel Bowditch, the fifth of seven children, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, to a seafaring family of limited means. Apprenticed as a bookkeeper, he was a self taught mathematician with a particular interest in navigation.
Bowditch had the radical notion that navigation could be made simple enough so that everyone aboard the ship, including the cook, could be taught to navigate.
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Harold ‘Dynamite’ Payson died suddenly of an an aneurysm at his home in Maine on March 23rd. He was 82.
His message was simple. As expressed in his books and on his webpage,” Harold H. Payson … known to associates, friends, and his wife as Dynamite… thinks you can build a boat. In fact, if you can saw a penciled line, apply glue, drive nails, and bring a modest measure of patience to the task, you can build and launch a smart and able craft in as few as 40 work hours. You need not be driven by lack of tools, materials, skills, or time to abandon in frustration a project you conceived in a spirit of pleasurable anticipation.”
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This is an amazing presentation from a website called “everybody loves cephalopods.” (I know that I do, usually lightly fried.) I have to admit that after watching this excerpt from a 30 minute presentation by Maggie Koerth-Baker that I am indeed fascinated by octopus brains. Definitely worth a look.
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The wonderful thing about the US Great Lakes is that being fresh water, the ships on the lakes don’t rust like they do in the saltier oceans. Of course being fresh water, the lakes do freeze close enough to solid in the wintertime, so shipping comes to a halt. In recent weeks the ships have started moving on the St. Clair River . Earlier this week the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Welland Canal opened for business and today the Soo Locks between Lake Superior and the lower lakes are scheduled to ocean. The Great Lakes are a wonderful if sometimes confusing place. The water is fresh and there are no tides. The ships, even the 1,000′ bulk carrier,s too large to fit out of the locks, are referred to as “boats” and every travels in miles per hour.
Seaway Opens 53rd Season, 7% Increase Projected
Thanks to Phil Leon for passing the article along.
On March 24th, 1945 the USS Lancetfish was decommissioned after less than thousand hours in service. She never put to sea under her own power and never had a crew. Delivered from the Cramp Shipbuilding Company of Philadelphia, she was towed to the Boston Navy Yard for additional work. A shipyard worker opened a torpedo tube door and the sub sank in seven fathoms of water. She was judged too damaged to be worth repairing and was laid up until 1959 when she was finally sold for scrap.
Thanks to Dave Shirlaw on the Marine History List for passing the story along.
Earth Hour is “a global event organized by WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature, also known as World Wildlife Fund) and is held on the last Saturday of March annually, asking households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and other electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change.” The observation of Earth Hour began in Sydney, Australia in 2007. This year, in Sydney harbor, the Tall Ship Southern Swan is offering an Earth Hour Twilight Cruise, which sure sounds better than sitting at home in the dark.
This Sunday a grand of fleet of miniature ships will sail the lake at East Tamaki, a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. The event is being hosted by Task Force 48, a group of radio-controlled model ship enthusiasts.
The 1:48 scale replicas of the full-size Royal New Zealand Navy ships will carry out fleet manoeuvres on a lake in Highbrook.
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For those in New York there is a special program, Women At Sea: Screening, Conversation, Reception, next Wednesday, March 30th, at the Community Church of New York, 40 East 35th Street, New York, NY at 6:00 PM. The program features a screening of the PBS documentary “Shipping Out—The Story of America’s Seafaring Women” followed by a conversation with seven women mariners who work as captains, mates, engineers and pilots.
Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at through the Working Harbor Committee.
“The newest landmark in the tsunami-stricken city of Kesennuma.”
Ghost ship haunts tsunami-hit Japanese city
The newest landmark in the tsunami-stricken city of Kesennuma is a massive fishing trawler that was swept up at sea and came to rest on one of the main roads to City Hall. The No. 18 Kyotoku-maru ship, with a red and blue hull and a “safety first” slogan painted just above its bridge, looms over a landscape of homes and business splintered by the March 11 tsunami and then set ablaze in an ensuing fire.
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Today is the 100th anniversary of the tragic sinking of the passenger ship SS Yongala in a cyclone off Australia with the loss of 122 lives.
CAIRNS tourism pioneer Charles Woodward is today heading for the shipwreck that claimed the life of his great grandmother Mary – and all her fellow passengers – exactly a century ago.
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The calendar says that Spring is here on the banks of the Hudson River, but it is nevertheless snowing outside. On mornings like this it is good to be reminded of warm seas and white sails. The good folks on the Soren Larsen recently posted a video that does just that.
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The Super Moon over Glastonbury Tor, Somerset
We posted a few days ago about Saturday’s “Super Full Moon” the first time in almost twenty years that full moon coincided with perigee, the passing of the moon’s orbit closest to the earth. Now the “Super Moon” is being blamed for causing five ships to run aground. We are a bit skeptical of the claims.
‘Blame it on the super moon!’ Five ships run aground off British coast as lunar phenomenon lowers tide
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