The Future of Commercial Sail – What the Past and Present Suggest about a Likely Future For Sailing Ships

Posted on by June 7, 2013

beamon1For those near New York harbor next Monday, I will be giving a presentation on “The Future of Commercial Sail” at the monthly New York City Shiplore meeting on Monday, June 10th at 7:30 PM at  79 Walker Street, 5th floor, in Manhattan.

Oil prices are four times higher today than they were just a decade ago.  Wind power is the fastest growing sector in the energy business.  Is it time for a return to wind power to propel modern commercial ships?

In Monday’s presentation, we will be looking at what made the windjammers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries uneconomical, and the impact of current energy prices and new environmental rules on shipping; and will ask whether these economics might justify a return to commercial sail.  We will also look at a variety of new designs of sailing ships being developed by a new generation of naval architects.  It should be fun evening.  If you are the neighborhood, stop by.

Joan Druett Interviewed by Quarterdeck

Posted on by June 6, 2013

McBook Press‘ wonderful publication Quarterdeck, has a fascinating interview with Joan Druett in their June 2013 edition.   We are reposting it here with permission.

Joan_with_tupai-210Award-winning author Joan Druett sailed back into nautical fiction in 2005 with the launch of A Watery Grave, introducing the Wiki Coffin Mysteries, which are set against the U.S. Exploring Expedition in 1838. By this time, Druett was already an established author, writing maritime history, as well as fiction. Druett, who lives and writes in New Zealand, launches her Promise of Gold Trilogy this month. It will be digitally published by Old Salt Press, with trade paperback editions following.

Quarterdeck recently interviewed the author just as she was about the head out to sea:

How did you arrive at writing as your vocation? And, what initially drew you to the sea and nautical nonfiction as subject matter for your books?

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Michigan State Senate Officially Recognizes ITLPD but Not the International Day of the Seafarer

Posted on by June 5, 2013
Senator with "Pirate" Eyepatch

Senator with “Pirate” Eyepatch

I was under the impression that the State of Michigan had serious problems – a $2 billion budget shortfall, its largest city in dire economic straits, schools closing for lack of funding, that sort of thing.  Things must be better than I realized as Sen. Roger Kahn (R-Saginaw) proposed and the Senate passed a resolution officially recognizing “International Talk Like a Pirate Day”.  If they have time for this sort of resolution in the Senate, things must not be as bad as I thought.  One can only hope that the eye patch that Senator Kahn wore while presenting the resolution is not also his proposal for ophthalmic heath care.

The resolution itself notes that “International Talk Like A Pirate Day” was started “as a way to express [the event founder’s] individual passion for nautical plundering.” The resolution goes on to say that the State of Michigan is responsible for “promoting worthy maritime initiatives” and that “Talk Like a Pirate Day”  “celebrates beloved maritime activities.”  Linking “nautical plundering” with “worthy maritime initiatives” and “beloved maritime activities” all in one very short resolution is just dumb. Really dumb.

One event that the State of Michigan did not choose to endorse is the IMO International Day of the Seafarer held on June 25 of each year to recognize “the invaluable contribution seafarers make to international trade and the world economy, often at great personal cost to themselves and their families.” Apparently the Michigan Senate prefers pirates.

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“Spreading Joy Around the World,” aka “Rubber Duck” – Inflated, Deflated, Revived & Censored

Posted on by June 4, 2013
Photo:PHILIPPE LOPEZ / AFP / GETTY IMAGES

Photo:PHILIPPE LOPEZ / AFP / GETTY IMAGES

In early May, a five story high inflatable rubber duck was set adrift in Hong Kong harbor. The duck was sponsored by the Harbour City shopping mall. Created by the Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, it was named “Spreading Joy Around the World” but is universally known simply as “Rubber Duck.”  The duck is well traveled. Since 2007, it has visited 13 cities in nine different countries. Arriving in Hong Kong, it was an immediate hit.  As reported by the New York Times:

Thousands gathered around the waterfront when “Rubber Duck” made its debut May 2. Since then, countless duck-themed products have shown up at shops and restaurants. Teenagers are wearing rubber-duck outfits, and tourist kiosks are selling rubber-duck postcards. Its smiling face was even seen at the Cheung Chau bun festival, a 200-year-old tradition on an outlying island.

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VolturnUS 1:8 – Floating Wind Tower Launched in Maine

Posted on by June 3, 2013
Photo: Jeff Kirlin

Photo: Jeff Kirlin

Typically, modern offshore wind turbines come in only one size and shape – really big, rising up from the ocean floor.  The University of Maine, with support from the Department of Energy, has just launched a new test design, the first grid-connected floating wind tower. The tower, launched in Brewer, Me., is supported by three hollow concrete tube floats and will be anchored in the Gulf of Maine.  VolturnUS 1:8, which sounds like something from a bad science fiction novel, is only 20 kw in capacity but, should it succeed, the design should be scalable up to much larger installations. Using a floating rather than a fixed platform would allow wind turbines to be installed in much deeper water on the West Coast of the US and along the  Maine Coast.

A Floating Wind Tower Is Launched in Maine

Fake Mermaids and Pathetic Pirate Ships – Dumbing Down Ocean Science and History

Posted on by June 2, 2013

mermaidsRecently, we celebrated the saving of the wonderful Coney Island Mermaid Parade.  Now a story about “mermaids” that is a bit disturbing.

There were two news stories that at first glance had little in common, other than a distant nautical connection. Recently “The Animal Planet” aired a sequel to last year’s “Mermaid – the Body Found.”  The new “documentary”  “Mermaids: The New Evidence – Are Mermaids Real?” earned the highest ratings of any show on the Animal Planet.  Despite being presented as fact, the documentary was entirely fictional.  Not everyone made that distinction.

The other news story was a about a carpenter, Tim Woodson, whose hobby is building “pirate ships.”  He recently sold his latest creation, a 12 meter monstrosity, for $80,000 on Craigslist to none other than the History Channel.  The “pirate ship” is built on an existing houseboat, with a slapped on wooden bulkheads, bowsprit and scroll-work  and  three sort-of masts with tattered sails.

What do these two items have in common? They seem to be part of the dumbing down of both science and history.

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Hurray, the Mermaid Parade is Saved!

Posted on by May 31, 2013
coney31n-2-web

Photo:NEIL DECRESCENZO

The Mermaid Parade is Saved!   Last week, we posted about a Kickstarter Fundraiser to save the Coney Island Mermaid Parade.  The parade, which has been held yearly since 1983, was nearly shut down by Superstorm Storm, which did over $400,000 worth of damage to the property of Coney Island USA, the group that manages the parade.  Now with three days remaining, 2,300 donors have pledged over$102,000, beating the $100,000 fundraising target.  At least $10,000 of this sum was raised in a benefit concert headlined by Amanda Palmer.  For Amanda Palmer fans, video of her performance at the Bowery Ballroom can be found here. 

The parade, which attracts over 750,000 spectators yearly, is an annual kickoff to the summer seasons, featuring artists and performers in wild and imaginative costumes, often with an aquatic theme.   The parade is again on schedule for June 22 at 1PM.

Coney Island’s Mermaid Parade raises the $100K needed to stage the June 22 march

New Mary Rose Museum Opens to the Public in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

Posted on by May 30, 2013

The carrack Mary Rose was King Henry VIII’s flagship. After thirty three years of service, it sank in the Solent on July 19, 1545. Out of 500 sailors, 35 survived. The wreck was located in 1971 and the ship was raised from the ocean floor in 1982 in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology.

After thirty years work to preserve the remains of the ship and to catalog the tremendous trove of artifacts found aboard, a new and permanent Mary Rose Museum opens to the public on Friday May 31 in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

Inside the new Mary Rose museum

Yikes – Globsters!

Posted on by May 29, 2013
The St. Augustine Monster,1897, by DeWitt Webb, photograph

The St. Augustine Monster,1897, by DeWitt Webb, photograph

In most cases, no one ever manages to find the carcass of a dead sea serpent or lake monster washed up on a beach.  The one big, literal and figurative, exception are the”globsters,”  massive carcasses which have been washing shore for more than a century. A globster is usually defined as a large, unidentified organic mass that washes up on the shoreline of an ocean or other body of water.  In many cases they have no eyes, head, or identifiable bone structure. One such globster was the “St. Augustine Monster”  which washed ashore on the coast near St. Augustine, Florida, in 1896.  Partially covered by sand, the exposed portion was over 18 feet long and 7 feet wide. It was estimated to weigh over five tons. The mass had no apparent bones but appeared to have tentacles, so it was originally identified as a new type of giant octopus.

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RCCL Grandeur of the Seas, Newly Refurbished, Catches Fire in the Bahamas, No Serious Injuries

Posted on by May 28, 2013

At around 2:50 AM Monday night a fire broke out on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship, Grandeur of the Seas, which had been bound for Coco Cay, Bahamas. The ship was rerouted to Freeport, Bahamas where the 2,224 passengers and 796 crew were disembarked. No serious injuries were reported. The passengers are being flown home from Freeport. The fire started on an aft mooring deck and spread to the fourth deck at the crew lounge area before it was extinguished, U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman Marilyn Fajardo said. Information on the fire’s cause wasn’t available, she said. Some passengers are reporting hearing “big explosions” during the fire. Unlike previous fires in cruise ship engine rooms, the ship never lost power.

Last year, Royal Caribbean spent $48 million dollars refurbishing Grandeur of the Seas which originally went into service in 1996.

Grandeur of the Seas Cruise Ship Catches Fire

New Advanced Spanish S-80 Submarine May Not Float

Posted on by May 28, 2013
navantia-s80_2570230b

Photo: Navantia

The new S-80 class submarines under construction for the Spanish Navy are high-tech wonders with an “air-independent-propulsion” system which allows the non-nuclear submarines to operate independently of the surface by using bio-ethanol engines and fuel cells.  It was announced recently, however, that the first submarine of the series has a significant technical short-coming.  Due to increased weight aboard the submarine, it appears unlikely that the submarine has enough buoyancy to dive and resurface. Bottom line: the submarine may not float.  Additional buoyancy could be added by lengthening the 233 ft submarine, but lengthening would cost an estimated 7.5 million euros per added meter. The four submarines had a projected cost of 2.2 billion euros, one of the most expensive contracts in Spain’s military history, but could now be facing a much larger bill.  The design flaw is expected to delay the delivery of the first submarine to the Spanish Navy from 2015 until possibly 2017.  Thanks to Phil Leon for contributing to this post.

£2 billion Spanish navy submarine will sink to bottom of sea

From Steamship to Sewer Vent – The Mast of the Malta and the Queen of the South

Posted on by May 26, 2013

maltamastNext to a 7-11 convenience store on 8th Avenue, about a half block from the beach, in the New Jersey shore community of Belmar, there is a tall sewer standpipe, a vertical vent designed to carry the noxious smells from the local sewers.  What is unusual about the sewer vent is that there is a small historical plaque at its base. (Or at least, there was a historical marker.  Belmar was hit hard by Superstorm Sandy last year, so I don’t know the status of the plaque.)

The historical marker has nothing to do with Belmar’s sewer system. The “pipe” is, in fact, the foremast of the sailing ship Malta, which sank just offshore on November 24, 1885.  The wreck of the Malta is still visible from the beach.

The sailing ship Malta began its life in 1851, as Queen of the South, a three masted iron hulled auxiliary steamer with four boilers and two inclined 2 cylinder engines developing 800 horsepower driving a single screw. She had a speed of 9 knots and had accommodations for 130 passengers.

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Large Underwater Structure in the Sea of Galilee Puzzles Archaeologists

Posted on by May 25, 2013

seaofgalilee-cropped-proto-custom_28 (1)It is a conical shaped structure built of boulders, roughly 230 feet in diameter, 30 feet high and weighing an estimated  60,000-tons, 40 feet underwater in the Sea of Galilee.  And archaeologists have no idea what it is.   Based on the build up of sediment, it is between 2,000 and 12,000 years old, which is too wide a range to help identify it.  It’s not even clear if the structure was built on land when the sea levels were lower, or if it was constructed underwater.  The structure was located in 2003 by sonar scan. Now ten years later, researchers from the Israel Antiquities Authority are mounted an expedition to attempt to learn more about the unexpected mound of boulders, which they speculate could have been a burial site, a place of worship or even a fish nursery.

Structure at bottom of Sea of Galilee could reveal secrets of ancient life in Middle East

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Don’t Be Shellfish – Save the Coney Island Mermaid Parade!

Posted on by May 24, 2013

One unexpected victim of Superstorm Sandy was New York’s Coney Island Mermaid Parade, or more specifically, the historical museum, performance space and gift shop that helped to financially support the free parade.  The parade is  “an American celebration of ancient mythology and honky-tonk rituals of the seaside, … kicking off the summer with incredible art, an entrepreneurial spirit and unflagging Coney Island pride.”  The Mermaid Parade attracts close to a million people each year.  See our post about last year’s 30th Mermaid Parade.  As a result of the devastating storm, the organizers of the 31st Coney Island Mermaid Parade face a budget shortfall of $100,000. All is not yet lost however.  A Kickstart Fundraiser is underway to raise the money.

Amanda Palmer is also performing in a Mermaid Parade Benefit this Saturday at the Bowery Ballroom. Mina Caputo, Abel Ferrara, Spanking Charlene, Beautiful Small Machines are also featured.  Click here to learn more.