Update: Arson Charges on USS Bonhomme Richard Up in Smoke, Seaman Mays Not Guilty

Posted on by September 30, 2022

Yesterday, we posted Bonhomme Richard Arson Trial — Will the Case Go Up in Smoke? that discussed the end of the trial phase of the court martial of 21-year-old Seaman Ryan Mays, who was charged with deliberately setting the fire on the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard. We asked whether the conviction of Seaman Mays would be an act of justice or simply scapegoating? We noted that that was now up to Judge Capt. Butler to decide. No timeline was provided as to how long Butler will take to deliberate on the case.

It didn’t take Judge Butler long to make his determination. Only a day after the end of the trial, CBS8.com reports that Captain Derek Butler found Mays to be not guilty. Butler ruled that prosecutors failed to present enough hard evidence that tied Mays to the arson and instead relied on a circumstantial case, buoyed by the strength of just a single eyewitness.

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Bonhomme Richard Arson Trial — Will the Case Go Up in Smoke?

Posted on by September 29, 2022

The verdict in the court-martial of 21-year-old Seaman Ryan Mays, accused of deliberately setting the fire that torched the billion-plus dollar amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard, is in the hands of a military judge. If convicted of arson and willful hazarding a vessel, Mays could face a sentence of life in prison.

Now that the trial has concluded, it is hard not to wonder whether the Navy’s case will go up in smoke. The nine-day trial featured a Navy case that was largely circumstantial and relied heavily on a single witness, whose story changed over time. The Navy also admitted to identifying and interviewing another suspect but being forced to stop looking into the sailor because he was discharged from the service.

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Wreckage of SS Mesaba Located — Ship That Radioed Warning to Titanic

Posted on by September 29, 2022

Graphic: Bangor University

In April of 1912, the cargo-passenger liner SS Mesaba radioed an ice warning to RMS Titanic. The message was received but never made it to the bridge. 

The supposedly unsinkable Titanic then hit an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage, with the loss of 1,500 lives. Mesaba herself was sunk, by a torpedo in World War I in 1918.

Now, the BBC reports that Bangor University researchers, using state-of-the art multibeam sonar, have been able to identify the Mesaba‘s wreck and pinpoint her final resting place.

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Weird Beasties in Loch Ness, But No, Not Nessie

Posted on by September 27, 2022

On a recent trip to Scotland, we visited the beautiful Loch Ness. While we were there, we heard of a sighting of a weird beastie in the loch. But no, not Nessie, the famous monster, or even a loch kelpie. The beast, or more properly, beasties were a small herd of alpacas, that had escaped their enclosure and decided to go for a swim.

What are alpacas doing swimming in Loch Ness? Loch Ness Alpacas explains on their website:

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Flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth Arrives in New York to Host Atlantic Future Forum

Posted on by September 26, 2022

The Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth has arrived in New York harbor, dropping anchor within sight of the Statue of Liberty. The carrier is accompanied by her frigate escort, HMS Richmond, which sailed up the Hudson River for a berth on Manhattan Island. 

The 65,000-tonne carrier will serve as the floating conference center for the 5th Atlantic Future Forum – an event that brings together the brightest minds and most influential thinkers from defense and beyond to strengthen UK and US bonds.

The carrier was welcomed into New York by the United Kingdom’s Ambassador to the United States, Dame Karen Pierce. Continue reading →

The Guns of the USS Texas

Posted on by September 25, 2022

We recently posted videos of the 110-year-old battleship USS Texas currently being repaired and refurbished in drydock at the Gulf Copper Shipyard in Galveston.  The Texas is the oldest remaining dreadnought battleship and only one of six surviving ships to have served in both World War I and World War II.

I still have vivid memories of visiting the battleship Texas as an elementary school kid. Playing on an anti-aircraft gun was particularly fun, as I recall.  Here is a History Guy video about the guns of the venerable battleship.

Guns of USS Texas

Why Did Sailors Pull the Gun Carriage Bearing the Queen’s Coffin?

Posted on by September 24, 2022

The BBC recently reported on a young Royal Navy sailor, Able Seaman Hollie Randle, one of 142 sailors who pulled the gun carriage bearing Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin in the state funeral procession. Seaman Randle said that she was “overwhelmed” by the honor and that, “if someone had told me a year ago I’d be taking the Queen’s coffin to her funeral, I wouldn’t have believed them.”

For those of us on the other side of the pond, this raises the question, “Why use Royal Navy sailors, rather than horses, to draw the gun carriage carrying the coffin?” Apparently, the tradition originated with Queen Victoria’s funeral on February 2, 1901.

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Saildrone Sails Through 50′ Waves Inside Cat 4 Hurricane Fiona

Posted on by September 23, 2022

Saildrone, Inc. and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have released video footage gathered by a Saildrone uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) from inside Hurricane Fiona, a Category 4 hurricane, barreling across the Atlantic Ocean.

For the second year, NOAA and Saildrone are hurricane chasing with uncrewed wind-powered vehicles. Last year, the Saildrone Explorer SD 1045 was directed into the midst of Hurricane Sam where it battled 50-foot waves and winds of over 120 mph to collect critical scientific data.

This year, the Saildrone Explorer SD 1078 was sent into Hurricane Fiona, which is currently on a path northward in the Atlantic Ocean. The storm drenched Bermuda with heavy rain and is expected to hit the Canadian province of Nova Scotia on Friday. Hurricane Fiona is the first Category 4 storm of the 2022 season. SD 1078 is also battling 50-foot waves and winds measured over 100 mph.

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Update: “Fat Leonard” Detained in Venezuela, Trying to Flee to Russia

Posted on by September 22, 2022

In early September, just weeks before his sentencing in a decade-long Navy bribery and corruption scandal, Leonard Glenn Francis, known as “Fat Leonard,” escaped from house arrest in his San Diego home and fled the country. The Malaysian businessman is the center of the largest bribery scandal in US Navy history.

Now, USNI News reports that authorities in Venezuela arrested “Fat Leonard” Francis as he attempted to board a plane to Russia, officials said late Wednesday.

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Mass Stranding: 230 Pilot Whales Stranded on Tasmanian Beach

Posted on by September 21, 2022

More than 200 whales have been found stranded on a remote beach at the entrance to Macquarie Harbour on the west coast of Tasmania, Australia. Half of the pod, thought to be pilot whales, are believed to be still alive.

Experts were planning a rescue of the 230 whales discovered on Wednesday but the operation would be “complex” due to the location, Tasmania’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment said in a statement.

The stranding comes exactly two years after Australia’s worst whale stranding on record, which occurred in the same location. On 21 September 2020, 470 long-finned pilot whales were found beached on sandbars. A week-long rescue effort saved 111 whales, but authorities had to dispose of more than 350 carcasses.

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Researcher Solves Mystery of Ancient Mediterranean Trade Routes Sailing Replica Ship

Posted on by September 20, 2022

Photo: David Gal

Ancient trade routes in the Mediterranean have long been a mystery. How was it that sailing ships of antiquity, that could not sail well to weather, succeeded in carrying grain and other cargoes from the east to Rome against the prevailing westerly winds? 

Israeli researcher David Gal, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Haifa, studied wind patterns and ancient texts about the weather to find the answer. And then, he and his team sailed a replica of a 5th century BCE ship across part of the Mediterranean to test his theories. The results of his analysis were published this summer in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.

The Washington Post quotes Gal, “We started with a trivial question: How did Roman ships visiting the Levant return to Rome? One would simply say, ‘Oh, they turned them around and sailed the other direction.’ However, a windward journey was not practical in the kind of ships they used. So how did they accomplish these voyages?” 

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S/V Denis Sullivan Sold, Leaving the Great Lakes for Boston

Posted on by September 17, 2022

The 137-foot Denis Sullivan — the world’s only replica of a 19th-century three-masted Great Lakes schooner — will soon be leaving the Great Lakes bound for Boston, MA. Milwaukee’s Discovery World has sold the schooner to World Ocean School, a nonprofit that will operate the ship year-round, according to Discovery World President and CEO Bryan Wunar. 

World Ocean School owns the 96-year-old schooner Roseway, which sails seasonally in Boston and St. Croix in the Virgin Islands. The nonprofit has officially taken ownership of the Denis Sullivan, with staff onsite to begin preparing it for its journey through the Great Lakes to Boston and eventually St. Croix. They hope to have it ready to begin that journey by early October.

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Scientists May Have Found a ‘Super-Earth’ That Could Be an Ocean-Covered Water World

Posted on by September 17, 2022

An artistic impression of the surface of the candidate water world exoplanet TOI-1452b. (Benoit Gougeon/Université de Montréal)

ScienceAlert.com reports the discovery of an exoplanet just 100 light-years from Earth that appears to be the best candidate yet for a sloshy, water-covered ocean world.

It’s called TOI-1452b, and measurements of its size and mass suggest a density profile consistent with a global liquid ocean. Scientists believe that worlds like this are possible, but they haven’t yet conclusively found one.

“This paper reports the discovery and characterization of the transiting temperate exoplanet TOI-1452b,” writes a team of researchers led by astronomer Charles Cadieux of the University of Montreal in Canada in a paper published in The Astronomical Journal.

“The results of our interior modeling and the fact that the planet receives modest irradiation make TOI-1452b a good candidate water world.”

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Video of the Battleship USS Texas in Drydock

Posted on by September 16, 2022

Here are two videos of the 110-year-old battleship USS Texas in drydock at the Gulf Copper Shipyard in Galveston.  The Texas is the oldest remaining dreadnought battleship and only one of six surviving ships to have served in both World War I and World War II.

The first video is a 25-minute walk around the drydock floor led by Travis Davis, Vice President of Ship Operations at Battleship Texas Foundation. Travis explains the features of the hull as well as areas to be repaired during the current $35 million refurbishment. The video is a unique opportunity to stroll around under the hull of a more than one-hundred-year-old dreadnought without donning a hard hat, and a boiler suit, and without getting your boots wet.

The second video is under 2 minutes of drone footage that captures the entire battleship on the drydock.

First Walk Around The Dry Dock | Battleship Texas

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When the Frigate USS Stein Was Attacked by a Colossal Squid

Posted on by September 15, 2022

The legend of the Kraken, a giant cephalopod from Greek and Norse mythology that attacked ships and dragged sailors to their doom, is many hundreds of years old. Here is an unlikely, but apparently true, story of the US Navy frigate USS Stein, whose sonar dome was probably attacked by a colossal squid in 1978.

USS Stein was underway when her anti-submarine sonar gear suddenly stopped working. On returning to port and putting the ship in a drydock, engineers observed many deep scratches in the rubber “NOFOUL” coating of the sonar dome. In some areas, the coating was described as being shredded, with rips up to four feet long. Large claws were left embedded at the bottom of most of the scratches.

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Sailor Who Died on Battleship USS Oklahoma in Pearl Harbor Attack Finally Laid to Rest

Posted on by September 15, 2022

Herbert “Bert” Jacobson was 21 when he died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Over 80 years later, he was finally laid to rest yesterday in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. He was one of 429 sailors and Marines on the battleship USS Oklahoma, who were killed in the attack.

In the years following the attack, only 35 of the 429 crew who died on Oklahoma were identified. In 2015, the Department of Defense announced that the unidentified remains of the crew members of Oklahoma would be exhumed for DNA analysis, with the goal of returning identified remains to their families.

In 2019, Jacobson family was notified that Bert’s remains had been identified. Hoping the burial could take place the next year, they were forced to wait, in large part because the COVID-19 pandemic delayed most gatherings, funerals included.

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Losing “Fat Leonard” — More Major Blunders in Long-Running Navy Corruption Scandal

Posted on by September 13, 2022

On the morning of September 4, at 7:35 AM, Leonard Glenn Francis, known as “Fat Leonard,” cut his ankle bracelet monitor and fled house arrest in San Diego. “Fat Leonard,” the 350 pound Malaysian businessman at the center of the largest bribery scandal in US Navy history, had been under house arrest in San Diego since his guilty plea in 2015, undergoing treatment for cancer — and podcasting.

At last count, the long-running fraud and bribery investigation has resulted in federal criminal charges against 34 U.S. Navy officials, with 33 defendants convicted of various fraud and corruption offenses, while a federal jury failed to reach a verdict on charges brought against retired Rear Admiral Bruce Loveless.

Cutting the monitor immediately sent an alert to U.S. Pretrial Services, the federal agency in charge of monitoring his home confinement. Nevertheless, it was not until approximately 4 PM, or over 7 hours later, that members of the San Diego Fugitive Task Force went to Francis’ residence to locate him. Leonard Francis was long gone. 

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Boat Capsize in NZ That Killed Five May Have Been Caused by Whale

Posted on by September 12, 2022

The BBC reports that five people died in New Zealand after a birdwatching boat capsized, possibly after colliding with a whale. Eleven people, mostly from the birdwatching group, were onboard when the boat capsized on Saturday in Goose Bay near the town of Kaikōura.

Police declined to speculate on what had caused the accident, merely confirming the collision. But Craig Mackle, the mayor of Kaikōura, told reporters he believed the boat had hit a surfacing whale.

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On the 21st Anniversary of 9/11, Remembering the Great New York Boatlift

Posted on by September 11, 2022

An updated repost. There is a line from a Paul Simon song, “these are the days of miracle and wonder.” One might not think to apply that lyric to the events of 9/11, 21 years ago today. Yet for at least part of that strange and horrible day, they fit. The great New York boatlift was part of the “miracle and wonder.” The wholly unplanned boatlift was the spontaneous maritime evacuation of an estimated 500,000 people trapped in Lower Manhattan in less than 10 hours. The boatlift has been under-reported by the media, which is all the more reason to remember the mariners of New York who stepped up to perform what has been called the largest sea rescue in history.

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Megamax Container Cranes Arrive in New York Harbor on BigLift Baffin

Posted on by September 10, 2022

BigLift Baffin sailing from Cobh, Ireland

Three megamax container cranes have arrived in the Port of New York and New Jersey on the Netherlands-flagged heavy-lift ship BigLift Baffin. They will be offloaded and installed at the Maher Terminals in Elizabeth, New Jersey. 

The new cranes, built by the Liebherr Group in Killarney, Ireland, are among the largest in the world. With a height of 150 meters, an outreach of above 53 meters, and a lift height of over 40 meters, the cranes each have a safe lifting load of 40-50 tonnes in single operations, 65 tonnes in twin operations, and 100 tonnes in tandem.

In addition to their impressive capacity, these cranes are designed to be lighter, relatively, which reduces power consumption. Also, the cranes generate electricity during the lowering process, which they then return to the grid.

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