“Arctic Adventures Aboard the Wanderbird”

Posted on by November 20, 2010

For anyone around New York harbor this afternoon and evening, Captains Rick and Karen Miles will be presenting a  slide show of  their “Arctic Adventures Aboard the Wanderbird” at 4pm and  7pm  in the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, Pier 12, Red Hook, Brooklyn. The slideshow covers their cruise this summer of 6,000 miles from Maine to Greenland to Lat 72N.

Wanderbird is a 90′ converted North Sea trawler, now refitted as an expedition cruise vessel accommodating 12 passengers.  The cruises and the accommodations look wonderful. Wanderbird is on her south for the season to the island of Culebra, where she will be offering week long cruises.  Will over at the Tugster blog has some great shots of Wanderbird in New York harbor, here and here.

Thanks to the good folks at PortSide New York for the heads up about the slide show.

The Silent Spill – Exxon Reaches Settlement Over Newtown Creek Oil Spill

Posted on by November 20, 2010

Photo: Jeff Riedel

No one knows exactly how much oil was spilled at Newtown Creek, an industrial canal between the boroughs of  Brooklyn and Queens in New York harbor, but the best estimates are between between 17 million and 30 million gallons, which is more oil than was spilled by the  Deepwater Horizon blowout and three times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill.   Oil refineries, storage and transfer facilities along the creek  are believed to have leaked the oil into the  ground over many decades, polluting the soil, groundwater and sending oil seeping into Newtown Creek.   Last Wednesday, Exxon agreed to a settlement to clean up the spill.   Video of a cruise up Newtown Creek, after the jump.

Exxon Reaches Settlement Over Newtown Creek Oil Spill
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Cruiser Olympia to Stay Open, At Least For Now

Posted on by November 20, 2010

Photo: CLEM MURRAY

The troubled Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia announced on Monday that it would continue to keep the cruiser ex USS Olympia open though the end of the year and shift to a three day schedule through the end of March.

Spanish-American warship spared, at least for now
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Falls of Clyde – Video Tour & Interview & Have You Voted Yet?

Posted on by November 18, 2010

April M. Williams hosts the “Where Are You Today?” Travel Blog.  She recently posted a video tour of the Falls of Clyde and an interview with Bruce McEwen, president of the Friends of the Falls of Clyde.  The Falls of Clyde, built in 1878, is the only surviving iron-hulled four-masted full rigged ship and the only surviving sail-driven oil tanker in the world.    Have you voted for the Falls of Clyde yet?   There is still time. Read more after the jump.

Preserving Last Iron Hulled Tall Ship Honolulu Hawaii


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Christmas by the Sea at Mystic Seaport

Posted on by November 15, 2010

I almost prefer visiting Mystic Seaport in the wintertime.  The summertime crowds are gone, wood or coal stoves heat the chandlery and the rope walk and the ships are as lovely as ever against a winter sky.   Mystic Seaport is especially lovely around Christmas.   This year Mystic Seaport is hosting, Christmas by the Sea, a new holiday maritime experience, Thursdays through Sundays, November 26 – January 2, 2011, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Christmas by the Sea
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SS Great Britain’s ‘significant’ new maritime library

Posted on by November 18, 2010

A wonderful collection of more than 9,000 books and periodicals on ships and the sea has gone on display in a new library in Bristol.

SS Great Britain’s ‘significant’ new maritime library

The David MacGregor Library, named after a life-long supporter of the ss Great Britain, is free to the public and also includes an historic archive.
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Dive to the Titanic from your Desktop

Posted on by November 18, 2010

I am not much of a computer gamer, but this looks like fun.   Astragon\TML Studios has a new diving simulator that lets you pilot a submersible and ROV around and through the wreck of the Titanic.  The graphics may not be quite James Cameron’s standards but do look pretty good nevertheless.

Dive to the Titanic

Dive to the Titanic – Trailer

What secrets lie in Sydney’s ship cemetery?

Posted on by November 17, 2010

Photo: Craig Greenhill Source: The Daily Telegraph

Earlier in the month we posted about New York harbor’s “graveyard of ships”.  Yesterday the Daily Telegraph featured an interesting article about Sydney’s ship cemetery – an abandoned wrecking yard in Homebush Bay where several wooden barges and at least five ships slowly rot or rust away.

What secrets lie in Sydney’s ship cemetery?
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Tacoma Tallships Festival is dead – Australian Wooden Boat Festival on its way February 2011

Posted on by November 16, 2010

Bad news and good news.  The Tacoma Tall Ships Organization is no more and the hoped for Tacoma Tall Ships Festival in 2011 will not be happening, a victim of the recession.   On the other side of the globe, however, the Australian Wooden Boat Festival on Hobart’s historic  Sullivan’s Cove waterfront is on its way in February 2011, and this year it will be free!

Tacoma Tall Ships Festival sunk by recession

Tasmania’s Wooden Boat Festival free next year

Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing on the information about the Australian Wooden Boat Festival

Van Liew wins 1st leg of Velux 5 Oceans Round the World Race

Posted on by November 16, 2010

Brad Van Liew has won the first leg of the Velux 5 Oceans Singlehanded Round the World Race arriving in South Africa in only 28 days after his departure from La Rochelle, France.

Van Liew wins 1st leg of race – Charleston sailor reaches Cape Town tired but happy
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Donald McNarry – Master of “Extreme” Miniature Shipbuilding

Posted on by November 15, 2010

Donald McNarry

Donald McNarry, who has died aged 89, was considered by model ship enthusiasts to be the master of “extreme” miniature shipbuilding.

He took up model making as a hobby when he was a boy and built model ships for the rest of his life. From 1955 he worked as a freelance professional and created some 350 models of historic ships covering the period from 700BC to the late 1960s. His styles of presentation included scenic, waterline, full-hull and the traditional Navy Board type – almost all of them constructed according to miniature scales ranging from 100ft to one inch to 16ft to one inch.
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Laura Dekker Resumes her Sail Around the World Alone

Posted on by November 15, 2010

After waiting out the hurricane season in the Canary Islands  15-year-old Dutch sailor Laura Dekker has resumed her attempt to sail around the world alone on her 38′ ketch Guppy.   Ms. Dekker had been at the center of a ten month Dutch court battle to determine whether she would be allowed to sail alone.   If she completes her around the world voyage prior to the middle September 2012, she will earn the title of the youngest solo circumnavigator, a designation now held by Australian Jessica Watson.  As Dekker plans on making multiple stops in her voyage, Watson will likely continue to retain the title as the youngest sailor to complete a non-stop solo  circumnavigation.

Dutch teen resumes solo round world sailing bid

British Sailors, Paul and Rachel Chandler, Freed by Somali Pirates

Posted on by November 14, 2010

After more than a year long ordeal, British sailors Paul and Rachel Chandler were released today by Somali pirates.   The retired couple was seized by the pirates on October 22, 2009.

Paul and Rachel Chandler released by Somali pirates after 388 days

Armed pirates have held Paul, 60, and Rachel, 57, for a year and three weeks, since they were seized in the dead of night as they slept aboard their yacht off the Seychelles, 800 miles east of the African coast.
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Why did the Carnival Splendor go dark?

Posted on by November 14, 2010

How could an  fire in one of two engine rooms do sufficient damage to the electrical distribution system on the Carnival Splendor to completely disable the ship?   The answer isn’t obvious. The Carnival Splendor is diesel electric powered, which is to say, instead of the ship’s engines connecting to the propellers by shafts, each of her two propellers is driven by an electric motor.   Diesel engines connected to generators provide the power to drive the propellers, as well as to make the ice cubes, heat the hot tubs, and provide all the other electricity needed by this small city at sea.
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Robert Louis Stevenson, Tusitala & Creator of Long John Silver

Posted on by May 18, 2011

Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson was born today 160 years ago in Edinburgh, Scotland.   His father grandfather and great-uncles  were light house engineers and designers, but Robert was too sickly as a child to follow in the family profession.  Instead,  he became a writer, one of the greatest of the Victorian era.  Despite a lifetime of ill health, he was a prolific author, writing numerous classics, including Kidnapped, the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and a book for young adults first called The Sea Cook and later renamed Treasure Island.   The modern image of the 17th century pirate is lifted almost verbatim from Treasure Island published in 1883.   (I suspect that without Long John Silver, it is unlikely that there would ever have been a Captain Jack Sparrow. )
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Smoke on the Water – A Post from Carnival Cruise Director’s Blog

Posted on by November 13, 2010

It started as a tweet ( a post on Twitter) from Carnival Cruise Lines: “You can view Sr Cruise Director, John Heald’s new blog post about his experience onboard Carnival Splendor here.”   OK, that sounded interesting, I suppose.    It turned out it wasn’t anything like what I expected.  The blog post starts out by recounting a dream of a naked woman named Megan and a bit later, Heald comments that “I didn’t realise how serious was this until something slapped me in the face as hard as the time I tried to grope Sally Poole’s breasts behind the bike shed at school.”  There are also references to flatulence and  “ruin[ing] a really good pair of underpants.”  As corporate damage control goes, this is a bit novel.

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Search Continues for Missing Crew from Bulk Carrier Nasco Diamond

Posted on by November 12, 2010

Nasco Diamond

On Thursday morning, Nasco Diamond loaded with 55,000 tonnes of nickel ore from Indonesia to China was reported missing and believed to have sunk off the southern coast of Japan.  Five of the twenty five crew have been accounted for, with at least one fatality.  Empty rafts and oil slicks were seen near where the crew members were rescued.  Japanese and Taiwanese Coast Guards continue to search for the remaining missing twenty crew.

Rescue launched for Chinese crew off southern Japan

Today the International Association of Dry Cargo Shipowners, Intercargo, issued a statement about the risks of transporting nickel ore.   If the moisture content in the ore is too high, the water in the ore can separate during the voyage, creating a free surface effect which can destabilize a ship and potentially lead to capsizing.

Nickel ore cargoes pose risk to ships – trade body

Bernard Cornwell’s The Fort – A Review

Posted on by November 12, 2010

Bernard Cornwell’s The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War is not strictly speaking nautical fiction but does focus on an ill-fated expedition that ended as the worst American naval defeat prior to Pear Harbor.

At first glance, The Fort has all the elements of good historical fiction. The American revolutionary war remains a popular topic. The historical events in the book are not well known. The novel shows a well known historical figure, in this case, Paul Revere, in a wholly new light. Perhaps most importantly, the tale is told by a skilled writer. USA Today described Cornwell as the “reigning king of historical fiction” and I would be loathe to disagree. Nevertheless, The Fort is somewhat disappointing.
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Canada’s Naval History – a New Online Exhibit Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Canada’s Navy

Posted on by November 11, 2010

The Canadian War Museum is marking the 100th anniversary of Canada’s navy with a fascinating new online exhibit – Canada’s Naval History.

Canadian War Museum launches online naval history exhibition

“Canada’s Naval History explores the wide range of this country’s naval experiences over the past century, making this a valuable addition to the Museum’s online offerings,” said Mark O’Neill, Director General of the Canadian War Museum. “This online exhibition is both an innovative means to preserve and share Canada’s naval history with all Canadians, and a wonderful way to mark the Canadian navy’s centennial.”
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Remembering Merchant Mariners on Veterans Day

Posted on by November 11, 2010

On this anniversary of the armistice on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day or the eleventh month that ended the “war to end all wars,”  it seems worthwhile to remember the often overlooked role of merchant mariners in national defense.  Though it was kept secret during the war and largely ignored afterward, 1 in 26 mariners serving aboard US merchant ships in World WW II died in the line of duty, suffering a greater percentage of war-related deaths than all other U.S. services.

U.S. Merchant Marine in World War II