This is satire, though given the rather drastic cuts in the Royal Navy budget, it doesn’t feel too far off the mark. From News Biscuit:
HMS Victory to replace Trident and Ark Royal
HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, is to be brought back into service, replacing Trident and the Ark Royal.
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4th Mumbai International Match Race Begins Today
The city of Mumbai with its great maritime history adds an exciting new event – the West Coast Marine 4th Mumbai International Match Race 2010.
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The Thames sailing barge Cambria was built in Greenhithe, Kent in 1906. Remarkably, she kept sailing and carrying commercial cargo under sail alone until 1970. She is now undergoing a complete restoration by the Cambria Trust with major funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. They are still, however, in need of sponsors to ensure a complete and full restoration.
The British Maritime And Coastguard Agency has reported that the sail-training vessel, Fryderyk Chopin, has been secured to a buoy in Falmouth harbour, Cornwall, and the crew of 47, including 36 cadets, aged between 14 and 16, has been taken ashore.
The calendar has been out since July, but I only got around to ordering mine yesterday.
Thad Koza’s Tall Ships 2011 calendar features SAGRESs II, JOLIE BRISE, PICTON CASTLE, WESTWARD, BOUNTY, EUROPA, the schooner THOMAS E LANNON, and five other tall ships. Beautiful photogaphy of glorious ships.
Last Thursday, Bulgaria’s defence ministry lifted the ban on women serving aboard Bulgarian submarines. Also on Thursday, the Bulgarian parliament voted to moth-ball the only Bulgarian submarine.
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. After years of neglect by the Bishop Museum, the ship has been taken over by Friends of the Falls of Clyde, a wonderfully dedicated group of volunteers, who are working hard maintaining the ship and struggling to raise the money needed to restore her. Fortunately, the ship is good structural condition and an excellent candidate for restoration.
The Friends of the Falls of Clyde have been nominated to receive a grant from Hampton Hotels “Save-A-Landmark” program. The project which receives the most votes gets the funding. The voting will continue through the end of November. Please vote now for the Falls of Clyde. Click here to vote . It costs nothing and could do a world of good. The Falls of Clyde is truly a ship worth saving.
Brig Fryderyk Chopin
Update: UK coast guard: Polish teen sailors safe after their ship loses both masts
A group of teenage sailors whose ship was drifting at sea after it lost both masts in gale-force winds is safe from harm, coast guards said Friday, and the vessel was to be towed to a British port for repairs.
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said that the Fryderyk Chopin, a tall ship used to train young Polish sailors, is about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Britain’s Isles of Scilly. The crew of 47 is mostly made up of 14-year-old cadets.
There have been no injuries reported and the Royal Navy has stood down their search and rescue helicopters, which are returning to base.
The brig Fryderyk Chopin, a Polish sail training ship with 47 aboard, lost one of its two masts during a severe gale this morning off the Isles of Scilly.
Fryderyk Chopin, Polish Training Vessel, loses mast
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Not long left to register for the International Sail Training and Tall Ships Conference 2010 to be held on 12th – 13th November 2010 in Stavanger, Norway.
The International Sail Training & Tall Ships Conference 2010
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On this eve of the eve of All Hallows Eve, it seems worthwhile to list a few of the “ghost” ships open to the public on Halloween.
Hornet Ship of Spirits – This evening , on the historic aircraft carrier USS Hornet in Alameda CA, there will be a presentation the real stories of the ghosts on the USS Hornet, followed on Saturday by a USS Hornet Monster Bash.
The Haunted Ship at the USS Salem – Spooky tours and events through Sunday on the heavy cruiser USS Salem in Quincy, MA.
Captain Fishsticker’s Ship of Horrors – Revival Burlesque is performing “Captain Fishsticker’s Ship of Horrors” tonight through Sunday on the lovely Barkentine Gazela in Philadelphia, PA.
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Maine Maritime Museum in Bath is having its 15th Annual Pirates Party this Saturday, October 30, 2010 from 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM. They have filmed a rather remarkable commercial promoting the party, starring Tomm Tomlinson, a.k.a. Crudbeard, Barbara Tomlinson, better known as Bloodthirsty Barbara, and Jim Nelson, known to authorities as Black Jim Spudcake. The location is aboard the schooner Sherman Zwicker at Maine Maritime Museum. Jim Nelson, when not in his role as Jim Spudcake, is an award-winning author of maritime fiction and non-fiction. His history, George Washington’s Secret Navy, was the recipient of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature.
The new cruise ship terminal at Pier 91 in the Port of Seattle appears to have been built over an old munitions terminal. Live high explosive ammunition dating back to World War II, and possibly earlier, has been found beneath the terminal berths.
Thanks to Dave Shirlaw for pointing out the article on the Marine History list.
This is a great story. Thanks to Irwin Bryan for passing it along. Congratulations to Bonnie Schubert and her 87-year old mother Jo, two highly successful salvage divers.
Elderly woman, daughter find incredible ocean treasure
After decades of hunting for treasure along Florida’s coasts, a woman and her elderly mother have made the find of a lifetime.
Bonnie Schubert and her 87-year old mother Jo were diving near Frederick Douglass Beach when they made the discovery: a 22-carat solid gold bird, a relic which they believe dates back to the lost Spanish Fleet of 1715.
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Fifty five years ago today, on October 29th 1955, the battleship Novorossiysk, flagship of the Soviet Black Sea fleet, moored in Sevastopol Bay, was shattered by a powerful explosion which caused the ship to capsize and sink. Over six hundred sailors lost their lives. The cause of the explosion remains a mystery to this day. The sinking itself remained classified until the late 1980s. Theories of what sank the ship include an explosion by a German limpet mine left over from WWII, a torpedo attack from an unknown submarine as well as sabotage by the Italians, the English or the KGB. So far no explanation has yielded a fully plausible explanation for the sinking. The ship was raised in 1957 and scrapped.
Honor Frost had many talents – as artist, ballet designer, scholar, writer and publicist, to name a few – but her consuming passion was the world beneath the oceans. Honor, who has died aged 92, initiated underwater archaeology as a serious field for study, and pioneered its pursuit as a scientific discipline.
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HMS Hobart, artist's conception
In the good (or bad) old days, ships were built from the keel up, with the frames rising from the keel, and the plating or planking secured over the frames. These days ships are built in modules, large blocks of steel with piping, wiring and coatings already in place. The blocks are then welded together and a new ship emerges. It is all highly complicated but extremely efficient, at least until there is a mistake. In the construction of the HMAS Hobart, the shipyards building the modules discovered that their blocks don’t fit together.
$8bn navy flagship founders after construction bungle
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The factory fishing ship Athena caught fire early today in the Atlantic, 230 miles south-west of the Isles of Scilly. Eighty one non-essential personnel were evacuated to liferafts and subsequently rescued as the remaining 30 aboard fought the fire, which is now reported to be under control but not extinguished. The Athena was built in 1992, but was rebuilt in China this year due to damage from a previous fire.
Ship fire crew rescued from life-rafts in Atlantic
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Robert Bourne
Robert Bourne, who died on Oct. 13, at the age of 88, was the radioman on the Navy blimp, Airship K-74, on anti-submarine patrol off the southeast coast of Florida on the night of July 18, 1943. The lookout spotted a German submarine heading for two merchant ships. The blimp was intended to be observes and to generally avoid combat, but was equipped with 50 caliber machine guns and depth charges. As the submarine was about to attack the two merchant ships, the blimps’ commander Lt. Nelson Grills decided to engage the submarine, U-134. In the battle, the submarine was damaged but succeeded in the blimp down. Radioman Bourne sent out several mayday warnings before all 10 crew members swam out of the flooded gondola. One sailor died after being attacked by a shark. The rest of the crew was rescued. It was the only battle between a blimp and submarine in the Navy’s history. U-134 was sunk on August 24, 1943 near Vigo, Spain by six depth charges from a British Vickers Wellington aircraft.
Palm Harbor’s Robert Bourne survived historic battle between blimp, German sub
All that remains to mark the site of the final sea battle of the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage, around 241 BC, are the great bronze rams left behind after the rest of the sunken ships have rotten away in the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The sea battle and the First Punic War, in general, were victories for Rome, marking its ascent, and Carthage’s decline as regional powers. Three rams have now been found near the island of Levanzo, west of Sicily.
Ancient shipwreck points to site of major Roman battle
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MV Beluga Fortune
Over the weekend, Somali pirates seized two ships in two days. On Saturday, pirates seized the MV York, a liquefied petroleum gas tanker, off the coast of Kenya. On Sunday, pirates seized the MV Beluga Fortune about 1,200 miles east of Mombasa, Kenya. The crew of the MV Beluga Fortune locked themselves in a panic room, switched off the main engine, cut off the fuel supply, blocked the bridge and reported the Indian Ocean attack to military forces. When the rescue team arrived today, the pirates had already abandoned the ship.