“A Whale” is by far the biggest oil skimmer ever built. The bigger question question may be, “Will it work?” The converted oil/bulk ore carrier is currently docked in Boothville, La., docks as it is made ready for 48 hours of testing in the Gulf over the weekend.
Video from CNN of the ship: World’s Largest Oil Skimmer
After a season’s delay due to lack of access to icebreakers, Parks Canada is renewing its search for Franklin’s ship’s Erebus and Terror. They will also be searching for the HMS Investigator, a ship which was caught in the ice and sank when sent to search for Franklin.
Parks Canada mounting summertime search for three storied Arctic wrecks
Click here to view British Pathe video of SS United State's record breaking maiden voyage
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that an agreement has been reached between Norwegian Cruise Line and the SS United States Conservancy, a preservationist group, to save the SS United States from the scrap yard. The Conservancy is reported to have agreed to pay NCL $3 million dollars for the ship. It has also been reported that NCL had received an almost $6 million dollar offer from a scrap yard but had agreed to work with the Conservancy instead. The offer by the Conservancy was made possible by a reported $5.8 million pledge by Philadelphia philanthropist H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest.
Famed Liner Steers Clear of Scrapyard
The SS United States was the fastest passenger liner ever built. Click here or on the image to the right to see footage of her first voyage where she easily broke the speed record for an Atlantic crossing. Thanks to David Hayes for pointing out the video.
The Redpath Toronto Waterfront Festival started yesterday and will run through July 4th. The festival is hosting fifteen sailing ships and schooners, including HMS Bounty, the brig Niagara, the Bark Europa, the Pride of Baltimore II, Brig Roald Amundsen, the schooner Roseway and the topsail schooner Unicorn. The tallships are part of the Great Lakes United TALL SHIPS CHALLENGE, a series of tall ship port to port races coordinated by the American Sail Training Association (ASTA) across all five Great Lakes. Toronto will be the first and only Canadian port.
The Northern Party at the South Magnetic Pole. Photographer Douglas Mawson 1909. Courtesy Mawson Collection South Australian Museum
We recently posted about the centennial of Robert Falcon Scott‘s departure on his ill-fated expedition to reach the South Pole. Now the Australian National Maritime Museum will host a new exhibit, the Quest for the South Magnetic Pole. The quest to locate the magnetic pole is more challenging than I had ever imagined. Apparently it can shift by as much as 200 km per day. Fitting perhaps, Quest for the South Magnetic Pole is a travelling exhibition developed by the South Australian Maritime Museum and the South Australian Museum with support from Visions of Australia. The exhibit will be on display from July 2nd to the tenth of October.
A Whale - Slots along sides are skimmer suctions
Update: According to her AIS (Automatic Identification System) the A Whale is now off Louisiana. Thanks to Buck for pointing it out. Click here to see per position on the chart.
A Taiwanese-owned, Liberian-flagged tanker, the A Whale, has been modified for skimming up to 500,000 barrels of oil-contaminated water a day. To put this in context, if the system works as intended, it could skim in less than two days an amount of oil equal to all the oil skimmed in the past 70 days of the ongoing Deepwater Horizon spill. The A Whale is designed to operate offshore where most skimmers have difficulty operating. It is currently in Norfolk, VA awaiting approval of separate waivers from the Coast Guard and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to allow it to begin testing. Because the A Whale would be operating well offshore it is not believed to require a Jones Act Waiver.
Giant oil skimmer makes stop in Norfolk on way to Gulf oil cleanup
We are five days late but nevertheless would like to wish Commander William Donald Aelian “Bill” King a most happy 100th birthday. He is only living submarine commander from World War II. He initially served on the battleship, HMS Resolution, and later becoming commanding officer of HMS Snapper, an S class submarine and then of HMS Trusty and HMS Telemachus, both T class submarines. During the war, he was promoted to Commander and awarded seven medals.
Later, at age 58, King became the oldest competitor in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, the first round the world solo yacht race. Sailing a junk rigged schooner,the Galway Blazer II, he was dismasted in the South Atlantic. He succeeded in cirumnavigating single handed on his third attempt in 1973, despite a collsion with a whale or large shark which almost sank his boat.
Sobering aerial video of the scope of the ongoing spill. At around 6:30 there is footage of pods of dead and dying dolphins and a sperm whale caught in the oil. Difficult video to watch but important, nevertheless.
Lydia Eva
Famous steam drifter celebrates 80th birthday in Yarmouth
The world’s last surviving steam drifter, the Lydia Eva, will be celebrating her 80th birthday in Great Yarmouth on Sunday. As well as celebrating her birthday, the weekend will also mark the completion of a £1.2m restoration project of the vessel.
Throughout the weekend, people will be able to go on board the Lydia Eva as she is in steam at South Quay and see her triple extension engine and Scotch boilers. On Sunday, her birthday will be celebrated with sea shanties, cooked herring and a beer tent.
Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing the article along.
Portside New York is a maritime hub and cultural space whose centerpiece is the historic coastal tanker Mary Whalen. Portside is based this summer on pier 11 in the Atlantic Basin, Red Hook, Brooklyn.
On Saturday, July 3rd, Portside is hosting the Big Blue BQ from 6:30 -8 PM. Expect good food, good music and good company as well as Peter Waldman, the Balloon Meister; Jack Putnam of South Street Seaport channelling Herman Melville; a live auction; kids wading pool, games, chalk, bubbles and balls. Music will be provided by Smitty with more bands to be announced. Tickets are now $35 for adults and $10 for kids.
To learn more and buy tickets – Big PortSide BlueBQ
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Two species of Asian carp, the bighead and the silver, were imported in the US in the 1970s by catfish farmers to eat algae in ponds. In flood in the 1990s, Asian trout escaped in the Mississippi River basin have been multiplying wildly and heading north. A few days ago an 20 pound Asian bighead carp was caught by a fisherman in Illinois’s Lake Calumet, on the South Side of Chicago. That is north of the electric fences installed to stop the carp and only six miles from Lake Michigan.
Carp-Pocalypse: The Great Lakes Asian Carp Invasion Begins?
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Windlass on the L.R. Doty
In October of 1898, the wooden steamship L.R. Doty disappeared in Lake Michigan in a storm with seventy mile an hour winds and thirty foot waves. Her crew of 17 and two ship’s cats were lost. A group of Wisconsin divers recently discovered the shipwreck , intact and upright, in 300 feet of water off the Milwaukee shore.
In 1898, the Chauncy Maples was built at the shipyard of Alley & McLellan in Glasgow. She was then disassembled into 3,481 parts and shipped out for reassembly at Monkey Bay as a missionary/hospital steamer on Lake Malawi. Now, one hundred and twelve years later, the Chauncy Maples may be returning to duty as a traveling clinic on the 560 kilometer long Lake Malawi. The Chauncy Maples Malawi Trust is now attempting to raise £2m to fund the project. With major sponsorship from insurance firm Thomas Miller and wider support from donors and NGOs, they appear to be well on their way.
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A wonderful boat show in a enchanting setting, the Mystic Seaport Wooden Boat Show starts this Friday. I am seriously annoyed that it looks like I will be be missing it again this year. The show is hosted in partnership with Wooden Boat Publications.
For those in the UK, the Yesterday Channel is beginning a new documentary series, The Channel Islands at War, next week on Monday 28th, Tuesday 29th and Wednesday 30th of June.
An interested court case between a private salvor and the State of New York appears to have been settled in favor of the state. The salvor, Northeast Research, claimed the 19th century schooner, which it claims is the Caledonia. They had planned to raise the vessel and display it in a large tank on the Buffalo waterfront. New York State counted that as positive identification of the ship had not been made, the ship was state property under the U.S. Abandoned Shipwreck Act. The judge sided with New York State which wants to leave the wreck in place in 170 feet of water in Lake Erie.
Judge sides with state in legal tug of war over shipwreck in Lake Erie
It says something about our society that a missing prop from a classic movie, specifically Bruce, the mechanical shark from Jaws, has its own Facebook page. I’m not exactly sure what it says, but it has to say something. For those who might be interested, Bruce, the missing mechanical shark has been located in a Los Angeles junkyard.
USS Forrestal arrives in Phila. to await fate
The aircraft carrier Forrestal arrived in Philadelphia Friday morning to await its fate.
The ship, decommissioned in 1993 in Philadelphia after 38 years in service, had been moored next to the Saratoga in Newport, R.I. It left under tow Tuesday.
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Happy Solstice to All. One way that at least some New Yorkers mark the beginning of the summer is to observe or participate in the Mermaid Parade, an event celebrating the sea and the season, in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn for the past 28 years. This year in addition to scantily clad mermaids and mermen celebrating the marine world there were also mixed protests of the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Check out some great photos of the parade on the tugster blog here and here.
Coney Island’s Mermaid Parade shimmies along in Brooklyn – but some protest BP’s lack of action
A section of upper New York harbor, just north of Ellis Island, has been taken over for the Red Bull Air Race World Championship. Huge 20 meter air filled pylons sprang up over a three mile course and small, brightly colored planes flew between and around them at dizzying speeds, their engines whining in the wild loops and turns. At times it sounded as if the harbor was under attack by giant mosquitoes. As fans watched from the Liberty State Park shoreline and from a flotilla of boats, large and small, in the harbor. Fifteen pilots competed at speeds up to 230 miles per hours. Yesterday was the qualifying round. It was nothing short of breathtaking as the planes raced, one at a time, through the winding course. The race continues today. A quick video: