Blogging in the Graveyard at Trinity Church – Looking for Lawrence, Talbot & Fulton

Posted on by June 5, 2012

Trinity Church Yard, Northside Photo: R.Spilman

Trinity Church  at the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway in Lower Manhattan, is one of the oldest congregations in the state.  Captain William Kidd was a church elder, in the years before he turned pirate. Captain Kidd donated a block and tackle from his ship to help raise the stones of the first church, when it was built in 1698.  The current church is the third built on the spot.

I visited the church and surrounding grave yard yesterday, on a lovely but breezy and cold Friday afternoon, to find the graves of three nautical luminaries – Captain James Lawrence, whose last words, “Don’t Give Up the Ship” have become a popular, if odd, battle cry; Commodre Silas Talbot, best remembered as the second captain of the USS Constitution; and Robert Fulton, the inventor and engineer credited with developing the first commercially successful steamboat.
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Space Shuttle Enterprise Arrives in New York

Posted on by April 27, 2012

The Space Shuttle Enterprise arrived in New York today on its way to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.   The Shuttle Enterprise rode piggy-back on a NASA 747, flying a loop over the Hudson River before landing at Kennedy Airport.  The shuttle will then be moved onto a  barge for the last leg of the trip to the museum at the USS Intrepid on the Hudson River in New York City.   A short video of the flyby:

Space Shuttle Enterprise Arrives in New York 4/27/12

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Someone Must be on Drugs – Ship Owner Sues Pharmacy in 2007 SF Bay Spill

Posted on by April 26, 2012

Photo: US Coast Guard

You can’t make this stuff up.  A container ship owner and ship manager are suing a California pharmacy for selling prescription drugs to a harbor pilot prior to an allision with a bridge five years ago.

On a very foggy morning in November 2007, the container ship M/V Cosco Busan, outbound from Oakland, struck the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, ripping a 212-foot-long by 10-foot-high by 8-foot-deep gash in side of the ship in way of two fuel oil tanks, spilling over 1,250 barrels of oil.   The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reported that one cause of the allision was the “the pilot’s degraded cognitive performance from his use of impairing prescription medications.”

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Updated: Search Suspended For Missing Tug Boat Captain

Posted on by April 26, 2012

Updated: Sad news. Yesterday afternoon, the crew of the 91-foot tugboat, Steven Scott, called the Coast Guard to report that they hadn’t seen their captain for nearly an hour and believed that he had fallen overboard.  This afternoon the US Coast Guard suspended the search off the Rhode Island coast for Captain Brendan O’Leary, 48, of Marblehead, MA.  The tug was towing a barge carrying 45,000 barrels of jet fuel to Boston.

Search Suspended For Missing Tug Boat Captain

Bombs in the Baltic – Two Hurt by WWII Phosphorus on German Shoreline

Posted on by April 26, 2012

A controlled explosion off the coast of the island of Rügen in the Baltic in 2007 Photo: DPAo:

World War II ended in Europe on May 8, 1945. Nevertheless, over 60 years later, the threat from left over munitions continues and may be getting worse.  Last November, we posted about bombs along the Rhine, where a drought was revealing un-exploded ordinance in German river banks.  Then in December, roughly half of the population of the city of Koblentz, Germany, at the junction of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers, was evacuated in order to defuse bombs exposed by falling river levels.  Last month we posted about two un-exploded WWII bombs found in the French Mediterranean port of Marseille, leading to the evacuation of 1,000 residents.

Over the weekend, two women, aged 39 and 77, walking the beach at a seaside resort in the north of the island of Usedom on the German Baltic coast, were seriously burned by pieces of World War II phosphorus that had washed ashore.  They were taken to a local hospital with second and third degree burns to their hands and legs.
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Busy Day for the Queen – Naming Gloriana & Reopening Cutty Sark

Posted on by April 25, 2012

This has been a busy day for Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh. They braved heavy rain and driving winds to name the Gloriana, a new 94-foot ornately carved royal barge, decorated with gold leaf. The Gloriana is the first royal barge to have been built in 100 years. The barge will lead the Jubilee pageant on June 3rd.

Resplendent in red! Queen brightens the gloom as she names Gloriana, the first royal barge to be built in 100 years

The Queen also officially reopened the Cutty Sark in Greenwich five years after it was ravaged by fire. The Queen originally opened the 19th Century tea clipper exhibit in 1957. The Queen’s trip to Greenwich also also included a visit to the newly exhibited stern carving of the Royal Charles – taken from the Medway during the Anglo Dutch wars.   Videos of the events after the jump.

Cutty Sark: Queen reopens Greenwich tea clipper

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Update: The Junk Free China on Her Way Back to Taiwan

Posted on by April 25, 2012

In December, 2008, we posted about “A Junk at Risk.” The Free China, a historic century-old Fujian sailing junk, was on the verge of being scrapped. The junk made international headlines in 1955 when an inexperienced crew of five Chinese fishermen and one American diplomat beat the odds to make a transpacific voyage from Taiwan to San Francisco. In our post we quoted Dione Chen, who was spearheading the effort to save the old 80-foot long fishing vessel. Her connection with the junk was personal. Her father had been one of the sailors on the momentous voyage across the Pacific.

Now 4 years later, Ms. Chen has found a way to save Free China. Later this month, the junk will travel back to Taiwan, but this time, Free China will travel on the deck of a container ship from the port of Oakland. Once back in Taiwan, the junk will be restored using a combination of Taiwanese government funds and private money and put on display at the National Museum of Marine Science and Technology. Thanks to Tom Russell of the Traditional Sail Professionals Linked-in Group for passing the news along.

Boothbay’s 39th Fisherman’s Festival 2012!

Posted on by April 25, 2012

Cod Fish Relay Race

Boothbay is one of my favorite places on  the Maine coast. Sadly, I will not be anywhere near by this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so I will miss the 39th Fisherman’s Festival.   From the Shrimp Princess Pageant on Friday to the Cod Fish Relay and Bait Shoveling Races on Saturday to the blessing of the fleet on Sunday, it sounds like lots of good fun.

Boothbay 39th Fisherman’s Festival 2012!  April 27th, 28th & 29th

Today in History – The Second Burial of John Paul Jones

Posted on by April 24, 2012

John Paul Jones' Tomb

On April 24, 1906, John Paul Jones was buried for the second time.  His first burial, on July 20, 1792, in a graveyard outside the walls of Paris, was attended by a servant and few loyal friends and soldiers. Paul Jones’ longtime friend Gouverneur Morris, American Minister to France, skipped the funeral due to a pressing dinner engagement.
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First All White Adult Orca Whale

Posted on by August 5, 2018

Since around 1991, whale watchers in Australia have kept an eye out for an all-white humpback whale, which they have named Migaloo. Recently researchers have spotted an all-white male orca whale off the coast of Russia. The whales, which they have nicknamed “Iceberg,” is the first all-white adult orca to have have been documented.

First White Adult Killer Whale Caught On Film

Are Floating Wind Turbines the Future of Green Energy? Americans and British Partner to Develop Technology

Posted on by April 24, 2012

Offshore energy, whether oil production or wind, seems to move in the same stages.  Early offshore drilling was in shallow water using jack-up rigs sitting on the bottom.  Now much of offshore oil production is from floating rigs, drilling in deep water.  Likewise, the first offshore wind turbines were mounted on pedestals fixed to the sea floor. Wind technology may be moving into deeper water. In September of 2009, we posted about Hywind, the first the first full-scale floating wind turbine in the North Sea off South-west Norway. Now the US and the UK have agreed to work together to develop floating wind turbines operating in waters as deep as 500 feet.   From the agreement announced yesterday:

In the UK, the Energy Technologies Institute is currently in the process of commissioning a £25m offshore wind floating system demonstrator….In the US, the Department of Energy have recently announced a $180m funding opportunity for up to four Advanced Technology Demonstration Projects in US waters – which potentially could include a floating wind demonstration.
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Mr. Muntz’s Marvelous Metal and the Cutty Sark

Posted on by April 23, 2012

Earlier today we posted about an article by Andrew Gilligan, the Telegraph‘s London Editor, in which he referred to the Cutty Sark restoration as “a clucking, Grade A, Bernard Matthews-class turkey.”

For a more positive perspective on the restoration one could turn to the article by the Guardian’s Steve Rose, The Cutty Sark: hoist the main sail!  which was mostly sunshine and roses, at least as compared to Mr. Gilligan’s comments.
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Is the Restored Cutty Sark a Clucking, Grade A Turkey?

Posted on by April 23, 2012

After a long commercial career, the 1869 composite clipper ship Cutty Sark became a museum ship in a drydock in Greenwich in 1954.  Then in May 21, 2007, a fire broke out that burned a significant portion of the ship.  After a 5 year £50 million restoration,  the newly refurbished ship will be opened by the Queen this Wednesday.

Not everyone is pleased with the restoration. Andrew Gilligan, the Telegraph‘s London Editor, recently wrote a scathing review calling the Cutty Sark restoration “a clucking, Grade A, Bernard Matthews-class turkey.”  (For non-Britons — Bernard Matthews Farms Ltd specialises in turkey farming.)

Mr. Gilligan has not been happy about the restoration for some time now.  In February of 2101, we posted about his concerns. See: Cutty Sark Restoration Turning into a Fiasco?
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Did the Swan Kill the Kayaker? Or was it the Lack of a Life Jacket?

Posted on by April 22, 2012

The first headlines read, “Swan Kills Kayaker,” and “Aggressive swan kills kayaker.”   Later versions were more moderate – “Swan attack contributed to man’s drowning death” and “Kayaker drowns after coming too close to swan” with “Chicago Kayaker Killed After Swan Attack” falling in the middle of the spectrum.  Even the BBC picked up the story – “Who, What, Why: How dangerous are swans?”  writing: “A man has drowned after being attacked by a swan, which knocked him out of his kayak and stopped him swimming to shore. So how dangerous are these graceful white birds?”
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No City for Old Tankers – Mary A. Whalen in the New York Times

Posted on by April 22, 2012

Photo: Emily Berl for The New York Times

There are over five hundred miles of waterfront in New York harbor. The Mary A. Whalen only needs around 200 feet of it to tie up, yet for the last six years, the historic tanker and PortSide New York, the non-profit educational organization based on the ship, have been without a permanent home.  The condition has reached a crisis. If a new home for the historic tanker is not found soon, she may she scrapped. The New York Times published a front page article this morning (front page on their web site, and the first page of the Metropolitan section in their print edition) on the struggle to find a home for the Mary A. Whalen.  Definately worth reading.

No City for Old Tankers
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