Recreating Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Epic Lifeboat Voyage

Posted on by March 24, 2012

In 1916, Ernest Shackleton and five sailors set off on an 1300 kilometer voyage to South Georgia Island, across some of roughest waters in the world, in the James Caird, a 6.9 meter lifeboat, in a desperate attempt to reach help and to arrange the rescue of the twenty two men left behind on Elephant Island.  Now, the Shackleton Epic Expedition led by Tim Jarvis has constructed a replica of the James Caird, named the Alexandra Shackleton, in honor of the explorer’s granddaughter.   The expedition will attempt to recreate Shackleton’s truly epic voyage later this year.  Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing along the news.

Polar explorer’s 800 mile lifeboat journey is recreated

An extraordinary adventure

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Japanese Fishing Trawler, Carried Away by Tsunami, Found Drifting Toward British Columbia

Posted on by March 24, 2012

Photo: Canadian Department of National Defense

A 150′ foot long fishing trawler carried away last March by the tsunami off the east coast of Japan has been spotted drifting in the Pacific Ocean, 120 miles off Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada.  About 5 million tons of debris were swept into the ocean in by the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami which struck Japan.  The trawler is reported to have been used for squid fishing, and was moored in the port of Hachinohe, in the Aomori prefecture, when the tsunami hit.  Thanks to Rick Sterling on the Facebook “All Things Nautical” group for pointing it out.

Japanese boat washed away in tsunami spotted more than a year later

Re-Living History on the SS American Victory

Posted on by March 23, 2012

The waters around Tampa Bay may appear to step back in time tomorrow as the World War II Victory ship SS American Victory leaves the dock for her first cruise in nearly three years. The critically acclaimed “Re-Live History Cruise”  will feature reenactors, WWII airplane fly overs, and historical ceremonies as well as a DJ, live entertainment, and food and drink.

During World War II, 531 Victory ships were built in the United States. The S.S. American Victory is one of the few ships of her class to have survived.  In addition to serving in the Pacific in the last days of World War II, she also carry food and machinery from the United States to Europe under the Marshall Plan and later would carry military supplies in the Vietnam War.  She has been a museum ship in Tampa, FL since 1999.

Five More Bodies Found in the Wreckage of the Costa Concordia

Posted on by March 22, 2012

Divers have found five more bodies in the wreckage of the Costa Concordia which ran aground and sank on January 13, 2012 off the island of Giglio, Italy. The presumed death toll remains at 32, with only two of the roughly 4,200 passengers and crew still missing.  Salvage of the ship is expected to take close to a year.

Divers find 5 more bodies in Costa Concordia wreckage

The Two Frigates Hermione – Part 2 : l’ Hermione, 1780 – Freedom’s Frigate

Posted on by March 22, 2012


If HMS Hermione, commissioned in 1783, became a symbol of Royal Navy cruelty and bloody mutiny, the French light frigate l’ Hermione, commissioned in 1779, would become a symbol of American independence.  On March 21, 1780, the 23 year old Gilbert du Motier, better known as the Marquis de Lafayette, stepped aboard l’ Hermione to sail back to America with the then secret news that France was committing 5,500 men and five frigates to help George Washington and his forces.  With this new French aid and the assistance of the young Major General Lafayette, the Continental forces under General Washington would defeat the British General Cornwallis at Yorktown eighteen months later, effectively winning independence from Great Britain.

Now l’ Hermione, “freedom’s frigate,” has been reborn in the Charente-Maritime in Rochefort, France where the original ship was built.  The new frigate has been under construction since 1997 and preparations are now being made for its launch. More than three million visitors have watched the construction of the replica frigate. When completed, there are plans to sail the ship to Boston, reenacting the fateful voyage carrying the Marquis de Lafayette.  The video below is a light-hearted tour and inspection of the new frigate nearing completion.

Hermione

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Thanks to Frank Hanavan and Alaric Bond for pointing out l’ Hermione.

The Two Frigates Hermione – Part 1: HMS Hermione, 1797 – Brutality, Murder and Mutiny

Posted on by March 22, 2012

There were two frigates, both named Hermione, both launched within a few years of each other.  The British HMS Hermione would become a symbol of cruelty and bloody mutiny, whereas the French Hermione would carry the young Gilbert Motier, better known as the Marquis de Lafayette on a crucial voyage to assist a rebellion against the English Crown in its North American colonies. Neither ship has been forgotten.  The mutiny on the HMS Hermoine has become a fixture in nautical fiction, whereas the French Hermione is being reborn in a shipyard in Rochefort sur mer.

The British frigate, HMS Hermione was commissioned in 1783 as 32-gun fifth-rate frigate.  Five captains served competently on her quarterdeck until in in February 1797 — the year of the Spithead and Nore mutinies — Captain Hugh Pigot was given command.  Within a year, HMS Hermoine was the scene of the bloodiest mutiny in British history. The excellent video by Maritime Great Britain tells the tale:

1797 – Mutiny Aboard HMS Hermione

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Vanishing Sail – A Documentary about West Indian Commercial Sail

Posted on by March 21, 2012

Thanks to Dexter Donham for pointing out this trailer for Vanishing Sail, a documentary still under production and expected to be out in 2013.  Filmed in the Grenadines, Vanishing Sail looks at the sailing vessels that once were both the lifeblood of Caribbean commerce. From their website: Mixed with rare archive footage and interviews with the last old Caribbean sea captains, the documentary combines dramatic sailing scenes with narration and an original soundtrack to tell the story of trading by sail in the West Indies and it’s legacy in the islands today.

Vanishing Sail

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Record Year for Ship Scrapping & ex-Exxon Valdez Heading for Scrap Yard

Posted on by March 21, 2012

The twenty eight year old bulk carrier Oriental Nicety was recently sold for scrap for $16 million.  The ship was originally a tanker and has four owners and as many names. She is best known as the Exxon Valdez, the single hull tanker that ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989, spilling more than 36,000 long tons of crude oil. It was the worst domestic maritime oil spill prior to the BP Deepwater Horizon rig disaster of 2010 which spilled over 560,000 tons of oil.

Exxon Valdez is sold for scrap
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Winnie Breegle, WWII WAVE and Code Talker Speaks of Her Service

Posted on by March 21, 2012

Winnie Breegle WAVE Code Talker

Earlier this month, 90 year old Winnie Breegle spoke at the 2012 Women’s History Month celebration at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Panama City, FL. She had quite a story to tell.  Not only was she a WAVE (Woman Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) in World War II but she was also a “code talker,”  trained to understand Navajo code as a cryptographer.

In World War II, the code talkers were largely a group of more than 400 Marines who were bilingual Navajo speakers. By using a spoken Navajo code, they were able to dramatically speed up communications while being undecipherable to the Japanese.  Most code talkers were Navajo, but as there were too few Navajo speakers, a program was set up to train WAVES to understand the code talkers.  Winnie Breegle was one of the WAVES to become a code talker.

WWII WAVE, Code Talker, Keynote Speaker at NSWC PCD Women’s History Month
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CBC’s Land and Sea – Pirates and Privateers, Now Online

Posted on by March 20, 2012

We posted previously about “Pirates and Privateers,” a documentary on CBC’s Land and Sea.  The 20 minute documentary is now available on-line. It presents a distinctive view of piracy and privateering from the perspective of the Canadian Maritimes, not often seen by those of us to the South. Well worth the time to watch.

Pirates and Privateers

Cruise Ship Silver Shadow Collides with Container Ship in Fog off Vietnam

Posted on by March 19, 2012

Photo of damage to the container ship bridge taken by passenger Andrew lock

The luxury cruise ship Silver Shadow  may have lived up to its name on Friday morning when it collided with a container ship in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam.  There were no reported injuries on the cruise ship, though passengers reported being knocked off their feet. The Silver Shadow’s bow damaged the bridge of the Vietnamese container ship.   Silver Shadow is owned and operated by Silverseas Cruises.

In 1956, the passenger ships, Andrea Doria and the Stockholm collided in dense fog off Nantucket.  Both vessels were equipped with radar and radios.  The collision and subsequent sinking of the Andrea Doria is often referred to as a “radar assisted casualty.”   It appears that after fifty six years, nothing has necessarily changed. Fortunately, in the case of the Silver Shadow there were no reported injuries among the passengers. There is currently no information on possible injuries to the crew of the container ship.
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James Cameron’s Vertical Torpedo to Dive to the Challenger Deep

Posted on by March 19, 2012

Photo: Mark Thiessen/National Geographic

James Cameron wants to dive to deepest part of the ocean – the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, 35,800 feet (5.8 nautical miles) below the surface.  To do so, he plans on using a single person submersible designed to dive straight down, described as a vertical torpedo.  The experimental craft, built in secrecy in Australia over eight years, also rotates on a vertical axis like a bullet fired from a rifle (although much more slowly) as it dives. The intent is to minimize the dive time so as to maximize the time on the bottom.  It sounds like a great idea, provided Cameron can bring the sub to a stop at the appropriate moment.

Rocket Plunge to Deep End of the Planet
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Captain Alan Villiers’ Photographs of the Last of the Tall Ships

Posted on by March 19, 2012

Alan Villiers was the great chronicler of the last days of sail. In 1918, at the age of 15, he left home in Melborne, Australia to go to sea. His first love would always be the full rigged sailing ships that he had watched a boy sailing in and out of Melbourne. Over the next sixty years, until his death in 1982, he would sail the world’s oceans in square-rigged ships and write twenty five books and numerous articles, most about the last days of the great windjammers.

Villiers also took many remarkable photographs. Thanks to Captain Richard Bailey for pointing out this Collection of Photographs by Alan Villiers, which features hand-colored photographs from ships Villiers sailed, as a well as a succinct biography of Villers’ remarkable career. Britain’s National Maritime Museum has posted additional photos: The Last of the Tall Ships: Photographs by Alan Villiers.

More photos after the jump.

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The Mystery of the Osberg Viking Ship – Seaworthy or Only Decorative ?

Posted on by March 19, 2012

In 1904 and 1905, archaeologists Haakon Shetelig and Gabriel Gustafson excavated a burial mound at the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold county, Norway that contained a well-preserved Viking ship.   The Osberg ship was reconstructed and has became Norway’s largest tourist attraction.

The New Oseberg Ship Foundation is now building a replica of the 9th century ship, which it hopes to launch this summer.  One critical question remained, however, before  construction could begin.  Was the almost 22 meter ship actually a seaworthy design or merely a funerary decoration?  A previous copy, built twenty years ago, capsized and sank almost immediately.  Recent analysis suggests that the rebuilding of the original ship may have introduced errors which impacted the seaworthiness of the subsequent replica. The video, below, looks at the history of the Osberg ship and the engineering and model testing of the design of the new replica, now under construction.

Stiftelsen Nytt OsebergSkip

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Se also Building the Viking Longboat Dragon Harald Fairhair

Coelacanth Sunday – Long Lived, More Living than Fossil

Posted on by March 18, 2012

Coelacanths apparently evolved in their current form around 400 million years ago. They were thought to have gone extinct 65 million years ago, during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction – that is, until 1938 when a fisherman in South Africa pulled one up in his nets.  Not surprisingly, they are often referred to as “living fossils.”  Since their discovery off South Africa, they have also been found in the waters off the Comoros, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar. In 1999, coelacanths were also found in the waters of Indonesia off Sulawesi.

Now German scientists have found something else quite remarkable about these rare fish. After a twenty year study they have determined that coelacanths can live up to a hundred years and possibly even longer.  This would make the coelacanth not only one of the world’s oldest fish species, but possibly also the longest-lived.  Thanks to coelacanth savant and prodigious polymath, Allan Janus for pointing out the article.

Coelacanths Can Live Past 100, Don’t Show Age?