The 31-meter Turanor, a catamaran yacht fitted with 536 square meters of photovoltaic panels, has successfully sailed halfway around the world, from Monaco to Brisbane, Australia, powered solely by the sun. The Turanor‘s captain and crew are half way toward completing their goal of piloting the first solar powered vessel to circumnavigate the world.
World’s largest solar-powered yacht reaches milestone in record voyage
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D
ead zones are areas where there is too little oxygen in the water to support fish and other aquatic life. They are usually caused by fertilizers and/or other organic materials causing algae blooms which deplete the oxygen in the water. Dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico from the run-off from fertilizers and chemicals flowing into the Mississippi have been forming yearly since the 1970s. Now there is serious concern about the impact this year’s flood in the Midwest may have on the waters of the Gulf.
Chemicals in Farm Runoff Rattle States on the Mississippi
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Until I saw the video I didn’t grasp just how large this anchor is. It is believed to be from the pirate Blackbeard‘s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, which ran aground in 1718 while trying to enter Old Topsail Inlet in North Carolina, now known as Beaufort Inlet. The wreck of what is believed to be Blackbeard’s ship was discovered in 1996 by Intersal Inc., a private research firm. To learn more about the excavation go to – Queen Anne’s Revenge Online.
Thanks to Irwin Bryan for the passing the article along.
Rear Adm. Sandra Stosz has been named as the 40th Superintendent of the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Ct. She is the first woman to lead one of the nation’s five military service academies.
New leader takes the helm at Coast Guard Academy
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Last July we posted about divers finding intact bottles of champagne, believed to date from between 1782 and 1788, in the hold of a shipwreck on the Baltic seabed. In November, a bottle of the “world’s oldest champagne” was opened and tasted by experts who judged it to be quite palatable. Earlier today, two bottles of the shipwreck champagne went on auction in Finland. Despite expectations that each bottle might sell for as much 100,000 euros (approximately $140,000), the winning bids were 30,000 euros ($43,500) for a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and 24,000 euros for a bottle of Juglar. This morning some sources were enthusiastically suggesting that the champagne might go for “140 million dollars a bottle,” apparently adding three zeros to the earlier $140,000 estimate.
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A recent report by Greenpeace directly contradicts Japanese government assurances that the radiation in the water near the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is being dispersed and diluted over time. Significant levels of radioactive contamination have been recorded in local seafood.
Greenpeace: Japan nuclear plant radiation accumulating in marine life
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One of Johan's Arks
If a group of birds are a flock, a group of whales is a pod, and fish gather in schools, what would one call a group of Noah’s arks? A fleet would be the easy answer, but that somehow doesn’t quite fit. How about a flood of arks?
However one might wish to describe them, there are at least six or seven arks, either completed, under construction or planned in the Netherlands, Turkey, Hong Kong, Canada and the United States.
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Perry’s Battle Flag
On June 1, 1813, one hundred and ninety eight years ago today, the British frigate HMS Shannon defeated and captured the USS Chesapeake in single ship combat. Captain James Lawrence on the Chesapeake was mortally wounded during the battle. His last words were, depending on the account, “Don’t give up the ship. Fight her till she sinks,” or “Tell them to fire faster; don’t give up the ship.” If “don’t give up the ship” was an order, it was never carried out because the ship had already been taken by British boarders.
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The good news is that the events were more like the Carnival Splendor than the Titanic. No one died. No ships were lost to icebergs. Nevertheless, there was high drama, bordering on the operatic, on the cruise ship MSC Opera on its voyage from Southhampton to the Baltic last month. There was a blackout, the ship adrift, a passenger mutiny and the detention of the ship by the authorities. Now that the ship is back in service, it seems worthwhile to take a look at the unsuccessful cruise.
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Victor Hugo wrote, “Nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come.” There are some ideas whose time always appears to be coming but somehow never quite arrive. As a young naval architect in the 1970s, I recall predictions that tug boats would be towing icebergs to areas where fresh water is in short supply. On Sunday, Time magazine posted an article asking, “Can Towing Icebergs to Water-Short Areas Really Work?” With the aid of new technology, the answer may finally be “yes.” Then again, this is not the first time that Time magazine has addressed the idea of towing icebergs. It’s article “Science: Towing Icebergs” was published in the magazine in October of 1977.
Just Thaw And Serve (May 29, 2011)
Science: Towing Icebergs (October 17, 1977)
An explosion in a fuel tank on the cruise ship docks in Gibraltar today injured several on the dock and over twelve passengers on the 3,634-passenger Royal Caribbean cruise ship, Independence of the Seas. The injuries to passengers were all reported to be minor.
Explosion, fire in Gibraltar fuel tank, two injured
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RMS Titanic ready to launch
On May 31, 1911, the RMS Titanic was launched at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland. After continued outfitting, the ship was delivered to White Star Line on March 30, 1912. She set sail for New York City on her maiden voyage on 10 April 10, 1912 with 2,223 passengers and crew. Four days into the crossing, she struck an iceberg and sank at 2:20 on April 15, with the loss 1,517 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history. After years of not publicizing that the Titanic was built in Belfast, the memory of the ship is being used to attract visitors. A new tourist center is being built on the old docklands, christened Titanic Quarter.
Belfast cheers 100th anniversary of Titanic launch
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USS Olympia at the Battle of Manila Bay
We have recently posted about attempts to find a home for the USS Olympia, the oldest steel-hulled American warship afloat and Commodore George Dewey’s flagship during the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898. On Memorial Day it seems worthwhile remembering the USS Olympia’s last mission in 1921, when she carried an American “unknown soldier” killed during World War I from a cemetery in France back to the Washington to be in entombed Arlington National Cemetery. The Olympia was decommissioned the following year.
Memorial Day: Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery
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In April of 2007, the cruise ship Sea Diamond struck a reef off the island of Santorini and sank. Nearly 1,600 passengers where rescued and two passengers drowned. Now four years later the Greek government has says that it cannot afford to remove the wreck, while the ship’s owner, Louis Cruise Lines, is denying all responsibly.
Santorini cruise ship wreck ‘too costly’ to remove
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Artist's Impression of the USS Gerald R. Ford "Supercarrier" estimated to cost over $12.5 billion
For seventy years, battleships were the unchallenged masters of the oceans, until technology swept them aside. Now the aircraft carrier reigns supreme. The US currently has five times more aircraft carrier capacity based on flight deck acreage than the the rest of the world combined.
A recent article in the US Naval Institute magazine Proceedings, “Twilight of the $UPERfluous Carriers” by Captain Henry J. Hendrix, U.S. Navy, and Lieutenant Colonel J. Noel Williams, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), suggests that the latest “super carriers” are becoming superfluous in addition to being unsupportably expensive. “In short, the march of technology is bringing the supercarrier era to an end, just as the new long-range strike capabilities of carrier aviation brought on the demise of the battleship era in the 1940s.”