Congratulations to PortSide New York and the tanker Mary Whalen, which has been deemed eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places! The Mary Whalen is a 172’ long coastal tanker built by the John H. Mathis Company, of Camden NJ in 1938. PortSide New York is an innovative non-profit which provides educational, cultural, and social service programs for the community and runs an H2O Arts program that offers talks, walks, concerts, readings, movies, ship tours and performing arts. And at the center of it all is the good ship Mary Whalen.
Last week we posted about Disney filing three trademark applications for the rights to the phrase “SEAL Team 6.” Proving that they are only a step or two behind Mickey Mouse, the US Navy has now trademarked the phrases “NAVY SEALS” and “SEAL TEAM.”
Claiming What’s Theirs: Navy Files Trademarks for ‘SEAL TEAM’ and ‘NAVY SEALS’
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USS New York
Tomorrow the USS New York returns to the Hudson River to help kick off Fleet Week New York. The USS New York (LPD-21) is the fifth San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship and is the seventh ship of the United States Navy to be named after the state of New York. Parts of the bow and stern of the ship were fabricated using over seven tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center, after it was destroyed in the September 11 attacks. Earlier this year we posted about problems that the ship had with bad bearings and undersized welds. After an extended repair period, the ship is said to be in good shape and will participating in the parade of ships up the Hudson from 8:30 AM to 12 noon tomorrow.
The USS New York comes to town to kick off Fleet Week
Thanks to Bowsprite for passing the news along.
Over the weekend, HMS Bounty, on the first stop of her four month European tour, was boarded by buccaneers on the Barbican in Plymouth. Plymouth’s “Pirate Days” coincided with the release of the latest Disney ‘Pirates of the Caribbean” movie, “On Stranger Tides.” The Plymouth Herald noted, “An authentic Captain Jack Sparrow look-a-like – albeit not Hollywood star Johnny Depp himself – joined HMS Bounty’s Captain Robin Wallbridge on board.” HMS Bounty was featured in a previous movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest.”
The most recent iteration of the movie franchise, which opened on Friday, has earned a Rotten Tomatoes rating of only 33%, the lowest of any of the four “Pirate of the Caribbean” movies. Our 14 year old in-house reviewer gives it a slightly better rating, opining that “it was better than the third one, but not as good as the first two.”
Seaport founder and first president, Peter Stanford, speaks to the rally
I was out of town so I could not attend the Save our Ships Rally at the South Street Seaport yesterday. Fortunately foo those of us who couldn’t make it, there are some great photos at Will van Dorp’s Tugster blog, the Save our Ships blog, and Paul la Rossa’s blog.
The South Street Seaport Museum has long been supported by an active and enthusiastic group of volunteers. Let us hope that in the future that the museum’s management will meet the same standards of commitment and dedication shown by these volunteers.
Happy National Maritime Day! The day has been celebrated in the US since 1933. After World War II US flag shipping accounted for over 40% of the world’s total fleet. Currently the US ranks around 10th in the world by number of ships, placing between Indonesia and Hong Kong.
Shell is on its way to building the largest floating offshore facility in the world for its Prelude Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) Project in Australia. The FLNG facility will be 488 meters long and will weigh around 600,000 tonnes – roughly six times as much as the largest aircraft carrier. It will be longer longer and heavier than the new Maersk Triple E ships which, when delivered, will be 400 meters long. The FLNG will also be longer than the largest ship ever built, the Seawise Giant/Jahre Viking/Knock Nevis, which was scrapped in 2010. The Knock Nevis was 458 meters long, but did displace more, at 657,019 tonnes, than will the FLNG.
The FLNG will be deployed over the Prelude field located approximately 475 kilometres north-northeast of Broome, Western Australia, and over 200 kilometres from the nearest point on the mainland. The field is too far offshore to use conventional techniques of building gas-compression platforms and long subsea pipelines to shore. Instead, the natural gas will be liquefied on the vessel and loaded onto LNG ships for transport.
NS Savannah
In the US, National Maritime Day is May 22nd. The day was chosen to commemorate the departure from Savannah, Georgia of the American steamship, SS Savannah, first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean, on May 24, 1819. To celebrate National Maritime Day, the Baltimore Port Alliance is hosting tours on the NS Savannah, the first and last US flag nuclear merchant ship.
National Maritime Day 2011 Aboard the N.S. SAVANNAH
Ironically though both ships named Savannah were considered technological break-throughs in their day, neither was a commercial success.
Thanks to Miroslav Antic for passing the article along.
A preview of MaineSail Magazine, the first issue of which will be available for download June 1st, 2011 at www.themainesail.com. Looks beautiful.
Patrick McPherson is a 19 year surgeon’s mate in the Royal Navy. By all appearances, he is an upstanding young man with a promising future. The dark secret that the young mate carries is that he is indeed, a she. Patrick was born as Patricia. When Patricia’s husband, a ship’s surgeon dies while tending a fever outbreak in the Indies, she decides to “shed Patricia like an inconvenient skin, becoming Patrick McPherson, a surgeon’s mate, of His Majesty’s frigate Richmond, on its undercover mission to Havana…” Linda Collison’s new book Surgeon’s Mate is the second in her series following the nautical adventures of Patricia McPherson. See our review of Collision’s first book of the series, Star Crossed.
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A recent NOAA survey of the Caribbean off the southern coasts of the U.S. Virgin Islands of St. John and St. Thomas and off eastern Puerto Rico discovered six previously unknown shipwrecks.
Photo: Paul Darrow for The Globe and Mail
There is an old saying about an ax that never wears out so long as you keep replacing the head and the handle. But what happens if you replace the head and handle at the same time? Is it the same ax? Or is it another ax altogether? These are the sorts of question being asked about the “refurbishment” and “repair” of the Bluenose II.
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Following up on the previous news that the current board of the financially troubled South Street Seaport Museum is being replaced, that the Attorney General has barred the removal of the museum’s historic ships from New York harbor and that new funding is being arranged, the Save our Seaport grassroots organization is sponsoring a “Rally to Save our Seaport” on Sunday, May 22, at 2PM, on South Street at Pier 16 just below the Peking‘s bowsprit. It will be a great opportunity for friends, supporters and volunteers to show their enthusiasm for the Seaport and its long term survival and future growth.
As we posted last week, the US Navy has five times more aircraft carrier flight deck capacity than the rest of the world combined. Nevertheless the Chinese have leapt ahead in the construction of a concrete air craft carrier on a government building roof top. What strategic advantage that might provide remains unclear.
Concrete evidence of China’s naval ambitions
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Tusitala
On May 25th, in addition to other items in their collection, the Seaman’s Church Institute is auctioning off a letter written by Joseph Conrad in 1923 to the “owners and ship’s company of the Tusitala, ” in which he sends “my brotherly good wishes for fair winds and clear skies on all their voyages. And may they be many!” (Thanks to Joan Druett, author of Tupaia: Captain Cook’s Polynesian Navigator, for posting about the auction on her blog.)
But who were the “owners and ship’s company of the Tusitala” to whom Conrad passed on his best wishes? Therein lies a tale. Continue reading