The Scuttling of the MSC Chitra

Posted on by April 27, 2011

Last August, we posted about the collision of the containership MSC Chitra and the bulk carrier Khalijia 3 which resulting in the sinking of the Chitra with a significant oil spill, a loss of cargo containers and the blockage of the port of Mumbai for five days.   Maasmond Maritime’s Clipping Service recently publish dramatic photos of the scuttling of the MSC Chitra, after a six day tow to deep water by Titan Maritime approximately 385 miles off of the coast of Mumbai, India. Click the thumbnails for larger images.

 

Ohio River Great Steamboat Race Threatened by High water

Posted on by April 27, 2011

The Ohio River may just be too high to allow the running of the Great Steamboat Race on May 4th, between the Belle of Louisville and the Belle of Cincinnati on May 4.   If the river doesn’t fall, officials are considering several options including not leaving the dock and simply having a party.

Ohio River conditions could cloud outlook for Great Steamboat Race
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Flying the Flag, Fleeing the State – Missing the Point

Posted on by April 27, 2011

In yesterday’s  New York Times, Rose George of Leeds, UK was an Op-Ed Contributor.   In her essay, Flying the Flag, Fleeing the State, she starts off by calling many ship operators criminals and comparing them to Somali pirates:  But maritime lawlessness isn’t confined to pirates.  Thanks to a system of ship registration called “flags of convenience,” it is all too easy for unscrupulous ship owners to get away with criminal behavior. It is a shame that she is so free in making such inflammatory and factually inaccurate comparisons.  Ms. Rose is apparently writing a book about the  merchant  marine.  Her previous book was about sewage. (No, I am not making that up.)

In a limited sense, Ms. George has a point – too many sailors are still not treated well or fairly by their employers and some ship owners are not scrupulous in obeying  environmental  laws.   The problem is that Ms. Rose lacks the context to understand what she is complaining about.  Simply put – she misses the point.
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75 years of Maine Windjammer Cruises

Posted on by April 25, 2011

For hundreds of years, coastal schooners carried cargoes up and down the hundred harbored coast of Maine.  By the early part of the last century, the schooners were being replaced by trucks and trains.   In 1936 Captain Frank Swift started buying laid  up schooners to cruise in the Maine summers.  Schooners that had carried stone, lumber, hay and all manner of goods, began carrying vacationers.  Now 75 years later the Maine windjammer fleet is still going strong, preserving the schooners and their heritage while delighting tens of thousands who have sailed on them.

On Thursday, April 28 at 6:30 p.m,  Capt. Ray Williamson of Camden will be speak at the Camden Public Library on the history of Maine Windjammer Cruises, a company he and his wife Ann have owned for the past 25 years.

75 years of Maine Windjammer Cruises

Thanks to Alaric Bond for the passing  article along.

 

Cyclone Reveals Unbury Island’s 130-Year-Old Shipwreck

Posted on by April 25, 2011

As the sands of Fire Island are swallowing Le Papillon, Cyclone Yasi has uncovered a mysterious shipwreck on an island off  the Queensland coast.

Cyclone Winds Unbury Island’s 130-Year-Old Shipwreck

The huge cyclone’s intense winds blew away sand on one Queensland island, unearthing the outline of a mysterious shipwreck. It’s a 100-foot (30-meter) longboat, stuck in the sand on Hinchinbrook Island’s beach. The vessel may have been buried under the sand for more than 130 years, reported the Brisbane Times.
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Storytelling at the Bivalve Shipping Sheds

Posted on by April 25, 2011

Bagged oysters catching the train to Philadelphia

If Detroit was and is the “motor city,” then perhaps Bivalve, New Jersey was the Oyster Capital of the World.  By the late 1880s, 90 railcars full of oysters were shipped from Bivalve every week.  Oysters were once the largest fishery product in the United States and Bivalve was its center.  This weekend Bayshore Discovery Project will celebrate the history and heritage of Bivalve on the dock and in the sheds where  the oyster industry once thrived.

Storytelling at Bayshore Discovery Project will bring Oyster Sheds to Life
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Update: Duck Boats Return to the Delaware

Posted on by April 24, 2011

The Ducks have returned to the Delaware River.   Not mallards, but duck boats. Last July a tug pushing a barge ran down a disabled “Duck boat” DUKW 34 at anchor in the Delaware River off Philadelphia. Two of the 35 passengers on the duck boat drowned in the collision.   The mate on the tug was apparently talking to his mother on a cell phone during the collision.  The duck boats have now been allowed back on the river under a new set of safety rules.

Duck boats to make return to Delaware River
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Safety – the Forest or the Trees on the Deepwater Horizon?

Posted on by April 23, 2011

The Coast Guard released a report yesterday that was highly critical of  Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon drill rig, which exploded and sank last year.

Transocean contributed to Gulf disaster, Coast Guard report says

Flaws in Transocean Ltd.’s emergency training and equipment and a poor safety culture contributed to the deadly Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion that led to the Gulf oil spill, according to a Coast Guard report released Friday.
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Whisky Bottles Still Washing Up From the Wreck of the Sailing Ship Stuart – 110 years ago

Posted on by April 23, 2011

It is not champagne, but whiskey bottles which are still appearing from the sands where the sailing ship Stuart wrecked 110 years ago on Easter Sunday off the Llyn peninsula of Northern Wales.

Whisky bottles still being washed up on the Llyn Peninsula
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Update: World’s Oldest Champagne Going on the Block in June

Posted on by April 22, 2011

In July of last year we posted about the discovery of 30 bottles of champagne thought to pre-date the French Revolution in a wreck on the Baltic seabed.  In November, wine experts tasted the “world’s oldest champagne” which was judged to be quite palatable.  Recently it was announced that two bottles of 200-year old champagne will be auctioned off in June.

‘World’s oldest champagne’ to be sold at June auction
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Record Number of Right Whales off Cape Cod

Posted on by April 22, 2011

Photo: Cape Cod Times/Steve Heaslip

I recall many years ago how excited the guide was on a whale watching trip out of Provincetown when we sighted a mother right whale and her calf not long after leaving the dock. I can only imagine how researchers are reacting to the arrival of an unprecidented number of right whales in Cape Cod Bay near Provincetown. During a seven-hour research flight, 100 right whales were observed today.  Northern Right whales are highly endangered.  Only an estimated 450 North Right whales are known to exist, and yet almost a quarter of them have shown up to the party off Cape Cod.  Scientists say that the whales were probably attracted by an unusually large and long lasting  plankton bloom in the bay.   The whales feed on the surface and have been sighted from shore from beaches at Truro, Herring Cove and Race Point in Provincetown.

Record number of right whales in Cape waters

Endangered whales gather in unprecedented numbers

 

Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet

Posted on by April 21, 2011

Jim Luce recently wrote an article in the Huffington Post titled, Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet Found in Japan.   The title makes it sound like a new discovery.   Not so much. The site of the “lost fleet” was discovered in the 1970s, while the wreckage of the lost fleet was located in 2000.   Maritime archaeologist Jim Delgado wrote about the discovery in his book, Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet: In Search of a Legendary Armada, in 2008.  The paperback edition was published last summer.   It is a fascinating story.

 

Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet

[iframe: title=”YouTube video player” width=”480″ height=”390″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/60mpTernPjQ” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]

 

Thanks to Irwin Bryan and Alaric Bond for the passing  article along.

Douglas Faulkner and the MV Derbyshire

Posted on by April 21, 2011

Douglas Faulkner, who died recently, had a varied and highly accomplished career as a naval and marine architect.   He was involved in the design and testing of the first British nuclear submarine, HMS Dreadnought.   He was later an assistant professor at the Royal Naval College,  a structural advisor at Bath, and appointed to the John Elder chair of naval architecture at Glasgow University.   He will be probably best  remembered, however, for his work in solving the mystery of the sinking of the MV Derbyshire, which disappeared with all hands in the Pacific September 9, 1980 during Typhoon Orchid.

Douglas Faulkner
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BP Oil Spill – One Year Later, Some Good News and Lots of Bad

Posted on by April 20, 2011

There appears to be both good and bad news exactly one year after the explosion and fire that sank the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, killing eleven, and triggering the largest  accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.   The good news, if it can be called that, is that the ecological doomsday initially feared by many has not come to pass.   This is not to say that the environmental impact of the spill will not be significant and long lasting.  We have posted previously about the unexplained deaths of significant numbers of dolphins and sea turtles in the Gulf. Nevertheless, the consensus  seems to be, “It could have been worse.”

BP Oil Spill: How Bad Is Damage to Gulf One Year Later?
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