If by some chance you choose not celebrate St. Valentine’s Day, or you have simply reached the limit of how many hearts and flowers you can tolerate, feel free to celebrate today as the Battle of Cape St. Vincent‘s Day. Two hundred and fourteen years ago on this day, a British fleet under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeated a larger Spanish fleet under Admiral Don José de Córdoba near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal. Nothing like black powder smoke and slaughter to clear the Valentine’s Day cobwebs.
Happy Valentines Day! Yesterday, the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine held a sailor’s valentine workshop. (See our previous post.) Sailors’ valentines were traditionally octagonal wooden boxes with a glass front, with intricate symmetrical designs inside, often made of shells and carved and polished woods or ivory. They were particularly popular in the 1830s to 1850s. While the name suggests that the boxes were made by sailor’s for their loved ones, many of the “valentines” were made in Barbados. Antique sailors’ valentines have become quite valuable. For beautiful, more modern, sailor’s valentines check out the work of Sandy Morgan and Lynda Susan Hennigan.
One of the wonderful and maddening things about the internet is that we all make so many virtual acquaintances; many who become good friends, and yet who we have met only through the ether of web pages and email. It was, therefore, a real pleasure last Friday evening to sit down, in the flesh, and share a drink or two or – well perhaps, it is best not to specify the specific numbers of drinks – with a group of water bloggers from in and around New York. In no particular order, there was Will van Dorp of the Tugster blog, Christina 0f Bowsprite, Bonnie of Frogma with TQ, John and Vicky of Summit to Shore, Michael Alex of Peconic Puffin, and Adam of Messing Around in Boats, as well as Carolina from Portside New York. An illustrious and/or nefarious group, to be sure. Peconic Puffin summed up the evening thusly, “The gathering of so many water bloggers in an ancient watering hole created a metafactual vortex that left me adrift in uncertainty and doubt. But it was a fun uncertainty and doubt!” I have no idea what that means exactly, but it works for me.
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Here is a recent watercolor by Hans Breeman showing the MV Rotte owned by NV Houtvaart Rotterdam. The vessel is shown in Hongkong on charter to K-Line (Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd, Tokyo). Hans Breeman is a Dutch maritime painter who focuses on the merchant ships of the 50s and 60s. To see more of his marvelous work visit his site – Hans Breeman and Maritime Art.
HMS Invincible
Last November, we posted about the sale by tender, through an internet site, of the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible. The highest bidder was a Turkish scrapper.
HMS Invincible sold to Turkish ship recyclers
Leyal Ship Recycling, which is based near Izmir, was chosen ahead of a bid by a UK-based Chinese businessman.
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In response to our post, Sail this summer on the Picton Castle, Greg Winter commented, “Or try the same in the beautiful South Pacific, on the brigantine Soren Larsen. Sails out of Auckland New Zealand to the Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Australia.” During the ugly winter we have been having, it is easy to forget that it is always summer somewhere. The beautiful Soren Larsen is offering a wide range of cruises during the reset of the New Zealand Summer and Fall and escapes to the balmier sections of the Pacific in Winter.
Wreck of the whale ship Two Brothers, Photo: Greg McFall/NOAA
The wreck of the whale ship Two Brothers, which sank 188 years ago on French Frigate Shoals, 600 miles northwest of Honolulu, was recently located by divers. The captain of the whale ship was George Pollard Jr., whose previous ship, the Essex, was sunk by a rogue sperm whale in the Pacific in 1820. The survivors, in open boats, attempted in vain to reach the coast of South America. Before the two remaining boats were picked up by passing ships, the eight survivors suffered starvation, death, madness and finally cannibalism. The Chief Mate on the Essex, Owen Chase, would later write, the Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, which influenced Herman Melville in writing his masterpiece Moby Dick.
No ‘Moby-Dick’: A Real Captain, Twice Doomed
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Record crowds, possibly exceeding 100,000, are expected at the Australian Wooden Boat Festival which begins today and runs through Monday at Hobart’s historic Sullivan’s Cove docks. The four-day festival which brings together the biggest collection of wooden boats in the southern hemisphere, is a celebration of maritime culture and craftsmanship. Jessica Watson, the young Australian circumnavigator, will be a special guest.
Rear Admiral Peter Branson, who died recently at age 86, had an illustrious career in the Royal Navy. His career almost ended before it began. Branson was twice torpedoed while he was still under training, on one occasion surviving five days adrift in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa.
Photo: Washburn, Alex / The Chronicle
The Carnival Splendor, which was crippled by an engine room fire on November 8th, leaving it drifting for days off the coast of Mexico with nearly 4,500 crew members and passengers aboard, is expected to sail from San Francisco on Friday following dry docking and the completion of major repairs. Two generators and a diesel engine were replaced. The dry dock in San Francisco was the only dock on the West coast large enough to handle the 113,300 GRT cruise ship.
The new diesel engine, weighing close to 100 tonnes, was taken from another Carnival ship now under construction in Italy and flown to San Francisco aboard an Antonov 21, one of the largest cargo planes in the world.
Previous posts about the Carnival Splendor
Team Hallin - Fully Clothed
Ocean rowing has got to be one of the most physically demanding of all sports. In addition to the physical labor of fighting the wind and seas, salt water sores and chafing are reported to be a big problem. In 2009 in the Indian Ocean Rowing Race, one four woman team, the Ocean Angels, attempted to row nude whenever possible in an attempt to avoid saltwater sores caused by rubbing against clothes after days of rowing.
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Team Hallin Held the Record for One Day
On Monday, the six British rowers of Team Hallin have set a new world record for rowing the Atlantic Ocean. The five men and one woman landed in Barbados after completing the 3,000 mile course from Tenerife in 31days and 23hours and 31 minutes. Then on Tuesday, the 2011 Ocean rowing boat ‘Sara G’ shaved 10 hours 36 minutes off the record set by Team Hallin the day before. How long the new record will stand is unclear. A third rowing team on the Britannia III left the Canary nine days ago intent on setting a new record of their own.
Photo: Thomas Frey
Salvors are now reported to be beginning a slow release of sulphuric acid from the capsized tank barge, Waldhof, which capsized in the Rhine on January 13th near the infamous Lorelei Rock, in hope of averting a larger uncontrolled acid spill on Europe’s largest inland waterway.
Salvage officials leak acid cargo into Rhine from capsized barge
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VLCC MV Irene SL
Yesterday, the Italian-owned Aframax tanker MV Savina Caylyn was hijacked by pirates approximately 670 nautical miles East of Socotra Island in the Indian Ocean. Today, the Greek-owned VLCC MV Irene SL was hijacked approximately 350 nautical miles South East of Muscat in the North Arabian Sea. The last VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier), the Korean Samho Dream, hijacked by pirates was freed after a record ransom of $9.5 million was paid by its owners. Western naval efforts to stop piracy in the region continue to be less and less effective as the pirates have adapted their tactics while the naval forces have not.
Pirates Hit a Gusher With Twin Oil Tanker Haul
Thanks to Phil Leon for passing the articles along.
On this day, sixty nine years ago, the great French luxury liner SS Normandie caught fire at Pier 88 on the Hudson River in New York City. The fire burned out of control and the next day the ship capsized at the dock. The liner had been seized by the United States authorities at New York and renamed USS Lafayette at the beginning of World War II. She was in the process of being converted to a troop transport when she caught fire. Her elegant interiors were being ripped out. It is believed that an arc from a welding machine set fire to the partially stripped ship.
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