The Honourable East India Company ship Nemesis
In 1840, when she arrived off their coast, the Chinese called the Honourable East India Company ship Nemesis, the devil ship. She was the first British ocean-going iron warship. In addition to two masts, she was powered by two two sixty horsepower Forrester steam engines driving paddle wheels. She was armed with two pivot-mounted 32 pounder and four 6 pounder guns, and a rocket launcher. Though underpowered and under-gunned she proved to be extremely effective in the coastal battles of the Opium Wars. The Chinese had nothing that could remotely match her.
In a recent article in the Huffington Post, Rory Fitzgerald wonders whether the ghost of the Nemesis is still driving Chinese military and foreign policy.
China’s U.S. Visit: The Chinese Are Haunted by a Ghost Ship
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Last November, 
A group of former workers at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in the San Francisco Bay Area has launched a campaign to bring the USS Olympia to San Pablo Bay. The Olympia, Commodore George Dewey’s flagship at the Battle of Manila Bay, is the only surviving steel warship of its era.
Nelson style speed dating? I hope this doesn’t involve boarding with cutlasses.
As one who is shivering in the snow, I am highly envious of the good folks in San Diego who will be celebrating their 3rd annual 
This story is a few days old, but remains strange and disturbing. The Dutch coaster Leopard, carrying a cargo of weapons, was reported to have been hijacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Oman last week, but when a Turkish naval vessel located the ship, there was no sign of the crew of six, nor of the pirates. A hijacked Taiwanese owned fishing vessel, believed to be being used as a pirate mother ship, was observed heading towards Somalia. There is speculation that the crew was aboard the hijacked fishing vessel. There is also concern that the crew, two Danes and four Filipinos, may have been killed. The Leopard was carrying a cargo of arms but was apparently abandoned by the pirates, leaving the arms cargo untouched.
Grim news. Late Saturday night, the wooden vessel Hasan Reis in the Mediterranean, carrying over 260 passengers, reported to be illegal immigrants from Afghanistan, began to leak in heavy seas and subsequently sank. The Dutch ship 
An interesting followup to a 