What is AMVER?

Posted on by December 17, 2010

What is AMVER?  They are the most amazing world-wide maritime search and rescue network that you probably have never heard of.  AMVER stands for the Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue System. It was founded over fifty years ago, in 1958, and currently over 19,000 ships are enrolled.  How does it work?  The ships, which voluntarily enroll in AMVER, report their positions on a regular basis.  When an distress call is received, often by a triggered EPIRB,  AMVER calculates the closest ships to the vessel in distress and vectors them to the stricken vessel.

Just last week an AMVER enrolled vessel, Sunbelt Spirit, diverted toward an EPIRB signal and picked up two Canadian men  in a liferaft off the coast of Nicaragua in a joint SAR operation with the US Coast Guard.   Roughly two weeks ago the AMVER enrolled container ship CGA-CGM La Scala rescued four sailors from a capsized sailboat one thousand miles east-southeast of Bermuda.  (There is a video of the La Scala rescue after the jump.)

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HMS Temeraire, USS Olympia, and the American Racer – A Few Thoughts on Ship Preservation

Posted on by January 12, 2011

American Racer on her way to the scrap yard Photo: daver6@sbcglobal.net

Bernard Cornwell‘s introduction to his review of  Sam Willis’s book, “The Fighting Temeraire,”  is as dramatic as it is sadly accurate. He writes:  At Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia, the battle-cruiser USS Olympia lies glorious and doomed. The oldest steel warship in the world today, she has a poignant history.  In 1898, during the Spanish-American War, she was Adm. Dewey’s flagship at the battle of Manila Bay, and in 1921 she carried the body of the first officially designated Unknown Soldier, felled in World War I, back from France to the U.S.  The Olympia is magnificent.  If nothing is done to save her, she will be towed offshore and sunk as an artificial reef.”
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Second Leg of the Velux Five Oceans Race Underway

Posted on by December 16, 2010

The second leg of the Velux Five Oceans singlehanded around the world race began today with the five  competitors  setting  sail from Cape Town, South Africa bound for Wellington, NZ, a 7,000 mile voyage across the wild Southern Ocean.  Brad Van Liew, the one American racing, who won the first leg from La Rochelle, France to Capetown,  reports “bashing upwind in 25-35 knots of wind” sailing his Eco 60, Le Pingouin.  This is Van Liew’s third solo round the world race.   The second leg of the race was original supposed to begin last Sunday, but the start was postponed due to high winds and seas.

Statue Cruises fuel cell powered hybrid ferry for New York harbor

Posted on by December 13, 2010

Earlier this week we posted about Cakewalk, a luxury yacht built at Derecktor Shipyards in Bridgeport, Conn.   Here is quite different vessel now under construction at Derecktor.    Statue Cruises, a subsidiary of Hornblower Cruises, has hired Derecktor to construct the world’s first hybrid ferry using hydrogen fuel.  An existing hull is being used for the 600 passenger vessel which will feature hydrogen fuel cells, solar panels and wind turbines backed up by high efficiency diesel engines.  Delivery is slated for April 2011.  This will be the second hybrid ferry operated by Hornblower and its subsidiaries.    The first operates in San Fransisco and utilizes vertical wind turbines and solar panels in addition to diesel propulsion.

Statue Cruises orders fuel cell powered hybrid ferry
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Repairs delayed on Carnival Splendor – Idle Speculation

Posted on by December 15, 2010

Carnival Cruise Line posted the following today on their website:

Carnival Cruise Lines has cancelled additional departures of the Carnival Splendor including the January 16, 23, 30 and February 6 and 13, 2011 voyages to allow for additional repair time following an engine room fire aboard the vessel in November. The ship is now scheduled to re-enter service February 20, 2011.
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Tragedy on Christmas Island – Asylum Seekers Die in Shipwreck

Posted on by December 15, 2010

A horrific story from Australia’s Christmas Island where a boat carrying asylum-seekers believed to be from Iraq and Iran broke up in rough after striking rocks offshore.  Forty two people were been rescued and twenty seven have been confirmed dead, though that number may rise.  Some reports suggest that as many as fifty people may have died.

Refugee boat tragedy on Australian island

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300th anniversary of the Nottingham Galley wreck on Boon Island

Posted on by December 15, 2010

On December 11, 1710, the English ship Nottingham Galley came ashore on Boon Island, off Cape Neddick, Maine, stranding its 14 man crew, of whom four would subsequently die.  It became one of the best known shipwrecks in New England history.    The Maine State Museum marks the 300th anniversary with a new exhibit of objects recovered from the underwater wreck site of the Nottingham Galley recovered from the sea floor by archaeologists in 1995.  The exhibit will run through March 2011.   What actually transpired on the  Nottingham Galley and on the rocky ledge that is Boon Island remains controversial three hundred years later.

300th anniversary of Nottingham Galley’s wreck sparks interest in Boon Island
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Armed Japanese Coast Guard to Face off against Sea Shepherd “Godzilla”

Posted on by December 15, 2010

Sea Shepherd "Godzilla"

It sounds like like a joke, and indeed it has many elements of farce, but nevertheless when the TV reality-show pirates of Animal Planet’s Whale Wars, the Sea Shepherds, meet the Japanese whalers this season in the Southern Ocean, matters could get serious.  The Sea Shepherds have a new toy boat as their flagship, the 115′ high speed ocean trimaran dubbed the “Godzilla” or “Gojira,” by the press.   For the first time, the Japanese whalers will be carrying armed coast guard personnel, in an apparent response to the boarding of one of their ships by a knife wielding Sea Shepherd, Paul Bethune, in last season’s made-for reality-TV confrontation.

Coast guard protects Japanese whaling ships
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From the Onion : Abby Sunderland – Concocted History’s Most Extreme Plan To Get Out Of A Summer Job

Posted on by December 14, 2010

The Onion is a satire magazine.  In their “The People Who Mattered – 2010” they included their own take on 16 year old sailor Abby Sunderland’s attempted circumnavigation.  Moderately amusing.  To read our non-satirical posts about Abby click here.

Abby Sunderland – Concocted History’s Most Extreme Plan To Get Out Of A Summer Job
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James Craig Sails Again

Posted on by December 14, 2010

The almost 30 year restoration of the James Craig is a wonderful story of volunteers rescuing an old windjammer, rusting away on a Tasmanian beach.  The three masted iron barque, James Craig, originally named Clan Macleod, was built by Bartram, Haswell & Co. in Sunderland, England in 1874.  She had a long and generally productive carrier until she was abandoned in 1933.  In 1972 volunteers from the Sydney Heritage Fleet re-floated her and began the restoration which would be finally completed in 2001.  Here is a trailer for a documentary about the restoration of this beautiful ship.  The James Craig now sails from Sydney harbor as part of the Sydney Heritage Fleet.

James Craig Sails Again

Inger Klein Olsen, First Female Cunard Captain

Posted on by December 14, 2010

Our belated congratulations to Inger Klein Olsen, who took command of Cunard Line’s Queen Victoria at the beginning of December.  She is the first woman to take command of a Cunard Line ship in the line’s 170 year history.

History is Made As Cunard Appoints the Line’s First Female Captain

“While we are far from being the first shipping company to have a female captain, it is nonetheless noteworthy when such a long-established British institution as Cunard makes a break with its captaincy tradition,” said Peter Shanks, president of Cunard. “But as Mark Twain drily observed, ‘the folks at Cunard wouldn’t appoint Noah himself as captain until he had worked his way up through the ranks.’ Inge has certainly done that,” Shanks continued, “and we are delighted to welcome her as our first woman driver.”
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Deepwater Pathfinder runs aground, ironically enough

Posted on by December 13, 2010

Deepwater Pathfinder

The tweet from gCaptain was “Deepwater Pathfinder runs aground” which was linked to a post on the gCaptain blog describing how the drill ship ran aground while pulling into Freeport, TX, shearing off a thruster.   Perhaps I am just easily amused, but I was struck by the irony.  Clearly the harbor pilot, who was reported to be aboard, failed to find the pathway to deepwater when piloting the Deepwater Pathfinder.

Russell Crowe calls for Master and Commander sequel

Posted on by April 8, 2011

Master and Commander – Far Side of the World, loosely based on one or another novel by Patrick O’Brian,  was a movie that I needed to see twice to enjoy.  The first time I saw it, I was so annoyed by the wholly nonsensical plot,  that the French would build a “super-frigate” sized  privateer to prey on British whale ships in the Pacific, that I quietly grumbled to myself for most of the film .  (The plot violates both common sense and the economics of privateering, as any obsessive, overly picky, nautical history buff would no doubt insist on explaining to you at great length. )
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Five dead, 17 missing after Korean fishing vessel, No.1 In Sung, sinks in Southern Ocean

Posted on by December 13, 2010

Another ship down.  Speculation is that the Korean fishing vessel No.1 In Sung either struck an iceberg or was hit by a large wave off Antarctica.   Twenty surviving crew  members  were  rescued and taken aboard the fishing vessel No. 707 Hongjin. Five  are reported dead with seventeen still missing.

Five dead, 17 missing after sinking
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Violent weather in the Eastern Mediterranean – bulk carrier Adriatic sinks and Brilliance of the Seas battered

Posted on by December 13, 2010

Brilliance of the Seas

Heavy rains, strong winds and high seas hit the eastern Mediterranean over the weekend with winds of 100 kilometres per hour and waves reaching heights of 10 metres,  sinking the Moldavian bulk carrier, Adriatic, off the coast of Israel and  battering the RCCL cruise ship, Brilliance of the Seas.   The eleven crew of the Adraitic took to life rafts and  were rescued.  There were reported to be up to 30 passengers with minor injuries, as well as damage to the interior spaces of the Brilliance of the Seas.
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