For anyone around New York harbor this afternoon and evening, Captains Rick and Karen Miles will be presenting a slide show of their “Arctic Adventures Aboard the Wanderbird” at 4pm and 7pm in the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, Pier 12, Red Hook, Brooklyn. The slideshow covers their cruise this summer of 6,000 miles from Maine to Greenland to Lat 72N.
Wanderbird is a 90′ converted North Sea trawler, now refitted as an expedition cruise vessel accommodating 12 passengers. The cruises and the accommodations look wonderful. Wanderbird is on her south for the season to the island of Culebra, where she will be offering week long cruises. Will over at the Tugster blog has some great shots of Wanderbird in New York harbor, here and here.
Thanks to the good folks at PortSide New York for the heads up about the slide show.
A wonderful collection of more than 9,000 books and periodicals on ships and the sea has gone on display in a new library in Bristol.
Bad news and good news. The Tacoma Tall Ships Organization is no more and the hoped for 
After waiting out the hurricane season in the Canary Islands 15-year-old Dutch sailor
After more than a year long ordeal, British sailors Paul and Rachel Chandler were released today by Somali pirates. The retired couple was seized by the pirates on October 22, 2009.
How could an fire in one of two engine rooms do sufficient damage to the electrical distribution system on the Carnival Splendor to completely disable the ship? The answer isn’t obvious. The Carnival Splendor is diesel electric powered, which is to say, instead of the ship’s engines connecting to the propellers by shafts, each of her two propellers is driven by an electric motor. Diesel engines connected to generators provide the power to drive the propellers, as well as to make the ice cubes, heat the hot tubs, and provide all the other electricity needed by this small city at sea.