Countdown to the VELUX 5 Oceans Race

Posted on by October 8, 2010

Eco 60 class boats awaiting the race start in La Rochelle

The Velux 5 Oceans Single Handed Round the World Race will be starting in just over a week on October 17th.   The competitors will race from La Rochelle, France to Cape Town, South Africa; then on to Wellington, New Zealand; to to Salvador, Brazil, to  Charleston, South Carolina in the USA and returning to La Rochelle, France for a race of almost 30,000 miles. The race will be sailed in Eco 60 class boats, designed to be relatively less expensive than boat is other ocean races.
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Seafarers Ale:Drinking for a Cause, not Just Because…

Posted on by October 7, 2010

For those in Britain, Fuller’s Brewery (Fuller, Smith and Turner plc), founded in 1864 and London’s only remaining traditional family brewer, is donating £5 to Seafarers UK for every barrel of their Seafarer’s Ale sold.  Seafarers UK is a national charity that supports seafarers and their families.  So now, stopping in at the pub for a pint can be a way of supporting a good cause, rather than just because…

I don’t believe that Seafarer’s Ale is available on this side of the pond.  I did however stop in at my local liquor store and picked up a six pack of Fuller’s London Pride to show my solidarity. (It is also an excellent ale.)

Seaman’s Church Institute Leaving New York City

Posted on by October 7, 2010

Seaman's Church Institute Floating Chapel, New York 1844

After 176 years the Seaman’s Church Institute is leaving New York.    The organization announced that they will be putting its building at 241 Water Street, near South Street Seaport, up for sale next week.  The ministry will shift all operations to its newly renovated center at Port Newark later this month.  Last year we posted about the Floating Chapels of the Seamen’s Church Institute.

The once busy piers on the Hudson River are either gone or converted to parks where children and families play.  The East River docks are a mix of museum and shopping mall.   No ships have called on Manhattan in decades and the Brooklyn piers are largely quiet as well. There are no sailors left in Manhattan so the Church is shifting its operations to focus on where the sailors are.

Seamen’s Institute to Sell Its Building and Leave Manhattan
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Whale Wars War of Words: Sinking of the Ady Gil Ordered by Watson?

Posted on by October 7, 2010

The Ady Gil is hit by Japanese ship Shonan Maru 2 and, inset, Peter Bethune, top, and Paul Watson.

Last January the power boat Ady Gil was hit by the Japanese whaling ship, Shonan Maru 2, during the Sea Shepherds‘ protest/reality TV show.  Who was responsible for the collision is still the subject of controversy. Now the captain of the Ady Gil, Pete Bethune, has resigned from the Sea Shepherds after accusing  Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Boss Paul Watson of lying about the sinking of the Ady Gil.  Bethune claims that Watson ordered the scuttling of the vessel following the collision.  Watson responded by claiming that Bethune lied in  his testimony in Japanese court

Sea Shepherd word war: ‘sinking ordered’
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Freak Waves – a BBC Documentary

Posted on by October 6, 2010

As noted in our recent review, I found Susan Casey’s The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean to be very disappointing because it spends far more time with extreme surfer dudes than it does examining rogue or freak waves.  The same can not be said of a BBC documentary first aired on November 14, 2002 called “Freak Waves.”  In addition to an in depth look at ships struck by rogue waves, it also features a fascinating discussion, in wholly accessible language, of how the nonlinear Schrödinger equation can closely approximate rogue waves, an outcome that surprised even the mathematicians.  This could explain why all the equations, which oceanographers have used to explain that rogue waves cannot exist, may be all wrong.

By the magic of Youtube, the documentary is available as five 10 minute clips:

Freak Waves part 1/5

Watch the rest of the documentary after the jump.
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Chauncy Maples Makes a Million Pounds

Posted on by October 6, 2010

In June we posted about the missionary/hospital steamer, the Chauncy Maples.   Launched in 1901, she is the oldest ship in Africa.   She is being restored to return to duty as a traveling clinic on the 560 kilometer long Lake Malawi.   The Chauncy Maples Malawi Trust has been attempting to raise £2 million to fund the project.  Last Friday, Thomas Miller, a London-based specialist insurance company, which has been spearheading the drive, announced that they are half way to their goal, having raised over £1m pounds.

Chauncy Maples makes a million
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Stealth Submarines – Concerns in Asia & Flaking Tiles in the US

Posted on by October 6, 2010

Failing Acoustic Tiles on USS Virginia

Aren’t all submarines supposed to be stealthy?  I suppose some are stealthier than others.  The South China Morning Post in Hong Kong is reporting concerns by China’s neighbors that China may have already built a stealth submarine.  On the other side of the world, the acoustic urethane tiles on the US Navy’s Virginia Class attack submarines have been flaking off at sea. The tiles are believed to  dampen sound from the subs and make them more “stealthy,”  at least until they fall off.

Has China Built a New Stealth Submarine?

Coating falling off Virginia-class subs

Lucky Fluckey

Posted on by October 5, 2010

Today is the birthday of Rear Admiral Eugene Bennett Fluckey, known as “Lucky Fluckey,” who died in 2007 at the age of 94.   In addition to having one of the truly great nicknames,  he was one of the greatest submarine skippers of World War II, winning the Congressional Medal of Honor and four Navy Crosses among other honors.  As commander of the USS Barb, Lucky Fluckey is credited with the most tonnage sunk by a U.S. skipper during World War II: 17 ships including a carrier, cruiser, and frigate.  He also commanded the sole landing by U.S. military forces on the Japanese home islands during World War II, when he sent a  landing party ashore to blow up a coastal railway line, destroying a 16-car train.  Fluckey also inventing the night convoy attack from astern by joining the flank escort line.   Fluckey latter described his World War II operations in Thunder Below!: The USS *Barb* Revolutionizes Submarine Warfare in World War II.   He wrote: “Though the tally shows more shells, bombs, and depth charges fired at Barb, no one received the Purple Heart and Barb came back alive, eager, and ready to fight again.”

A Busy October at the Penobscot Marine Museum

Posted on by October 5, 2010

The Penobscot Marine Museum, Maine’s oldest maritime museum, is having a busy October, full of events and exhibitions.  This Friday and Saturday,  October 8th and 9th, the museum offers a range of free events as part as part of  Searsport’s annual Fling Into Fall festival.   On Friday, October 8, the bluegrass group Phat Grass will play at the Public Safety Building at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, October 9, From Away Downeast will present a concert of traditional maritime music in Union Hall at 2:30 p.m. Other activities will include a Jack-o’-Lantern and Scarecrow Competition, and free museum admission and store discounts.  Also, Down-East goes Wild West with a Cowbow Action Shooting demonstration on the museum’s back lawn.
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Houston Ship Channel Closed After Barges Crash into Electrical Tower

Posted on by October 4, 2010

One of the largest port complexes in the US has been shut down since Sunday morning after a barge accident almost knocked a high voltage tower into the Houston Ship Channel.    Over thirty ships have been blocked by the shut down of the ship channel.  An economic loss of almost $1 billion is estimated to result from the shutdown.   The ship channel is not expected to open until at least Tuesday night.

Leaning electrical tower blocks Houston port

Shrinking U.S. Flag Fleet Draws Attention In Congress

Posted on by October 5, 2010

A press release by Congressman Elijah E. Cummings, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, strikes me as either sad, funny or perhaps a bit of both.    The press release is titled:  Cummings Continues Investigation Into American Commercial Fleet and is subtitled: Cummings eager to understand what can be done to expand the number of U.S.-flagged vessels carrying U.S. commercial cargo.”   One is tempted to ask, why did it take you so long to notice?
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Mogens Frohn Nielsen, Captain of the Schooner Fulton

Posted on by October 4, 2010

Mogens Frohn Nielsen

Sad news from Shipgaz:

Fulton captain has passed away

Legendary captain Mogens Frohn Nielsen has passed away at the age of 75.  Mogens Frohn Nielsen pioneered the use of sailing ships as floating schools for youngsters with problems. He started the new way of learning in the late 1960s on the schooner Odeysseus. From 1970 he took command over the restored schooner Fulton, owned by the Danish National Museum, and managed by Fulton Stiftelsen. He left the institute in 1983 and has since been lecturing up to 110 times a year.

Odyssey’s Shipwreck! Pirates & Treasure at the Maryland Science Center

Posted on by October 3, 2010

The "Black Swan" Photo: Michael Townsend

A new exhibition opened at the at the Maryland Science Center, Odyssey’s Shipwreck! Pirates & Treasure, that will run through January 30, 2011.

Exploring pirates and shipwrecks at the Maryland Science Center
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The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey, – A Review

Posted on by October 5, 2010

Sea monsters exist. They break ships in half and pull them below the waves. Sometimes they swallow them whole. Most who encounter them never return to tell the tale and those few who do, until very recently, were rarely believed.

I am referring to rogue waves, which until only the last decade or so, have been dismissed as myths, merely sailor’s tall tales. Only in roughly the last ten or fifteen years has the existence of rogue waves been fully documented and accepted by oceanographers.  Scientists are only beginning to gain some understanding of how and where the waves rise up from the oceans to crush the unfortunate and the unlucky.

I am intrigued, fascinated and a bit frightened by rogue waves, so when I saw Susan Casey’s new book, “The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean” I was excited. I want to learn more a about rogue waves and this book looked like it could tell me what I wanted to know. Sadly, was I wrong. Very wrong.
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Coffee, second only to oil?

Posted on by October 2, 2010

A comment on our  post, Happy National Coffee Day – Coffee, Edward Lloyd, Ships and Shipping, by Barista Uno host of the excellent Marine Cafe blog raised two interesting points.  He commented:

There ought to be an International Coffee Day. Coffee, after all, is the second most traded and shipped commodity in the world. One day of the year to pay tribute to the great coffeehouses of the past and present, the coffee farmers and the ship operators and seafarers who transport the produce. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I agree whole heartedly with Barista Uno.   After a bit of research it appears that National Coffee on August 29th is also celebrated as International Coffee Day.  Who established these “days” is still a mystery to me.  As far as I am concerned every day is coffee day.
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