Twenty-four U.S. Marines from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit’s Maritime Raid Force stormed the German-owned containership M/V Magellan Star today, capturing the pirates that had seized control of the ship in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia. No shots were fired and there were no injuries. The crew had locked themselves in a safe room aboard the ship to await the arrival of assistance.
U.S. forces board pirate-captured vessel, seize control
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This sounds like a fantastic festival for anyone near Townsend, Washington. The 34th Annual Wooden Boat Festival, which starts tomorrow and runs through the weekend, features almost 300 wooden vessels on display ranging from small wherries to the 133′ classic schooner Adventuress.
Ahoy for Wooden Boat Festival: Tents to go up today at maritime center
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Damage to the bow of the Pacific Star after a storm in 2007 resulting in a cancelled cruise
The video of unsecured furniture flying about on the P&O cruise ship, Pacific Sun, is all over the internet. A Carnival spokesperson (Carnival owns P&O) is quoted as saying, “The incident was fully investigated and lessons learnt have been heeded, including the securing of tables and other furnishings aboard.” As Captain D. Peter Boucher commented on our previous post, “the lessons were learned hundreds of years ago by seafarers,” as indeed they were. There is, however, more to this story than initially meets the eye.
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Cruise ship operators would prefer that their passengers exist in a hermetically sealed bubble, where they can enjoy the sea without ever having to be exposed to it; where their passengers can look up occasionally from drinking, dining and spending money in the onboard shops or at the casino to be reminded that the sea is still out there.
The sea doesn’t always cooperate. Last March, we posted about a large wave that smashed into a cruise ship in the Mediterranean killing two passengers. Less tragically, the cruise ship Pacific Sun got caught in bad weather off the coast of New Zealand in 2008. No deaths were reported but 42 of the 2403 passengers and crew onboard were injured. Recently closed circuit videos of the scene onboard made their way to the net and have been widely distributed. If you haven’t stumbled across it yet, it is both fascinating and terrifying.
ALARMING footage has emerged showing passengers and furniture being thrown
A twelve year old male orca whale, named Sumar by SeaWorld, died suddenly at their San Diego facility on Tuesday. Sadly its death was not untypical. Male orcas in the wild have an average life expectancy of 30 years. Many live into their 50s and 60s. Female orcas have an average life expectancy of 50 years though some have been known to live into their 90s. Despite a steady food supply and medical care, most orcas in captivity die very young. Two thirds of all captive orca whales die withing 10 years, so Sumar lived longer than average. Only about 15% of orcas survive 20 years in captivity.
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Lieutenant-Commander Tony Bentley-Buckle, who died at the end of May at the age of 88, had a valiant and varied career in the Royal Navy during World War II. After the war, he established two shipping lines and an airline in Africa and competed in the Olympics for Kenya. Despite this impressive career, he may be best remembered for his time spent in a German POW camp as one of the creators of “Albert RN,” a life sized dummy, used to facilitate prisoner escapes.
Lieutenant-Commander Tony Bentley-Buckle
Bentley-Buckle was the camp’s watch repairer and lock picker, and he made the mechanism which enabled Albert’s eyes to blink and move, giving added realism to the dummy. In 1953 a highly fictionalised version of the episode was made into a film, Albert RN, but Bentley-Buckle’s true wartime adventures, behind enemy lines in Italy and Yugoslavia, were even stranger than fiction. Read the rest of the obituary.
A clip from the movie, Albert RN (distributed in the United States as Break to Freedom)
Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing the obituary along.
Photo: Will Van Dorp
It was a beautiful and busy weekend in New York harbor. On Sunday, I missed the 18th Annual Running of the Great North River Tugboat Race & Competition but Will over at the Tugster blog has some great photos. For the real tug fans, the big, annual Waterford Tugboat Roundup starts this Thursday, September 9th and carries on through Sunday, the 12th. Waterford is about 160 miles north of New York City at the junction of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers.
And by the way, anyone struck with “tug life envy” should definitely read Bowsprite’s recent post, “how to simulate the tugboat feeling.”
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Two projects are underway in Maine and Oregon to produce energy from ocean waves. Ocean Renewable Power Company, in Maine, is using horizontal turbines to capture the energy of ebbing and flooding tides. Initial tests have met or exceeded their targets and the company hopes to install a commercial version of the the test turbines now in place and be hooked in to the Bangor Hydro Electric Company grid as soon as 2011.
Maine offshore energy project exceeds expectations
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The Ocean Technology Foundation has been searching for John Paul Jones’ famous flagship, the Bonhomme Richard for the last five years. They now believe that they are closing in on the wreck. On this year’s expedition both the US and French Navies are joining in to help. The US Navy’s oceanographic survey ship USNS HENSON (T-AGS 63) with oceanographers from the Naval Oceanographic Office and state-of-the-art underwater survey technology will join the hunt as will a French Navy mine hunting ship.
In July, we posted about a Baltic shipwreck on which divers found 30 bottles of champagne thought to pre-date the French Revolution. (see Baltic Bubbly – ‘World’s oldest champagne’) On subsequent dives, smaller bottles have been recovered which apparently contain beer. Let’s hope they keep exploring. Who knows what they may find next.
Hurricane Earl, or rather tropical storm Earl, spun its way past New York, far enough out to sea so we had neither wind nor rain to mark his passing. Having missed this hurricane, here is an interesting article on Weather.com that lists the top five most vulnerable and overdue cities for a very significant hurricane impact. They are:
Top 5 Hurricane Vulnerable & Overdue Cities
Living here on the banks of the Hudson River, the number 2 on the list did catch my eye.
After Earl, some R.I. weekend events adjust schedules
To give participants in the Museum of Yachting’s 31st annual Classic Yacht Regatta in Newport time to get their boats back in the water in the wake of the storm, races scheduled for Saturday afternoon have been canceled. Continue reading
Hurricane Earl appears not to be likely to make landfall on the US East Coast but the expected winds and seas have rearranged some schedules. The Camden Windjammer Festival originally scheduled to start today has been postponed to 4PM on Saturday. The Gloucester Schooner Festival has cancelled several outdoor activities but otherwise is on course, for now.
Badge of the British Merchant Navy
Happy Merchant Navy Day! In Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand today, September 3rd, is celebrated as Merchant Navy Day – an official day of remembrance of the sacrifices made by merchant mariners in war-time. In World War I and World War II, over 45, 000 British merchant mariners lost their lives. The observance began in Great Britain in 2000, in Canada in 2001, and in Australia in 2008. This years is New Zealand’s first official observance of Merchant Navy Day. In the United Sates, May 22nd has been celebrated as National Maritime Day since 1933.
Assuming that Hurricane Earl doesn’t interfere, the 3rd annual Fish & Ships Labor Day Weekend Seafood Festival will be held at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut this Saturday through Monday.