I’ve always been a fan of Baltic traders. They were serious working craft. They aren’t necessarily graceful but do possess a certain robust beauty. The schooner W N Ragland, a Baltic trader built in 1913, converted to a yacht, is for sale. For 35 years the schooner was owned by Neil Young, the singer best known as a member of the group Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. She was sold a few years ago and is back on the market again for $695,000. Last year, fellow CSN&Y singer, David Crosby, put his Alden schooner Mayan on the market as well. Hard not to be reminded of the lyric from the Crosby Stills and Nash song, “Wooden Ships.”
Wooden ships on the water, very free and easy…
Wooden ships on the water, regrettably, are never free or even easy. But, damn, they sure are lovely.
The 
There is an interesting conflict going on over the
Recently almost one hundred endangered right whales were observed feeding in the waters of Block Island Sound. Given that only between 350 and 400 of the North Atlantic Right Whales are believed to currently exist, the gathering was quite unusual.
This week
It is feeling like spring in New York harbor. Earlier this month a harbor seal was seem enjoying the sun on an old pier on the Jersey City side of the Hudson. Harbor seal were once common in New York harbor but were hunted and finally driven out. In 2006, after an absence of over 100 years, the first seals began returning to the outer harbor. This year a young seal appears quite comfortable in the inner harbor directly across from lower Manhattan.
Sarah Breton, 45, from Essex, has been appointed as Captain of the 1,200 P&O cruise ship Artemis. As such she is the first female captain in P&O’s 173 year history and the first female captain of a cruise ship in Britain.
Experts estimate that anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 shipping containers fall off ships each year. The problem is that they do not all necessarily sink. Some remain afloat, just on the surface, almost invisible to an observer from a ship. Now a draft report of the official inquiry into the sinking of the sail training vessel Asgard II suggests that the a collision with a shipping container may account for the hull damage observed on the wreck.
