Old Salt Blog

A sunken British frigate rumored to be carrying gold to  pay the troops? Sounds a lot like the HMS Hussar which sunk in New York in 1780.  This more recent discovery is the British storeship  Prince, which sank in the Black Sea in a heavy storm in 1854 during the Crimean War.   Like the Hussar, the rumors of gold are likely no more than rumors.  The HMS Prince has been often confused with the steamer Black Prince. The steamer did carry gold, while there is no record that the Prince ever did.

Storm-sunken “treasure ship” found in Ukraine
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I will admit to being easily amused, but I found this to be very funny.  For those with more money than sense, here is a “couture superyacht” designed by a fashion designer.   I would worry that it might be more fashionable than seaworthy but it does look rather conventional overall.  (As a naval architect, I  promise that I will never, ever design clothes.)

Couture superyacht brings high fashion to the high seas
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Last December we posted about Katie Spotz’s attempt to row across the Atlantic alone.  Yesterday she arrived in Georgetown, Guyana, in South America, after 70 days 5 hours 22 minutes in the Atlantic. Spotz, 22, is now the youngest person to cross an ocean in a rowboat, and the first American to row solo from mainland to mainland.

Woman Is the Youngest to Cross an Ocean Alone

Some call today Pi day, as the first three digits of the date (3.14) are the first three digits of the constant pi used to calculate the circumference and area of a circle.   Which makes it a good day to raise a toast to Hakudo Maru.

By Japanese naming convention, merchant and private ship names end in the word “Maru,” meaning circle.    There are several explanations for this convention, including that ships were thought of as floating castles and maru represents the defensive “circles” that protected the castle.  Another explanation is that the suffix honors, Hakudo Maru, the celestial being in Japanese mythology who is said to have come to Earth 5000 years ago and taught humans how to build ships.  A toast to Hokudo Maru.

My favorite explanation is that maru represents the hope that the ship leaves port, travels the world, and returns safely to home port, representing the complete circle of a successful voyage.