In the Absence, Academy Award Nominated Short Documentary on the MV Sewol Sinking

Posted on by January 31, 2020

On the morning of April 16, 2014, the ro-ro/passenger ferry MV Sewol, traveling from Incheon to Jeju in South Korea, capsized and sank. Of the 476 passengers and crew, 304 died, including 250 students on a class trip. Questions as to why the overloaded and unstable ferry was allowed to sail, combined with the inept rescue and recovery efforts, directly contributed to the impeachment of South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

Now a gripping documentary, In the Absence, directed by Yi Seung-Jun and Gary Byung-Seok Kam, looks at the events of the sinking and its aftermath. The documentary has been nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary (Short Subject).  The 28-minute documentary allows the tragic story to unfold using radio transmissions between the ship and the Korean Coast Guard, along with video and commentary by survivors, their families, civilian rescue divers, and poignantly, even the victims, captured from video on cell phones recovered from the sunken ferry.    

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6,000 Held Aboard Costa Cruise Ship Over Coronavirus Concerns

Posted on by January 31, 2020

UPDATE: The illness which sickened a passenger was determined not to be the coronavirus and the 6,000 passengers and crew were allowed to disembark from the Costa Smeralda. Two cases of the coronavirus, not related to the cruise ship, were diagnosed in Rome, however.

USA Today is reporting that an estimated 6,000 passengers and crew are being held onboard the Costa Smeralda cruise ship while medical teams run diagnostic tests for the Wuhan coronavirus on a 54-year-old of Chinese nationality and a traveling companion who have been quarantined. 

The traveling companions reportedly boarded the ship on Jan. 25 in Savona, Italy, and one of them developed fevers and difficulty breathing, according to a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly. Continue reading →

Albatrosses Tracking Illegal Fishing

Posted on by January 29, 2020

Four years ago, we posted about an attempt to use “big data” to crack down on illegal fishing. Google partnered with SkyTruth and Oceana to produce a new tool, Global Fishing Watch, to track global fishing activity. The problem is that to avoid detection, boats fishing illegally often turn off their AIS (Automatic Identification System) to avoid detection. The Google project uses satellite data to provide detailed vessel tracking and aims to harness the power of citizen engagement to tackle overfishing.

A recent study led by Henri Weimerskirch, a marine ornithologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research, takes a more hands-on, or perhaps, wings-on approach. Weimerskirch and his colleagues have outfitted nearly 200 albatrosses with tiny 65-gram GPS trackers that detect marine radar signals. While illegal fishing boats may choose to turn off their AIS transponders, it seems likely that they will keep their radars on for navigation.

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William P. Frye, First US Ship Sunk in WWI, 105 Years Ago Today

Posted on by January 28, 2020

On January 28, 1915, the US flag four-masted bark William P. Frye was sunk off the coast of Brazil by the Imperial German Navy raider SMS Prinz Eitel Friedrich. As a US-owned vessel, William P. Frye was a neutral ship. The US would not enter the war until over two years later, in April 1917.

Nevertheless, because the bark had sailed with a cargo of wheat from Seattle, Washington bound for Falmouth, England, Max Thierichens, the commander of the German cruiser declared the cargo to be contraband, as it could be used to feed English troops. He demanded that the cargo be dumped overboard. The crew started discharging the approximately 5,000 tones of grain. When they had not completed the job by the next day, the German commander ordered all crew and passengers off the ship, had scuttling charges set, and sank the square-rigger. William P. Frye was the first American vessel sunk during World War I.

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Captain Zeb Tilton and the Schooner Alice S. Wentworth

Posted on by January 28, 2020

More than thirty years ago, I sat on the rotting planks of the old Pier 17 in the East River in Manhattan and listened to Bernie Clay and the X-Seaman’s Institute sing a song about the schooner Alice S. Wentworth. The song became known as the “Alice Wentworth.” I only recently learned the song was originally titled “Old Zeb“, and was written by Larry Kaplan.

The song is about Zebulon Northrup Tilton, the famous skipper of the coasting schooner Alice S. Wentworth. Captain Tilton was one of the last coastal schoonermen. Before the interstate highways shifted the cargo to trucks, Zeb Tilton carried everything from lumber, to bricks, to coal, to oysters and anything else that needed to be moved from Maine to New Jersey on the Alice S. Wentworth.

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Grays Harbor Lady Washington & Hawaiian Chieftain: Columbia River Battle Sail

Posted on by January 26, 2020

The tall ships from Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Authority, Lady Washington and the Hawaiian Chieftain, engage in a mock battle sail. A wonderful video by GHHSAmedia from about a decade ago.

Lady Washington/Hawaiian Chieftain: Columbia River Battle Sail

Pinnace Virginia, Maine’s First Ship, Scheduled to Launch in June

Posted on by January 25, 2020

Around 1607, colonists in the Popham Colony built the pinnace Virginia, the first English-built ship in what is now Maine and possibly in all of the English-colonized areas of North America. Now over 400 years later, a recreation of the Virginia is nearing completion in Bath, Maine.  

Recreation of first ship built in Maine a dream more than 2 decades in the making

Scandies Rose and the Arctic Rose — Different Boats, Similar Tragedies

Posted on by January 24, 2020

On New Year’s Eve, in 20-foot seas and high winds, the 130′ crab boat Scandies Rose operating off the Alaska Peninsula, developed a starboard list and suddenly capsized. Two of the seven crew were able to don exposure suits and were ultimately rescued. The remaining five crew are missing and presumed dead. 

I was struck by the similarities between the loss of the Scandies Rose and the Arctic Rose, nineteen years ago. The two boats were very different. Scandies Rose was a crabber in the Gulf of Alaska, whereas the Arctic Rose was a trawler fishing for sole in the Bering Sea.

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“Ghost Fleets” — US & China Prepare Drones For Sea

Posted on by January 23, 2020

JARI, Chinese Drone

Both the US Navy and the Chinese Navy are working to develop “ghost fleets” of drone ships. The US Navy has been working on developing unmanned vessels since at least 2016. Four years ago, we posted about Sea Hunter, the first ASW Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV), a 132 feet long autonomous drone ship designed to track enemy submarines.

Since then they have experimented with turning two existing commercial fast supply vessels into unmanned surface vessels (USVs). Having successfully completed Phase I testing, the Navy’s Program Executive Office Unmanned and Small Combatants (PEO USC) has started the second phase of an unmanned vessel program that it calls “Ghost Fleet Overlord.”  

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Spanish Billionaire Sentenced For Smuggling Picasso on His Superyacht

Posted on by January 22, 2020

Adix

I suppose if you plan on smuggling a painting by Picasso worth close to $29 million, using a superyacht might be a stylish choice. For Spanish billionaire Jaime Botin, however, it didn’t work out too well. Forbes reports:

Despite a 2015 high court ruling that Head of a Young Woman was a “national treasure” and could not be removed from the country, Botin kept the painting on-board Adix, his 213-foot sailing yacht, as he sailed from Spain to the French Mediterranean island of Corsica. Botin then hired a private jet to take the painting from Corsica to Switzerland where he had intended to sell it.

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Poseidon Principles — Big Banks Push For Greener Shipping

Posted on by January 21, 2020

The International Maritime Organization (IMO), the UN agency responsible for regulating shipping, has set the ambitious goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions from ships by 50% from 2008 levels by 2050. Around the world, engineers, ship owners and managers, universities, and governments have been working to develop the new technologies to make meeting this target possible.

As of last summer, support for cutting shipboard emissions has come from a very different source — big banks and financial institutions. A group of leading banks, key industry representatives, and experts have developed the Poseidon Principles, an attempt to tie the banks’ shipping portfolios to the IMO emissions targets. The Poseidon Principles are the first global climate alignment agreement between financial institutions and the shipping industry. So far, the signatories to the principles represent a combined bank loan portfolio of approximately $100 billion – roughly 22% of the total value of all shipping asset portfolios.

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On MLK Day, Navy Officially Names Newest Carrier USS Doris Miller

Posted on by January 21, 2020

Today, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the US Navy officially named the newest of the future Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, not after a president, a senator, an admiral or a historic battlefield. Instead, they named the carrier after Doris “Dorie” Miller, an African-American Navy Messman, who during the attack on Pearl Harbor, helped save the lives of his shipmates and valiantly fought attacking Japanese forces. For his bravery, Miller was awarded the Navy Cross — the first African-American to receive this honor. Almost two years after his valor at Pearl Harbor, Miller was killed when his ship, an escort carrier, was sunk in battle.

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School Ship TS Kennedy Departs for a Term at Sea

Posted on by January 19, 2020

Here is wonderful drone footage by Ryan Smith of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy‘s school ship TS Kennedy as it departs for its Sea Term 2020. The ship sails down Buzzard’s Bay bound for Panama where it will transit the Canal. The ship will cross the Equator and make port calls in Balboa, Panama; Golfito, Costa Rica; Willemstad, Curacao; and Tampa, Florida. 

The Kennedy was built as a C-4 class breakbulk freighter, the Velma Lykes, at Avondale Industries, New Orleans, LA, for Lykes Brothers Steamship Company in 1966. She has served as Mass. Maritime’s school ship since 2003. Kennedy was deployed to New York Harbor in support of Hurricane Sandy relief efforts in 2012 and Hurricane Maria at Puerto Rico in 2017.

Sea Term 2020 – TS Kennedy Departs!

For more great drone footage by Ryan Smith, click here or here. Also, check out his Youtube and Facebook pages. 

Scottish MacLean Brothers Set Three Records Rowing the Atlantic in Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge

Posted on by January 18, 2020

Congratulations to Ewan, Jamie, and Lachlan MacLean, three brothers from Edinburgh, Scotland who rowed across the Atlantic in just 35 days. They departed from La Gomera, in the Canary Islands on 12 December and completed the 3,000-mile row to Antigua as part of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. 

In the race, the MacLean brothers set three world records. They broke the previous record time of 41 days for a trio to row across the Atlantic. They also are the first trio of brothers on record to row across any ocean and also the youngest team of three to complete the crossing. Jamie is 26, Ewan is 27, and Lachlan is 21 years old.

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Will the Titanic II Ever Sail?

Posted on by January 17, 2020

Will the Titanic II ever be built? And if so, when will it sail?

Back in 2012, billionaire Australian businessman Clive Palmer announced the construction of a modern “replica”  of the doomed passenger liner RMS Titanic which sank after striking an iceberg in 1912. Palmer’s Titanic II was to be built in a Chinese shipyard and go into service in 2016. Since then the project has moved in fits and starts. The project finances fell apart for several years. The ship delivery dates moved first to 2018 and now to 2022. There has been an abundance of announcements, CGI drawings, and videos, while apparently no steel has actually been cut.

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Fishing Boat and Tanker Collide in Galveston Fog — 1 Dead, 2 Missing

Posted on by January 16, 2020

On Tuesday around 3:35 PM the Coast Guard in Galveston, TX was notified that a fishing boat, the 82′ long Pappy’s Pride, had collided with the 600-foot chemical tanker Bow Fortune. The fishing boat had capsized and four crew were in the water. One crew member was subsequently rescued, one died and two remain missing.  The tanker was reported to be under pilotage at the time of the collision. Heavy fog was also reported to have limited visibility and to have hampered the search for the missing crew.

How the fishing vessel came to collide with the tanker is unclear. Photographs of Pappy’s Pride show radar and multiple radio antennas. Presumably, both vessels also had AIS.      

One Hundred & One Years Ago Today — The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919

Posted on by January 15, 2020

We are having a relatively warm January with significantly fluctuating temperatures. Similar weather conditions 101 years ago, coupled with a shoddily built storage tank, caused the Great Boston Molasses Flood, which inundated Boston’s North End sending a wall of molasses, killing 21 and injuring 150. A repost about the tragedy.

The Purity Distilling Company built a large molasses storage tank on Commercial Street in Boston’s North End to store molasses until it could be distilled into alcohol. In early January 1919, just a few days before the disaster, a ship had discharged a full load of molasses into the tank. When the cargo was discharged, the weather was cold, only around 4 degrees F. Then on January 15th, the temperature rose suddenly to an unseasonably warm 40 degrees.

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Disasters at Sea — Season 2, Now On Smithsonian Channel

Posted on by January 14, 2020

There are so few well-done documentary series involving ships and the sea that it seems worth pointing out that the excellent Disasters at Sea has been picked up for a second season. The series is produced by Exploration Production Inc. in association with Smithsonian Networks and Discovery Channel (Canada). Season Two was broadcast in Canada last summer and fall and is now being broadcast on the Smithsonian channel in the US. Episodes are also available on Amazon Prime, YouTube, and other streaming services.

This season’s episodes:

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Animal Magnetism — Dogs, Deer, Whales & Cow Compasses

Posted on by January 13, 2020

Six years ago, we posted about research that documented that when dogs defecate, they usually align their bodies along the magnetic north-south axis, not unlike the needle of a magnetic compass. It turns out that dogs are not unique in being able to sense the earth’s magnetic field and act like bio-compasses. Many animals, including humans, appear to be magnetoreceptive.

Scientists have documented that cows and deer graze and rest aligning themselves with magnetic north, all other factors being equal. (Wind and sun also affect the directions faced by cows, in particular.)

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The Mysteries of the Octopus

Posted on by January 12, 2020

This morning’s CBS Sunday Morning news program had an intriguing featuring the octopus, in particular, and cephalopods, in general. Both unworldly and highly intelligent they are as close to alien life forms as one can find on the planet. CBS’s Chip Reid visits scientists at New England Aquarium in Boston, and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., and talks with Sy Montgomery, author of “The Soul of an Octopus,” about these curious creatures. Well worth watching.

The mysteries of the octopus