Master Hawaiian Navigator Chad Kalepa Baybayan Dies at 65

Posted on by May 18, 2021

Chad Kālepa Baybayan, a revered Hawaiian navigator and captain of the Polynesian voyaging canoe Hōkūleʻa, died on April 8 while visiting family in Seattle. He was 64. His daughter Kala Tanaka said the cause was a heart attack.

Chad Kalepa Baybayan, part of the Hawaiian renaissance of Polynesian voyaging, was one of only five Hawaiians along with 11 Micronesians initiated in 2007 into Pwo, a 2,000-year-old society of deep-sea navigators, by Master Navigator Mau Piailug of Satawal.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Baybayan sailed on Hokule’a for more than 40 years. He also served as captain and navigator on the voyaging canoes Hawaiiloa and Hokualakai. He sailed on major voyages in the South Pacific, the West Coast of North America, Micronesia, and Japan.

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Historic Tall Ship Zebu Aground, Flooded, on Holyhead Breakwater

Posted on by May 17, 2021

This has been a terrible few days for the historic tall ship Zebu.  On Thursday, the 100′ long brigantine, built in Sweden in 1938, encountered unspecified difficulties and had to be towed out of shipping lanes off Wales by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). The ship was towed to an anchorage at Holyhead.

On Saturday, the ship broke from its moorings and drifted onto the Holyhead New Harbour breakwater, where she became hard aground. A rescue mission was launched by HM Coastguards’ Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre – but was ultimately unsuccessful. The ship heeled over as the tide fell, rolling more than 45 degrees and subsequently flooding.

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Dutch Shipyard to Build Canopée, French “Rocket Ship” with Wing Sails

Posted on by May 16, 2021

The Dutch shipyard Neptune Marine has begun construction of the sailing cargo vessel Canopée, which will transport Ariane 6 rockets from Europe to the launch site in Kourou in French Guyana. The ship will feature 1,500 square meter sails to lower fuel consumption and emissions.

The cutting of steel was started just before last Christmas and the first bottom sections are under construction. The outfitting completion will be executed at Neptune Hardinxveld. Delivery of the vessel is scheduled end of 2022 after a series of trials and tests.

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New Study Reveals Multi-Ethnic Crew on the Mary Rose

Posted on by May 15, 2021

The Mary Rose, often described as King Henry VIII’s favorite warship, sank on July 19, 1545 during the Battle of the Solent with the loss of most of its crew of 415. When the ship was raised in 1982, the remains of at least 179 crew members were discovered, together with thousands of objects ranging from weaponry to tools and games. Many of the crew’s skeletal remains were found to be well preserved, allowing scientists to investigate the backgrounds of the crew.

A recent study by researchers from Cardiff University, the Mary Rose Trust, and the British Geological Survey, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, used a technique called multi-isotope analysis on teeth to investigate where eight crew members spent their early years. The results suggest significant ethnic diversity in the Tudor Navy.

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New Global Craze — Shipwreck Wine Without the Shipwreck

Posted on by May 14, 2021

Retrieved submerged bottles of Ocean Fathoms wine.
Image: Lara Castaognia

A new craze is spreading across the world of wine. Call it “shipwreck wine” without the shipwreck. Off the shores of California, Croatia, Spain, Britain, France, Argentina, Italy, and China; vintners are aging wines underwater in specially constructed ocean wine cellars. They report that the ocean-aged wines mature faster and, depending on the wine, were brighter and fruitier. The near-constant cool temperature underwater coupled with the total lack of oxygen is credited with the improved quality of the wine when it emerges from the briny deep.

The underwater wine cellars around the globe were inspired by the discovery of a shipwreck in the Baltic in 2010. In the wreck’s hold, divers found 30 bottles of champagne thought to pre-date the French Revolution on the Baltic seabed.  Remarkably, the champagne was still highly drinkable. When the Baltic bubbly sold at auction, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, believed to date from between 1782 and 1788, went for 30,000 euros or roughly $43,500. 

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Remembering Susan Ahn Cuddy, First Female Asian American Officer, Gunnery Officer in US Navy

Posted on by May 13, 2021

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, so it seems appropriate to remember the life and accomplishments of Susan Ahn Cuddy, a Korean American who would serve as the first female Asian-American officer in the US Navy and would also become the first female Navy gunnery instructor.

After leaving the Navy at the end of World War II, Cuddy also worked as an intelligence analyst and section chief at the National Security Agency and ran a think tank during the Cold War. She worked on top-secret projects for the Defense Department and supervised more than 300 scholars and experts in Russian affairs.

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Captain Henry Every – The Pirate Who Got Away

Posted on by April 18, 2025

During the “Golden Age of Piracy,” the most successful pirates amassed huge fortunes over short periods of time and then died bloody deaths in combat, on the gallows, or in shipwrecks.  The one notable exception was Captain Henry Every. During just two years prowling the seas, Every and his band captured roughly a dozen vessels and made off with tens of millions of dollars in booty.

His exploits inspired songs, books and plays, including one called “The Successful Pyrate” that was performed on London stages for several years. Most astonishing of all—and unlike Blackbeard and many others—he did it all without getting captured or killed.

For a time, he was the most wanted criminal in the world for his plundering of a Mughal treasure fleet in 1695, yet he seemed to simply have vanished. Discoveries of Arabian coins found in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and North Carolina suggest that Captain Every and his crew may have found refuge in the British North American colonies.

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Fin Whales Found Dead Beneath HMAS Sydney at US Naval Base

Posted on by May 12, 2021

As if anyone needed a reminder of how vulnerable whales are to ship strikes, when HMAS Sydney pulled into Naval Base San Diego over the weekend, it brought with it a grim cargo. The carcasses of two fin whales were dislodged from beneath the hull of the Royal Australian Navy destroyer. One whale was 20m long while the other was about 8m and are suspected to have been a mother and a calf.

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Cruise Line Threatens to Pull Out of Florida — When Politics and Policy Collide

Posted on by May 11, 2021

Florida politics on Covid-19 vaccinations threatens to disrupt the cruise industry restart in Florida. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently announced guidelines for trial cruises with volunteer passengers to test safety measures, which will be required for each ship before resuming regular passenger voyages in US waters. To bypass the trial cruises, the CDC says at least 98% of crew members and 95% of passengers must have been vaccinated.

Almost simultaneously, the Florida legislature passed a law prohibiting businesses from asking whether employees or customers have been vaccinated against Covid-19. In response, Frank Del Rio, the CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. said that the new law could cause the company to suspend Florida departures and move its ships elsewhere.

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Billionaire Jeff Bezos Spending $500 Million on Three Masted Superyacht

Posted on by May 10, 2021

Yacht Eos, reported to be similar but smaller than Bezos’ new yacht.

Bloomberg is reporting that Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is spending upwards of $500 million to have a 417 feet (127-meter) long three-masted superyacht built at Oceano in the Netherlands.

Few details are available on the newbuilding, but reports are that it will have a second yacht as a tender and that the tender will be large enough to have its own helipad. (It has been suggested that the rigging on the superyacht would interfere with landing a helicopter.)

In terms of size, the new yacht will be roughly twice as long as the clipper ship Cutty Sark, and, in financial terms, will cost twice what Bezos paid when he purchased the Washington Post newspaper in 2013.

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Mysterious Gray Whale Die-Off On West Coast Continues

Posted on by May 8, 2021

In early April, four gray whales were found dead in the San Francisco Bay area in a span of eight days. Last week another three dead gray whales washed ashore in the Bay area. Further north, a dead gray whale was also found on Klipsan Beach, WA, last week.

The deaths are a continuation of elevated gray whale strandings occurring along the west coast of North America from Mexico through Alaska since January 1, 2019. Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have declared the occurrences as an “unusual mortality event,” or UME, defined by the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act as an unexpected and significant die-off of a marine mammal species requiring an immediate response.

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HMS Victory Safely Berthed

Posted on by May 7, 2021

Here is a new video from The National Museum of the Royal Navy describing the 20 year-long project to secure HMS Victory in her dock at Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard.

As we posted back in August 2020, when HMS Victory went into drydock in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard in 1922, she was supported by 22 steel cradles. In the almost 100 years that she has remained on the dock, the historic ship’s 3,500-tonne hull had been to slowly collapse in on itself. To save the ship, the cradles have been replaced by an innovative system of 134 “props” to distribute the load across the hull.

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Migaloo, “Rockstar” White Whale, Sighted Off New South Wales

Posted on by May 5, 2021

There are reports that Migaloo, an all-white humpback whale, has been sighted off the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia, on his annual migration from Antarctica to Queensland. Migaloo is considered by many to be a “rockstar” and is arguably the world’s most famous living whale.

First sighted in 1991, the all-white whale is among some 35,000 humpback whales that migrate north to subtropical waters where they mate and give birth. The timing of the migration depends on water temperatures, sea ice, predators, and the availability of food. 7news.com.au notes that this year, Migaloo is early.

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Update: Marine Corps Suspends General Over Deadly AAV Accident

Posted on by May 4, 2021

Photo: Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Daniel Barker/Navy

The Marine Corps suspended Maj. Gen. Robert F. Castellvi last week as it investigates his role in the sinking of an amphibious assault vehicle (AAV) that killed eight U.S. Marines and one Navy sailor.  

A Marine Corps investigation, released in March, determined that the two-star general “bears some responsibility” for the incident in which a 35-year-old armored amphibious assault vehicle (AAV) sprang numerous leaks and sank off the coast of California last July. The investigation report concluded that the deaths were the result of poor training, a vehicle in “horrible condition,” and lapsed safety procedures in a rush to deploy an operational AAV platoon.

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