Featured Books
True Colours by Alaric Bond
Schooner: Building a Wooden Boat on Martha's Vineyard by Dunlop & Shaw
Live Yankees: The Sewalls and Their Ships by W. H. Bunting
His Majesty's Ship by Alaric Bond
Galveston's the Elissa: The Tall Ship of Texas by Kurt Voss
My River Chronicles - Rediscovering the America on the Hudson by Jessica DuLong
The Frigate Surprise: The Complete Story of the Ship Made Famous in the Novels of Patrick O'Brian by by Geoff Hunt and Brian Lavery
James Nelson's George Washington's Secret Navy
Defying Empire:Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York by Thomas Truxes
Deadly Shoals, a Wiki Coffin Mystery by Joan Druett
Star Crossedby Linda Collison
The Privateer's Revenge: A Kydd Sea Adventure (Kydd Sea Adventures)
Peter Wicked: A Matty Graves Novel (The Matty Graves Novels)
The Jackass Frigate byAlaric Bond
Steady As She Goesby John Molloy
Voyages, the Age of Sail: Documents in American Maritime History, Volume I, 1492-1865
Expedition Whydah: The Story of the World's First Excavation of a Pirate Treasure Ship and the Man Who Found Her
Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom--and Revenge
The Illustrated Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
Sailing on the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater
Hudson River Sloop Clearwater from Rick Spilman on Vimeo. The Clearwater is a Hudson River sloop modeled after the distinctive trading sloops that sailed up and down the Hudson in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Clearwater was conceived by the folk singer, Pete Seeger, as a way to bring people down to the then very [...]
An Old Salt’s Best Wishes for Halloween, a few days early
I will admit to having been seriously distracted by the current election in these United States. In addition to all the other things I have neglected, I have done effectively nothing to prepare for Halloween beyond buying enough candy to induce diabetes and/or add to the childhood obesity problem. And how do elections and Halloween have anything [...]
Talking Like a Somali and Update on the MV Faina
An update on the MV Faina – still being held hostage by Somali pirates. Somali pirates hold whip hand in standoff And a comment by my 12 year old son, Ted. He suggested that he would like to learn some Somali so that next year when “Talk Like a Pirate Day” rolls around, he will [...]
Can I Get an Arrgh?
More Disnified pirates, as reported by the New York Times. It seems the pirate reenactors who pay attention to the history can get annoyed by the new armada of faux Captain Jack Sparrows. Can I Get an Arrgh? ““Why do some of them feel like they can wear blank spandex pants and a puffy shirt [...]
Moving the Morgan
From TheDay.com. A crowd lined the waterfront of the Mystic Seaport H.B. DuPont Preservation Shipyard as the whale ship Charles W. Morgan arrived from her permanent berth at Chub’s Wharf to the shipyard Monday. Oct. 20, 2008, in preparation for the next stage in the restoration of the 1841 vessel. The Morgan, the oldest wooden [...]
The Business of Raising Sails on a Maine Windjammer
There are two Maine “Windjammers” currently for sale. This may not be terribly useful information for those of us feeling more than usually penurious in the current economic downturn. Nevertheless there are moments when the idea of chucking it all and making a living on a sailboat or saling ship does have a certain appeal. The two boats [...]
Of Blogs and Logs
As this is a nautical blog, I do feel compelled to at least tip our hat to Andrew Sullivan’s recent article ”Why I Blog“, in this month’s Atlantic Monthly . (I do recommend Sullivan’s political blog for the Atlantic - The Daily Dish.) I feel the need to recognize Sullivan because he labors manfully to use a nautical metaphor, [...]
The Holy Ground – Songs, Sailors, and Women of Easy Virtue
I am every fond of the Irish sea song “Holy Ground”. The song is about a sailor bound for sea, leaving his lady love and hoping to return. “And still I live in hope to see the Holy Ground once more..” It is also known as the “Cobh shanty”, and indeed the “Holy Ground” is a [...]
George Washington’s Secret Navy – a new book by James Nelson
James Nelson’s new history, George Washington’s Secret Navy , looks at a fascinating period in American history when George Washington, largely without authority to do so, commissioned his own privateers to sail against the British. We will be posting a review soon. In the meantime from Amazon: Mr. Nelson has taken an episode that occupies no [...]
Divers close in on lost fortune of Ann Cargill, a scandalous star
An intriguing news story. (Thanks to LizMc on the Horatians forum.) According to the BBC, Ann Carghill was “was the Britney Spears of her day.” I think they slight poor Ms Cargill. A Scandalous Star “When the packet ship, The Nancy, was wrecked off the Isles of Scilly in 1784 one of the victims included Ann [...]
Putting the Oy Back into ‘Ahoy’ – Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean
A friend pointed this book out to me. It looks intriguing and is coming out in mid-November. Jean Lafite was Jewish? Who knew? (Thanks Henya!) From a review in the Jewish Press: Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom–and [...]
Sailor Talk – “Kissing the Gunner’s Daughter” and “Sucking the Monkey”
One of my particular frustrations with the “Talk-Like a Pirate Day” folks is that even if one ignores the very nasty nature of pirates, historical and modern alike, a second and perhaps even great problem remains. The Talk-Like-a-Piraters do such a lousy job of talking like pirates. A few “Aarghs”, “avast-ye maties”s and “shiver-me-timbers” isn’t very [...]
Review – Joan Druett’s Shark Island, a Wiki Coffin Mystery
I recently read Joan Druett‘s Shark Island, the second in her Wiki Coffin series of mysteries. A brief review: What makes a mystery work for me is the detective – the knowledgeable outsider, living between two worlds, who can see things that others might miss. Whether it is Holmes, the consummate middle-class Englishman who is [...]
Old Salt in The Huffington Post
I was recently published in The Huffington Post. An excerpt: “The Golden Age of Piracy” or Long John Silver in a Tank This morning I was struck by the odd juxtaposition of an announcement for a festival and a news item. Not long after reading about the upcoming Saint Augustine Pirate Gathering, (November 14th [...]
