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
Lieutenant-Commander Tony Bentley-Buckle and Albert RN
Lieutenant-Commander Tony Bentley-Buckle, who died at the end of May at the age of 88, had a valiant and varied career in the Royal Navy during World War II. After the war, he established two shipping lines and an airline in Africa and competed in the Olympics for Kenya. Despite this impressive career, he may be best remembered for his time spent [...]
The Search for the Bonhomme Richard
The Ocean Technology Foundation has been searching for John Paul Jones’ famous flagship, the Bonhomme Richard for the last five years. They now believe that they are closing in on the wreck. On this year’s expedition both the US and French Navies are joining in to help. The US Navy’s oceanographic survey ship USNS HENSON (T-AGS 63) with [...]
Baltic Shipwreck with “World’s Oldest Champagne” and now the “World’s Oldest Beer”
In July, we posted about a Baltic shipwreck on which divers found 30 bottles of champagne thought to pre-date the French Revolution. (see Baltic Bubbly – ‘World’s oldest champagne’) On subsequent dives, smaller bottles have been recovered which apparently contain beer. Let’s hope they keep exploring. Who knows what they may find next. Åland salvage the world’s [...]
Happy Merchant Navy Day!
Happy Merchant Navy Day! In Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand today, September 3rd, is celebrated as Merchant Navy Day – an official day of remembrance of the sacrifices made by merchant mariners in war-time. In World War I and World War II, over 45, 000 British merchant mariners lost their lives. The observance began in Great Britain in 2000, in Canada [...]
Moby Dick with Dragons? This Can’t Be Good
This can’t be good unless it is so bad that it is good. A new movie is coming out whose high concept pitch had to be, “It is Moby Dick but with dragons, instead of whales.” The trailer is below and the plot summary from IMDB is after the jump. Notice that whaleship Rachel in [...]
Mir-2 mini-sub Finds Czar’s Gold Treasure on Baikal Lake bed ?
Intriguing, if it turns out to be true. Czar’s gold treasure found on Baikal Lake bed The legendary gold treasure of Russia’s last Czar could have been found by Mir-2 mini submarine on the bed of the world’s deepest fresh water lake Baikal in Siberia, according to reports.
Diaries tell forgotten story of Nelson’s nurse
An intriguing article from the Independent. Elizabeth Wynne was Lord Nelson’s nurse following the loss of his arm. She left 40 volumes of diaries and was a witness to several key events of the 18th century. She married one of Nelson’s “band of brothers”, Admiral Thomas Fremantle. Nevertheless her diaries and the story of her [...]
On this Day in History: John Glover’s Web-footed Marbleheaders Saved the Revolution
On August 29th, 1776, George Washington faced certain defeat. Howe had been able to flank the Americans in Brooklyn, turning the Battle of Long Island into a rout. Washington was left with the remnants of his army on Brooklyn Heights, with the East River at his back and otherwise surrounded by the victorious British army. Only a north-easterly wind kept the British fleet [...]
HMS Cassandra, HMS Myrtle and HMS Gentian, Sunk in the Russia Revolution, Located
Ninety years on, locations of Royal Navy warships sunk in Russian Revolution are found The wrecks of three British warships sunk more than 90 years ago – seeking to prevent the Bolshevik Revolution from spreading West – have been located in the Baltic Sea by the Estonian Navy. HMS Cassandra, HMS Myrtle and HMS Gentian [...]
Online Tour of NS Savanah – World’s first nuclear powered merchant ship
In 1819, the SS Savannah was first steamship in the world to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Despite this accomplishment, the Savannah was a commercial failure and was converted back to sail shortly after returning from Europe. It is somehow fitting that one hundred and forty years later in 1959, the first nuclear powered cargo ship would be named after the [...]
Lost at Sea – The Ocean in the English Imagination, 1550-1750
The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC has been hosting an intriguing exhibit: Lost at Sea – The Ocean in the English Imagination, 1550-1750. Unfortunately the exhibit itself is almost over, running only through September 4th. Nevertheless, for those of us who cannot make it to Washington, the exhibit website itself is fascinating. The NY Times recently published a review [...]
E Ship 1 – Has the Flettner Rotor Ship Finally Arrived?
The E Ship 1 arrived in Dublin last week with a cargo of wind turbines manufactured by Enercon. What was striking was the ship itself, with four tall pillars rising vertically from the ship, two forward and two aft. The pillars are Flettner rotors, first developed in the 1920s by German engineer Anton Flettner. They [...]
The Schooner Atlantic Reborn
In 1905, the three masted schooner yacht Atlantic sailed 3006 miles in twelve days, four hours, one minute and nine seconds; winning the Kaiser’s Cup from New York to the Lizard and setting the record for the fastest transatlantic passage by a monohull, during a race. The record stood for over a century and the [...]
Removal of the Murmansk Shipwreck on Webcam and Documentary
After a service life of almost 40 years, the Soviet light cruiser Murmansk was decommissioned and sold for scrap. On Christmas Eve in 1994, the ship was under tow to India when the tug lost control of the ship in a storm. The Murmansk ran aground outside the harbor breakwater just off Sørvær in northern Norway. In 2009 [...]
The Sinking of the Kursk – Ten Years Later
The Russian Oscar-II class nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine Kursk sank ten years ago yesterday with a loss of all aboard. One hundred and sixteen crew members and two weapons experts died in what is believed to have been the explosion of a faulty torpedo. At 154m long and four stories high, the Kursk was the largest attack submarine ever built. 10 [...]
