We recently posted about the five-masted full-rigged cruise ship Royal Clipper, a modern sailing ship designed as an homage to the great five-masted windjammer Preussen. Here is a repost of a guest post by Robin Denny about the mighty windjammer: With the Peking now … Continue reading
My wife and I are currently sailing as passengers on the cruise ship Royal Clipper, the second of only two five-masted full-rigged steel ships ever built. The first such ship was the mighty windjammer, Preussen, of 1902. The Royal Clipper, launched … Continue reading
Here is an animation from a Mariner’s Mirror podcast about perhaps the greatest windjammer of the early twentieth century, the Preussen. One of the Flying P-Liners, built for the F. Laeisz shipping company in 1902, she was the only five-masted … Continue reading
The South Street Seaport Museum is offering FREE tickets to tour the 1885-built windjammer Wavertree on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through October 2021, with timed entry, from 11am-5pm at Pier 16 on Manhattan’s East River, (Fulton and South Streets). From … Continue reading
In all her former glory, the restored Flying P Liner Peking has returned to her home port of Hamburg. Four years ago, we posted about the Peking‘s departure from New York’s South Street Seaport. During the summer of 2017, she … Continue reading
For decades, schooners referred to as “windjammers” have sailed up and down the Maine coast carrying vacationers from May to October. This year, however, the pandemic has delayed the season and there are concerns that it may not start at … Continue reading
If you are around New York harbor on Sunday, there is a wonderful opportunity to hear and join in singing sea chanteys as they were meant to be sung, onboard a windjammer. The chantey sing will aboard the restored 1885 … Continue reading
According to a saying often attributed to Mark Twain, “History may not repeat itself. But it often rhymes.” This came to mind recently when posting about the sad state of the windjammer Falls of Clyde, which recently nearly sank at the … Continue reading
A relaxing video for a Saturday afternoon. I’ve long been a fan of Fred LeBlanc’s photography, particularly his photos of schooners. Here is a video of LeBlanc’s photos of scenes from Maine Windjammers fleet. LeBlanc hosts photo sailing adventure aboard … Continue reading
Given that so much of what is happening in the world today seems like a shipwreck, it seems appropriate to post a very well done short documentary of the wreck of the great four-masted steel barque the Herzogin Cecilie, which … Continue reading
This morning, the 1911 built, steel, four masted barque, Peking, left South Street Seaport, its home for more than 40 years, for the last time. For those of us who have known the ship for almost as long, it was … Continue reading
A beautiful video of sailing aboard the Windjammer Angelique. The 95′ ketch-rigged Angelique was built specifically for the windjamming trade in 1980 and sails from Camden, Maine. Sailing Windjammer Angelique … Continue reading
Good, if rather bittersweet, news for those of us around New York harbor. The windjammer Peking, a fixture of New York’s South Street Seaport for over 40 years, will be returning to its original home port in Hamburg, Germany for … Continue reading
In the summer of 1995, a group of lovers of the music of the sea got together on the deck of the windjammer Peking at the South Street Seaport Museum on the East River in New York to sing sea shanties. … Continue reading
On Wednesday I raised the question – is history just a sea story? I found in researching my novel, Hell Around the Horn, that two memoirs written about the voyage of the British windjammer, British Isles, on which the novel … Continue reading
On Friday, we posted that the windjammer Peking is in need a new home. The 101 year old four masted steel ship has spent the last 37 years as a museum ship at New York’s South Street Seaport Museum. The … Continue reading
Update: The Seaport Museum “temporarily” laid-off another twelve staff members on Monday afternoon. More bad news from the South Street Seaport. Last week the Seaport Museum laid off the captain of the schooner Pioneer, as well a marine educator … Continue reading
In 1958, the New York Times published a review of Louis de Rochemont’s new movie “Windjammer.” It began: “Every last moviegoer with a drop of salt water in his blood will want to swing aboard “Windjammer,” which opened at the … Continue reading
We recently have had several posts regarding rogue waves – a review of Susan Casey’s new book The Wave and the BBC Documentary Freak Waves. Oceanographers generally dismissed reports of rogue waves as wild exaggerations or “sea stories,” until a rogue wave was documented … Continue reading