To celebrate The Shantyman being chosen as one of the Best Indie Books of 2105 by Kirkus Reviews, we are having an impromptu promotion. Here is how it works — today and tomorrow, The Shantyman will be available in Kindle … Continue reading
Category Archives: Current
Past attempts to claim the Jules Verne Trophy, awarded to the fastest sailboat to circumnavigate the globe, have been solitary affairs — a single sailboat attempting to break the previous record time. That changed on November 22, when two veteran … Continue reading
Back in the early 200s, the US Navy began a program to build a new class of Littoral Combat Ships, LCS, which were intended to be fast, agile and, at least by US Navy standards, relatively inexpensive, which could operate … Continue reading
What should a sailor carry with him or her when clambering around a boat or sailing ship? A rigging knife and marlinspike are common. Some prefer a sheath knife, whereas I am happy with a folding knife and marlinspike that … Continue reading
A new IMOCA (International Monohull Open Class Association) 60 design by Guillaume Verdier and VPLP Design has raised the question whether the design will be a the future of ocean racing or whether it is a foil too far. In addition … Continue reading
The nuclear submarine USS Georgia is now in drydock at the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay. The Georgia was returning after a long international deployment when it ran into buoy No. 23, located at the entrance to the channel leading to the boat’s … Continue reading
In May, we posted that Star Clippers is building the world’s largest square-rigged passenger ship, a near-replica of the five-masted barque France II commissioned in 1911. Last week, the keel of the as of yet unnamed ship was laid in the Brodosplit … Continue reading
The tanker Navigator Europa, moored outside the Targa LPG export terminal, caught fire today, shutting down a section of the Houston Ship Channel. The tanker is reported to be carrying ethylene, a chemical used in making plastic. The cause of the fire … Continue reading
This week, the beach in Melbourne, Florida was suddenly covered with thousands of yellow and red cans and freeze-dried bricks of Cafe Bustelo brand espresso coffee. Yesterday, packages of Ramen noodles started washing ashore at nearby Port St.Lucie. In Fort … Continue reading
I recently came across a sea story, that, like the best sea stories, has been retold enough times so that the details tend to wander from one version to the other. This much appears to be true. Thirty-five years ago, … Continue reading
The USS Zumwalt, DDG 1000, the largest and most expensive destroyer ever built for the US Navy, headed down the Kennebeck River from Bath Iron Works, in Bath, Maine yesterday, on its way to sea trials in the open Atlantic. Depending … Continue reading
Minutes before the beginning of the attack on the warships of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Japanese Imperial Navy planes bombed the nearby U.S. Naval Air Station on the east coast of Oahu, destroying twenty-seven Catalina PBY seaplanes on … Continue reading
Ninety-eight years ago today, on the morning of December 6, 1917, the French freighter SS Mont-Blanc collided with the SS Imo, a Norwegian ship chartered to carry relief supplies to Belgium, in the Narrows, a strait connecting the upper Halifax Harbour … Continue reading
The state oil company SOCAR reports that over 30 are dead or missing after an Azeri drilling rig in the Caspian Sea caught fire yesterday. The fire started after a storm damaged a natural gas pipeline, causing the platform’s partial … Continue reading
Today, Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos announced that it has found the wreck of the galleon San José, what some have called the “holy grail of shipwrecks.” He announced the discovery on Twitter. In June of 1708, during the War of … Continue reading
We recently posted about the possibility of purchasing a custom Viking longship from the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark. If that doesn’t fit your budget, or if you don’t want to have to line up thirty to one hundred able bodied … Continue reading
Looking for the perfect holiday gift? How about an authentic replica Viking longship? A great way to impress the relatives or perhaps get together with 60 close friends to raid a neighboring village. You either can hire a team of researchers … Continue reading
The new $7.5 billion DDG-1000 destroyer, USS Zumwalt, expected to be delivered by Bath Iron Works sometime in 2016, is incredibly high tech and innovative. It features advanced weapons and propulsion systems as well as an inward sloping hull with a ram bow … Continue reading
Overfishing of the world’s oceans is a huge and immediate problem. Back in 2002, the nations participating in the World Summit on Sustainable Development agreed to end overfishing by 2015. Suffice it say, it didn’t happen. Indeed, some scientists are predicting … Continue reading
A group of tall ship enthusiasts are attempting raise money to build and sail an exact replica of the great composite clipper ship, Cutty Sark. The goal is to launch the Cutty Sark II by November 2019, the 150th anniversary of … Continue reading