The world’s oldest surviving clipper ship, City of Adelaide, has arrived in Port Hedland, Western Australia. She has been carried from Scotlandon the deck of the heavy-lift ship MV Palanpur, with intermediate stops to load and discharge other cargo. MV Palanpur is … Continue reading
Category Archives: Current
The two posts today present a jarring juxtaposition. On the West Coast of the United States, dolphins steal the show at a surfing competition while in Japan fishermen are beginning the yearly slaughter of dolphins at Taiji Cove. The beauty … Continue reading
Despite domestic and international protest, the annual mass slaughter of bottlenose dolphins is underway in a cove near the Japanese village of Taiji. In 2010, The Cove, a documentary about the yearly slaughter, won the Academy Award last night for best feature … Continue reading
Terrible news from St. Lucia. Roger Pratt, 62, was killed while defending his wife from intruders on their Premier 41 sailboat, Magnetic Attraction, near the town of Vieux Fort on the island nation of St. Lucia in the eastern Caribbean. … Continue reading
Life on a tugboat can be tough. Tugs are small vessels with very big engines, with just enough buoyancy to stay afloat and upright. They generate great forces and move around vessels much, much larger than themselves in often challenging … Continue reading
Piracy off the coast of Somalia last year dropped to the lowest level since 2004. In 2012, Somali pirates hijacked 14 ships, whereas in 2013, they successfully hijacked two, both of which were released in a day’s time as a … Continue reading
In early December, we posted about Stanley Paris’ attempt at a solo circumnavigation in his 63′ Kiwi Spirit after suffering a variety failures to rigging and sails, Paris has decided to give up the attempt and sail for Cape Town. Today, he … Continue reading
Last Wednesday, I watched Chasing Shackleton, a documentary about the the Shackleton Epic Expedition led by Tim Jarvis which recreated Shackleton’s epic 800 mile lifeboat voyage in 1916 across the Southern Ocean from Elephant Island to South Georgia to seek help for his stranded crew. (See … Continue reading
There are great things going on in Rhode Island. When completed this year, the SSV Oliver Hazard Perry will be the first ocean-going full-rigged ship to be built in the U.S. in 100 years and the largest civilian sail training vessel … Continue reading
For several years now, there has been a webcam of the 90,000 gallon treatment tank where the 120 ton wrought iron turret of the USS Monitor is being preserved by electrolysis and desalination. After spending 111 years underwater, the turret will need … Continue reading
I will admit to having mixed feelings about assigning names to winter storms. Hurricanes are momentous enough to be worthy of names, but most winter storms, nasty and dangerous though they may indeed be, don’t seem worth naming. I will … Continue reading
OK, this is odd. A few days after New Years, a fisherman spotted a small dog treading water several miles from shore in Tampa Bay, on the west coast of Florida. The dog, which was wearing a red collar and a pink … Continue reading
We have recently posted about Slocum gliders, autonomous underwater vehicles, capable of extended voyages and used by oceanographers to map ocean conditions. Saildrone, a company in California, has recently launched a 19′ long by 7′ wide autonomous trimaran sailing drone capable … Continue reading
The USCGC Polar Star is on its way to attempt to break free two ice-bound ship off Antarctica. So far, three icebreakers have attempted to free the the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, which has been stuck in Antarctic ice south of Tasmania … Continue reading
The New York Times has a wonderful account of the rescue of John Aldridge, a commercial fisherman who fell off a lobsterboat in the middle of the night last July, over forty miles off Montauk, Long Island, NY. Aldridge spent … Continue reading
Every year I go to the New York Boat Show. In recent years, it has been a sad pilgrimage. Where once a wide range of boat types were represented, for the past decade or so most of the boats on … Continue reading
The Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis, currently carrying passengers rescued from a stricken Antarctic expedition cruise ship, has been told to stand by to assist the Chinese icebreaker, Snow Dragon, as necessary. The icebreaker Xue Long, or Snow Dragon, notified rescue authorities … Continue reading
I am surprised that the Vikings didn’t discover this first. The Vikings did, after all, develop a sun compass for use on sunny days and used sunstones to find the direction of the sun when it was overcast. One might … Continue reading
Disturbing video of the Giant Yellow Duck exploding shortly before a New Year’s Day celebration in the northern Taiwan port city of Keeling. it is unclear what caused the duck to explode though some are speculating that it was attacked … Continue reading
Happy New Year! The New Year 2014 begins with both a new moon and a supermoon. The month also ends with a both a new moon and and a supermoon on the 30th. A supermoon is the term applied when … Continue reading