“HMS” Bounty, the replica of the ship of the mutiny fame, built for the Marlon Brando movie of 1965, is on her way home from her European Summer cruise. Doug Faunt, with whom I briefly sailed on the Rose, has been … Continue reading
Category Archives: Lore of the Sea
I love the headline in the article in Sail-World – Britain set to introduce sailing ships to counter emissions. The first paragraph reads: It’s official. The days of sail may be just about to recommence. The UK’s Committee on Climate Change has come out with … Continue reading
Happy Veterans Day. Sadly the “war to end all wars” that ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 did not not live up to its billing. Nevertheless, we celebrate the sacrifices made … Continue reading
A fitting tribute to the 29 men who went down with the Great Lakes ore boat, the SS Edmund Fitgerald, which sank 36 years ago today in Lake Superior. I am having a hard time believing that she sank that many years ago. The … Continue reading
The image on the right is a new poster for the London 2012 Olympics featuring a section of the River Thames. The image on the left is a photo of the roughly the same section of the river. Notice a difference? (Click … Continue reading
A fascinating story from Wales. Sometime between 1743 and 1745, a smuggler from Llanfairynghornwy on the isle of Anglesey, rescued two boys, in stormy seas in the middle of the night – the only survivors of an apparent shipwreck. Both boys had … Continue reading
The American movie, Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise, won 8 Academy Awards and earned over $300 million at the box office. The movie was inaccurate in several ways, not the least of which was the addition of a sexy female … Continue reading
The two events are unrelated, but they are both highly welcome. The South Street Seaport Museum is on its way toward reopening, while a new museum celebrating over 200 years of shipbuilding and maritime history at the Brooklyn Navy Yard is openings its doors on … Continue reading
Here is a wonderful video shot on Halloween a quarter-mile offshore from Seabright Beach in Santa Cruz, CA. A bikini clad surfer paddles over to a group of kayakers who are out watching the large number of humpbacks who are … Continue reading
Last month we posted about Kick’em Jenny, an active underwater volcano off Grenada in the Caribbean, which was last active in 2001. Now the eruption of an active underwater volcano off El Hierro Island, in the Canary Islands off the … Continue reading
The six boats competing in the Volvo Ocean Race departed from Alicante, Spain yesterday and were immediately battered by rough seas and high winds while still in the Mediterranean. The Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing‘s Azzam lost her mast only six hours and 85 nautical … Continue reading
I can’t decide whether I love or hate John Masefield‘s poem Sea Fever. I lean strongly towards love, though the poem has been repeated so many times and in so many places, that it is hard not to groan every time it … Continue reading
The New York Times recently featured an article, Catching a Wave, and Measuring It, about a project to send a “fleet of robots that move out in the ocean to measure everything from weather to oil slicks, sharply reducing many … Continue reading
Two workers in Vietnam and one in Brazil have died recently in explosions of refrigerated containers. Faulty coolant is believed to have caused the explosions. The containers were among an estimated 8,000 reefer boxes serviced in 2011 in Vietnam. The explosions have caused worldwide concern and … Continue reading
In late September, the Alexander von Humboldt II was christened in Bremerhaven. She is the first German tall ship newbuilding since 1958. She recently made her first shakedown day cruise. Thanks to Phil Leon for passing along the story. Alexander … Continue reading
The Porthkerry Leisure Park, a caravan park in the Vale of Glamorgan in Wales, (what would be called a trailer park in the United States), must have had lovely ocean views even before 40 feet of cliff fell into the ocean near the mouth … Continue reading
In honor of Halloween, it seems appropriate to post about the Point Lookout Lighthouse of St. Mary’s County, Md., at the junction of the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay, which is said to be the most haunted lighthouse in … Continue reading
The first American Naval ship lost in World War II was not sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Over a month before, on October 31, 1941, the destroyer USS Reuben James, escorting a convoy bound for Britain, was sunk … Continue reading
On Saturday morning, the 39′ sailboat, Sanctuary, in heavy weather 256 miles northeast of Bermuda, was hit by several breaking waves, lost power and began slowly taking on water. The crew of five, four men and one woman, called for help. The US Coast Guard … Continue reading
So what do you do if you find a dead gray whale on your beach? It is too large to bury, too heavy to drag away and too stinky to cut into pieces. I am not sure that I have … Continue reading