Recently the BBC published an article, Nigeria’s coast ‘threatened by shipwrecks’, focused on the 100 rusty shipwrecks which line Nigeria’s 853km (530-mile) coast. The ships are causing coastal erosion and pollution. Nigeria is not the only country on the West coast of Africa with “graveyard of … Continue reading
Category Archives: Lore of the Sea
Last Friday, 39 schooners set off from Baltimore, Maryland sailing 127 miles down the Chesapeake to Portsmouth, Virginia in the 22nd Annual Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race. This year the first schooner to cross Thimble Shoal with an elapsed time … Continue reading
The current recommended response on a merchant ship on being boarded by pirates is to radio a distress call, disable the ship’s engines and to retreat into a “citadel,” a safe locked-down space aboard the ship and await either rescue or until … Continue reading
Those of us of a certain age, who were active in merchant shipping, remember the tanker industry in the 1980s. And none too fondly. After a period of rising charter rates and robust new construction, the market effectively collapsed … Continue reading
In August, we posted about an experimental unmanned “roboship” being developed as a coastal patrol craft. Recently there have been proposals to use USVs (unmanned surface vehicles) to fight pirates. USVs also known as autonomous surface vehicles (ASV), are any surface … Continue reading
The future of the oldest, just barely surviving, composite clipper ship in the world, the City of Adelaide, is again in question. Shortly before it was due to be scrapped in Scotland last August, an agreement was reached to send … Continue reading
The Liberian flagged container ship, MV Rena, which ran aground on the Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga, New Zealand last week is continuing to suffer structural cracking and is continuing to spill bunker oil and losing containers overboard. Several beaches on the … Continue reading
Jeffrey Allison is a fascinating gentlemen. Now 73, from Middleton Tyas in the UK, he only started sailing when he retired from a career in engineering. Since then, he has sailed across the Atlantic six times, as well transiting the Panama Canal, … Continue reading
We are rapidly approaching the bi-centennial of the War of 1812, a largely forgotten conflict which was, in many respects, a continuation of the American War of Independence from Great Britain. The war was characterized by American incompetence and bumbling … Continue reading
Lantern sharks, a type of small dogfish sharks, are well known for their bioluminescence, indeed that is how they were given their name. Researchers have recently discovered that the rare splendid lantern shark can adjust its coloration and lighting so as to … Continue reading
Bad weather is adding to an already bad situation as salvage and clean up crews struggle to staunch the flow of oil from the container ship, MV Rena, which has been grounded on Astrolabe Reef in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty near Tauranga for … Continue reading
The Italian owned bulk carrier, MV Montecristo, was hijacked by pirates off Somalia on Monday. The ship’s crew retreated to a protective citadel “safe room” ahead of the pirates. Today RFA Fort Victoria and USS De Wert, acting as part of … Continue reading
Last Friday we posted about the USS Arthur W Radford as an artificial reef. Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing on this video of the wreck of HMS Hermes, which is a popular dive site off near Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. … Continue reading
Happy Columbus Day to those in the United States and Happy Thanksgiving to those in Canada. On Columbus Day, it seems appropriate to consider the role of error in discovery. While many of us were taught in school that Columbus proved that … Continue reading
A quick quiz. Is Kick ’em Jenny a rockbilly singer, a Dutch Celtic Symfo-Folk band or an active submarine volcano on the floor of the Caribbean Sea? The answer appears to be yes to all three. Kick ’em Jenny is a … Continue reading
Just last August, the USS Arthur W. Radford, a Fletcher-class destroyer which served in the Gulf War, was sunk as an artificial reef in the Atlantic Ocean off Cape May, NJ. The 563-foot destroyer was the longest vessel ever sunk … Continue reading
This Saturday the Fourth Annual Wooden Boat Festival will be held at the Independence Seaport Museum on the Delaware River in Philadelphia. The festival will kick off with a Parade of Sail featuring the tall ships Gazela and AJ Meerwald as … Continue reading
Some new competitive sports are better than others. I am not sure how I feel about dock dogs competitions. Still it has to be an improvement over diving horses which were wildly popular in the US in the 1880s. Remarkably there is … Continue reading
Depending on what one reads, the oil spill associated with the grounding of the MV Rena on Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga, New Zealand is either a “small leak” or a “looming environmental disaster.” Conceivably, depending on the integrity of the ship’s hull, both … Continue reading
Nothing really surprising about this story but I do find it amusing. In August, it was reported that Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Russia and novice scuba diver, just happened to “discover” two jars dating back to the sixth century BCE … Continue reading