The factory fishing ship Athena caught fire early today in the Atlantic, 230 miles south-west of the Isles of Scilly. Eighty one non-essential personnel were evacuated to liferafts and subsequently rescued as the remaining 30 aboard fought the fire, which is now reported … Continue reading
Category Archives: Ships
Robert Bourne, who died on Oct. 13, at the age of 88, was the radioman on the Navy blimp, Airship K-74, on anti-submarine patrol off the southeast coast of Florida on the night of July 18, 1943. The lookout spotted a German submarine … Continue reading
All that remains to mark the site of the final sea battle of the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage, around 241 BC, are the great bronze rams left behind after the rest of the sunken ships have rotten … Continue reading
Over the weekend, Somali pirates seized two ships in two days. On Saturday, pirates seized the MV York, a liquefied petroleum gas tanker, off the coast of Kenya. On Sunday, pirates seized the MV Beluga Fortune about 1,200 miles east of … Continue reading
Last week, the MV Olovaha arrived in Nuku’alofa. The MV Olovaha is a new interisland ferry built for Tonga to replace the Princess Ashika which sank last July with a loss of 74 passengers and crew. The ferry was … Continue reading
The HMS Belfast, a Royal Navy light cruiser, now a museum ship on the Thames, is the last surviving escort ship from the Arctic convoy run to Russia during World War II. Last week, in a ceremony attended by HRH Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh, … Continue reading
It had all the elements of bad farce. The HMS Astute is Britain’s newest, stealthiest and no doubt most expensive submarine. As described by the BBC, “Aside from attack capabilities, it is able to sit in waters off the coast … Continue reading
We previously posted about a model of the Mayflower crafted from timber believed to used on the original ship that carried the Pilgrims to America. Alaric Bond passed along an article about a model of the HMS Victory by sculptor and … Continue reading
Embarrassing and rather bad timing. Billed as the “world’s most advanced nuclear submarine,” the recently christened HMS Astute ran aground this morning off the Isle of Skye. Nuclear submarine runs aground HMS Astute: world’s most advanced nuclear submarine runs aground … Continue reading
The announced British budget cuts will slash spending across the board but will hit the Royal Navy hardest of all of the military services. Anchors away: Britain’s once-proud navy falls prey to budget cuts In all the carnage, the worst damage, at least to … Continue reading
The Costa Classica‘s current cruise has not gone well. First, on a stop at Korea’s southern resort island of Jeju, 44 Chinese tourists abandoned the tour group en masse. South Korean police have located eleven of the group, but 33 remain unaccounted … Continue reading
The Hasholme boat, discovered in 1984 in a former inlet of the Humber estuary near Holme on Spalding Moor, dates from the late Iron Age ( 750-390 BC ). The boat was cut from a single oak tree and was originally roughly … Continue reading
In 1939 then Colonel General George S. Patton had a 63’5″ John Alden designed schooner built for himself and his wife. Another world war was looming on the horizon and Patton said that he planned to sail the schooner, “When the … Continue reading
This morning we posted about the possibility of the immediate lay-up of the UK’s flagship, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal. We now read that one of the two new £3 billion aircraft carriers will never carry aircraft and may sail into lay-up or be put … Continue reading
If the recommendations of a UK defense review are implemented, Britain will have the same capacity to launch aircraft from ships as Nelson did, which is to say, none at all, prior to 2019 when new aircraft carriers come into service. Defence … Continue reading
Two years ago, an article appeared in Scientific American, Slippery Ships That Float on Air, describing the various attempts to reduce frictional resistance on ship’s hulls by injecting air bubbles or introducing pockets of air beneath the hull. At the time, the … Continue reading
The Summerwind, a 1929 Alden schooner, donated to the US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point just last year by Mr. and Mrs. J. Don Williamson, won the Class AA division of the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race on corrected time. The other … Continue reading
In 2007 the schooner Virginia won the great Chesapeake Bay Schooner race, establishing a record time which remains unbeaten. This year, sadly, while the other schooners raced, she remained tied to a dock in Norfolk, Virginia. Cash-strapped Schooner Virginia appears dead in the water … 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
The SA Agulhas is South Africa’s ice-strengthened polar research vessel. The ship recently completed a five day voyage with an all woman crew and on her arrival in Port Elizabeth Harbor was guided into port by a woman harbor pilot. As part of National … Continue reading