I’ve always been struck by the tragedy that those most in need of ferry service are often also most at risk. We have seen recent ferry accidents in the Philippines with the sinking of the Superferry 9 resulting in nine deaths, in … Continue reading
Category Archives: Ships
Last week was a bad week for bulk carriers. The MV Black Rose, a bulk carrier with a crew of 27 which had loaded 23,847 tons of iron ore, sank near the port of Paradip on the east coast of … Continue reading
Today there are 1.6 million or so residents on the island of Manhattan. How things have changed. Four hundred years ago on September 12th, 1609, when Henry Hudson first stepped onto the island, there were roughly 600 Lenape Indians living … Continue reading
Eight years ago today, on a beautiful Tuesday morning in September, hundreds of thousands of commuters were trapped in lower Manhattan. Manhattan is an island and all bridges, tunnels and subways had been shut down following the attacks on the World Trade Center. Shortly after … Continue reading
Charles Darwin’s great-great- granddaughter, Sarah Darwin, is sailing on the Stad Amsterdam with a group of historians and naturalists, as well as a film crew for Dutch VPRO Television and Hollywood actor John Malkovich. They will be retracing the voyage of … Continue reading
In the aftermath of the fire in 1934 on the passenger liner Morro Castle, in which 135 passengers and crew died, there was considerable blame to be shared. The ship’s safety equipment was poorly maintained, the crew poorly trained and the … Continue reading
Seventy five years ago today, the passenger liner Morro Castle was steaming off the Jersey shore, bound for New York from Havana, when she caught fire. Of the 549 passengers and crew aboard, 135 died either in the fire or by drowning. An … Continue reading
If Gloucester has a schooner race, then New York really should have a tugboat race. And it does. Here is a short video I shot of the 17th Annual North River Tugboat Challenge last Sunday. … Continue reading
Thanks to Dave Shirlaw on MARHST-L for pointing out a fascinating vessel for sale on E-Bay. The vessel is a steel tug, ST 893, built by JK Welding of Brooklyn, NY in 1945. The tug is said to have served in … Continue reading
An interesting article from JoongAng Ilbo about a large sailing yacht once owned by an unnamed American Mafia boss. The yacht was in Korea for modifications, when the Mafiosa was arrested and sent to prison. The boat was purchased by a Korean who … Continue reading
Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing on this intriguing video of a group of German reenactors on the Willow Wren. The note with the video reads, (imperfectly translated by Google,) “Maritimes reenactment in 1807 of the Danish South Sea aboard the … Continue reading
The age of wooden ships and iron men is long gone. We appear to be square in the era of tall ships and stupid lawyers. From the SeaCoastonline: The American Sail Training Association sent a letter to the Piscataqua Maritime … Continue reading
The Prins Willem, the replica Dutch East Indiaman destroyed by fire a few days ago, was an unusual ship. She was built in 1985 in in Friesland in 1985 as an exhibit at the Nagasaki Holland Village open-air museum in Japan. … Continue reading
A windfall, a sudden and unexpected occurrence of good fortune, literally refers to fruit or timber knocked down by the wind. Here is an intriguing story of a literal windfall from the Maritime Texas blog. … Continue reading
A beautifully shot and edited short video. Jon Kane’s comments: I did this film for my friend Buck McAllister who’s family owns McAllister Towing tug boat company. I shot the film with one camera, in real time, during the towing … Continue reading
A short video of sailing on the schooner A.J. Meerwald in New York harbor. The A. J. Meerwald is a Delaware Bay oyster schooner launched in 1928. Sailing on the Schooner A.J. Meerwald in New York Harbour … Continue reading
I am not even quite sure what a “Ferrython” is, but this seemed like an appropriate image for a Friday afternoon. From the Australian National Maritime Museum’s Flickr photostream as spotted on the Sea Fever blog. … Continue reading
Falls of Clyde is the only surviving iron-hulled four-masted full rigged ship and the only surviving sail-driven oil tanker in the world. She was launched in 1878 in Port Glasgow, Scotland, for the Fall Line . The ship was towed to Hawaii … Continue reading
This afternoon, at the 21st Annual Indie and Small Press Book Fair, I had the pleasure of meeting Thad Koza, a wonderful photographer of tall ships. I bought a copy of his Tall Ships 2009 Calendar and plan on buying his book, Tall … Continue reading
From Dione Chen writing in the Museum of Underwater Archeology site: “The Free China is a historic century-old Chinese sailing vessel on the verge of extinction. An authentic Fujian junk used during the first half of the 20th century to … Continue reading