Recently retired Rear Adm. Mark C. Montgomery, ex-U.S. Pacific Command Director of Operations, had been nominated by the current administration to be an assistant administrator with the U.S. Agency for International Development. His confirmation appeared to be assured after Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings last September. Then in mid-November, the White House notified the Senate that it had withdrawn Montgomery’s nomination. No explanation was given publicly. What happened? The answer is “Fat Leonard.”
On Sunday, two Ukrainian naval gunboats and a tug departed from the Black Sea port of Odessa, bound to Mariupol in the Sea of Azov. As they approached the Kerch Strait, connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, they were intercepted by Russian border patrol vessels. One Russian vessel apparently rammed the tug and others later opened fire on the two gunboats. The Russians subsequently seized the three Ukranian vessels. Twenty-four Ukrainians were taken prisoner. Six Ukrainian sailors were reported to be injured. The Russians also blocked the Kerch Strait by anchoring a tanker across the channel. On Monday, the Russians reopened the strait.
This is a bizarre story which we have been following for, literally, years. It looked for an instant like it might be resolved and then things fells apart once again. Tommy Thompson — engineer, treasure hunter, alleged swindler, and the current occupant of a federal prison — had made a deal to turn over 500 missing gold coins from the wreck of the SS Central America, which sank in 1857 off the South Carolina coast. Thompson has been in held in prison on charges of contempt, pending the return of the missing coins, since he was apprehended as a fugitive in 2015.
Last week, the deal fell through when Thompson said he did not know how to obtain the coins. He alleges that his then-girlfriend gave the coins to a stranger in the lobby of a self-storage business in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2010. Thompson testified that he couldn’t recall the details of the exchange, other than making plans on the phone. He said that the stranger presumably deposited the coins in Belize, where Thompson had set up a trust. He said that the trust, which he believes is holding the coins, has not responded to his communications.
The U.S. Navy’s new supercarrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford has had more than its share of problems. The ship has a reported 23 new or modified technologies, a number of which have been problematic, to be kind. They are still working the bugs out of the electromagnetic catapults. The ammunition elevators are not working properly. The propulsion plant has issues. And the list goes on.
One of the complaints has been about the urinals. It is not that they do not work. Rather, there aren’t any. The Navy says that this was intentional. As they say in the software business, this is a feature, not a bug. The accommodation blocks have been redesigned to more easily suit both male and female crews. Rather than designate male and female accommodation spaces, with and without urinals, the Navy decided to provide only water closets, making the toilets gender-neutral.
Andrew Fitzgerald, the last of the four-man crew of the Coast Guard Motor Lifeboat CG-36500, which rescued the crew of the SS Pendleton, has died at the age of 87.
On February 18, 1952, the 36′ motor lifeboat set out from Station Chatham, Massachusetts, to attempt to rescue the crew of the T2 tanker SS Pendleton, which had broken in half in a winter Nor’easter off the New England coast. In the volunteer crew, Andrew Fitzgerald served as the engineman, while Coxswain Bernie Webber was in command, with Richard Livesey, and Ervin Maske serving as seamen.
The lifeboat designed to have a capacity for 12 including the crew, nevertheless, they succeed in rescuing 32 of the 33 survivors in the stern of the T2 tanker a the height of a North Atlantic winter storm. Despite high winds and monstrous seas, the overloaded motor lifeboat made it back to Chatham. Webber, Fitzgerald, Livesey, and Maske were all awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal for their heroic actions. The rescue of the survivors is often said to be the greatest small-boat rescue in the history of the Coast Guard.
Happy Thanksgiving! Today has been celebrated as a day of Thanksgiving in the United States on the third Thursday of November since 1863. The holiday is notionally based on a harvest feast in 1621 between Native Americans and Puritans who had arrived on the ship Mayflower. In honor of the day, here is a short video of the replica Mayflower II arriving in New York in 1957. The Mayflower II is currently undergoing a multi-year restoration in the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard at the Mystic Seaport Museum.
Photo: Oscar Garcia-Pineda
Fourteen years ago, Hurricane Ivan destroyed an oil-production platform owned by Taylor Energy in the Gulf of Mexico. The wells associated with the platform have been leaking ever since and may soon become the largest recorded offshore spill. Federal officials estimate that the spill, if not addressed, could continue through the end of this century. Now, the Washington Post is reporting that the US Coast Guard has ordered Taylor Energy Company to contain and clean up the spill, or face fines of $40,000 per day.
Up to 700 barrels of oil per day have leaked from Taylor Energy’s former site 12 miles off the coast of Louisiana since the platform was destroyed during Hurricane Ivan in 2004, according to an analysis issued by the Justice Department. Based on reports from contractors hired by Taylor Energy, the government had previously estimated that the spill amounted to zero to 55 barrels per day. The spill, so far, is estimated to range between 1.5 million barrels and up to 3.5 million barrels. That would rival the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, the largest offshore spill in the nation’s history, which spilled 4 million barrels of oil into gulf waters.
Of the more than 2,700 Liberty ships built during World War II, only two are still operational in the United States. One, the John W. Brown, now docked in Baltimore, may become homeless when its five-year agreement for free berthing at Rukert Terminals’ Pier C in Canton, Maryland expires at the end of next September.
The Baltimore Sun quotes, Richard Bauman, 65, a retired ship pilot for the state of Maryland who serves as captain and master of the John W. Brown, saying “We’ve spent a good bit of time looking for a new, permanent home, but we haven’t really had a whole lot of luck. They’re not going to throw us out, but they run a business, and they would like to have us find a place where we can stay permanently.”
As we posted yesterday, over last weekend, the Maritime Museum of San Diego celebrated the 155th birthday of the Star of India by taking her for a sail. Here is nicely done, roughly ten-minute, video by Barrett Canfield of Sunday’s sail on the grand old ship. The museum’s other ships Californian, San Salvador, and America can be seen sailing along with with the Star of India.
Photo: Ted Walton/Maritime Museum of San Diego
This weekend, the Maritime Museum of San Diego is celebrating the 155th birthday of the Star of India by taking her for a sail. The museums other ships Californian, San Salvador, and America are sailing along with with the Star of India.
It has been five years since the grand old iron ship, built in 1863 as the Euterpe, was last fully underway under sail. The Star of India is the oldest ship still sailing regularly and also the oldest iron-hulled merchant ship still floating. The ship circumnavigated the globe 21 times.
One year after the submarine ARA San Juan disappeared on a routine mission, with 44 aboard, the wreckage of the missing submarine has been located in 2,600 feet of water in the Atlantic. The submarine was located by Ocean Infinity, a US company.
Contact was lost with the submarine on November 15, 2017. The submarine had reported an electrical short following a leak in the vessel’s snorkel. Eight days later, the the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organisation said that it had detected a possible explosion a few hours after the sub’s last contact.
Thanks to David Rye for contributing to this post.
We recently posted about Ross Edgley, who became the first person to swim around Great Britain. He is not, however, the only long-distance swimmer to have been on an epic voyage. Last June, we posted about Ben Lecomte who began an attempt to swim across the Pacific Ocean. The expedition was initially delayed by typhoons and had to turn back in July, taking a 20-day break before restarting. Swimming from Japan toward the United States, Lecomte has swum more than 1,200 nautical miles so far, and is roughly a third of the way across the mighty ocean.
Now, more than 150 days into the expedition, Lecomte has been swimming up to eight hours a day, weather permitting. After each day’s swim, Lecomte eats and sleeps aboard the support boat, a 20-meter sailboat, called Seeker. Lecomte is supported by a crew of eight and is performing a “staged swim” (resuming the swim in the exact location in which he left the water) using a GPS tracking device, enabling him to accurately track the number of miles he completes thus enabling him to reach a new world record in open water swimming.
For several years, autumn and winter winds have carried a ghost fleet of derelict boats to the coast of northern Japan. Many of the boats were empty, although some carried corpses. This year has set a new record — 89 derelict vessels so far this year, as compared to 59 in 2017. In the previous five years, an average of 44 boats drifted ashore each year. This year 12 corpses have been found on five of the derelicts. In 2015, 25 bodies were found on the drifting boats.
The boats appear to originate from the Korean peninsula, carried across the Sea of Japan on seasonal winds. Some of the boats are thought to have contained refugees seeking to escape from oppression in North Korea. In 2017, eleven North Korean survivors were found on drifting boats, along with fifteen dead.
It is also considered likely that some of the vessels are fishing boats. North Korean fishermen are under intense state pressure to fulfill fishing quotas for the Kim Jong Un regime and are reported to soften sail without adequate fuel or supplies.
Last November, we posted about a concept design for an America’s Cup racer, a 75′ foiling monohull, without a keel. The concept AC75 was presented as a 3D animation. About a year later, the New York Yacht Club’s half sized 38′ prototype, American Magic, AKA the Mule, has flown across Narragansett Bay. A short video:
Overnight, the Norwegian frigate Helge Ingstad slipped beneath the waters of Hjeltefjord near Bergen, Norway. Last Thursday, the frigate was intentionally grounded to prevent it from sinking after it collided with the tanker Sola TS. Despite efforts to stabilize the ship with steel cables bolted to rocks on shore, photos issued by the Norwegian Defense show the sunken warship with just her radar mast rising from the water. The frigate was returning from a NATO exercise when she collided with the tanker near a major oil terminal and still has all weapons on board.
KNM Helge Ingstad is one of five 5,290 tonne Fridtjof Nansen-class frigates built in Spain for the Royal Norwegian Navy. Built in Spain, the Helge Ingstad was commissioned in 2009.
Photo: Flickr/Christopher Michel
This is an odd story, set in the icy Siberian waters near Murmansk, Russia. Apparently, Russia’s largest floating drydock sank from underneath Russia’s only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, doing some damage to the carrier above the waterline as the dock sank. The carrier was undocking when a reported power failure caused the dock to flood and ultimately sink. Reportedly, one person died and four were injured.
The Sinking Floating Dry Dock
Here is where it gets odd. One account in the Drive blog suggests that Russia’s dry dock accident could have far larger repercussions than a damaged carrier. The drydock, designated PD-50, is the largest Russian floating dock and according to Drive the only Russian dry dock that we know of that could handle the country’s lone aircraft carrier.
On July 19th, 2018, a duck boat capsized and sank in high winds during a storm on Table Rock Lake, near Branson, MO. Seventeen passengers and crew lost their lives. Now, a federal grand jury has charged the captain of the duck boat, Kenneth Scott McKee, with 17 counts of seaman’s manslaughter in the deaths.
The Seaman’s Manslaughter Statute makes it a crime if anyone dies on a ship or boat in US jurisdiction due to the misconduct or negligence of the officers, crew, or anyone else involved with the vessel. Conviction under the statute includes a fine and/or imprisonment of up to 10 years.
How is it possible that the Norwegian frigate Helge Ingstad collided with the Aframax tanker Sola TS in a fjord near a major oil terminal? The frigate is much smaller, significantly faster and far more maneuverable than the 113,00 DWT tanker laden with a full cargo of crude oil. Why did the naval officers on the frigate fail to avoid a collision?
It is too early to say. “This was a very serious accident and [the authorities] need the time to investigate,” said John Erik Hagen, regional director of the Norwegian Coastal Administration’s western region.
The Norwegian navy frigate, KNM Helge Ingstad, was returning from NATO exercises when it was in a collision with a Maltese flag, Aframax tanker, Sola TS, in the Hjeltefjord near Bergen, Norway. The tanker was not seriously damaged while the frigate suffered major flooding and was intentionally grounded to avoid the possibility of sinking. Eight people on the KNM Helge Instad suffered minor injuries, although only two were taken to a hospital. All 137 crew of the frigate were evacuated. There were no reports of injuries among the 23 of the tanker’s crew.
The BBC reports that the collision took place at 4AM local time on Thursday, as the frigate was sailing the inner fjords for training, according to Norwegian officials. The tanker had departed Equinor’s Sture oil terminal with a cargo of North Sea crude.
French sailor Armel Le Cléac’h capsized in the Atlantic, 340 miles northeast of the Azores, while sailing the maxi-tri Banque Populaire IX in the Route du Rhum — Destination Guadeloupe single-handed race. The boat appears to have capsized after the structural failure of its port float. Le Cléac’h is reported to be safe.
This is the second capsize of the 32-meter maxi trimaran within the last year. Banque Populaire IX capsized off Morocco last April. Le Cléac’h, along with crew member, Pierre Emmanuel Hérissé, and a cameraman were rescued uninjured.
Banque Populaire IX is a foiling Ultime class trimaran 32-meters long (105ft), with a 23-meter beam (75ft), and a 38-meter mast (125ft).