Lewis Bennett & Isabella Hellman
About a year ago, we posted about the strange disappearance of Isabella Hellman while sailing with her husband, Lewis Bennett, on a catamaran from Cuba to Florida in 2017. Bennet has now been charged with second-degree murder in the death of his wife.
An Indonesian teenager working as a lamp keeper on a floating fish trap anchored off North Sulawesi was rescued off Guam after drifting for 49 days.
Aldi Novel Adilang, 19, had one of the loneliest jobs in the world. He worked on a rompong, floating fish trap anchored 125 kilometers offshore. Above the water, the rompong looked like a shed on a small floating platform. Every night Aldi turned on lamps suspended below the trap to attract fish. His only contact with people was a boat sent out weekly to harvest the fish and to resupply the rompong with food, gas for cooking, clean water and fuel for the generator.
On July 14th, the anchor rode of the rompong chafed through in high winds and Aldi found himself adrift with less than a week’s supplies. He was blown north and east by the high winds. He drifted for 49 days and ultimately was able to attract the attention of the bulk carrier Arpeggio, in waters off Guam, on August 31st.
Commander Abhilash Tomy
Injured sailor Abhilash Tomy has been rescued by a French fisheries patrol vessel. Tomy, a 39-year-old Indian naval commander, was injured when his yacht Thuriya capsized and dismasted in a severe Southern ocean storm on Day 82 of the Golden Globe Race.
Osiris, a French fisheries vessel reached Tomy’s dismissed boat today at 5:30 UTC. The Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Canberra which co-ordinated the rescue reported: “Tomy is conscious, talking and onboard the Orisis. Australian and Indian long-range P8 Orion reconnaissance aircraft are circling overhead. Thuriya’s position is 39 32.79S and 78 3.29E
After the dismasting, Commander Tomy texted, ROLLED. DISMASTED. SEVERE BACK INJURY. CANNOT GET BACK UP. He later messaged: ACTIVATED EPIRB. CAN’T WALK. MIGHT NEED STRETCHER, and later, FEEL NUMB. CAN’T EAT OR DRINK.
The Golden Globe Race had issued a Code Red alert, requesting other boats in the area to assist Commander Tomy. Unfortunately, the closest boat in the race was Irishman’s Gregor McGuckin’s yacht Hanley Energy Endurance, which was also dismasted in the same storm.
Thuriya was dismasted about 1,900 miles southwest of Perth, Australia “at the extreme limit of immediate rescue range” according to the race organization. In addition to dismasting McGuckin’s and Tomy’s boats, the storm which was reported to pack 80 mph winds and 46-foot seas, also damaged Mark Slats‘ boat Ohopen Maverick.
Race organizers report that Gregor McGuckin, whose yacht Hanley Energy Endurance was also dismasted in the same storm last week, is making 2.2 knots towards Thuriya’s position, sailing under jury rig. The 32-year old Irishman is still 25 miles to the West and in radio contact with the reconnaissance aircraft. He is not in distress but has asked for a controlled evacuation from his yacht.
The Australian, Indian and French navies sent planes and vessels to assist. Australian authorities are sending an Anzac-class frigate, but it is expected to take four to five days to reach Tomy.
Commander Tomy’s yacht Thuriya is a replica of the boat which won the original race fifty years ago—Suhaili –under the command of (Sir) Robin Knox-Johnston.
Thanks to Alaric Bond and David Rye for contributing to this post.
The severely overloaded ferry, MV Nyerere, capsized in Lake Victoria in Tanzania on Thursday. The current death toll stands at 209 people. Two days after the capsize, divers rescued an engineer from an apparent air pocket inside the overturned ferry.
The NY Times report that the engineer who was rescued, Alphonce Charahani, was immediately rushed to a medical facility on Ukara island to receive care. Few details on his health have been released, but the authorities described him as being covered in oil when he was found.
The ferry had an official passenger capacity of only 100 people. Some estimates are that it may have been carrying three times that number when it capsized.
Photo: Paul Clayton
A month after the WWI era submarine USS Ling was vandalized and flooded, two suspects have been apprehended related to at least some of the vandalism. The complaints filed against them by the Hackensack Police may, however, raise more questions than answers.
MV Nyerere, a ferry traveling from Bugolora to Ukara island in Lake Victoria, Tanzania capsized on Thursday. While the ferry had a rated capacity of 100 passengers, reports indicate that as many as 400 people may have been aboard when the ferry capsized. Only 80 passengers were rescued. At least 126 have been confirmed dead. Close to 200 may be missing.
Captain Frederick Bouchard
This year the East Coast tug and barge operator, Bouchard Transportation Company, turned 100 years old. The company’s origin, however, dates back to 1916, and to Captain Frederick Bouchard’s heroism during the worst attack on New York harbor prior to 9/11.
At around 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, July 30, 1916, New York harbor exploded. German saboteurs blew up high explosives at the Black Tom terminal in Jersey City. Black Tom was one of the largest munitions terminals in the country, storing and shipping millions of tons of ammunition and high explosives to the French and the British, who were in the second year of what was then called the “Great War” against Germany and its allies.
HMS Endeavour off the coast of New Holland, by Samuel Atkins
We are within days of the 250th anniversary of when Captain James Cook set off on an epic circumnavigation, stopping at numerous islands in the Pacific, as well as Australia and New Zealand on the bark HMS Endeavour. Now, the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP), working with the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM), has come closer than ever to locating the wreck of Cook’s bark Endeavour in the waters off Newport, Rhode Island.
Photo: Erhard Koehler, 2014.
Did you know that in the 1960s the US Army converted a World War II Liberty ship to a floating nuclear power plant? Neither did I. And as it is now heading for the scrap yard, will soon be no more.
In the early 60s, the US Army installed a 10 MW nuclear power plant in the World War II Liberty ship, SS Charles H. Cugle. The Liberty ship, renamed Sturgis, became a nuclear plant on a barge, designed to be towed where needed to provide electrical power. The Sturgis was deployed in Gatun Lake, between the Gatun Locks and the Chagris dam spillway in Panama to provide power to supplement the Gatun Hydroelectric Station, during a serious drought. Tellingly, the Sturgis was also assisted by a 20 MW conventional diesel-electric power plant on a barge, the Andrew J. Weber.
What is it about the pirates of the so-called “Golden Age” that holds our attention over the centuries? The period has been romanticized and fictionalized in books, British musicals, Hollywood movies, and cable TV shows. Where do the legend and lore end and the history begin?
In Eric Jay Dolin’s latest book, Black Flags, Blue Waters – the Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates, he cuts through the historical hyperbole and tells the still fascinating tale of these maritime brigands operating from the late 1600s through the early 1700s. In his account, he also shifts the focus away from strictly the Caribbean to the British North American colonies, which helps to put much of what can often seem to be merely fanciful tales into a historical context.
The “Golden Age of Piracy” was not a single period in history but rather three short and distinct outbreaks of oceanic banditry. Dolin explains the social and economic basis for each, from the buccaneers of Tortuga and Jamaica of the 17th century, to the so-called “Pirate Round” of the 1690s, to the decades following the War of the Spanish Succession in the early 18th century, from whence sprang most of the well known pirates we remember today.
About five years ago, a 19-year-old Dutch engineering student, Boyan Slat, made a big splash, at least on the internet, when he unveiled his design of refuse collecting booms, which he claimed would clean the oceans of plastics within five years. He described an anchored network of floating booms and platforms which would skim plastics and other refuse being carried along any of the five ocean gyres.
Now, Slat and his non-profit Ocean Cleanup are deploying a 600-meter-long prototype boom system to test the concept. The NY Times reports that the boom will be towed to a site where it will undergo two weeks of testing. If everything goes as planned, the boom will then be brought to the garbage patch, nearly 1,400 miles offshore, where it is expected to arrive by mid-October.
In 2010, a North Carolina state commission report predicted that sea levels on the state’s coast could rise as much as 39 inches by the year 2100, flooding billions of dollars’ worth of real estate and crippling much of the state’s economy. Instead of taking action to mitigate the damage, the state legislature passed laws in 2012 saying that the new predictions could not be used for public planning. Only historical data could be used, seriously underestimating the effects of climate change. The politicians effectively chose to support development rather than science. In the meantime, the population on the North Carolina coast is growing rapidly, increasing by half in the last two decades.
Two monster storms are bearing down on vulnerable coastlines on opposite sides of the globe. In the Atlantic, Hurricane Florence, now a Category 2 storm, is sending lashing winds, powerful rains and the threat of major flooding as it approaches the coast of the Carolinas. In the Pacific, Super Typhoon Mangkhut is still gathering strength as it nears the northern Philippines. With winds of 180 mph, Mangkhut is equivalent to a Category 5 Hurricane. It is expected to make landfall on Luzon island Saturday.
Two Northern Irish fishermen were fishing for pollan, a whitefish native to Ireland, in Lough Neagh. Instead, fishermen Raymond McElroy and Charlie Coyle netted the antlers and skull of a Great Elk, a species which disappeared from Ireland 10,500 to 11,000 years ago. The nearly intact skull, with its antlers still attached, measures 6 feet across. Four years ago, a lower jaw bone of a Great Elk was pulled from Lough Neagh in almost the same spot, which may suggest that it belonged to the same deer as this skull and antlers.
This weekend I enjoyed watching the Great North River Tug Race. Now, a few days later, we have arrived again at the anniversary of the attacks of 9/11. As horrible as that Tuesday morning in September indeed was and as raw as the memories still are, I prefer to focus on the near miracle of that afternoon, when the mariners of New York harbor on tugs, ferries and a range of other craft evacuated an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people trapped in Lower Manhattan by water. It has been called the largest rescue by sea in history and is often compared to Dunkirk. The scope of the rescue is still too often overlooked or forgotten and as a result, it is easy to overlook the importance of tugs and ferries to the resilience of the harbor.
More than 4,000 people have climbed Mount Everest. More than 600 people have been in outer space. Yet fewer than 100 people have sailed solo non-stop around the world.
What does it take to race around the globe alone? Skill, obviously. Physical strength, absolutely. Mental stamina, however, may be the most difficult part of the voyage. In the video below Alex Thomson describes the techniques he uses to stay focused in racing around the world in the Vendee Globe. Fascinating and useful even for those of who do not race at 40 knots across the Southern Ocean.
A short video of this morning’s 26th Annual Great North River Tugboat Race sponsored by the Working Waterfront Committee.
Alex Storm, right, with his son Jason Storm, Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO – Jason Storm
Alex Storm, a Canadian treasure hunter who discovered two valuable 18th-century shipwrecks off the shores of Nova Scotia, died last month at the age of 80.
In 1965, Storm and two associates discovered the wreck of Le Chameau, a French Navy ship which went down off the Fortress of Louisbourg in a storm in 1725 with the loss of more than 300 lives. The ship, bound for Quebec, then still part of French Canada, was also carrying money to pay for the French garrisons and other colonial expenses. Storm and his group recovered 7,861 silver coins and 878 gold Louis d’or from the wreck site. The discovery was the largest find in Canadian history.
In 1968, Storm located the remains of HMS Feversham, a British warship, part of a fleet sent to attack Quebec, which was shipwrecked in 1711, with the loss of 102 lives.
Testing has begun on the recently installed rotor sails on the MV Maersk Pelican. The two large cylinders installed on the deck of the 110,000 DWT Long Range 2 product tanker may not look much like sails but may represent the future of sail assist technology in commercial shipping. The 30 meter tall and 5 meter in diameter rotors, the world’s largest, are a modern version of the Flettner rotor developed in the 1920s. When the rotors are spun in a wind, they develop lift which can be used to propel a ship or to reduce the fuel consumed by the main engines. The rotor sails on the Maersk Pelican are expected to reduce fuel consumption by 7 to 10% on average.
The rotor sails were provided by Norsepower Oy Ltd., working with project partners Maersk Tankers, Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) and Shell Shipping & Maritime.
Oliver Hazard Perry Rhode Island (OHPRI), the non-profit organization behind Rhode Island’s Official Tall Ship SSVOliver Hazard Perry, has announced a pause in operations to rethink its strategy for the ship’s financial sustainability.
The 200-foot three-masted sailing school vessel, which was seven years and $12 million in the making when she embarked on her maiden sail in 2015, will not journey south next Spring as it has done the past two years but instead remain in Rhode Island at a soon-to-be-announced location.