Navy Testing Ship to Ship Texting with Signal Lamps

Posted on by July 24, 2017

In 1867, Royal Navy Captain, and later Admiral, Philip Colomb, worked out a system to send signals by a code of dots and dashed using signal lamps. Since then, navies around the world have used only slightly improved versions of signal lamps to send secure messages over short distances between ships. The system has lasted because it relatively simple and effective. Nevertheless, signaling with light is not without its problems. The technique is fairly slow and requires trained personnel skilled in the use of Morse Code to make it work.

Now, the US Navy is testing a high-tech version of the old signal lamps which use computer operated lights to flash signals, potentially much faster and more accurately than the old manual lamps. Sailors will be able to send messages over the updated signal lamp systems in the same way they send text messages over their smart phones. The devices being tested are referred to as Flashing Light to Text Converter (FLTC) systems. The FLTC is, in some respects, an old and proven technology updated for the iPhone generation.

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Combi-Dock III Sailing from New York Harbor Carrying Windjammer Peking

Posted on by July 21, 2017

The ship was just a silhouette in the haze as we sailed into New York harbor. We were on the last leg of the delivery of my new/old sailboat Arcturus from southern Virginia to Oyster Bay, Long Island.  The ship in the distance looked odd. The ship’s deck-house was forward with three pedestal cranes aft.  What was strange was the other rigging, which at first looked like four king posts, rising from the deck.  Why would a ship with pedestal cranes also have king posts?

I then realized what I was seeing. Continue reading →

USNS Lewis B. Puller, First Expeditionary Sea Base on Maiden Deployment

Posted on by July 17, 2017

The USNS Lewis B. Puller has sailed from Norfolk on its maiden voyage as an expeditionary sea base supporting the U.S. Fifth Fleet.  The Puller is the first of two expeditionary sea bases. A sister vessel, the USNS Hershel “Woody” Williams  is expected to enter service in 2018. 

What is an expeditionary sea base? The Military Sealift Command (MSC) defines the type as: An afloat forward staging base-variant of the mobile landing platform designed to provide dedicated support for air mine countermeasures and special warfare missions. The ship is capable of executing additional missions including counter-piracy, maritime security, and humanitarian and disaster relief. The platform supports a variety of rotary wing aircraft.

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Orcas Acting Strangely, Part 2 — Stalking and Stealing Fishermen’s Catch in the Bering Sea

Posted on by July 17, 2017

Since at least the 1960s there have been reports of orcas, also known as killer whales, stealing fish, particularly halibut, caught by fishing boats operating in the Bering Sea. Recently, the problem seems to be getting much worse.

The Alaska Dispatch News reports:

Fishermen say they can harvest 20,000 to 30,000 pounds of halibut in a single day, only to harvest next to nothing the next when a pod of killer whales recognizes their boat. The hooks will be stripped clean, longtime Bering Sea longliner Jay Hebert said in a phone interview this week. Sometimes there will be just halibut “lips” still attached to hooks — if anything at all.

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Orcas Acting Strangely, Part 1 — Dissecting Great White Sharks

Posted on by July 17, 2017

Along the shore of South Africa, at least four great white sharks have washed ashore with their livers almost surgically removed.  Two were also missing their hearts.  The culprit appears not to be human. All indications seem to suggest that orcas have removed the organs from the sharks, causing them to bleed out.  One male shark carcass was found on June 24 in a relatively fresh state of decomposition, missing not just its liver, but its stomach and testes as well.

Why are orcas attacking great white sharks, and why are they only taking specific organs? No one has a clear answer. 

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In Honor of the Peking — Rolling Home to Dear Old Hamborg

Posted on by July 17, 2017

In honor of the windjammer Peking, on her way home to Hamburg to be restored and refurbished — here is a fine old sea shanty — “Rolling Home to Dear Old Hamborg.”  We can only hope that the 106 year old windjammer has many fine years ahead of her.

“Rolling Home” is a capstan shanty.  A favorite among 19th century sailors, it has survived in many versions. The shantyman Stan Hugill called “Rolling Home” “the most famous homeward-bound shanty of all.”

Some have claimed that the shanty was inspired by a poem written by Charles Mackay, written on board ship in 1858. Hugill suggests, however, that Mackay based the poem on a shanty that he heard sung by sailors aboard the ship. Whatever its origins,various versions of the shanty include choruses of “rolling home to dear old England”, “dear old Ireland”, “dear old Scotland” and “dear New England.” The rendition below is the Plattdeutsch version “rolling home to dear old Hamborg” sung by the Shanty Chor Bremerhaven.

Shanty Chor Bremerhaven – Rolling Home

Fisherman Killed by a Right Whale, US Suspends Rescue Program Temporarily

Posted on by July 16, 2017

Last week, Joe Howlett, 59, a Canadian fisherman and a founder of Campobello Whale Rescue, died after rescuing a North Atlantic right whale, which was entangled in fishing nets off the coast of New Brunswick.  Howlett was apparently struck by the whale just after he cut the last piece of rope which had been wrapped around the whale.  “They got the whale totally disentangled and then some kind of freak thing happened and the whale made a big flip,” Mackie Green, a co-founder of the whale rescue team, told Canada’s Star.com.  

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Windjammer Peking Loaded on Combi Dock II for Voyage Home

Posted on by July 15, 2017

Photo: Will Van Dorp

On an overcast Friday in New York’s inner harbor, the windjammer Peking, was gently slipped into the flooded well deck of the heavy-lift ship Combi Dock III.  Once in position, the heavy-lift’s ballast tanks were pumped out, lifting the historic steel-hulled four-masted barque. In the next few days, the Combi Dock III will carry the Peking across the Atlantic for a complete restoration in a shipyard near Hamburg, where the ship was built in 1911. Once restored, the beautiful old ship will be the centerpiece of Hamburg’s new maritime museum. 

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2017 Lower Keys Underwater Music Festival

Posted on by July 14, 2017

Some 400 divers and snorkelers rocked-out to a unique sub-sea concert that promoted reef protection on part of the world’s third-largest living coral barrier reef last Saturday.  The Lower Keys Underwater Music Festival took place at Looe Key Reef, an area of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary about 6 miles south of Big Pine Key. Staged by the Lower Keys Chamber of Commerce and Keys radio station US1 104.1 FM, it provided a “submerged soundtrack” for divers discovering the Keys’ diverse realm of tropical fish, coral formations and other marine life.

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Beach Goers Form Human Chain to Rescue Family Caught in Rip-Current

Posted on by July 12, 2017

Rip currents can be treacherous. Last Saturday, ten swimmers — six members of a single family, four adults and two boys — and four others, were carried out into the Gulf of Mexico by a rip-current off Panama City Beach in the Florida panhandle. Apparently, the two boys on boogie boards were initially caught in the current and the rest of the family was trapped when they tried to rescue them. 

Remarkably, all those caught in the current were rescued safely when beach-goers, most strangers to each other, formed a human chain from the shore into the rip current. At its peak, upwards of 80 people locked arms and legs to form the chain to reach the swimmers. The chain was reported to have extended out around 300 feet, starting in shallow water and ending in water around 15′ deep. Others helped by paddling out on surf and boogie boards to help the trapped swimmers reach the chain. 

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Update: Windjammer Peking Heading Home to Hamburg

Posted on by July 12, 2017

Peking before downrigging

I heard this morning that the heavy lift ship Combi Dock III has entered New York harbor.  (Thanks Daniel Pine for the heads-up.) The ship is reported to be the heavy-lift chartered to carry the windjammer Peking back to her home port of Hamburg for restoration.

The German newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt  recently reported: According to the current timetable, the dock ship “Combi-Dock III” will arrive in New York on July 12, so the trip could start on July 17th. 

In the next three days they will be working on the Caddell shipyard in front of Staten Island. The anchor and two approximately 20-meter-long original yards have to be tied to the deck for the crossing and the lines to which the “Peking” is towed from the port.

The article goes on to say that the arrival and refloating of the ship in Hamburg is expected to be around July 31st. 

The “Peking” – now begins her journey home

Larsen C Iceberg Calves — Trillion Tons of Ice, the Size of Delaware

Posted on by July 12, 2017

For months we have been watching a vast crack in Antarctica’s Larsen C ice-shelf in the Weddell Sea.  Today, a huge block of ice calved from the ice-sheet, forming one of the largest icebergs in recorded history. The new Larsen C iceberg with a surface of 2,200 square miles, is almost the size of Delaware and contains roughly a trillion tons of water, or more water than Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes.

Larsen C is the fourth-largest ice-shelf in Antarctica. The iceberg reduces the size of the ice-shelf by 12 percent. There is concern that the calving of the large iceberg will destabilize the ice-sheet. If the ice-sheet collapses, it could allow glaciers, which had been blocked behind the shelf, to flow more rapidly to the sea, contributing to rising sea-levels. Thanks to Phil Leon for contributing to this post.

Huge Antarctic iceberg finally breaks free – Larsen Ice Shelf, Antarctica

Mysterious Underwater Forest off Alabama Coast

Posted on by July 11, 2017

In the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Alabama, divers have discovered an underwater forest rising out of the sediment, 60 feet below the surface. Ben Raines — an environmental reporter for the Mobile Press Register, told the Washington Post, “It was like entering a fairy world. You get down there, and there are these cypress trees, and there are logs lying on the bottom, and you can touch them and peel the bark off. It was an otherworldly experience where you knew you were in this ancient place.”

The wood from the ancient trees has been dated to around 50,000 years ago, when the seal level was far lower and much of North America was covered by a one-mile thick sheet of ice. The Washington Post reports:

Scientists believe the forest may have remained hidden were it not for Hurricane Ivan, which caused billions of dollars in damage after it slammed into the Alabama and Florida coast in 2004. The storm produced massive waves that may have scooped out about 10 feet of sediment covering the forest.

The Underwater Forest

Thanks to Phil Leon for contributing to this post.

Keels in the Air at Équihen Plage — the Village of Overturned Boat-Houses

Posted on by July 9, 2017

Équihen Plage is a village on the Opal Coast, along the English Channel, in Pas-de-Calais, France. Until the early 20th century, it was a fishing village. Lacking a harbor, the fishing boats would be run aground on each tide and hauled up higher on the beach on rollers. This repeated beachings would, over time, wear the boats out. New boats would be built and the old ones abandoned. The poorest of the village hauled the abandoned boats up above the beach, and used then as small cottages. On a rudimentary foundation they would turn a boat upside down and use the bottom of the boat as a roof. Toward the end of the 19th century there was a small community of these overturned boat houses which the locals called, “quilles en l’air,” or “keels in the air.”

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Cyber-Security at Sea — XP on Carriers, Hacking Tridents & Spoofing GPS

Posted on by July 8, 2017

Originally posted on gCaptain. Reposted with permission.

When reporters were recently being given tours of the Royal Navy’s new “supercarrier,” HMS Queen Elizabeth, some were surprized to see a distinctive logo on several computer screens on the bridge and in control rooms. The logo was for Windows XP, the Microsoft computer operating system introduced in 2001. The ship itself was under construction for over eight years and the many of the procurement lead times were even longer. The reporters were told that the software was ordered in 2004, when XP was the latest and greatest version of the operating system. 

Other than being slightly embarrassing that the brand new £3.5 billion aircraft carrier is running outdated software, why is this a problem? The problem is that the older operating systems are much more vulnerable to security breeches.  In May, a worldwide ransomware attack was launched, which created havoc in networks in 99 counties around the world.  (A new wave of ransomware cyber-attacks has hit recently. This time, port operations were also impacted, including Moller-Maersk and others.) 

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Return of the Steamer Sabino at Mystic Seaport

Posted on by July 7, 2017

In January 2016, we posted about how during a major restoration of the 1908 coal-fired steamer Sabino at the Mystic Seaport Museum, it was determined that the boiler was beyond repair and would need to be replaced. Now with new decking and planking and a reverse-engineered 1908 boiler, the steamboat Sabino is back.

Keels Falling Off — How Many More Sailors Will Die?

Posted on by July 6, 2017

Cheeki Rafiki without her keel

We posted yesterday about the death of Dutch yacht designer Frans Maas and two of his crew when the fin keel broke off from Capella, a boat he designed and owned. The boat capsized without warning and the three sailors drowned.

Sadly, keel failure is a common enough occurrence that the folks at the Sailing Anarchy blog to have coined a name for it  — keel kills.  The sudden detachment of a fin keel from a fiberglass sailboat hull too often ends up with one or more dead. 

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Yacht Designer Frans Maas & One Crew Drowned, One Sailor Missing

Posted on by July 5, 2017

Frans Mass Photo: C Yachts

On July 1, Dutch yacht designer Frans Maas and his friend and crew, Freddy Franssens died when the yacht, Capella, capsized after losing her keel during the Genisol Light Vessel Race off Ostend, Belgium. Crew member Hannes Goegebeur is still missing and feared dead. Three other crew were rescued after clinging to the overturned hull before being found by a passing dredger. All were suffering from hypothermia and were hospitalized in Bruge for treatment.

The yacht Capella, designed and owned by Frans Maas. The Maritime and Rescue Coordination Centre in Belgium told local media that it received no distress call from the yacht before or after the capsize.

Frans Maas was Dutch yacht designer, builder and ocean racer. He was an early proponent of glass fiber construction. His designs achieved great success in racing in the 1960’s during the heyday of the RORC rule.  He also designed more than 18 classes of production sailboats in his career. Maas was 80.

Happy 4th of July – A Toast to Madeira, the Wine of the Declaration of Independence and the Liberty Riots

Posted on by July 4, 2017

A post from five years ago, which is still fitting for the day.

Happy 4th of July!  Those of us in the United States celebrate the anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th 1776. Immediately after declaring independence from Great Britain, the representatives in the Continental Congress drank a toast with glasses of Madeira wine.

Why Madiera?  It was virtually the only wine available in the American colonies at the time. Wine carried by sailing ship was often spoiled in transit by the constant jostling of the ship and the wide variations of heat and cold. Wine from the island of Madeira, however, was fortified with a small amount of sugar cane brandy to help it survive the ocean voyage. Not only did the fortified wine survive the voyage but it was found that the heat and motion of the ship actually improved the quality of the wine.

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