A brand new copy of a 4,000 year old craft was paddled out on a short maiden voyage in Falmouth, Cornwall on Wednesday. Christened the Morgawr after a mythical monster of Falmouth Bay, she is a 50 foot long, six-ton replica of a Bronze Age boat, which was built by a team of 50 volunteers over the last eleven months at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.
Calling all Sea Goddesses and would-be Sea Goddesses. Applications are now being accepted for the Maine Sea Goddess Pageant. The Pageant is open to 20 young women who are single, a high school (or equivalent GED) graduate, not more than 21 years of age, and a Maine resident. The young woman chosen as Sea Goddess receives a $2,000 cash award and represents the Maine lobster fishing industry at events in Maine and across New England throughout her one-year reign. This year’s Maine Lobster Festival Sea Goddess Coronation will take place on Wednesday evening, July 31, the first day of the 66th annual Maine Lobster Festival, which will be held on the Rockland waterfront from Wednesday through Sunday, July 31st through August 4. Applications are being accepted through April 15, 2013. The application and supporting information must be postmarked no later than April 15 but no earlier than March 1. Please mail to: Maine Lobster Festival Coronation Committee, P.O. Box 552, Rockland 04841. For information, call pageant chairwoman Sharon Lombardo at 594-4559 or 691-5203.
You might call it the greenhouse effect, though it is not directly related to climate change. A dead sperm whale which washed ashore last year in Andalusia, in southern Spain, was found to have died from ingesting plastic sheets used in the construction of greenhouses in that region. The whale had over 17 kilogrammes (37 pounds) of garbage blocking its stomach, including some 30 square metres (36 square yards) of plastic canvas, said Renaud de Stephanis, a marine biologist at the Donana Biological Station, which is run by the Spanish National Research Council. “There were a dozen metres of plastic rope, plastic sheeting used on the outside of greenhouses, and plastic sheeting used inside and even two flower pots.”
Beached sperm whale in Spain dies after eating large amounts of plastic
A team of archaeologists think that they may have found the first Viking sunstone. Two years ago we posted about Viking sunstones, the legendary, and indeed considered by many to be mythical, devices which allowed Viking navigators to locate the position of the sun even on heavily overcast or cloudy days. See our previous post – Did Vikings Navigate with ‘Sunstones’? Researchers had theorized that the sunstones were polarizing crystals that allowed Viking navigators to pinpoint the sun’s location based on variation in the polarized light as seen through the crystal. They had tested the theory with a polarimeter, a device that measures polarization. Until recently, no one one had found an actual Viking sunstone to test the theory.
Today in Japan, the US Navy officially decommissioned the minesweeper USS Guardian. On the Tubbataha Reef, where the ship ran aground on January 17, salvage operations have again been delayed by bad weather. The salvage plan is to cut the ship into pieces and to haul it away. Salvage divers have been cutting away at the crippled ship and the crane ship MV Jascon 25 has been hoisting the sections onto barges. The salvage operations have been repeatedly delayed by wind and waves. The USS Guardian ran aground on a reef in the Philippines’ Tubbataha National Marine Park. The park is a World Heritage Site in the Sulu Sea, 640 kilometers (400 miles) southeast of Manila.
Retiree Edd Hale writes in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette about surrendering his status as an armchair sailor to sail the Great Lakes in the Brig Niagara, a replica of the Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry‘s flagship on which he won the Battle of Lake Erie, one of the most important naval battles in the War of 1812.
Edd writes: My childhood dreams of sailing in tall ships were pretty much unknown to my parents and friends. After all, tall ships were something from a time long, long ago and sailing on them seemed only a boy’s fantasy. But above my bed were several small prints of sailing ships, and I once built a huge model of the clipper ship Cutty Sark. I did tell people from time to time that had I been born in the last century (which at that time meant the 19th century), I probably would have gone to sea.
Instead, I became a history teacher and spent most of my 35-year career in the eighth grade, where my curriculum included the golden age of exploration and sail. My students heard about ships and navigation and great voyages of discovery — all from a teacher who had never set foot on a sailing ship. I was the quintessential armchair sailor.
Read the rest of the essay.
The Next Page: Aboard the US Brig Niagara, armchair sailor no more
Two men and a woman brought pizza and beer aboard the 82′ sailing yacht Darlin in the Sausalito Yacht Harbor late Sunday or early Monday and proceeded to take the boat to sea, only to run aground in shallow water near Pacifica State Beach in Sausalito. The owner of the Darlin saw his yacht on the television coverage of the grounding and reported it stolen. The apparent thieves repeatedly declined assistance and refused to leave the grounded boat. A standoff ensued for several hours with the Coast Guard and local authorities. Ultimately, Pacifica police arrested Leslie Gardner, 63, Dario Mira, 54, and Lisa Modawell, 56, on suspicion of grand theft and conspiracy. Each of the three was being held on more than $1 million bail. The yacht Darlin was removed at high tide with reported damage to the rudder and keel. Thanks to Phil Leon and Bob McKane for contributing to the post.
There are two wonderful newsletters for keeping up with what is going on in the world of nautical fiction – Astrodene’s Nautical Fiction Log Book, sponsored by David Haye’s Historic Naval Fiction website and Quarterdeck sponsored by McBooks Press. The March edition of Quarterdeck features George Jepson’s interview of author Helen Hollick and Julian Stockwin writing about life aboard a man-of-war, while the March Astrodene’s Nautical Fiction Log Book features author and historian, J. D. Davies, and provides a run down of the new releases in nautical fiction and non-fiction. Both newsletters are free and well worth subscribing to.
The US Coast Guard has identified Guillermo Gonzales Losada, 49, as the man found dead in a debris field of parts of a boat, ten life jackets, flares and an oily sheen in the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday, off the coast of Florida, about 22 miles east of the entrance to the St. Johns River. The man was identified through his Venezuelan passport. His last known address was in Miami. The Coast Guard says that it had not received reports of a missing boat. Coast Guard boats and planes are searching the area for potential survivors. Thanks to Bob McKane for passing along the news.
Man found off Atlantic Beach in ocean debris by United States Coast Guard identified
A new report, published in the journal Marine Policy, assesses the the impact of commercial fishing on sharks and estimates that around 100 million sharks are being killed each year. The rate is higher than sustainable for most shark species and is believed to driven by the continued demand for shark fins for soup in China. There is hope that proposals to regulate the trade in five of the most threatened species of shark will be approved at the the meeting of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species now being held in Bangkok, Thailand. Similar proposals narrowly failed in the previous meeting in 2010.
Eye of the Wind
The brig 132′ Eye of the Wind has had a long and varied career. Built in 1911, by C Lühring of Brake, Germany, as a topsail schooner named Friedrich, she was initially put into the hides trade with South America. Later she would carry cargo in the Baltic and North seas, and then fish for herring off the coast of Iceland. In 1969, after being converted to a motor ship, she was nearly lost to a fire. Rebuilt in 1973 and renamed Eye of the Wind, she went on to be featured in a number of movies, inlcuding The Blue Lagoon, White Squall, Tai-Pan and Nate & Hayes. She also served as the flagship for Operation Drake – a two year scientific expedition for young people. Recently, the Eye of the Wind has been certified as a Class A Sail Training Vessel. Thanks to Tom Russell on the Linked-in Traditional Sail Professionals group for passing along the news.
Tall Ship “Eye of the Wind” as a certified sailing school ship
HMS Ambush, the second of the Astute Class of Royal Navy attack submarines, has officially joined its fleet on the Clyde.. The £1.6bn nuclear-powered 7,400-tonne vessel has been undergoing sea trials since arriving at its home port at Faslane in September and is is due to enter operational service later this year.
Attack submarine HMS Ambush joins fleet at Faslane
With luck, HMS Ambush will not share the problems of the first of the class, HMS Astute, which has been described as rustly, leaky and slow. The Astute suffered from an embarrassing grounding, electrical and hydraulic failures, and a murder aboard ship.
I don’t watch a lot of television, though it seems every time that I turn the set on I see another commercial touting how wonderful things are on the Gulf of Mexico. The sun is shining, the beaches are beautiful, and the food is tasty. The commercials are intended to attract tourists dollars to the Gulf Coast and they are all paid for by BP. There are other commercials where BP employees address the camera to talk about their commitment to the Gulf and all the good and wonderful things that they and the company are doing. There is no mention, of course, of BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill that killed eleven workers and spilled an estimated 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf. It was the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.
If the commercials do not mention the spill, it is the center of conversation in a civil trial that began last week where BP may face up to another $17 billion in penalties and fines. This in addition to the $4.5 billion criminal settlement in which BP pleaded guilty to eleven felonies last year.
Stack of USS Guardian hoisted by crane ship. Photo:PCG
Three quick updates on recent posts – the salvage of the USS Guardian is finally underway, Shell Oil has cancelled plans for Alaskan arctic drilling for 2013 due to rig problems; and the Emma Mærsk has arrived at a shipyard for repairs after engine room flooding in the Suez Canal.
After running aground on a reef in the Philippines’ Tubbataha National Marine Park on January 17, the salvage of the Navy minesweeper USS Guardian is finally underway. Crane ships will break the ship up in place. The salvage was delayed by bad weather and the time required to assemble the salvage vessels. The Philippine Coast Guard has set a target deadline of March 23 for the removal of the ship. Read more at – PCG confident of beating deadline for USS Guardian’s dismantling
No discussion of the Titanic II is complete without a mention of the lifeboats. The lack of adequate lifeboats on the original Titanic was a major contributor to the deaths of over 1,500 passengers. Unfortunately, as reported in the press, it appears that the new ship will not have adequate lifeboat capacity to meet the current Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) rules. Frankly, we think that this is carrying authenticity a bit too far. As reported by the Daily Mail and elsewhere:
How should we think about the RMS Titanic? Was the ship, which sank with a loss of over 1,500, a major maritime tragedy? Or was it just the backdrop for a historical drama about wealth and class conflict – a sort of Downton Abbey on the North Atlantic? The questions came to mind when Australian billionaire Clive Palmer unveiled his plans for building Titanic II, a near replica to the ill-fated Titanic, with more lifeboats and at least one fewer iceberg. His vision of the ship, which he plans to have built in China and be in service by 2016, seems to lean decidedly toward historical melodrama.
Late Monday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the anti-whaling extremists and reality TV show stars, the Sea Shepherds, are indeed pirates. In his ruling, Judge Alex Kozinski wrote: ” When you ram ships, hurl glass containers of acid, drag metal-reinforced ropes in the water to damage propellers and rudders, launch smoke bombs and flares with hooks; and point high-powered lasers at other ships, you are, without a doubt, a pirate… The activities that Cetacean [the Japanese whalers] alleges Sea Shepherd has engaged in are clear instances of violent acts for private ends, the very embodiment of piracy.”
Alaric Bond & Seymour Hamilton
Seymour Hamilton recently sat down for a trans-Atlantic interview with Alaric Bond. They discussed Bond’s Fighting Sail series of novels, in particular, and about writing nautical fiction, in general. It was a fascinating conversation. Seymour Hamilton is the author of the nautical fantasy series, The Astreya Trilogy. Alaric Bond has written five excellent novels in his Fighting Sail series. See our review of his latest – Patriot’s Fate.
Click on the arrow below to listen to the interview.
It is generally considered rude to look under a lady’s skirt, though when the lady is a ship in a drydock, it is usually OK. The three masted steel clipper Stad Amsterdam was built in 2000 and now after 13 years of service is undergoing a major overhaul at Damen Shiprepair in Vlissingen, the Netherlands. She should return to service sometime early June. It is a great opportunity to look at the graceful lines of her hull, normally hidden below the waterline. The ship was designed by Gerard Dijkstra who modeled her after the mid-19th century frigate Amsterdam. She has been described as a “modern extreme clipper in historical perspective.” She is a very fast ship capable of sailing along at an easy 15 knots. Video of the Stad Amsterdam under sail after the jump.
In the construction of replica sailing ships, the 18th century is reasonably well represented. The 17th also has not been left out. Replicas of Columbus’ ships have ensured that 15th century replicas still sail. Recently two replica ships from the 16th century have been in the news, one in the planning stages and the other nearly completed.
In around 1556, the Basque whaling ship San Juan sank in Red Bay in Labrador. In 1978, Parks Canada archaeologists discovered the wreck of the 250-ton ship, the oldest European wreck yet discovered in America, north of Florida. As reported by the Ottawa Citizen: The 450-year-old San Juan, a jumble of thick beams and broken barrels lying in shallow waters off the site of a 1560s-era whaling station in the Strait of Belle Isle, is to be resurrected by a team of Spanish maritime heritage experts planning to construct a full-scale, seaworthy replica of the original 16-metre, three-masted vessel.