On October 5, 2011, the containership MV Rena ran aground on Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga, resulting in one of the worst maritime environmental disasters in New Zealand history. Yesterday, in a New Zealand court, the captain, Mauro Balomaga, and second officer, Leonil Relon, were found guilty of a total of eleven charges and each was sentenced to seven months in jail. In addition to poor seamanship, the captain and second officer attempted to cover up their actions by altering the ship’s GPS log, its passage plan and its computer records to mislead the investigators.
Not quite too sure what to make of this. Of all sports, beachcombing seems like one of the safest. Apparently, a woman, beachcombing with her family on a San Clemente Beach in Southern California, pocketed a few rocks which may have contained naturally occurring white phosphorus. Friction between the rocks may have caused an ignition, setting the woman’s shorts on fire and resulting in severe burns to the woman’s leg.
Rocks Set Fire In Pocket: Woman Burned By Beach Rocks That Spontaneously Combusted In Her Pants
Cannon showing the mark of Sir Thomas Gresham
Shipwrecks tend to be pretty stationary. They are not prone to wandering about. Now, however, an Elizabethan shipwreck dating from 1574, which was recovered from the River Thames in 2003, is on the move. The remains of the 16th-century “Gresham Ship’’ are set to be transported 160 miles to Stoney Cove in Leicestershire on June 1 and lowered into a lake. The move is being co-ordinated by the Nautical Archaeological Society, which will use the ship as an “underwater classroom’’ to train the next generation of nautical archaeologists.
Elizabethan shipwreck to be moved to Leicestershire
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The US Navy’s newest strategic weapon may be a Massive Multiplayer Online Wargame. If it works for HALO and gears of War, why not the Navy? The project is a joint effort between the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) and Institute for the Future (IFTF). The approach is to “crowdsource ideas and strategies that may provide insight to some of the Navy’s toughest problems.”
The game’s first round was “piracyMMOWGLI” in Summer of 2011 and focused on countering Somali piracy. The next round, energyMMOWGLI, is launching this month. As the name suggests, this game deals with energy, specifically asking the question, “How can the Navy best meet future energy demands?” The game is focused on reducing fossil fuel dependency. ironically, as pointed out by TPM, “the timing of the new game’s launch is somewhat unfortunate given that the Republican-led House Armed Services Committee voted last week to effectively prohibit the Department of Defense from purchasing any alternative fuel that costs more than petroleum. That effectively eliminates biofuels, at least for the near future.” Of course, biofuels are only one component of energy policy, but they could play an important role.
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Photo: Maksim Ivanov MarineTraffic.com
Simply trying to keep up with what is going on the battle against piracy is not as easy as it might appear.
For example, Maersk Texas, a US flag cargo ship came under attack by pirates in the Gulf of Oman on Wednesday around noon local time, or at least that is what Maersk says. The European Union’s counter-piracy force said it had reviewed the incident and determined there was “no case of piracy and it’s a false alarm,” according to Timo Lange, a spokesman for the Northwood, England-based EU Navfor. Maersk says that the pirates, attacking in multiple skiffs, were driven off by armed guards aboard the ship. The Iranian Navy, however, says that they drove off the pirates, who fled only after Iranian naval vessels appeared on the scene.
Everyone does agree that no one was hurt aboard the Maersk Texas and that she proceeded on her voyage. We hope that the rest of the voyage proves uneventful. Thanks to Phil Leon for the heads up.
New York harbor is not the only port on the North-Eastern coast of the United States with a wealth of tall ships over Memorial Day Weekend. Greenport, New York is hosting the Greenport Tallships Challenge 2012. Greenport, on the easterly tip of Long Island, is the second stop on the Tall Ships America’s 2012 TALL SHIPS CHALLENGE Race Series. The sail began in Savannah, Georgia. The participating ships raced up the East Coast to Greenport, Long Island, and then will head off to Newport, Rhode Island (July 6-9) and Halifax, Nova Scotia (July 19-23).
The ships participating include HMS Bounty, Picton Castle, the privateer schooner Lynx, the privateer schooner Pride of Baltimore II, as well as the schooners Roseway, Unicorn, and Summerwind. All vessels will be open to visitors and the Roseway will offer sail excursions.
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Photo:Elizabeth Dinan/www.seacoastonline.com
Crew responded to a fire on the nuclear submarine, USS Miami, at around 5:40 PM last night at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. This morning, the Navy reports that the fire has been put put. Three shipyard firefighters, two civilian firefighters and two crew members are reported to have received minor injuries. There were no weapons aboard the submarine and the reactor had been shut down for several months prior to the fire breaking out. The USS Miami (SSN-755) is a United States Navy attack submarine of the Los Angeles class. She was commissioned in 1990. Groton, CT is her home port.
The fleet began to appear from the harbor haze around 9 AM and headed north up the inner harbor and the Hudson River. They were a mix of full rigged ships, barques, barquentines, topsail schooners and schooners. Most were naval vessels, but without guns or missiles. (The only gunfire was a salute by the replica privateer, Pride of Baltimore II.) The navies of the world understand the value of sail training if their young naval officers are to truly understand the sea. Naval training ships from Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, Spain, France, Ecuador and the United States joined in the grand parade of sail.
OpSail New York 2012 – Parade of Sail 5/23/12
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A portrait of a naval ensign, in a heavy gilt frame, hung in a lonely corridor in the labyrinth that is the Pentagon. The plaque on the portrait read:
ENS CHUCK HORD, USNA,
CIRCA 1898, LOST AT SEA 1908
Fortunately for Ensign Hord, he was not lost at sea in 1908. He was, in fact, born in 1959 and currently lives in Burke, VA. How his portrait came to be hung at the Pentagon is the story of an extended series of practical jokes played on an officer who himself was known as a jokester. Unfortunately, the portrait’s blown-dried hair finally gave it away. The portrait no longer graces the Pentagon hallway. Thanks to Phil Leon for passing the story along. As reported by the Wall Street Journal:
Walk the Prank: Secret Story of Mysterious Portrait at Pentagon
Last night I went out to see some of the participating OpSail tall ships in New York’s Outer Harbor. The trip was organized by the Working Harbor Committee with commentary provided by Richard Taylor and Captain Richard Dorfman. Click on the thumbnails for a larger image.
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- CISNE BRANCO (Brazil)
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- EAGLE, the sail training ship of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy
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- BAE GUAYAS, the sail training ship of the Navy of Ecuador
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- KRI DEWARUCI, the sail training ship of Indonesia
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- CUAUHTEMOC (Mexico)
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- CISNE BRANCO (Brazil)
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- JUAN SEBASTIAN de EL CANO (Spain)
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- JUAN SEBASTIAN de EL CANO (Spain) Figurehead
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- BAE GUAYAS & GLORIA
Many visitors think of New York as the island of Manhattan. The City of New York is in fact five boroughs, only one of which is connected to the mainland. If Brooklyn, the largest borough, had remained an independent city, as it was until 1898, it would now be the 4th largest city in the United States.
When the fleet of visiting tall and military ships arrive in New York starting tomorrow, Brooklyn will host ten of the ships, more than any other borough in the city. Portside New York has put together two wonderful guides to the festivities -the Complete Guide to Brooklyn – Opsail 2012 and the Guide to the Columbia Waterfront. Each has a wealth of information about the ships, schedules, local lore and even discount coupons for shopping. So, if you are in New York for Opsail and Fleet Week but don’t plan on visiting Brooklyn, as they used to say on the docks, fuhgeddaboudit.
USCG Barque Eagle Photo: Joyce Naltchayan/AFP/Getty Images
The visiting tall ships have started arriving in New York’s outer harbor. Tomorrow morning at just after 8 in the morning, the “Parade of Sail” will form up at the Verazano Narrows Bridge and stand north into the inner harbor past the Statue of Liberty and up the Hudson River as far as the George Washington Bridge, followed at around 10:40 by a “Military Parade of Ships.” There should be good view spots on both sides of the river from the the Battery North to the GW Bridge on the Manhattan side and from Liberty State Park, Jersey City, Hoboken and Weehawken up to Fort Lee on the New Jersey shore.
Ships will be open for visitors starting Thursday on Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island. In general, the Manhattan and Staten Island ships will be open from Thursday through Tuesday while the ships in Brooklyn will be open Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. For detailed schedules and locations see Opsail – New York and Fleet Week New York.
Fleet Week: Where to watch the Parade of Ships sail into New York Harbor
Enrica Lexie
Two Italian marines, Latorre Massimiliano and Salvatore Girone, are in an Indian jail awaiting trial for the alleged murder of two Indian fisherman. They are at the center of a legal & diplomatic fight over the use of armed guards on merchant ships to combat pirates. On February 15th, as members of an Italian navy Vessel Protection Detachment (VPD) on board the oil tanker MV Enrica Lexie, the marines shot and killed two Indian fishermen that they mistook for pirates. Over the weekend, the Italian government recalled its envoy from New Delhi to protest the Indian government’s handling of the case.
Italy says envoy recall signals “strong displeasure” with India
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A local boater first spotted the bales floating 15 miles offshore near Point Dana, California. When law enforcement went out to investigate, they found between 160-180 bales of marijuana (depending on the news report), weighing close to four tons and worth around $4 million dollars, bobbing in the Pacific Ocean. The Border Patrol described the situation, with admirable understatement, as “unusual.”
Border Patrol: ‘Unusual’ for marijuana bales floating in ocean near Dana Point
On Wednesday, Philadelphia’s tall ship, the 112+ year old barquentine Gazela, will be among the seventeen tall ships in the “Parade of Sail” on the Hudson River. Once again, however, the Gazela will bringing more than just history and grace to the harbor when she ties up alongside Pier 25. She will also bring the full troupe of “Seven Deadly Seas” performing “Dead upon a Wind, a Pirate Burlesque.” They will perform on the ship at Pier 25 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, May 25, 26 and 27 at 8 and 10 PM each evening. Click here to learn more and/or buy tickets.
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Charles Spencer, writing for the Telegraph, had a hunch. After reviewing the Royal Shakespeare Company’s trilogy of Shakespeare’s “shipwreck” plays last month, he found himself wondering whether the Bard spent his so-called “lost years” before his arrival in London, as a sailor. He has now come to the conclusion that his hunch holds water, so to speak, based primarily on the work of the late Professor A.F. Falconer of the University of St. Andrews.
Professor Falconer wrote two books in the 1960s detailing his conclusion that Shakespeare was, at one time, a sailor. His Shakespeare & the Sea followed by A Glossary Of Shakespeare’s Sea And Naval Terms Including Gunnery demonstrate the depth of understanding of the nautical world evident in Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. Sadly, both books are long out of print and hard to find.
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Last Friday we posted about a presentation made by the Titan-Micoperi consortium detailing their plans to salvage the Costa Concordia from the where she sank on January 13th off the island of Giglio, Italy. The plan is to build an underwater platform onto which the ship can be rolled. Caissons, air tanks, secured to the sides of the hull would then be used to float the ship. If successful, the salvage will be the largest re-floating of a sunken ship in history.
Salvage Operation to Bring the Capsized Costa Concordia to the Surface Begins
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The Dragon Harald Fairhair is the largest Viking longship to be built in modern times. (See our previous post: Building the Viking Longboat Dragon Harald Fairhair) Built of oak, in the town of Haugesund in Western Norway, the ship is hundred and fourteen feet, twenty-seven feet wide, displacing seventy tons, and will carry thirty-two hundred square feet of sail. This week the longship was rolled stern first from the fabrication shop closer to the launch ways to be be tarred. Launching is expected in June. Thanks to Marit Synnøve Vea for posting the photos on Facebook.
We consider AMVER to be one of the true “unsung heroes” of the maritime world. AMVER is the “Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue” system run by the US Coast Guard. Established in 1958, it is a computer-based voluntary global ship reporting system used worldwide by search and rescue authorities. Ships enrolled in the system report their positions periodically. When a distress signal is received anywhere in the world, the AMVER database identifies the closest ship that can render assistance and vectors that ship to the sailors in distress. At any one time there are over 5,000 AMVER enrolled ships at sea ready to render assistance. On average, every 33 hours an AMVER ship saves a life somewhere on the world’s oceans.
Here is an example of a rescue that took place just over a week ago, when the AMVER enrolled Stolt Invention rescued two Finnish sailors from their sailboat, Kamu, which was taking on water after being struck by a whale. AMVER makes the seas just a bit less dangerous and lonely.
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ID Integrity Photo: AMSA
Update: The first tug has reached the ID Integrity. As reported by vesseltracker.com: The commercial tug “PT Kotor” rendezvoused with the “ID Integrity” on May 20 at approximately 10:30am AEST. At 11:30am AMSA was advised that the tug had connected a towline to the “ID Integrity” and they were now travelling at slow speed in a south-easterly direction (i.e. way from the Outer Reef) awaiting the arrival of the larger tugs. AMSA’s Emergency Towage Vessel (ETV) “Pacific Responder” was now scheduled to be on scene around 3:00 p.m. Once on scene it will provide assistance as required and remain on station until the third tug, the “PB Leichhardt”, has arrived and has connected a tow line.
High drama on the high seas. The ID Integrity, a 46,000 DWT bulk carrier, had an engine failure on Friday night while about 325km north-east of Cairns, Australia, on a voyage in ballast, from Shanghai to Townsville. The ship drifted toward Shark Reef, but the crew was able to discharge sufficient ballast to decrease the ship’s draft to avoid grounding. A spokesman for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has now confirmed that the ship has drifted safely over the reef. The ship is now reported to be in open water drifting west towards Outer Reef. Emergency tugs have been dispatched. The first is expected to arrive on Sunday morning local time. Thanks to Phil Leon for passing along the news.