BRP Gregorio del Pilar
The South China Sea is home to a myriad of competing claims for territory, fishing, oil and mineral rights by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan. There is currently a stand-off between Chinese ships and the Philippine navy and coast guard vessels at Scarborough Shoal, located between the Macclesfield Bank and Luzon, Philippines in the South China Sea. Sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal, a series of islands and an atoll, is claimed by the Philippines, China and Taiwan.
As reported by the Manila Standard: The current standoff began Sunday when a Navy surveillance plane sighted eight Chinese fishing vessels anchored in a lagoon at Scarborough, the Foreign Affairs Department said. That prompted the military to deploy its largest warship, the Hamilton class cutter BRP Gregorio del Pilar, which was recently acquired from the United States.
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Two letters from the Titanic are in the news. One is a letter from Dr. John Edward Simpson, who died when the ship sank, He wrote to his mother on April 11, 1912, on notepaper headed RMS Titanic, and had it mailed from Cohb, Ireland, the last port of call prior to the ship sailing across the North Atlantic. 
So you want to build an unsinkable passenger liner? Well, there is an app for that! OK, not really, but 
For several years we have been 
After posting about far too many needless tragedies on poorly maintained third world ferry boats which sink and kill their passengers, here is something completely different, though still involving a ferry.
This story is so unlikely that it must be true. When the 
In the last days of the age of sail, British sailing ships, limejuicers, as they were known, had reputation as “hungry ships,” of offering poor quality provisions and not much of those. Whether that reputation was or was not wholly justified at the end of the 19th century, a new study now reveals that sailors in the Georgian Navy were well and amply fed for their day. Given that the British Navy had to feed upwards of 140,000 seamen and marines, the Victualing Board seems to have done a remarkably good job.
Some excitement in my neighborhood this morning. Three crew from the tug Katherine G were pulled from the water near Liberty Island in new York harbor, after the tug capsized at around 9:45 this morning. The men were rescued by the New York Police Department’s harbor unit and taken to local medical facilities. No serious injuries were reported. Thanks to 
