Jeanne Socrates Prepares to Set Sail Again, Solo Across the Pacific, at 80

Posted on by April 15, 2023

Jeanne Socrates was 76 in October 2018, when she set sail alone from Victoria, British Columbia, on her 38′ yacht Nereida. She returned to Victoria 339 days later, then 77, having sailed singlehanded non-stop around world, becoming the oldest sailor to do so.

Now, at 80, Socrates, currently in Mexico, is setting off again to sail solo across the Pacific. This will be a very different voyage, however, from her previous epic circumnavigations. Practical Boat Owner reports that unlike her last record-breaking voyage, this time Jeanne Socrates intends to cruise Nereida, stopping at islands along the way.

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Historic Schooner Victory Chimes to be Sold at Auction

Posted on by April 13, 2023

The three-masted schooner Victory Chimes, based in Rockland, Maine, will soon be sold at public auction. The 128-foot schooner will be auctioned through online bidding that begins at 9 a.m. on April 23 and continues until 1 p.m. on May 8, according to Keenan Auction Company of Portland. 

The schooner has been a fixture of the Maine windjammer fleet for almost 70 years.  Built in Bethel, Delaware in 1900, for the first 45 years of her career, she carried general cargo in the Chesapeake Bay until she was converted for the passenger trade in 1946 and moved to Maine in 1954.

The Victory Chimes is the last surviving Chesapeake Ram schooner. She is a US National Historic Landmark and is represented on the Maine State Quarter, originally minted in 2003. 

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Dramatic South Atlantic Rescue of Golden Globe Race Sailor Ian Herbert Jones

Posted on by April 12, 2023

Ian Herbert Jones of Great Britain, competing in the 2022-23 Golden Globe Race, was successfully rescued after his Tradewind 35 Puffin had rolled over and dismasted, with the skipper injuring his back and incurring a gash to his head. Jones was northeast of Cape Horn when he became overwhelmed in winds gusting over 90 knots and a confused sea. 

Scuttlebutt Sailing News reports that it was 1740 UTC when Jones first saw the Taiwanese Fishing Vessel ZI DA WANG arriving from the North. Twenty-six hours earlier, he was unable to make contact by sat phone and set off his EPIRB to make sure the Search and Rescue chain of his zone – NAVAREA 6 – knew where he was, and that he was facing a bad situation.

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New York Wants to Restore Shad, the “Poor Man’s Salmon, to the Hudson River

Posted on by April 11, 2023

Shad, often referred to as the “poor man’s Salmon,” once returned yearly to spawn in the Hudson River estuary from New York Harbor north to Fort Edward. Overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution contributed to a series of population collapses, and shad fishing on the Hudson River was closed in 2010. Now New York State wants to grow shad populations in the river until recreational catch-and-release is once again possible, with the eventual goal of reopening commercial fishing.

Long before the first Europeans arrived at the Hudson River, Native Americans feasted on the schools of American shad that returned to the river to spawn in the Spring.  They often smoked the flesh and consumed the roe. Early European settlers learned the importance of shad from the Natives and quickly picked up the technique of smoking them to provide food for the harsh winters when game was scarce.

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Austal Shipyard Execs Charged With Massive Fraud in LCS Program

Posted on by April 8, 2023

The  Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have charged three current or ex-Austal USA executives with accounting fraud in the construction of Independence-class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS).

A grand jury issued indictments against Craig Perciavalle, who was the shipbuilder’s president until he resigned in 2021 amid investigations by multiple agencies; Joseph Runkel, the company’s director of financial analysis; and William Adams, the former LCS program director. Craig Perciavalle, who became the GM/VP of Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding in Nov. 2021, has now been suspended by Fincantieri. Runkel was fired from Austal USA after the indictment was announced. Adams left Austal USA in 2021.

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Snailfish, the Deepest-Swimming Fish Ever Recorded on Camera

Posted on by April 7, 2023

A team of Australian and Japanese scientists succeeded in capturing on camera the deepest-swimming fish ever recorded. The fish, an unknown snailfish species of the genus Pseudoliparis, was recorded at a depth of 8,336m in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench, south of Japan.

University of Western Australia Professor Alan Jamieson, founder of the Minderoo-UWA Deep Sea Research Centre and chief scientist of the expedition, worked with a team from the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology to deploy baited cameras in the deepest parts of the trenches. 

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Australian Michelle Lee the First Woman to Row the Pacific Ocean Solo, Unassisted & Non-Stop

Posted on by April 5, 2023

Australian Michelle Lee has become the first woman to row solo, unassisted, and non-stop across the Pacific Ocean.  On her epic 237-day, 14,000-kilometre journey from Ensenada, Mexico to  Port Douglas in Far North Queensland, Australia, she dodged five hurricanes and four cyclones and survived a shark leaping into her boat. Lee set off from Mexico on August 8, 2022 in her 8-meter by 2-meter carbon fiber boat, the Australian Maid. 

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Saildrone Surveyor USV Discovers a 3,300-Foot-Tall Seamount Off California Coast

Posted on by April 4, 2023

Two years ago,  we posted about Saildrone‘s new 72’ long Surveyor, which was described as the world’s most advanced uncrewed surface vehicle (USV), equipped for high-resolution mapping of the ocean seafloor.

Now, the Saildrone Surveyor has discovered a 3,300-foot-tall sea mountain, or seamount, about 200 miles off the coast of California.

The Los Angeles Times reports that starting last summer, the Saildrone Surveyor spent several months exploring the Aleutian Islands in Alaska and the ocean off California in an expedition funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

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Lubec’s Gold from Sea Water Hoax of 1898

Posted on by April 1, 2023

Prospectus for The Electrolytic Marine Salts Company

On April Fool’s Day, a repost about not an April Fool’s Day prank but a hoax and a swindle. In October of 1897, at the height of the Alaskan Gold Rush, two men, Prescott Ford Jernegan, a Baptist minister, and Charles Fisher, both from Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, arrived in Lubec, Maine to establish a facility to extract gold from seawater.

Klondike: Lubec’s Gold from Sea Water Hoax

The two newcomers leased Hiram Comstock’s tidal grist mill located at Mill Creek in North Lubec. According to Reverend Jernegan in the prospectus, he prepared for potential investors, “Millions of dollars in gold were flowing through Lubec Narrows every single day.”

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Captive Orcas : Kiska Dies & Tokitae May be Returned to the Pacific

Posted on by March 31, 2023

News of two captive orcas.

In Canada, Kiska, an orca often referred to as “the loneliest whale in the world” has died after spending over four decades in captivity at Marineland, a zoo and amusement park in Niagara Falls.  Kiska was the last captive killer whale in Canada and was captured in Icelandic waters in 1979 alongside Keiko, the star of the movie, Free Willy, 

In Florida, steps are being taken to return the orca Tokitae to the waters of the Pacific north-west. The Guardian reports that Tokitae is the oldest killer whale in captivity. Now in retirement, she spent decades performing at the Miami Seaquarium, where she went by the name Lolita. She lived in the smallest orca enclosure in North America, in a pool of water that made her skin infected and was fed fish that was occasionally rotten and led to intestinal issues.

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Tall Ships St. Pete Festival, March 30 — April 2, 2023

Posted on by March 29, 2023

The city of St. Petersburg, FL is hosting Tallships® St.Pete, a four-day maritime festival from March 30 to April 2, 2023.  The city is partnering with Tall Ships America to co-host a fleet of tall ships along the St Petersburg waterfront.  Tall Ships® St. Pete will be the starting point for the Tall Ships Challenge®  Gulf Coast Series. The tall ships will race from St.Petersburg to Galveston, TX, and on to Pensacola, FL.

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Who Blew Up the Nord Stream Pipelines — Ukraine, US or Russia?

Posted on by March 28, 2023

On September 26, 2022, a series of clandestine bombings resulted in underwater gas leaks from the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines. Both pipelines were built to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea, and are majority owned by the Russian majority state-owned gas company, Gazprom.

Who blew up the underwater natural gas pipelines is unclear. Fingers have been pointed at pro-Ukrainian groups, covert operators from the United States Navy, and most recently a Russian Navy mini-submarine.

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Hōkūleʻa Prepares For Pacific Circumnavigation Guided by the Stars Winds and & Waves

Posted on by March 25, 2023

In June 2016, I had the pleasure of visiting Hōkūleʻa, a Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe, when she sailed into New York harbor in the third year of an epic voyage. Since her launch in 1975, Hōkūleʻa, had crisscrossed the Pacific using exclusively traditional navigation techniques. In May of 2014, Hōkūle‘a and its sister vessel, Hikianalia embarked from Oahu for “Malama Honua,” a three-year circumnavigation of the earth. It returned to port in Hawaii in June 2017. The journey covered 47,000 nautical miles with stops at 85 ports in 26 countries.   

Now, Hōkūleʻa and her crew are preparing for an epic circumnavigation of the Pacific beginning this summer. The voyage — Moananuiākea: A Voyage for Oceans, A Voyage for Earth, 2023 to 2027 will be Hōkūleʻa’s 15th major voyage in her first 50 years.

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As Repair Costs Soar and Deployment Delayed, What Happened on the HMS Prince of Wales?

Posted on by March 25, 2023

Late in August 2022, the Royal Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, sailed from Portsmouth, UK bound for training exercises in the United States. She didn’t get very far. Two days after departing, the carrier broke down off the Isle of Wight. The external shaft coupling on the starboard propeller shaft failed, resulting in serious damage to the shaft and the propeller, and lesser damage to the rudder. After proceeding to an anchorage for inspection, the ship was escorted by tugs to a dry dock at Rosyth, Scotland, for necessary repairs.

The repairs that were originally estimated to cost £3 million and were to be completed by spring have now soared to an estimated £20 million and the ship deployment is now projected to be in the autumn of 2023. 

What happened on the HMS Prince of Wales? The failure of a propeller shaft coupling is extremely rare. The First Sea Lord described the failure as “unprecedented.” Indeed, few marine engineers can remember an instance of this happening.

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Famous Research Vessel RV Petrel Rolled Off Blocks in Edinburgh Drydock, 35 Injured

Posted on by March 23, 2023

Yesterday, the research vessel Petrel rolled off her blocks in a drydock in Edinburgh, Scotland, leaving 35 people injured. BBC reports that twenty-three people were taken to the hospital and 12 were treated at the scene of the incident at Imperial Dock in Leith. The 3,371 GT research toppled over in strong winds rolling to an angle of 45 degrees.

The Petrel was previously owned by Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft. With Allen’s support, the vessel achieved an awe-inspiring record of underwater discoveries, locating a veritable fleet of lost naval shipwrecks.

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Remembering Susan Ahn Cuddy, First Female Asian American Officer, Gunnery Officer in US Navy

Posted on by March 16, 2023

March is Women’s History Month, so it seems appropriate to remember the life and accomplishments of Susan Ahn Cuddy, a Korean American who would serve as the first female Asian-American officer in the US Navy and would also become the first female Navy gunnery instructor.

After leaving the Navy at the end of World War II, Cuddy also worked as an intelligence analyst and section chief at the National Security Agency and ran a think tank during the Cold War. She worked on top-secret projects for the Defense Department and supervised more than 300 scholars and experts in Russian affairs.

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Women’s History Month — Eleanor Creesy, Navigator of the Clipper Ship Flying Cloud

Posted on by March 6, 2023

In honor of Women’s History Month, it is worthwhile remembering Eleanor Creesy, the navigator of the clipper ship Flying Cloud, who with her husband, Captain Josiah Creesy, set world sailing records for the fastest passage between New York and San Francisco.  Aan updated repost.

Eleanor Prentiss was born in 1814, in Marblehead, Massachusetts, the daughter of a master mariner, who taught his daughter the art and science of navigation. Eleanor knew how to use a chronometer and a sextant and how to make a sight reduction. In 1841, Eleanor married Captain Josiah Perkins Creesy. The couple sailed together on the ship Oneida in the China trade. Josiah was captain of the ship but Eleanor was the navigator.

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Sargassum and Icebergs — Threats Warm & Cold

Posted on by March 16, 2023

In recent years we have posted about the impact of massive mats of sargassum in the warmer waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. The brown buoyant seaweed has had a devastating impact on beaches across the east coast of Mexico, the Caribbean, Texas, and Florida.

Recent reports are of a new 5,000-mile-wide sargassum bloom targeting Florida, that is so large, it can be seen from space.

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Women’s History Month — Remembering Winnie Breegle, WWII WAVE and Code Talker

Posted on by March 6, 2023

During Women’s History Month, it is a good time to honor Winnie Breegle who served in World War II as a WAVE (Woman Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) cryptographer and a Navajo “Code Talker”, who didn’t happen to be a Navajo. Ms. Breegle passed away at the age of 100 on January 3, 2023.

In 1941, Winnie Breegle, a 21-year-old farm girl from Ohio taught Latin, Spanish, and English in high school, and women with such backgrounds were highly sought after for work as coders. When she enlisted in the Navy, she was trained as a cryptographer.

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