Hoops on the Nuclear Aircraft Carrier Carl Vincent

Posted on by November 11, 2011

Photo: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Happy Veterans Day. Sadly the “war to end all wars” that ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 did not not live up to its billing. Nevertheless, we celebrate the sacrifices made by veterans on this day in the faint but fervent hope that one day all wars will end.

Last May we posted about an unusual way to celebrate the upcoming Veteran’s Day – a basketball game on an aircraft carrier. Today, in San Diego, the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Carl Vincent‘s flight deck is being transformed into a basketball court and arena for the Veteran’s Day Carrier Classic basketball game between North Carolina and Michigan State.
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London 2012 Olympics Airbrushes out HMS Belfast

Posted on by November 10, 2011

The image on the right is a new poster for the London 2012 Olympics featuring a section of the River Thames. The image on the left is a photo of the roughly the same section of the river.  Notice a difference? (Click on the thumbnails for larger images.)   The graphic artists who designed the poster have apparently airbrushed out the Royal Navy light cruiser, HMS Belfast.  Not surprisingly, many are not happy about it.

Are Olympics chiefs ashamed of our proud military history? Just days before Remembrance Sunday, HMS Belfast is airbrushed from poster
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DNA Testing and the Mystery of the 18th Century Shipwrecked Bone-Setter

Posted on by November 10, 2011

A fascinating story from Wales. Sometime between 1743 and 1745, a smuggler from  Llanfairynghornwy on  the isle of Anglesey, rescued two boys, in stormy seas in the middle of the night – the only survivors of an apparent shipwreck. Both boys had a swarthy complexion and neither spoke Welsh or English. One boy died shorty after being taken to a local doctor. The other was given the name Evan Thomas by the doctor, who subsequently adopted him. The boy proved to have a distinct ability to set bones. As he grew, he also developed the use of splits and traction to align and immobilize broken bones to speed healing. He taught his skills to his children and grandchildren. Remarkably, eight generations of his family dominated the discipline of bone-setting for two and a half centuries. His great-grandson, Hugh Owen Thomas, the first of the family to be formally trained as a physician, would be hailed as the “father of modern orthopaedics.” Hugh’s nephew, (Evan Thomas’ great-great-grandson,) Sir Robert Jones, was the first physician to use X rays to align broken bones and is credited with reducing fracture deaths on the western front in World War I from 80% in 1916, to just 8% by the end of the war through the use of splints developed by his uncle.
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Brigadier General Dick Lord – Top Gun

Posted on by November 9, 2011

The American movie, Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise, won 8 Academy Awards and earned over $300 million at the box office. The movie was inaccurate in several ways, not the least of which was the addition of a sexy female flight instructor to provide a love interest for the male pilots. It also left out any mention of the British instructors from Fleet Air Arm who were instrumental in establishing the US Navy Fighter Weapons School, better known as Top Gun. Brigadier General Richard Stanley Lord, who died in late October at the age of 75, was the foremost British instructor sent to train American pilots in 1968, who at the height of the Vietnam War were being shot down at an unacceptable rate by by North Vietnamese pilots.

Brigadier General Dick Lord
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NY Maritime Museum Revival – Return Of The South Street Seaport Museum & the Brooklyn Navy Yard Museum Opens

Posted on by November 10, 2011

2200-pound anchor in main entranceway of the Navy Yard Museum. Photo: Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News

The two events are unrelated, but they are both highly welcome. The South Street Seaport Museum is on its way toward reopening, while a new museum celebrating over 200 years of shipbuilding and maritime history at the Brooklyn Navy Yard is openings its doors on Veteran’s Day, this Friday.

The South Street Seaport Museum, which has been shut down due to financial problems, has been taken over by the Museum of the City of New York. See our previous post –  Museum of the City of New York to Take Over Seaport Museum with $2M Grant.   Notwithstanding many details to be worked out and much work left to be done, it appears that the South Street Seaport Museum is firmly on its way back.

The Return Of The South Street Seaport Museum… A Meeting Recap

Across the East River, the Brooklyn Navy Yard Museum is opening this Friday, Veterans Day.
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A Whale of a Surprise, or Exactly How Close Should You Get When Whale Watching?

Posted on by November 7, 2011

Here is a wonderful video shot on Halloween a quarter-mile offshore from Seabright Beach in Santa Cruz, CA. A bikini clad surfer paddles over to a group of kayakers who are out watching the large number of humpbacks who are feeding close to shore. The photographer, Barb Roettger, is in another kayak with a friend, shooting the video. The surfer mentions, off camera, that she’s never been out this far and suggests to the kayakers that there is strength in numbers. On the video you can hear Roettger murmur, “Not necessarily.” Seconds later two humpback whales leap skyward, lunge feeding on krill, exactly between the two sets of kayakers.

Surfer Almost Swallowed by Whale

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Underwater Volcano Shuts El Hierro Island Port in Canary Islands

Posted on by November 7, 2011

Last month we posted about Kick’em Jenny, an active underwater volcano off Grenada in the Caribbean, which was last active in 2001. Now the eruption of an active underwater volcano off El Hierro Island, in the Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa, has caused Spanish officials to shut the port of La Restinga. Ships have been ordered away from waters around La Restinga and aircraft have been banned from flying over the island’s southern tip. The 600 residents of the port were evacuated Tuesday. The water temperature around the up-welling associated with the eruption has risen sharply and there have been reports of pyroclasts, airborne volcanic fragments, erupting from the area. For more photos click here. Thanks to Dirk Bal for pointing out the story on Facebook.

El Hierro Volcano (Canary Islands) : Red alert – Impressive Jacuzzi sea temperature graphic

Volvo Ocean Race Off to Rough Start – Two of Six Boats Damaged in First 24 Hours

Posted on by November 22, 2011

The six boats competing in the Volvo Ocean Race departed from Alicante, Spain yesterday and were immediately battered by rough seas and high winds while still in the Mediterranean.  The Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing‘s Azzam lost her mast only six hours and 85 nautical miles from the start of the race.  Team Sanya withdrew from the race after reporting hull damage in over 40 knot winds and over 30 foot waves.  The Volvo Ocean Race (formerly the Whitbread Round the World Race) is a yacht race around the world, held every three years.   The first leg is from Alicante, Spain to Capetown, South Africa.  Thanks to Ulrich Rudofsky for passing the story along.

Fleet battered by elements in brutal first 24 hours

Brutal wave smashes Abu Dhabi – Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12

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John Masefield and Sea Fever

Posted on by November 5, 2011

John Masefield 1913

I can’t decide whether I love or hate John Masefield‘s poem Sea Fever.  I lean strongly towards love, though the poem has been repeated so many times and in so many places, that it is hard not to groan every time it is recited anew. Clichés often become clichés because they represent a fundamental truth. So it is with Sea Fever. You know the poem.  The first lines are:

I must down to the seas again,
to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
and a star to steer her by…

I wonder what Masefield must have felt about Sea Fever.  Did he have a love/hate relationship with it as well?
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The Wave Glider of 2011 and Matthew Fontaine Maury of 1850

Posted on by July 8, 2020

Matthew Fontaine Maury

The New York Times recently featured an article, Catching a Wave, and Measuring It, about a project to send a “fleet of robots that move out in the ocean to measure everything from weather to oil slicks, sharply reducing many of the costs of ocean-related businesses.” The Wave Glider robots, developed by James Gosling’s Liquid Robotics, are a marvel of technology. “Using a wave-based propulsion system and two solar panels to fuel its computers, the robots travel slowly over the ocean, recording data. The sensor data is crunched onboard by low-power cellphone chips, and then shipped by satellite or cellphone to big onshore computers that do complex analysis.”

The first sentence of the New York Times article reads, “James Gosling wants to network the world’s oceans.”   The truth is that Matthew Fontaine Maury beat him to it and he did so in the 1850s.
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Exploding Reefer Containers? 8,000 Boxes Serviced in Vietnam Believed at Risk

Posted on by November 3, 2011

Two workers in Vietnam and one in Brazil have died recently in explosions of refrigerated containers.  Faulty coolant is believed to have caused the explosions.  The containers were among an estimated 8,000 reefer boxes serviced in 2011 in Vietnam. The explosions have caused worldwide concern and have disrupted cargo operations on the US West coast.  Longshoremen at Seattle, WA’s Harbor Island terminal are refusing to handle reefer containers.   Likewise, longshoremen at the port of Oakland, CA have refused to work on vessels calling at the TraPac and SSA Marine terminals after concerns that refrigerated containers could explode.  So far no explosions or injuries have been reported at US ports.  The concern with the reefer containers serviced in Vietnam is that local workers used adulterated coolant in recharging the containers.   Thanks to Irwin Bryan for passing the story along.

Explosive container danger halts Port of Oakland

The fear of exploding containers may be the least of the Port of Oakland’s problems. Yesterday Occupy Wall Street protesters shut down the port, the fifth-busiest port in the nation.

Occupy Rally Shuts Down Shipping Port Indefinitely

The Alexander von Humboldt II – First New German Tall Ship Since 1958

Posted on by November 2, 2011

In late September, the Alexander von Humboldt II was christened in Bremerhaven. She is the first German tall ship newbuilding since 1958. She recently made her first shakedown day cruise. Thanks to Phil Leon for passing along the story.

Alexander von Humboldt II’ Christened in Bremerhaven, First Voyage in October

The Alexander von Humboldt II Tall Ship

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Too Much of an Ocean View? Caravans Left Hanging Over A Cliff in Wales

Posted on by November 1, 2011

The Porthkerry Leisure Park, a caravan park in the Vale of Glamorgan in Wales, (what would be called a trailer park in the United States), must have had lovely ocean views even before 40 feet of cliff fell into the ocean near the mouth of the Severin River, leaving 13 caravans hanging over the edge of the cliff.   Fortunately none of the caravans fell off the cliff and no one was reported injured.   Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing the story along.

Caravans left hanging over sheer drop after large chunk of cliff falls to beach below

The Haunted Point Lookout Lighthouse

Posted on by October 31, 2020

Point Lookout Lighthouse

In honor of Halloween, it seems appropriate to post about the Point Lookout Lighthouse of St. Mary’s County, Md., at the junction of the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay, which is said to be the most haunted lighthouse in the United States. The lighthouse was built in 1830 and the area surrounding it was initially a summer resort.

All that changed with the Civil War, when the largest camp for Confederate prisoners was built just North of the lighthouse. Between 1863 and 1865, 52,000 prisoners were held in the camp and 4,000 reportedly died.  The lighthouse was closest to the camp hospital building and parts of the lighthouse may have been commandeered by the Union troops.  In addition to ghosts of lighthouse keepers and of Civil War soldiers, there have been reports of ghosts from several shipwrecks just offshore.  For photographs and recording of ghostly appearances and voices check out Paranormal Happenings at Point Lookout Lighthouse. The lighthouse has made its way into popular culture, appearing in the action, rollplay video game, Fallout 3.

Ghosts of Point Lookout Maryland and the Most Haunted Lighthouse in the USA
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Seventy Years Ago Today: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Reuben James – October 31, 1941

Posted on by October 31, 2024

USS Reuben James

The first American Naval ship lost in World War II was not sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.  Over a month before, on October 31, 1941, the destroyer USS Reuben James, escorting a convoy bound for Britain, was sunk by a torpedo from a German submarine, U552 near Iceland.  Of the 159-man crew, only 44 survived.  This was the third attack by German submarines on US destroyers.   On September 1941, the destroyer USS Greer exchanged fire with a German submarine, but was not hit.  Then, on October 17th, the destroyer USS Kearny was hit by a German torpedo but survived. Eleven crew members were killed and 22 injured in the attack.

The sinking of the Reuben James was memorialized by the American folk singer Woody Guthrie: Continue reading →

Five Sailors Saved by Cruise Ship Norwegian Gem in Coast Guard AMVER Rescue

Posted on by October 30, 2011

On Saturday morning, the 39′ sailboat, Sanctuary, in heavy weather 256 miles northeast of Bermuda, was hit by several breaking waves, lost power and began slowly taking on water. The crew of five, four men and one woman, called for help.   The US Coast Guard launched a C130 Hercules plane from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City to help locate the sailboat.  They also vectored the cruise ship, Norwegian Gem, part of the AMVER network, to the distressed sailboat.   In 40 knot winds and large swells, the five crew sailors were rescued and taken aboard the cruise ship.  The Norwegian Gem, which was on its way back from Bermuda when they rescued the sailors, arrived back in New York, this morning.  The Norwegian Gem is one of roughly 20,000 ships enrolled in the AMVER program.  The rescue of the five sailors from the Sanctuary is just another example of how AMVER saves lives.  But what is AMVER?
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How Not to Dispose of a Dead Whale

Posted on by October 30, 2011

So what do you do if you find a dead gray whale on your beach? It is too large to bury, too heavy to drag away and too stinky to cut into pieces. I am not sure that I have the answer but I can say what not to do. Don’t pack it with dynamite and try to blow it up. The video clip below dates back to 1970 when a dead gray whale washed up on a beach in Florence, Washington. The highway department tried to blow up the whale with a half ton of dynamite. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It wasn’t.

Exploding Whale

Armed Guards on Merchant Ships, the New Norm in Pirate Waters?

Posted on by October 30, 2011

British Prime Minister David Cameron recently announced that armed guards would be allowed to be carried on British merchant ships transiting off the coast of Somalia.   Shipping firms will now be able to apply for a license to carry guards armed with automatic weapons, which previously had been illegal. It was an open secret that many shipping firms have been carrying armed guards with or without government approval.
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Update: MV Rena Salvage Ongoing, A Second Container Ship Runs Aground, HMAS Broome Averts Disaster

Posted on by October 29, 2011

Attempts to pump out the residual fuel of from the MV Rena, stranded on Astrolabe Reef off New Zealand continue with mixed results.  New focus for Rena salvagers

Today, a second container ship, the Schelder Trader, lost power and drifted onto the north-west rocks at the entrance to Tauranga Harbour not far from where the MV Rena ran aground.   The Schelder Trader was freed without incident.  (Thanks to Dirk Bal for the heads up.)  Another container ship in trouble off Tauranga, refloated after hitting rocks

In the same hemisphere but a considerable distance away, this week, the Royal Australian Navy Patrol Boat, HMAS Broome, is being credited with preventing an environmental and maritime catastrophe off Papua New Guinea overnight by providing assistance to the container ship, MV Vega Fynen, which had lost power and was drifting towards Ragelapra Reef, 100 nautical miles south-east of Port Moresby.  HMAS Broome averts maritime disaster