The SBX-1 Comes to Seattle

Posted on by May 15, 2011

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The SBX-1 , the Sea Based X-Band Radar 1, looks like something out of science fiction.    It recently arrived at Vigor Shipyard on Seattle’s Harbor Island for three months of maintenance and upgrading.

The SBX-1  is a huge white dome with a  half dozen or so smaller domes ontop of  a modified MODU, a Mobile Offshore Drilling unit, on which high tech radar arrays have replaced the drilling rig.   It is 240 feet wide, 390 feet long, and 280 feet high from its keel to the top of the radar dome (radome) and can cross an ocean under its own power at eight knots.

Massive radar could track baseball from across a continent
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Was the Japanese Tsunami Good for Fin Whales in Iceland?

Posted on by May 14, 2011

Time recently posted an article “Why Fukushima Is Good for Whales (in Iceland).” The article,  in fact, had almost nothing to do with the damaged nuclear power plants at Fukushima (at least as applied to whales) and quite a lot to do with the damage done by the tsunami.  Iceland exports the meat of endangered fin whales to Japan.  Tsunami damage  to whale processing plants in Japan may delay the start of the Icelandic whaling season.   The Time article reports that the Icelandic whaling season has been “called off” while other sources say that it has been postponed or delayed.
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Basketball on an Aircraft Carrier?

Posted on by May 18, 2011

How can you tell when you have too many aircraft carriers? Possibly, when you start using this expensive hardware for sporting venues.

On Nov. 11, 2011, the Veteran’s Day Carrier Classic basketball game between North Carolina and Michigan State will be played on an aircraft carrier in San Diego harbor. Either the USS Ronald Reagan or the USS Carl Vinson is expected to host the first ever collegiate basketball game on a warship. The USS Carl Vinson was recently in the news as the ship from which Osama bin Laden was buried at sea.

Carrier Classic could be played on ship that buried bin Laden at sea
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Two Constants – Bligh Reef and Human Error

Posted on by May 13, 2011

On March 24, 1989 the third mate on the Exxon Valdez lost track of the ship’s position and  ran the ship into  Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, resulting in a spill of roughly 40,000 tons of crude oil, the largest offshore spill in the US prior to last year’s Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill.

After the Exxon Valdez spill, new safety measures were instituted in Prince William Sound including the addition of tugs to scout for ice. On December 23, 2009 the captain of the Pathfinder, an ice scout tug, lost track the tug’s position and ran aground on Bligh Reef, spilling about 6,400 gallons of diesel fuel.   A report from the US Coast Guard’s investigation is due out this week and is reported to blame a lack of crew communication for the grounding.

Twenty year separates the two accidents. The two things they have in common is that Bligh Reef hasn’t moved and that human error is still with us.

Report faults captain in tugboat grounding on Bligh Reef

Happy 100th Birthday to the Barque Passat !

Posted on by May 12, 2011

Today through Sunday, there will be a 100th birthday party in Travemünde, Germany, for one of the last of the true windjammers, the four masted barque Passat.  One of the F. Laeisz Flying P-Liners, she was in launched 1911 at the Blohm & Voss shipyard, Hamburg.   She carried commercial cargoes under sail until 1949, rounding Cape Horn 39 times.  In 1951, she was converted to a school ship and in 1959 was purchased by the Baltic Sea municipality of Lübeck.

Happy birthday to a grand old ship!

The William Main Doerflinger Memorial Sea Shanty Sessions at the Noble Maritime Collection at Snug Harbor

Posted on by September 22, 2016

This Sunday, May 15, from 2 to 5 PM, the first monthly  William Main Doerflinger Memorial Sea Shanty Session will be held at the Noble Maritime Collection at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center at 1000 Richmond Terrace, building D, in Staten Island New York.
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Charleston Harbor Fest – Mix of Old and New

Posted on by May 11, 2011

The Charleston Harbor Fest which begins tomorrow and runs through Sunday features a mix of old and new on the water.  The four competing ECO 60 sailboats in the Velux 5 Oceans Around the World Race will be on display as will the three traditional vessels, the schooners Pride of  Baltimore II,  the Spirit of South Carolina, and the brigantine Fritha.  Sharp-built privateers like the Pride of Baltimore were among the fastest vessels on the way in their day, so it seems fitting that they are joined by the ECO 60s which are among the fasting sailing vessels of our time.

Velux 5 Oceans Race centrepiece in Charleston Harbour Fest
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Seattle Maritime Festival 2011

Posted on by May 11, 2011

The Seattle Maritime Festival starts tomorrow and runs through Saturday, featuring the world’s largest tug boat race, National Fisherman’s Eleventh Annual Stories of the Sea Fisher Poetry Slam, World Invitational Survival Suit Races, Pacific Maritime Magazine Quick & Dirty Boatbuilding Competition, and the Fourteenth Annual Seattle Waterfront Neighborhood Waterfront Chowder Cook-Off , as well as free vessel and harbor tours and special activities for kids. Sounds like a great time.

Seattle Maritime Festival 2011

The “Swash Channel Wreck”, 400 Hundred Years Old, Rotting Away

Posted on by May 11, 2011

Photo: BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY

An unidentified wreck, believed to be 400 years old, has been described as the “biggest discovery since the Mary Rose.”  For centuries, it was covered by sand but is now rotting away so fast that it may effectively disappear within five years.

Battle to save remains of 400-year-old wreck

The remains of the ship, known simply as the Swash Channel Wreck, were preserved for centuries under the seabed in six metres of water off the Dorset coast. But now its ornately carved timbers, the earliest still in existence in Britain, are literally being eaten away.
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Barge Shipping Shutdown by Record Flooding on the Mississippi and by Record Drought on China’s Yangtze

Posted on by May 10, 2011

Photo: Jeff Roberson/AP

Water transportation on two of the world’s longest river systems have been disrupted by extremes in water levels. On the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers record  flooding  has  disrupted  or halted barge traffic while on China’s Yangtze River a record drought has snarled traffic. The flooding on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers is the worst  since 1937 while the river levels on the Yangtze have reached 50 year lows.
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Over 500 Libyan Refugees Rescued off Italy near Lampedusa Island

Posted on by October 4, 2013

Photo: Valentina Pop

In April we posted about the sinking of an overloaded fishing boat carrying Libyan refugees where over 200 drowned.   Today it was reported that another overloaded refugee boat in the roughly the same area sank with over 500 people aboard. Fortunately, the Italian Coast Guard is reported to have rescued all aboard.

Italy rescues 500 migrants after boat runs aground near Lampedusa island
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HMS Astute Towed Back to Port After Hydraulics Failure

Posted on by May 9, 2011

HMS Astute, the Royal Navy’s most advanced  nuclear submarine, was delivered 43 months behind schedule and £900 million over budget.   Then during trials in October,  it  ran aground off the Isle of Skye.   It was also in a collision with the tug that came to help pull it off.     In December, the sub was idled by mechanical failures.  Then in the beginning of April, a disgruntled sailor shot and killed one ship’s officer and wounded another while the ship was on publci relations call in Southhampton.  The ship that the British papers had begun to call “HMS Calamity” is now being referred to as “jinxed.”

Today, we learn that the sub has been towed back to base after suffering a serious failure in its hydraulic system.   The newspapers are pointing out that had the such a failure could have ” killed its entire crew.”

Jinxed nuclear submarine’s malfunction could have killed its entire crew
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Capture of U110 and the Enigma Machine, Seventy Years Ago Today

Posted on by May 9, 2011

On May 9, 1941, seventy years ago today, the German submarines U110 and U201 were attacking a British convoy in the Atlantic south of Iceland.   U110 was forced to surface after being depth changed and was abandoned by her crew who thought that the submarine was sinking.  A boarding party from HMS Bulldog boarded the submarine and carried off its code books, ciphers and a Naval Enigma machine.   The Enigma machine and the documents allowed Alan Turing and his codebreakers at Bletchley Park to break the German Naval Enigma code, an  intelligence breakthrough which changed the course of the war in the Atlantic.

An exhibit commemorating the 70th anniversary of the capture of an Enigma machine and codebooks from a German wartime submarine has opened in Bletchley Park.

Bletchley Park opens U-110 Enigma exhibit
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The Snakehead Fish in New York and the ‘Godzilla’ Lionfish in the Caribbean

Posted on by May 8, 2011

Snakefish (left), Lion fish (right)

Two recent articles about alien invasive species: The New York Times reports on efforts to stop the smuggling of the Chinese snakehead fish. The fish is considered to be  a delicacy in New York’s Chinatown, but is a voracious predator that can wipe out entire schools of fish and destroy an ecosystem when released outside of its natural habitat.   Likewise the BBC reports on  the ‘Godzilla’ lionfish and its threat to Caribbean waters, where it has no natural predators.
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Women Making Music with the Sea

Posted on by May 8, 2011

This is not specifically a Mother’s Day post, but somehow, it feels right to post today. Women of the Banks Islands, a group of islands in northern Vanuatu, in the Pacific stand waist deep in the ocean and literally play the water by pounding out complex rhythmic patterns to show their appreciation to the sea. The short clip below is from a BBC Documentary ‘South Pacific’ ( ‘Wild Pacific’ in the US) and as reported by Adelle Havard in Mother Jones – Power of Communication.   Thanks to Steamboat Bill for tweeting about this music of the waters.

Women Making Music with the Sea

USS Michael Murphy Christened, Dedicated to Fallen SEAL

Posted on by May 7, 2011

Navy SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy would have been 35 years old today, had he not died in combat behind enemy lines in Afghanistan in 2005.  Lt. Murphy was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the United States military’s highest decoration, for  herosim.   Today the USS Michael Murphy, the 62nd ship of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, named in honor of Lt. Murphy was christened at Bath Iron Works.

Navy ship dedicated to fallen SEAL
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El Hierro – Energy from Wind and Water

Posted on by January 7, 2021

El Hierro is the easternmost of Spain’s Canary Islands, 750 miles from the Spanish mainland.  The island itself has no energy resources beyond wind and water.  There is now a plan to make the island wholly energy independent by linking wind and hydro-power together to provide a constant and reliable supply of electricity.

A Spanish Island’s Quest to Be the Greenest Place on Earth
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America’s Cup Test Sessions: a Brave New World

Posted on by May 7, 2011

I remember when America’s Cup racing was fairly tame –  beautiful 12M yachts gliding in light air in the waters of Rhode Island Sound.   Times have indeed changed.  The new AC45 wing-sailed catamarans recently underwent two weeks of testing in Auckland, New Zealand.

America’s Cup test sessions: a brave new world

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