Photo: Jeff Riedel
No one knows exactly how much oil was spilled at Newtown Creek, an industrial canal between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens in New York harbor, but the best estimates are between between 17 million and 30 million gallons, which is more oil than was spilled by the Deepwater Horizon blowout and three times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill. Oil refineries, storage and transfer facilities along the creek are believed to have leaked the oil into the ground over many decades, polluting the soil, groundwater and sending oil seeping into Newtown Creek. Last Wednesday, Exxon agreed to a settlement to clean up the spill. Video of a cruise up Newtown Creek, after the jump.
Exxon Reaches Settlement Over Newtown Creek Oil Spill
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A wonderful collection of more than 9,000 books and periodicals on ships and the sea has gone on display in a new library in Bristol.
Bad news and good news. The Tacoma Tall Ships Organization is no more and the hoped for 
After waiting out the hurricane season in the Canary Islands 15-year-old Dutch sailor
After more than a year long ordeal, British sailors Paul and Rachel Chandler were released today by Somali pirates. The retired couple was seized by the pirates on October 22, 2009.
How could an fire in one of two engine rooms do sufficient damage to the electrical distribution system on the Carnival Splendor to completely disable the ship? The answer isn’t obvious. The Carnival Splendor is diesel electric powered, which is to say, instead of the ship’s engines connecting to the propellers by shafts, each of her two propellers is driven by an electric motor. Diesel engines connected to generators provide the power to drive the propellers, as well as to make the ice cubes, heat the hot tubs, and provide all the other electricity needed by this small city at sea.
The Canadian War Museum is marking the 100th anniversary of Canada’s navy with a fascinating new online exhibit – 
On this anniversary of the armistice on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day or the eleventh month that ended the “war to end all wars,” it seems worthwhile to remember the often overlooked role of merchant mariners in national defense. Though it was kept secret during the war and largely ignored afterward, 1 in 26 mariners serving aboard US merchant ships in World WW II died in the line of duty, suffering a greater percentage of war-related deaths than all other U.S. services.