The story goes that the pirate, Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, once mixed gunpowder in his rum, set the rum on fire and then drank the explosive mixture, sort of an early 18th century flaming jello shot, but with more incendiary and less jello. It seems that a New Zealand bartender, Ben Simpson at Motel Bar in Wellington, was inspired by Blackbeard to develop his Man O’War Gunpowder Rum, a tobacco, chilli, and gunpowder infused rum which may either put hair on your chest or just possibly set it on fire.
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British Isles
We recently have had several posts regarding rogue waves – a review of Susan Casey’s new book The Wave and the BBC Documentary Freak Waves. Oceanographers generally dismissed reports of rogue waves as wild exaggerations or “sea stories,” until a rogue wave was documented hitting the Draupner platform in the North Sea off the coast of Norway on January 1, 1995. While rogue waves may not have been scientifically documented until 1995, ships’ captains have been reporting them for many decades. Here is an account of a rogue wave from the deck of three masted windjammer British Isles attempting to round Cape Horn in the winter of 1905. The account sounds almost exactly like the descriptions given in the BBC documentary by two ship’s captains of cruise ships struck by rogue waves almost a hundred years later.
From Captain James P. Barker’s memoir, The Log of a Limejuicer:
At that moment the moon, which had been hidden behind a thick blanket of scurrying clouds, broke through a rift to reveal a scene which caused me to gasp with astonishment and awe. . . . There, stretching endlessly north and south, a mighty wall of water, towering high above its fellows and making them appear insignificant by comparison, was rolling towards the British Isles.
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Today is Blog Action Day where bloggers around the wold are posting about a common theme – water. Most, no doubt, will be blogging about the almost a billion people in the world who do not have access to clean drinking water. This is an immediate problem which should be addressed. I have decided to blog to about another problem, not quite so immediate and not as easy to understand but still a serious threat to all of us – ocean acidification.
Ocean acidification is one of those terms that could easily put you to sleep or at least cause your eyes to glaze over. Nevertheless, if the scientists are correct, ocean acidification could result in the death of the worlds coral reefs by 2100. Likewise, the real threat to whales in the Southern Oceans are not Japanese whalers, but the possible widespread death of krill that are the whales food supply, due again to ocean acidification. Ocean acidification could cause a wholesale collapse of the ocean ecosystem. The effects on those us on shore would be equally disastrous.
What is ocean acidification? From the BBC:
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The SA Agulhas is South Africa’s ice-strengthened polar research vessel. The ship recently completed a five day voyage with an all woman crew and on her arrival in Port Elizabeth Harbor was guided into port by a woman harbor pilot. As part of National Water Week, the SA Agulhas sailed from Cape Town to Durban with an all-female crew recruited from various shipping companies.
Tomorrow is International Blog Action Day, when bloggers around the world get together to blog about a common theme. This year that theme is clean water. Will a few thousand, or even hundreds of thousands, of the chattering class posting about clean water do any real magic? Somehow, I am skeptical. Then again, can it do any harm? Probably not.
Attorney David Leslie-Hughes with model of the Mayflower
Today in the Bucks County Courthouse in Pennsylvania, a 20-inch-long and 22-inch-tall model of the Mayflower, the ship that carried English separatists, known as Pilgrims, to Massachusetts in 1620, will go on public display for the first time in the United States. The model is said to be built from a plank from the original ship. The display is part of a local historian’s presentation on the lives of William Penn and his father. What does the Mayflower have to do with William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania? Not a lot, but there is a tangential connection. William Penn died in Ruscombe, and was buried in the cemetery of the Jordans Quaker meeting house, which happens to be a few hundred yards from the “Mayflower Barn.” The barn is said to have been built from the planking and timbers of the Mayflower of 1620. In the 1930s, members of the national Quaker society removed a piece of timber from the barn and commissioned a model maker to craft three replicas of the Mayflower, one of which is being displayed today in Buck’s County.
Around Fells Point and Baltimore’s Inner Harbor will be a glorious place for any schooner lover to be this evening. There will be a parade of sail of the over forty schooners who are participating the 21st Annual Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race starting at 1700. Tomorrow the race from Baltimore to Portsmouth, Virgina starts at 1300. This year, transponders installed on the racing schooners will allow spectators on the internet to follow the race down the bay on-line. Click here to see more.
To celebrate the arrival of the schooners, Portsmouth Virginia is sponsoring its Schooner Days – a celebration of the world’s largest gathering of schooners along the waterfront of Olde Towne Portsmouth.
Today, October 13th, is celebrated as the birthday of the United States Navy, not to be confused with Navy Day, which is celebrated on October 27th. The current “birthday” may have more to do with bragging rights than real birthdays.
For many years, the founding of the Navy was celebrated on various dates, the most common being either March 27th, the day in 1794 when the Congress authorized the construction of five frigates, or on April 30th, the day in 1798 when the Navy Department was first established.
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The Center for Whale Research is using a novel approach to tracking orca whales. They are using the only operational zeppelin in the United States, the Airship Eureka, on loan from Farmers’ Insurance, the company that sponsors the zeppelin, which donated a day of flying for the orca survey in Washington’s Puget Sound.
Damage to Tanker Mindoro
This morning around 4:56 UTC the Cypriot container ship Jork Ranger collided with the Greek tanker Mindoro, carrying jet fuel off the Scheveningen coast in the North Sea. The collision caused a fuel spill from a five-meter wide puncture in the tanker.
Oil Slick In North Sea After Tanker-container Ship Collision
Reports quoting the Dutch Coast Guard said the spill did not cause any environmental damage, as a small trail of light paraffin was evaporating soon and drifting away from the Dutch shoreline.
The leak from a five-meter wide hole was plugged by rescue teams without much delay.
Damage to the Jork Ranger
Thanks to Dick Bal for passing the news along. Here is a remarkable AIS plot of the collision. The video is after the jump.
Collision between Greek tanker Mindoro and Cypriot container ship Jork Ranger
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The Mall Gallery in London has a show of work by the Royal Society of Marine Artists from Wed October 13 to Sat October 23, 2010.
Photo: Ayesha Rascoe
According to one study the US has enough offshore wind to power the country four times over. In Europe there are currently 830 wind turbines now installed and grid connected, totalling 2,063 MW in 39 wind farms in nine European countries with over 100 GW of offshore wind projects in various stages of planning. The US, in contrast, generates zero kilowatts from offshore wind. Zero.
Recently Google and Good Energies, a New York based financial firm, have agreed to make a major investment in a proposed $5 billion transmission backbone for future offshore wind farms along the Atlantic Seaboard, a critical bit of infrastructure to move power ashore. Last week, after a nine year legal and regulatory battle, Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, signed a 28 year lease for Cape Wind, a $1 billion, 130-turbine project in the Nantucket Sound that could provide up to 75% of all electricity for Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket. So is the US beginning to catch up with Europe and the rest of the world? Nope. Not even close. Formidable legal and regulatory obstacles still remain and it is by no mens certain that Cape Wind will ever be built.
Despite Lease Approval, Future of Cape Wind Remains Up in the Air
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Today is Columbus Day in the United States (and Thanksgiving Day in Canada. Happy Thanksgiving Canadians.) Columbus Day is celebrated tomorrow in Spain.
Every year about this time, various scholars and pundits emerge to denigrate the memory of the Genoese naviator and explorer. There were indeed many things for which Christoffa Corombo, as he was known in his home of Genoa, could be criticized for. He never reached China. He severely underestimated the circumference of the Earth, (which may have been more Ptolomy’s fault that Christoffa’s.)
Of course, these are not the faults for which what the modern pundits condemn Columbus. Columbus was indeed an imperialist and he promoted genocide. The man was clearly a monster! Or so they contend. Howard Zinn is his book A People’s History of The United States makes the case:
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We posted recently about the efforts by B9 Shipping and the Greenheart Project to develop competitive modern sailing cargo ships. In the Netherlands Fairtransport Shipbrokers is operating the Brigantine Tres Hombres in freight service between Europe, the Atlantic islands, the Caribbean and North America. A video about their operations:
PowerBuoy
Recently we have been posting about the PowerBuoys developed by Ocean Power Technology. They will soon be connected to the word’s largest “Wave Hub” off the coast of England. They are also working toward deploying their buoys off the Oregon coast. Ocean Power Technologies announced this week the completion of the first-ever grid connection of a wave energy device in the United States. There is a video of the PowerBuoy in waves after the jump.
Commercial wave energy device completed at Hawaiian naval facility
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Flag of Curaçao
Today, 10/10/10 is proving popular as a day to be be married. It is also apparently a good day for a divorce, or at east a reorganization. The Netherlands Antilles is being dissolved today. The islands of Curaçao and Sint Maarten are becoming independent countries while the islands of Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba will gain Dutch municipality status. The Netherlands Antilles Ship Register will be transferred to the Curaçao Ship Register. This register is, and will remain, located in Willemstad , Curaçao, and the new country will assume all existing flag state responsibilities for this register. All treaties, codes and legal responsibilities will be transferred to the new government.
There fire and explosions on the Lithuanian ferry Lisco Gloria early Saturday. Twenty three minor injuries were reported. Translated by Google from German from Der Spiegel :
Second explosion reinforced fire on the Baltic Sea ferry
236 people rescued, but the flames are still not under control: on the Baltic Sea are struggling rescue ships, ferries “Lisco Gloria” to clear the burning. A new explosion has increased the fires. Forces fear that diesel oil could leak into the sea.
Kiel – “The ship is ablaze,” said a spokesman for the Emergency command in Cuxhaven in the morning, had a quick erase of the fire is not expected. “The fire eats further and further into the ship.” The forces are trying to cool the outer skin of the ship – to prevent the destruction of the 200-meter long “Lisco Gloria”. Is pumped too much water in extinguishing the ferry could capsize, they said the spokesman.
Thanks to Ulrich Rudofsky for passing the article along.
B9 Shipping and the Greenheart Project are both working to develop new high-tech sailing coasters. B9 has in mind a 3,000 DWT three masted bulk carrier with automated square sails whereas the Greenheart Project envisions a much smaller fore and aft rigged general cargo ship. They both look intriguing. Whether or not they would be economically viable is still unclear. By the standards of today, a 3,000 DWT bulk carrier is quite small. Nevertheless, it is roughly the same size as the great windjammers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A B9 Shipping promotional video, after the jump.
Will renewable energy fuel a new generation of eco-shipping?
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An amazing 23 foot-long Lego replica of the Essex Class aircraft carrier USS Intrepid constructed by Ed Diment was unveiled at the Great Western Lego Show Swindon, UK last weekend. Click here for more photos.
Giant Lego Replica of Aircraft Carrier USS Intrepid
Modeled after the ship as it looked in February, 1945, the period-perfect details include motorized gun turrets, TBM Avenger torpedo planes, and F4U Corsair fighters.
Yesterday the 7,000 DWT chemical tanker YM Uranus carrying pyrogas gasoline was in a collision with the 197,000 DWT bulker Hanjin Rizhao off the coast of Brittany. Contrary to early reports that the chemical tanker was sinking, she remained afloat, despite a significant list, with no loss of cargo. Her crew abandoned ship and was picked up by the French Navy. The YM Uranus is now under tow to the port of Brest.