For several years, the FSO Safer, a floating oil storage and offloading vessel, moored in the Red Sea north of the Yemeni city of Al Hudaydah, may be an environmental disaster waiting to happen. The ship has been held as a virtual hostage in the ongoing Yemeni civil war. A converted 400,000 DWT ultra large crude carrier (ULCC), built in 1976, the ship now contains about 1.14 million barrels of oil valued at up to US$80 million. The ship has been progressively deteriorating due to a lack of maintenance and supplies, and many are concerned that the Safer is in imminent risk of sinking, fire, or explosion.
Update: The F.S.O. Safer—pronounced “Saffer”—is named for a patch of desert near the city of Marib, in central Yemen, where the country’s first reserves of crude oil were discovered.
Should the Safer sink or explode, a massive spill would be disastrous, potentially four times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill of 1999.
The wreck of the legendary cutter 
Another reminder of how little we know and understand about orca whales. Scientists have identified a new type of orca, also known as killer whales, off the US and Canadian Pacific West Coast. Termed ‘
On Sunday, October 10, from noon to 6PM, Bristol, England will host its first sea shanty festival with ten shanty crews performing on outdoor stages on the city’s harborside.
Yesterday, the 
For the last 15 years, the Soviet-era 
We have posted about the ongoing port congestion that has resulted in as many as 70 ships being anchored off the Southern Californian coast waiting for berths. While no one knows for certain what caused the pipeline rupture that leaked more than 140,000 gallons of oil off the California coast, initial indications suggest that it may have been the result of a ship’s anchor catching the pipeline. 
For almost a decade the US Navy has struggled through an ongoing corruption and bribery scandal involving ship support contractor Glenn Defense Marine Asia, a firm run by Leonard Glenn Francis, a Malaysian national known as “
We recently posted about 
In February we 
Saildrone Inc. and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have released the first video footage gathered by an uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) from inside a major hurricane barreling across the Atlantic Ocean.
Interesting news from 
Last week Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (
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