In 1800s, Sperm Whales Learned to Avoid Whalers

Posted on by April 6, 2021

Image: Gabriel Barathieu

When American and British whaling ships hunted for sperm whales in the North Pacific in the early 1800s, they noted something disturbing. After initially good results, the whalers’ success in harpooning the whales fell by about 58% over the first few years of whaling. Now, a study led by Hal Whitehead, a whale biologist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, may have found the answer as to why this happened. Using data from digitized whaleship logbooks, his team determined that the most likely explanation is that the sperm whales learned how to avoid the whalers and taught other groups of whales how to do the same.

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The Northern Sea Route as an Alternative to the Suez Canal

Posted on by April 4, 2021

When the ultra-large container ship Ever Given blocked traffic in the Suez Canal recently, Russia’s energy ministry saw an opportunity. The ministry suggested that the shutdown of the canal highlighted the safety and sustainability of its Northern Sea Route (NSR).

Nikolai Korchunov, Russia’s envoy for international cooperation in the Arctic, said that the Suez Canal blockage should press the world to look at the NSR as an alternative.

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Remembering the USS Johnston & Cmdr. Ernest Evans at the Battle off Samar

Posted on by April 3, 2021

In November 2019, RV Petrel located the scattered wreckage of a World War II warship at a depth of 21,180 ft in the Philippine Sea. The wreck, thought to be the deepest wreck of a warship ever discovered, was suspected to be either of the USS Johnston or possibly the USS Hoel. On Thursday, the Navy and a team of undersea explorers announced that the wreck had been positively identified as the USS Johnston.

Late last month, a manned-submersible operated by Caladan Oceanic, a Dallas undersea exploration company, located the front two-thirds of the ship, sitting upright, along with the bridge, midsection, and the identifying hull number, 557.

USS Johnston was a Fletcher Class destroyer under the command of Ernest E. Evans at the Battle off Samar. The Johnston was among four destroyers and three destroyer escorts guarding six escort carriers of the Task Force 77.43, known by its call sign “Taffy Three.” On the morning of October 25, 1944, they were surprised by an overwhelming Japanese fleet of four battleships, eight cruisers, and at least twelve destroyers.

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Captain Brett Crozier — A Hero Villainized By The Navy, Praised By His Colleagues

Posted on by April 2, 2021

One year ago today, Captain Brett Crozier walked down the gangway of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. He had been relieved of command after the San Francisco Chronicle reported the contents of a leaked letter he wrote to his superiors in March pleading for help as his crew battled an outbreak of Covid-19 while underway.

While the political appointees in Washington were displeased with Captain Crozier, his crew understood and appreciated what he had done for them. They gave him a rousing send-off, to cheers and applause, chanting his name and proclaiming him the GOAT( the Greatest Of All Time).

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Lubec’s Gold from Sea Water Hoax of 1898

Posted on by April 1, 2021

Prospectus for The Electrolytic Marine Salts Company

On April Fool’s Day, a repost about not an April Fool’s Day prank but a hoax and a swindle. In October of 1897, at the height of the Alaskan Gold Rush, two men, Prescott Ford Jernegan, a Baptist minister, and Charles Fisher, both from Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, arrived in Lubec, Maine to establish a facility to extract gold from seawater.

Klondike: Lubec’s Gold from Sea Water Hoax

The two newcomers leased Hiram Comstock’s tidal grist mill located at Mill Creek in North Lubec. According to Reverend Jernegan in the prospectus, he prepared for potential investors, “Millions of dollars in gold were flowing through Lubec Narrows every single day.”

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Women’s History Month — Eleanor Creesy, Navigator of the Clipper Ship Flying Cloud

Posted on by March 31, 2021

On the last day of Women’s History Month, it is worthwhile remembering Eleanor Creesy, the navigator of the clipper ship Flying Cloud, who with her husband, Captain Josiah Creesy, set world sailing records for the fastest passage between New York and San Francisco. 

Eleanor Prentiss was born in 1814, in Marblehead, Massachusetts, the daughter of a master mariner, who taught his daughter the art and science of navigation. Eleanor knew how to use a chronometer and a sextant and how to make a sight reduction. In 1841, Eleanor married Captain Josiah Perkins Creesy. The couple sailed together on the ship Oneida in the China trade. Josiah was captain of the ship but Eleanor was the navigator.

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Women’s History Month — Honoring Winnie Breegle, WWII WAVE and Code Talker

Posted on by March 30, 2021

On the next to last day of Women’s History Month, it is a good time to honor Winnie Breegle who served in World War II as a WAVE (Woman Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) cryptographer and a Navajo code talker, who didn’t happen to be a Navajo.

In 1941, Winnie Breegle, a 21-year-old farm girl from Ohio taught Latin, Spanish and English in high school, and women with such backgrounds were highly sought for work as coders. When she enlisted in the Navy, she was trained as a cryptographer.

Winnie first worked in the Baltimore Port Director’s office supporting war ships in the Baltimore Harbor receiving and sending encrypted messages for the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. Encryption codes were quickly deciphered by the enemy and new codes had to be developed and learned. Winnie became the group focal to learn new encryption codes and would return to her unit and teach the codes to the others. Sometimes she would not sleep at night so as not forget the new code until she could teach others in the unit. The stress of the operations was intense with the cryptographers working 24 hours a day, 4 days a week. Through all of this, Winnie eventually learned the Navajo “Code Talker” language.

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Ever Given in the Suez Canal — Free At Last!

Posted on by March 29, 2021

The combination of a peak high tide, excavation by dredgers, and the combined pull of more than a dozen tugs has finally freed the ultra-large container ship Ever Given.  The 400-meter long container ship carrying 18,000 containers ran aground last Tuesday blocking the Suez Canal and resulting in a traffic jam of roughly 400 ships. The shutting down of the canal cost an estimated $10 billion per day in lost commerce.

The ship will be towed toward the Great Bitter Lake, a wide stretch of water in the middle of the canal, where the ship will undergo technical inspection, canal authorities said.

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Cranes Ordered to Help Refloat Container Ship Ever Given Blocking Suez Canal

Posted on by March 28, 2021

Tugs and dredgers have been making some progress in refloated the stranded ultra-large container ship, Ever Given, that has blocked traffic in the Suez Canal since last Tuesday.  The next best hope of freeing the stranded ship will come on Monday on the “king tide,” an exceptionally high tide. Whether sufficient dredging in way of the ship’s bow will be completed in time to make this possible, remains to be seen. 

On Saturday, tugs succeeded in moving the stern of the ship by about 2 degrees or 100 feet. The ship’s rudder and propeller are both now clear. The bow, however, remains firmly buried in sand and clay.

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Ever Given Still Blocking the Suez Canal — Tides, Dredging & Detours

Posted on by March 27, 2021

The saying goes that the tide floats all boats. The current hope is that a peak high tide on Monday may allow salvors to refloat the ultra-large container ship Ever Given that has been blocking all traffic in the Suez Canal since Tuesday. Monday’s tide is expected to be 18″ above mean high water and is hoped to be enough, coupled with frantic dredging and excavating around the ship, to refloat the “beached whale” behemoth.

If the ship cannot be freed in the next several days, it is likely that the process could stretch from days to weeks, as liquids and cargo are off-loaded to lighten the ship. The shutdown of the canal is estimated to be costing $10 billion dollars per day in lost commerce. There are currently almost 250 ships waiting to transit the canal. In the best case, if the ship is refloated in the next few days, it will likely take weeks to clear the ship traffic-jam at either end of the canal.

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Ever Given — Was Suez-Max Simply Suez Too Much?

Posted on by March 26, 2021

The Ever Given, the 20,000 TEU container that has been blocking all traffic on the Suez Canal since Tuesday, is one of the largest container ships in the world and one of the largest ships allowed to transit the Canal. In the shipping industry, it is referred to as a Suez-Max. The recent grounding of the Ever Given, in high winds during a dust storm, raises the question, are these ultra-large container ships too large to safely transit the Suez Canal?  Put another way, for large container ships, is Suez-Max Suez too much? 
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Suez Canal Still Blocked by Ultra-Large Container Ship Ever Given

Posted on by March 25, 2021

Despite optimistic estimates yesterday, the Suez Canal remains blocked in both direction by the ultra-large container ship Ever Given. The 20,000 TEU, 400-meter long ship, operated by Evergreen Marine Corp, ran aground during a dust storm and high winds on Tuesday. The ship is blocking transit in both directions through one of the world’s busiest shipping channels for goods, oil, grain and other products linking Asia and Europe.

Channel News Asia reports that Peter Berdowski, CEO of Dutch company Boskalis, which is trying to free the ship, said it was too early to say how long the job might take.

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Ultra-Large Container Ship, Ever Given, Blocks Suez Canal

Posted on by March 24, 2021

On Tuesday morning, Ever Given, an ultra-large container ship capable of carrying 20,000 TEU, ran aground in the Suez Canal suffering a blackout in high winds during a dust storm. The ship became stuck sideways in the canal blocking both northbound and southbound transit. By Wednesday morning, more than 100 ships were stuck at each end of the canal, which carries roughly 10 percent of worldwide shipping traffic. 

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Scandal-Plagued German Sail Training Ship Gorch Fock Back in the Water

Posted on by March 23, 2021

The German Navy sail training ship Gorch Fock is finally back in the water after a lengthy repair/rebuilding, plagued by scandal and extraordinary cost overruns. Delivered in 1958, she is a near-sister vessel of the original ship of the same name commissioned in 1933. The ship is often referred to unofficially as the Gorch Fock II to distinguish her from her older sister ship.

Depending on who you ask the training ship is either the “pride of the German Navy” or an ongoing embarrassment. The Berlin Spectator took the later view when it noted that “replacing the second ‘o’ in ‘Gorch Fock’ with a ‘u’ will show what many Germans think of the scandals surrounding the vessel.”

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Vineyard Wind & South Fork Wind Projects Receive Regulatory Green Lights

Posted on by March 22, 2021

Two offshore wind energy projects off the US Northeast coast have received new approvals from regulators.

Vineyard Wind

Vineyard Wind, an 800 megawatt (MW) wind farm to be built 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, was advised that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) had completed its environmental review. The Final Environmental Impact Statement is the second to last step in the federal permitting process for the project. The Interior Department could greenlight the project as early as April.

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Norway’s $325 Million Stadt Ship Tunnel Gets Go-Ahead

Posted on by March 21, 2021

An update to a post from 2017: Norway’s Stad Peninsula divides the Norwegian Sea to the north and the North Sea to the south. The seas, winds, currents, and weather are extremely dangerous for any ship attempting to round the peninsula. Now, Norway intends to bore through the rocky shores to cut a passageway to create a short-cut for ocean-going ships. The tunnel, the world’s  first for ocean-going ships, will be 1,700 meters long by 37 meters high and 26.5 meters wide. The tunnel is expected to cost at least 2.7bn kroner ($325m). A tunnel through the Stadt peninsula was first proposed in 1870.

After years of planning, the Norwegian Coastal Administration has confirmed that it has received the go-ahead to start working on the Stad Ship Tunnel.

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George Bass, Father of Underwater Archaeology, Dies at 88

Posted on by March 20, 2021

George Bass died earlier this month at the age of 88. He was an American archaeologist, often referred to as the “father of underwater archeology”. He co-directed the first expedition to entirely excavate an ancient shipwreck at Cape Gelidonya in 1960 and founded the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in 1972.

As noted by the New York Times, Professor Bass led or co-directed archaeological efforts around the world, including in the United States, but he focused on the coast of Turkey — for thousands of years a maritime trade route for a succession of civilizations, from the ancient Canaanites to the early Byzantine Empire.

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Royal Navy Training Under Sail Again on TS Tenacious

Posted on by March 19, 2021

The Royal Navy has announced that for the first time in decades, its sailors are learning the art of seafaring on a traditional tall ship.

Over four months junior sailors are crewing TS Tenacious – giving them a unique insight into the days of sail and the chance to pick up key leadership skills.

The square-rigger is running in and out of Portsmouth with Royal Navy sailors performing tasks and duties Nelson would recognize: from heaving and hauling lines to set the sails, to watchkeeping and steering.

The use of the Jubilee Sailing Trust’s Tenacious is helping to plug the gap left by the closure of the Navy’s command and leadership school in the Brecon Beacons due to the pandemic.

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Update: Golden Ray Salvage Drags On, 3rd Block Removed

Posted on by March 18, 2021

Last November, salvors began cutting up the Golden Ray and predicted that the job would be completed by the New Year.  Now, five months later, the job is less than half-finished and the new target for completion looks more like June 2021.  

In September 2019, the car carrier Golden Ray lost stability and partially capsized as it departed the Port of Brunswick, GA, carrying about 4,200 vehicles. It was declared a constructive total loss. Plans were made to cut the 660′ long ship into eight blocks that would be each carried by barge to a scrapyard.

Originally, the goal was to salvage the ship prior to the start of hurricane season in June 2020. That slipped to September and then October, delayed both by the pandemic and by hurricanes. Ultimately, the cutting began in the beginning of November.

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Team New Zealand Wins America’s Cup Again

Posted on by March 17, 2021

Team New Zealand has won the America’s Cup again, defeating Luna Rossa, seven races to three, in the waters off Aukland, New Zealand. The victory was the second in a row for a syndicate representing the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, and the fourth win in the finals since 1995 for a team from New Zealand.

In the America’s Cup of twenty years ago, New Zealand had a 5-0 win over Luna Rossa. This round of races started out closely matched with the first six races ending in three victories for each team. This week, however, New Zealand triumphed in light and flukey winds, racking up more four victories to retain the cup.

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