Celebrating Trafalgar Day and the Anniversary of the Launching of “Old Ironsides”

Posted on by October 21, 2020

Two hundred and fifteen years ago today, in 1805, the Royal Navy, commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets in the Atlantic off Cape Trafalgar.  The decisive victory ended French plans to use the combined fleet to take control of the English Channel and enable Napoleon’s Grande Armée to invade England. Tragically, Nelson was shot by a French musketeer and died shortly before the battle ended. Today is celebrated as Trafalgar Day to commemorate Nelson and his greatest victory.

Today also happens to be the 226th anniversary of the launching of the USS Constitution, launched on October 21, 1794. Continue reading →

US Coast Guard Testing Unmanned Vessels Off Hawaii

Posted on by October 20, 2020

The US Coast Guard Research and Development Center (RDC) has begun testing and evaluation of several unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) off the south shore of Oahu, Hawaii. The testing is scheduled to run through early November, conducted in partnership with local Coast Guard units.

“The tests will focus on autonomous vessel systems from Saildrone and Spatial Integration Systems, in addition to a USCG owned autonomous research vessel made by Metal Shark,” according to a press release issued by the Coast Guard 14th District.

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Rescue Underway on Remote South Atlantic Gough Island

Posted on by October 19, 2020

Image: Tristan da Cunha Website

A rescue is underway to save 62 seafarers stranded on Gough Island in the South Atlantic, one of the most remote islands in the world. The fishing/research vessel, Geo Searcher, is reported to have sunk after hitting rocks about a mile off the island. The crew took to lifeboats and landed on Gough Island, making their way to an island weather station. There were two reported injures but neither were life-threatening.

The South African Maritime Safety Authority​ (SAMSA) has sent the polar supply and research vessel, SA Agulhas II, to rescue the stranded crew.  The ship has two helicopters and a doctor on board. SA Agulhas II is expected to arrive sometime tomorrow.

Gough Island is approximately 250 miles southeast of Tristan da Cunha and more than 1,700 miles west of Cape Town, South Africa.

Farewell to the Aurora Australis, AKA Orange Roughy

Posted on by October 18, 2020

Australia’s only home-built icebreaker will soon leave their shores. The icebreaker Aurora Australis, affectionately nicknamed Orange Roughy, is ending her more than thirty-year career serving Australia. Launched at Carrington Slipways in New South Wales in 1989, the ship helped Australia make its mark in Antarctica. Over three decades, the ship has carried more than 14,000 crew and scientists on over 150 expeditions.

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Over-Budget, Long Delayed and Scandal Ridden, Venice’s MOSE Works in First Real Test

Posted on by October 17, 2020

Venice, Italy is sinking at about 1mm per year. The sea level in the Northern Adriatic is rising. At peak tidal conditions, referred to as acqua alta, almost half of Venice’s streets have been known to flood.  None of this is new and for the last 17 years, the city has been building a series of 78 moving barriers in the three inlets to the Venician lagoon, to prevent city flooding.

The project, called MOSE (MOdulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico, Experimental Electromechanical Module), has been plagued by delays, cost overruns, and scandal and has often been called a failure in the media. Nevertheless, on October 3, something remarkable took place. During a particularly high tide, the MOSE flood gates were raised and they worked. The waters of the Adriatic were held back. The streets of Venice did not flood. 

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2020 Virtual Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race

Posted on by October 16, 2020

We are a bit late posting about the 2020 Virtual Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race, but there is still time to join in. 

In any normal year, the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race attracts dozens of schooners on the Bay, to race from Baltimore down to Norfolk. But 2020 is obviously not a normal year.

This year, they are holding a Virtual Race! Continue reading →

Update: Sedov Sails an Ice Free Northern Sea Route

Posted on by October 16, 2020

In late August, we posted about how the 99-year-old four-masted steel bark Sedov set off to transit the Arctic by the Northern Sea Route to reach her home port of Kaliningrad.  She has now almost completed the voyage, passing the southern tip of archipelago Novaya Zemlya and is expected in Murmansk in the course of the week.

Remarkably, the passage was almost entirely ice-free. “We expected that we at least would have encountered some finely-crushed ice in the Vilkitsky Strait and the Longa Strait,” ship captain Novikov told newspaper Neft.

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Tallboy Bomb from 1945 Attack on German Cruiser Lützow Detonated in Polish Canal

Posted on by October 15, 2020

The biggest World War II bomb ever found in Poland exploded underwater on Tuesday as navy divers tried to defuse it with a remote control device. No one was injured in the explosion.

During World War II, the British developed the tallboy, an “earthquake bomb,” designed to be used against large, heavily fortified structures. It also proved to be very effective against ships. The 12,000-pound bomb was packed with 5,200 pounds of high explosive and could only be carried in specially modified  Avro Lancaster heavy bombers. 

On April 16, 1945, RAF heavy bombers attacked the German heavy cruiser Lützow with tallboy bombs near Świnoujście, Poland. One of the bombs, which missed the cruiser, remained buried in the middle of the main shipping channel of the Piast Canal for 74 years. The bomb was discovered during the preparatory works for deepening the Świnoujście-Szczecin fairway in September 2019. The attempt to defuse the bomb resulted in the explosion. Continue reading →

Rare Triple Humpback Whale Breach in Monterey Bay

Posted on by October 14, 2020

Whale-watchers aboard the Atlantic Monterey witnessed an amazing show on Sunday when three humpback whales performed an extremely rare triple breach in Monterey Bay, CA.  And it was caught on video (see after the page break.)

SFGate reports that the captain of the whale-watching boat had never seen a triple breach in his 45 years out on the water.

“Lucky guests were treated to the trip of a lifetime Saturday afternoon on the Atlantis Monterey,” Princess Monterey Whale Watching commented on the video. “A very active Humpback calf and two adults put on quite a show, displaying an array of surface activity. Chin slapping, pectoral fin slapping, and a very rare triple breach!”

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Happy Birthday US Navy, Not to be Confused With Navy Day or the Founding of the Navy

Posted on by October 13, 2023

Happy Birthday to the US Navy! This should not be confused, however, with Navy Day, or the day that US Navy was founded by an Act of Congress. If success has many fathers, it might be said that the Navy has several birthdays. A revised repost.

The date being celebrated today as the Navy’s birthday is October 13, 1775, when the Continental Congress voted to fit out two armed sailing vessels to cruise the coast to attempt to seize arms and stores from Royal Navy transports. This was the beginning of the Continental Navy, which would peak at about 31 ships in 1777. At war’s end, the Continental Navy was disbanded and all surviving ships sold.

The United States Navy was created by Congress on April 30, 1798. 

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The Viking Longship at the Chicago Columbian Exposition in 1893

Posted on by October 12, 2020

Happy Columbus Day, or Indigenous People’s Day, if you prefer. And if you are in Canada, Happy Thanksgiving! Here is an updated repost of when a Viking longship arrived at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The Exposition was meant to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas in 1492.

As we all know, Columbus didn’t “discover” the Americas. Indigenous peoples lived on these shores for thousands of years before he showed up. Columbus wasn’t even the first European to cross the Atlantic. According to the Norse sagas, Leif Eriksson beat Columbus across the pond by nearly 500 years. And to drive the point home, the replica longship named, appropriately enough, Viking, sailed from Bergen, Norway across the Atlantic, up the Hudson River, through the Erie Canal and onward through the Great Lakes to Chicago to crash Columbus’ party. 

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Bukken-Bruse — From Ferry to “Starchitect” Family Houseboat

Posted on by October 12, 2020

Built almost 60 years ago, the 126′ long ferry Bukken-Bruse carried cars and passengers from Bergen, Norway to various coastal ports for close to two decades before being redeployed to operate between Fejø and Kragenæs, Denmark for another 20 years. The popular ferry was also featured on a Danish postage stamp.

The old ferry is now in Copenhagen, where it has undergone a radical transformation into a luxury houseboat, designed and occupied by the Danish “starchitect” Bjarke Ingels.  The renovated ferry was recently featured on the cover of Architectural Digest.

Bukken-Bruse translates to “billy goat gruff” and when Ingels first visited the ferry it was in rough shape. Architectural Digest reports that when the Danish architect bought the 126-foot-long vessel in late 2016, it was quite literally a shell of its present self: a decommissioned ferryboat that had been partly converted into living quarters, with a container plopped on the roof for sleeping.

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Zombie Worms and Whale Bones

Posted on by October 8, 2020

Bones left on land can survive for a very long time. The fossil bones of dinosaurs on display in museums around the world are testaments to their durability. Underwater, however, the situation can be very different. Weird and oddly wonderful so-called zombie worms can slowly devour huge whales skeletons. These 1 to 3-inch Osedax worms were first discovered in 2002, living in the bones of a rotting gray whale on the deep seafloor, nearly 10,000 feet deep in Monterey Bay. Since then 32 different species of these worms have been identified.

Remarkably, the worms lack both mouths and digestive organs. They eat away the whalebone by producing acid from their skin that dissolves bone, releasing the fat and protein trapped inside. As the bone is eaten away the worm establishes a “root system” that burrows into the bone. The fats are consumed by symbiotic bacteria. Exactly how the zombie worm itself is fed is not entirely clear. Nevertheless, the worms can devour a sunken whale skeleton in as little as a decade.

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White House Hotspot — Admiral, General, and Aides Test Positive for Covid-19

Posted on by October 8, 2020

If anyone doubts that the coronavirus pandemic is having a negative impact on the national defense of the United States, one need only look at the expanding Covid-19 hotspot in the White House itself. A recent leaked FEMA memo said that at least 34 people connected with the White House have tested positive for the virus.

Among that number, Coast Guard Admiral Charles Ray tested positive on Monday. Ray had attended a maskless indoor reception for Gold Star military families at the White House on September 27.

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Bouchard Files for Bankruptcy, Looking Back at Captain Fred and the Attack on Black Tom

Posted on by October 8, 2020

Captain Frederick Bouchard

Bouchard Transportation recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The 102-year-old Long Island petroleum barge operator has been struggling over the last several years, involved financial shortfalls and a string of accidents, including a fatal explosion in 2017. 

Rather than focusing on what may be the end of the nation’s largest independently-owned ocean-going petroleum barge company, on this “throwback Thursday” we will take a look back at the company’s origins and to Captain Frederick Bouchard’s heroism during the worst attack on New York harbor prior to 9/11.

At around 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, July 30, 1916, New York harbor exploded. German saboteurs blew up high explosives at the Black Tom terminal in Jersey City. Black Tom was one of the largest munitions terminals in the country, storing and shipping millions of tons of ammunition and high explosives to the French and the British, who were in the second year of what was then called the “Great War” against Germany and its allies.

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On the Hip — Working Harbor Committee Virtual Gala on October 20th

Posted on by October 4, 2020

Like so many other organizations, the Working Harbor Committee has had to rethink its annual gala, which raises funds for the organization and honors leaders in the Working Waterfront. This year the gala will be virtual on Tuesday, October 20, 2020, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

The Working Harbor Committee will be honoring Captain John J. DeCruz, President of the United New York Sandy Hook Pilots, and Captain Brendan L. Foley, President of the United New Jersey Sandy Hook Pilots. The Sandy Hook pilots help container ships bring food and other essential goods into New York Harbor.

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Some See Irony in Pandemic During Mayflower Anniversary

Posted on by October 7, 2020

On the upcoming 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower, the ongoing pandemic has seriously disrupted plans for the commemoration. The replica ship Mayflower II has returned to its homeport in Plymouth, MA, after completing an $11 million refit at the Mystic Seaport Museum’s duPont Preservation Shipyard. But, the art exhibits, festivals, lectures, and regattas planned to celebrate the anniversary have all been scaled back, put on hold, or canceled altogether. 

The Boston Globe reports that some find irony in the coincidence of the pandemic with the anniversary. They note that historian Elizabeth Fenn finds a certain perverse poetry in that.
“The irony obviously runs quite deep,” says Fenn, a history professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who has studied disease in Colonial America. “Novel infections did MOST of the dirty work of colonization.”

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USS Cobia — Wisconsin Maritime Museum’s Sub BnB

Posted on by October 5, 2020

USS Cobia was launched in 1943 and made six patrols during World War II. The submarine was brought to Manitowoc in 1970. Photo: Wisconsin Maritime Museum.

An interesting bit of news from the Sea History Today, the National Maritime Historical Society’s newsletter. One of the more popular programs at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum (WMM) in Manitowoc involves arranging for youth groups to spend the night in the museum’s WWII-era submarine, Cobia. Over the past 23 years, about 60,000 people—mostly scout groups—have spent the night in the submarine, which has been painstakingly restored. The program was so popular that many groups booked a year or more in advance. The program was so successful that WMW even considered expanding it to include AirBnB lodgings for adults.

Then the pandemic struck. WMM had to close its doors temporarily, and limitations on in-person group activities put an end to youth overnights in Cobia, bringing an estimated shortfall of $100,000 in revenue traditionally generated by them.

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Jeanne Baret, the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe

Posted on by October 4, 2020

Jeanne Baret Google Doodle from July 27, 2020

Jeanne Baret is believed to be the first woman ever to circumnavigate the globe. Born in 1740 to a poor family in the Burgundy region of France, Baret became skilled in identifying local plants. While in her early 20s, she became a housekeeper for Philibert Commerson, a practicing physician and amateur naturalist. After the death of Commerson’s wife, she and Baret developed a more personal relationship. Baret is believed to have had a son by Commerson.

In 1766, Commerson joined Louis Antoine de Bougainville’s scientific expedition circumnavigating the world. As the expedition botanist, Commerson was allowed to bring along an assistant. He chose Baret, although as it was illegal to bring a woman aboard a French naval ship, Jeanne Baret dressed as a man and signed aboard as Jean Baret.

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Review: My Octopus Teacher, on Netflix

Posted on by October 1, 2020

Octopuses are often referred to as being akin to space aliens. With three hearts, nine brains, and blue blood, they are so different from us that they could be from another planet. They are also highly intelligent. While other intelligent creatures, from humans to orca whales, tend to be long-lived and to live in communities of others of their kind, the octopus has a relatively short life span and is not particularly social.  They are indeed mysterious and otherworldly.

This is an overly long introduction to a fascinating new documentary, My Octopus Teacher, on Netflix about a filmmaker and free diver, who developed a relationship with an octopus living in a kelp forest off Cape Town, South Africa. Craig Foster spent a year following and developing a bond with the octopus, observing the octopus for most of its life. The remarkable thing is that once the octopus determines that the man with a mask and snorkel is not a threat, the octopus becomes almost as curious about Foster as Foster is about the cephalopod. 

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