When the Deepwater Horizon suffered a blowout, caught fire and sank in the Gulf of Mexico last April, it was only forty miles off the coast of Louisiana. Yet, in many respects, the world aboard the ill-fated rig was as … Continue reading
Category Archives: Seastories
On this the 183th anniversary of the birth of Jules Verne, it seems worthwhile to look at the submarines named Nautilus. Click on any of the thumbnails for a larger image. … Continue reading
In 1958, the New York Times published a review of Louis de Rochemont’s new movie “Windjammer.” It began: “Every last moviegoer with a drop of salt water in his blood will want to swing aboard “Windjammer,” which opened at the … Continue reading
Before video games and personal computers, there were gamebooks. They were novels where at critical scenes you as the reader were given a series a choices. “A troll comes out of the cave carrying a large club. You will … Continue reading
Joan Druett’s new book, Tupaia – Captain Cook’s Polynesian Navigator, fills an important blank space in the history, as well as the legend, of Captain Cook. On his first voyage to the Pacific in HMS Endeavour, during a stop in … Continue reading
On the night of December 7,1942 ten British commandos set off in five wood and canvas canoes from a British submarine in the Bay of Biscay off the coast of occupied France. Their intent was to paddle 75 miles up the Gironde estuary and attack … Continue reading
Last June, we posted about Jessica Watson’s book and album release. Jessica Watson is the now 17 year old Australian sailor who can rightly claim the title of the “youngest to sail solo and unassisted around the world.” … Continue reading
The real victims of piracy are invariably the seafarers who are held for ransom often under grim conditions for long periods of time. From a statement relased by the Round Table of international shipping associations – and the International Transport … Continue reading
A trailer for Joan Druett‘s wonderful new book – Tupaia, Captain Cook’s Polynesian Navigator. We will be reviewing the book later in the week. Tupaia, Captain Cook’s Polynesian Navigator, by Joan Druett … Continue reading
In 1940 and 1941, Moore McCormack Lines took delivery of four Rio class C3 Class passenger/cargo liners from Sun Shipbuilding. They were the Rio Hudson, the Rio Parana, the Rio de la Plata and the Rio de Janeiro. In May … Continue reading
Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson was born today 160 years ago in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father grandfather and great-uncles were light house engineers and designers, but Robert was too sickly as a child to follow in the family profession. Instead, he became a writer, … Continue reading
Bernard Cornwell’s The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War is not strictly speaking nautical fiction but does focus on an ill-fated expedition that ended as the worst American naval defeat prior to Pear Harbor. At first glance, The Fort … Continue reading
William Hammond’s new novel, For Love of Country, was released in October. Set in the early 1780s in the years following the American Revolution, the novel follows the adventures of the seafaring Cutler family of Hingham, Massachusetts, and the supporting … Continue reading
The Boston Globe has an interesting interview with Geoffrey Wolff, who has written a new biography of Joshua Slocum, The Hard Way Around: The Passages of Joshua Slocum. The book also got a rave review by Nathaniel Phibrick in the New York … Continue reading
Sea monsters exist. They break ships in half and pull them below the waves. Sometimes they swallow them whole. Most who encounter them never return to tell the tale and those few who do, until very recently, were rarely believed. … Continue reading
In light of the recent claims in Louise Patten’s new book, Good as Gold , which we posted about earlier this week, we are very pleased to welcome Tim Maltin, author of 101 Things You Thought You Knew About the Titanic…But Didn’t, as guest … Continue reading
In Good as Gold, a new book by Louise Patten, the granddaughter of the most senior surviving officer on the Titanic, reveals a long hidden family secret. She claims that an error in steering on the bridge of the Titanic led to the collision … Continue reading
gCaptain is one of my favorite blogs. It has a done a great job of covering the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Now gCaptain’s John Konrad has written a book, Fire on the Horizon – The Untold Story of the Gulf Oil Disaster, … Continue reading
David Hayes made a discovery that is too good not to share. He came across a book cover of a reissue of Frederick Marryat‘s The Mission by Tutis Digital Publishing. The cover shows a helicopter hovering low over the ocean about … Continue reading
I recently had recommended to me Robert Redick’s The Red Wolf Conspiracy, a fantasy epic which is almost exclusively set aboard the Imperial Merchant Ship Chathard, a 600 year old sailing ship of immerse proportions and age that sets out on … Continue reading