A wave breaks over a remaining structure of the Maltese-registered cargo ship the TK Bremen on the Kerminihy beach in Erdeven, France

January 23, 2012. REUTERS / Stephane Mahe (via fuckyeahwrecks)

Salvage work at site of bridge collapse to begin

The Delta Mariner is idle at the US68/KY80 Eggner Ferry Bridge, with two destroyed spans of the bridge draped over her bow, on Kentucky Lake near Golden Pond, Ky., Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. The vessel struck the bridge Thursday night, causing a portion of the bridge to collapse onto the bow. The road that connects Land Between the Lakes and Aurora has been closed. (AP Photo/Stephen Lance Dennee)

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A young Portsmouth woman was so depressed that she decided to end her life by throwing herself into the sea, but just before she could throw herself from the wharf, a handsome young man stopped her.

“You have so much to live for,” said the man. “I’m a sailor, and we are off to Australia tomorrow. I can stow you away on my ship. I’ll take care of you, bring you food every day, and keep you happy.” With nothing to lose, combined with the fact that she had always wanted to go to Australia, the woman accepted.

That night the sailor brought her aboard and hid her in a small but comfortable compartment in the hold. From then on, every night he would bring her three sandwiches, a bottle of red wine, and make love to her until dawn. Two weeks later she was discovered by the captain during a routine inspection.

“What are you doing here?” asked the captain.

“I have an arrangement with one of the sailors,” she replied. “He brings me food and I get a free trip to Australia.”

“I see,” the captain says.

Her conscience got the best of her and she added, “Plus, he’s screwing me.”

“He certainly is,” replied the captain. “This is the Isle of Wight Ferry.”

 Never trust a sailor
image: Multiview postcard Isle of Wight ferries
more Isle of Wight Ferries

L: American President Lines 1948 — RT: Popular Mechanics 1934 : posted by x-ray delta one (Ships Set: 36)

MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY photo by HECTOR ATILIO CARBALLO

Train Ferries for trade with the Continent
booklet issued jointly by the LNER & SR, c1935

A very rare poster style illustration on this 1930s joint publication issued by the London & North Eastern Railway and the Southern Railway to promote the Harwich – Zeebrugge and Dover – Dunkerque train ferrries. The format and use of Gill Sans typeface marks it down as an LNER production – joint publications between these two railways are not common. –posted by mikeyashworth

The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second-largest of the “Big Four” railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It existed from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948, when it was divided into the new British Railways’ Eastern Region, North Eastern Region and partially the Scottish Region.

Holdings also included:

• 8 canals, including the Ashton; Chesterfield; Macclesfield; Nottingham & Grantham; Peak Forest
• Docks and harbours in 20 locations
• Other wharves, staithes, piers
• 2 electric tramways
• 23 hotels
• A 49% stake in the haulage firm Mutter, Howey & Co. Ltd.

Train Ferry No.1: Built in 1917; Laid up post-war. Requisitioned in 1940 by the Royal Navy and renamed HMS Princess Iris and converted in 1941 to a Landing Craft carrier. scrapped in 1957.

Train Ferry No.2 at Zeebrugge
more info on Simplon – The Passenger Ship Website

Train Ferry No.2: Built in 1917, Laid up post-war. Requisitioned in 1940 by the Royal Navy. Lost on 13 June 1940 off Saint-Valery-en-Caux, Seine Maritime, France.

Train Ferry No.3: Built in 1917, Laid up post-war. Requisitioned in 1940 by the Royal Navy. Renamed HMS Daffodil and converted in 1941 to a Landing Craft carrier. Lost off Dieppe, Seine-Maritime, on 18 March 1945.

Train Ferry at Harwich, showing crossed-cables between funnels (simplonpc)

train-ferry # 3 steamer leaving Harwich for Zeebrugge; 1928

How often do you get the chance to dive a train ferry that originated in WW1 but which had to wait until WW2 to see military service? Cross the Channel to Dieppe to do just that with JOHN LIDDIARD – illustration by MAX ELLIS: WRECKTOUR:153 HMS Daffodil on DiverNet

THE PUMP CONTROLS AT DOVER operate three sets of centrifugal pumps, which have a maximum capacity of 120,000 gallons a minute. The installation of the pumps was a matter of great difficulty. They had to be placed some distance below extreme low water level. The pumping chamber is 102 feet long and 40 feet wide.

more: DOVER-DUNKIRK TRAIN FERRY on Mike’s Engineering Wonders

Great Britain was the pioneer of this class of vessel, although in past years train ferries have been more common in foreign waters than on British coasts. The first train ferry in the world was the Leviathan, built and engineered on the Clyde by Robert Napier and Sons in 1849, for the Burntisland-Granton service of the old Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway. The Leviathan was an iron paddle steamer of 399 tons gross, 167 feet long and 34 ft. 7 in. in beam.

Special ferry steamers had been built to the order of the Southern Railway Company for this service. There are three of them, sister ships, named after well-known ferries in the Thames Valley. The first to be completed was the Twickenham Ferry which underwent her trials in June 1934. The others, the Hampton Ferry and the Shepperton Ferry, were built soon afterwards. The service, however, was not inaugurated until the autumn of 1936.

Dover Ferry Photos; TS Twickenham Ferry

In 1934/5 three ships were constructed in Newcastle for the Southern Railway, which wanted to run through trains from London Victoria to the Continent at Dunquerke, the only place on the Continent which had a rail terminal which could accommodate the service. Twickenham Ferry and her sisters were designed to carry rolling stock over the English Channel and each had four tracks in their hulls.

These could carry 12 Wagon-Lits (sleeping cars) or 40 goods wagons, as well as separate passengers quarters for those who required them. There was also space for up to 25 cars in the lower car deck and after some instability on trials, an extra 200 tons of ballast had to be added to each boat, although they still retained a tendancy to roll in a heavy sea, resulting in frequent cancellation.

• more: Paddle Steamer Picture Gallery; TSS Twickenham Ferry

View from onboard HMS Twickenham Ferry as it unloads at Cherbourg
from World War II European Theater of Operations 1944

Southern Railway poster advertising a new service

The “Night Ferry” was the first, and until the opening of the Channel Tunnel the only, through train from London to Paris. The train was made up of sleeping cars provided by the CIWL (Companie Internationale des Wagon-lits or International Sleeping Car Company) of “Orient Express” fame.

The train used the newly constructed Train Ferry Dock at Dover and one of the three specially constructed train ferries, built by the Southern Railway to ferry the sleeping cars across the Channel to Dunkirk while their occupants (hopefully) slept.

• Dover, Lock and Key of the Kingdom
• more on wiki
• poster, 1936; available for purchase — The poster shows the ‘Twickenham Ferry’ steamer ship transporting railway carriages from Dover to Dunkerque. Artwork by Walter Thomas.

Harwich Train Ferries – “When I was master of the train ferry Essex, a motor ship, we left Harwich for Zeebrugge in a NW gale, rolling heavily all the way. Train ferries were very ‘stiff’ to prevent them listing badly, which would have twisted the link span when a full load of trucks came aboard…”  –on SeaBreezes

British Railways – Sealink

Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway; East Coast Services

Railway Shipping Postcards

British Ferry Postcards

Ceremonial launching of Baikal icebreaking train ferry
view from the side: Listvennichnoe village, Irkutsk region, 1905

Trans-Siberian Web Encyclopedia: Photogallery: Museum of Irkutsk-Pass. station history (more)

The Eastern-Siberian Inland Navigation Company (ESINC) is a company which carries out goods and passengers by inland waterways of Irkutsk Oblast and the Buryatia Republic. It is the largest shipping company in Eastern Siberia, the main transportation carrier on Lake Baikal, the Selenga, the Angara River and its tributaries.

In 1918, All ships of private companies were nationalized. One of the prominent revolutionists Lukas Michailovich Vlasov, led the first river transport organization in Eastern Siberia.

• more
• Lake Baikal icebreakers
• image right, original

SNCF vessel Nord Pas-De-Calais reverses the Train Ferry from Dunkerque into Dover Western Docks in 1988

• THE PHANTASRAIL GALLERIES

M/V Schwerin – The ferry, which was also called the Baltic Swan. From Eschenburg Photo Archive

A number of up-to-date vessels have been placed in service by the German State Railway Company for the ferry traffic between Germany, Denmark and Sweden, the newest being the ocean-going ferry steamer Schwerin. This vessel has a displacement of 3,600 tons when fully loaded; her length is 600 meters and breadth about 18 meters. The hull is divided by bulkheads into eleven watertight compartments and is provided with rolling tanks to reduce the pitching and rolling motion when under way. Bow and stern are armored for resisting ice. The ship will be driven by two reciprocating steam engines of an aggregate of 4,500 horsepower, and the four boilers are constructed for oil-firing. The speed is about 16 knots.

The Schwerin is provided with a bow rudder in addition to the stem rudder, for safe steering in the ferry ports. Both rudders are manoeuvred electrically from the bridge. The carriage deck of the Schwerin has rails on either side of the engine shaft, running the whole length of the vessel, and capable of taking seven four-axled passenger (D-Zug) cars or 18 two-axled freight cars. The cars are entirely under cover and are firmly lashed so as to prevent all movement even in the heaviest seas. This is done by means of hinged eye-bolts built into the deck, to which the couplings can be attached. The cars are also secured in a transverse direction by bolts.
–Reprinted from Railway Age, 23 April, 1927

NEW TRAIN FERRIES FOR GERMANY

above: Königslinie Sassnitz-Trelleborg – more images on Scandlines History page

Bonn–Oberkassel train ferry — Ferry “Sieg” near the Oberkassel bank, in the background are the Siebengebirge mountains. Full resolution‎ (2,277 × 720 pixels) The Bonn–Oberkassel train ferry was a German train ferry operated by the Rhenish Railway Company from 1870 to connect its right and left Rhine railways.

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Rheinhausen–Hochfeld train ferry — Train ferry with carriages is in the foreground. Behind is the new railway bridge with a freight train in early January 1874. Behind the bridge are factories in Hochfeld

• Full resolution‎ (3,815 × 1,760 pixels)

Greenville Yards, a rail float marine transfer station built between 1899 and 1931 – Jersey City, NJ (see full size)

Rail to Water; Central Michigan University Library

To maintain its extensive network of water transportation the Ann Arbor required a large number of ferry boats. Between 1892 and 1925 the Ann Arbor Railroad built eight ferries which eventually utilized six ports. In the 1950s the Ann Arbor considered constructing new ferries, but the predicted cost led the company to rebuild existing vessels. In 1973 the Ann Arbor defaulted on the loan obtained to reconstruct a ferry, forcing the line into bankruptcy.

ABOVE: The steel-hulled Ann Arbor #4 had more than its share of troubles. In May 1909 the crew incorrectly loaded cars carrying iron ore, causing the vessel to capsize, though it was eventually put back into service. In February 1923 the ship was caught in a huge gale. One of the rail cars broke loose and smashed through the seagate as it fell into the lake. Taking water, the ship miraculously made its way back to Frankfort, sinking alongside the south breakwall of the harbor. The ship was sold in 1937 to the State of Michigan, renamed it the City of Cheboygan and used it as an auto ferry.

Loading train cars on the Chief Wawatam rail ferry

Two Railcar Ferry IceBreakers
Chief Wawatam and the Sainte Marie made many trips across the Straits.

Designed by Frank Kirby and built by Toledo Ship Building Co. of Toledo, OH in 1911, hull # 119. Launched as CHIEF WAWATAM for Mackinac Transportation Co. of St. Ignace, MI for use as a railroad ferry link crossing the Straits of Mackinac. Keel laid on June 1, 1911, launched on August 26, 1911, sailed on maiden voyage October 16, 1911 and arrived at St. Ignace, MI for the first time on October 18, 1911. Dimensions: 351′ 00″ loa x 62′ 00″ beam x 20′ 06″ depth; 2,990 GRT, 1,793 NRT.  Cargo capacity: 22 railcars with a combined weight of up to 2,990 tons. Power: 3 triple expansion engines for a total of  4,500 hp.

Michigan troops on their way to Keweenaw, MI to diffuse a copper miner’s strike in 1913

See the gallery:
Great Lakes & Seaway Shipping Online; Chief Wawatam 1911 – Current

historic view: rail barge Windsor on railroad.net (recent photo; at the scrappers)

Southern Pacific Transfer across the Mississippi River, New Orleans, 1920s. Trains crossed the river on ferries and barges until the completion of the Huey P. Long railroad bridge in the 1930s.

Postcard view of the Solano around 1910

A Southern Pacific Railroad ferry boat formerly operated across the 2/3-mile wide Carquinez Strait between Benicia and Port Costa in California. The earliest ferry on the route was the “Carquinez,” built in 1854, which was 82 ft. 6 in. long, 24 ft. wide and weighed 102 tons. It was capable of taking two or three freight cars or a couple of passenger cars.

The “Solana” was a large ferry boat built in 1878, big enough to be capable of carrying entire trains. It had two vertical simple condensing beam engines with two cylinders of 3 ft. diameter and 11 ft. stroke. The two paddle-wheels were 34 feet in diameter and each had 24 blades, each of which was 17 ft. long. It was was 464 feet long and 126 feet wide and the cargo deck had 18 ft. 6 in. headroom for trains. Yhere were four parallel lines of track on the cargo deck.

The displacement weight was 3,541 tons, which made it the largest train ferry in the world at the time it was built.

more on John Speller’s Web Pages US Railroads

Scientists to Breach Buried Antarctic Lake, Untouched for Millions of Years

After two decades of drilling through miles of Antarctic ice, Russian scientists are about to breach an underground lake that has not been exposed to the surface in more than 20 million years. Lake Vostok, as the body of water is called, is part of a chain of more than 200 lakes hidden beneath the ice, some of which were formed when Australia and Antarctica were still connected. Vostok will be the first one of all to be opened when the drill hits water next week.

• more on 80 Beats
• see also: Scientists close to entering Vostok, Antarctica’s biggest subglacial lake
• Touching the oldest water on Earth

UPDATE: Missing scientists mystery deepens in frozen Antarctica February 03, 2012

• Fears held for Russian scientists exploring “alien” Antarctic lake, Vostok; February 3, 2012 06:57

The world holds its breath, hoping for the best after six days of radio silence from Antarctica — where a team of Russian scientists is racing the clock and the oncoming winter to dig to an alien lake far beneath the ice.

UPDATE UPDATE: Fox Flub: Russian Vostok Lake Scientists Safe; February 3, 2012

Fox News reported that the team hadn’t been heard from for more than five days…“What I can tell you is that they are doing something that has never been done before—think of it, sampling a lake under 2.5 miles of ice at a location that is the highest, driest and coldest desert on our planet,” he adds.

• keep reading

• the latest, DUH!

A crew member of the submerged ship MV Rak Carrier is winched into a Seaking helicopter off the coast of Mumbai on August 4, 2011. The Panama-flagged MV Rak Carrier, transporting 60,000 tons of coal from Indonesia to India, sank off the coast of Mumbai after its crew were rescued when it began taking on water in stormy seas. (Indian Ministry of Defense/HO/AFP/Getty Images)

Coal on The Big Picture

Coal occupies a central position in modern human endeavors. Last year over 7000 megatons were mined worldwide. Powerful, yet dirty and dangerous, use of coal is expanding every year, with 2010 witnessing a production increase of 6.8%. Around 70 countries have recoverable reserves, which some estimates claim will last for over a hundred years at current production levels. Mining for coal is one of the world’s most dangerous jobs.  more

above: A rescuer rests during a break at Sukhodolskaya-Vostochnaya coal mine in Ukraine on July 29, 2011. At least eighteen miners died and another 20 went missing after an explosion in the coal mine

Mitsubishi Dockyard Nagasaki; vintage postcard

Principal U.S. explorers from 1501 to 1844 on Big Map Blog

• see also: Goddard’s map of San Francisco (1876)
• see also: Bridges’ survey of Manhattan, NYC (1807)

Gods of the Ancients in Bibliodyssey

‘Images Depicting the Gods of the Ancients’ by Vincenzo Cartari was first published in 1556.

Cartari, of which little else is known other than it was in the service of the house of Este, is known almost exclusively for this work and a versified translation of the Tuscan in meters Fasti of Ovid published in Venice in 1551.

The book is divided into 15 chapters, each of which is one of the main gods and lesser gods and heroes in some way related to it. The subject of each chapter comes from the texts of ancient poets translated by Cartari as Italian poems.

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The death of Otis Redding: December 10, 1967, Wisconsin.

The plane, which encountered a storm en route from Cleveland to a concert in Madison, plunged into the frigid depths of Lake Monona. Redding, 26, and four members of his Bar-Kays band were killed.

The crash killed six others, everyone on board except for trumpeter Ben Cauley (bassist James Alexander had luckily avoided the flight altogether). On the cusp of achieving pop superstardom, Redding, best known for his hit, “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay,” recorded just three days earlier and released after his death, was dead.

–fuckyeahwrecks

Jamie Hewlett – Illustration for Gorillaz’s Plastic Beach DE Booklet, 2010 (via sailorjunkers)

USS Alabama, WWII pinup art; original pinup artwork still on one of the forward 16 inch gun breeches; photo by divemasterking2000

USNS John Lenthall replenishes USS McFaul and USS James E. Williams — Official U.S. Navy Imagery

Shipwreck may hold $3 bln in platinum, Maine seaman says

(Reuters) – A Maine seafarer said he had found the wreck of a World War II merchant ship off the Massachusetts coast, sunk while carrying a cargo of the precious metal platinum valued today at nearly $3 billion, an unprecedented find that has raised some doubts.

Greg Brooks of Sub Sea Research in Gorham, Maine, said on Thursday he had discovered the submerged ship in 2008 some 50 miles (80 km) off the Massachusetts coast and, using a remotely run submersible vessel, identified it last summer as the British freighter Port Nicholson

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Repair Works of The Moscow Canal Lock

A 9,335 square foot architectural model of the entire New York City

Robert Moses, with the help of around 100 prolific architectural model makers, constructed an incredibly realistic model of all five boroughs in New York City. The model now contains over 895,000 individual structures that makes up every building in the city before 1992.

more on Atlas Obscura

Assembling A Boat Propeller on English Russia

Launching of the RMS Asturias, the largest motor ship, Belfast, 1925

This Asturias, the second Royal Mail Line ship of that name, was built by Harland & Wolff, Belfast and launched in 1925. Registered to Royal Mail Meat Transports, Ltd. (a Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. subsidiary), she made her maiden voyage from Southampton to La Plata (River Plate), Argentina, on 26 February 1926. In 1932.

More than one and a half million Britons left for Australia in the quarter century following the Second World War.

The Asturias made 23 trips to Australia between 1946 and 1952, carrying more than 25,000 migrants.  Most of them came under an assisted passage scheme through which adults travelled to Australia for just £10 whilst children travelled free*.  Many children were brought to Australia as ‘orphans’ to find new homes.

• more on GreatShips
• more on State Library of South Australia’s photostream 
• more on SS Asturias Immigration Site

Trivia: The Austurius was the ship used for most exterior shots in the filming of A Night to Remember (1958)

postcard on ebay

WWII: A cargo ship gets fitted out for troops

We unloaded our cargo of Rhino pontoons in Southampton. One night while unloading was going on, Scotty, the 3rd mate, who had the watch that night and was also our unofficial ship’s doctor, got word that a wire strap had broken at #2 hatch, and one of these huge pontoons that weighed about a ton each, had fallen on an English longshoreman.

Scotty rushed out on deck with his first-aid kit, took one look at the dead stevedore, and fainted dead away, fell backwards hitting the back of his head on the steel deck with such force that the ambulance took him to a hospital where he had to stay for a week for observation! Needless to say, he took quite a beating from all hands…

keep reading

Summer crowd at Semaphore Beach, 1920 — Beaches Jetties and Lifesavers set

Tsesarevich: Pre-Revolution Russia, Russian Pacific Fleet Of 1898 – 1905

• see also: Inside A Submarine In Vladivostok

grottu

The splendid cover of a recently acquired 1956 guide to Christchurch (now in Dorset, then in Hampshire).

View of a ship under construction; NY Public Library

Vintage Mermaid Valentine Card

Monkey Fist

Monkey Fist is a smack-talking, potty mouthed, Yankee hating, Red Sox fan in Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to compiling Maritime Monday, she blogs about nautical art, history, and marine science on Adventures of the Blackgang.

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com. She can also out-belch any man.

This is Leviathan; from the “North French Miscellany”, a Hebrew manuscript written by Benjamin the Scribe, c.1277-86.  posted by tony harrison on Flickr (via tentaclegarden)

Leviathan is a sea monster referred to in the Bible. In Demonology, the Leviathan is one of the seven princes of Hell and its gatekeeper (see Hellmouth, below). The word has become synonymous with any large sea monster or creature. In literature (e.g., Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick) it refers to great whales, and in Modern Hebrew, it means simply “whale.” It is described extensively in Job 41.

Leviathan is a mythical sea creature that appears in the Bible, emblematic of awesome strength. It’s described as the meanest and the biggest creature in the sea and a humbler of the Proud. Leviathan as a dragon who lives over the Sources of the Deep and who will be served up to the righteous at the end of time

Here’s part of the description of Leviathan from the Book of Job, 41:1-41:34:

When he rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before his thrashing.
The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.
Iron he treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood.
Arrows do not make him flee, slingstones are like chaff to him.
A club seems to him but a piece of straw, he laughs at the rattling of the lance.
His undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing-sledge.
He makes the depths churn like a boiling cauldron & stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.
Behind him he leaves a glistening wake; one would think the deep had white hair.
Nothing on earth is his equal— a creature without fear.
He looks down on all that are haughty; he is king over all that are proud.

According to an interpretation of the Book of Job, the Leviathan is a mundane creature like goats, eagles, or any other creatures on Earth. Many interpreters believe that this monster is actually the Nile crocodile as it is “aquatic, scaly, and it possesses fierce teeth.” Others say that the Leviathan was a fire dragon, a whale-like sea creature, or a sea serpent which had the purpose of devouring entire ships.

Creationists believe that the Leviathan was a dinosaur, either a Parasaurolophus or a Kronosaurus, but they also said that it was only a giant marine reptile. (source)

The Whale, an Old English poem from the Exeter Book, the mouth of Hell is compared to a whale’s mouth, though somewhat indirectly:

The whale has another trick: when he is hungry, he opens his mouth and a sweet smell comes out. The fish are tricked by the smell and they enter into his mouth. Suddenly the whale’s jaws close. Likewise, any man who lets himself be tricked by a sweet smell and led to sin will go into hell, opened by the devil — if he has followed the pleasures of the body and not those of the spirit. When the devil has brought them to hell, he clashes together the jaws, the gates of hell. No one can get out from them, just as no fish can escape from the mouth of the whale

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image: “Destruction of Leviathan” an 1865 engraving by Gustave Doré for Paradise Lost from 5 Stunning Sea Monster Myths Around The World on Fried Post

-Isaiah 27:1

In the Marvel mythos, there have been several Leviathans, including a covert organisation of bad guys, a huge monster that was “the enemy of Thor” (possibly Jörmungandr or the Midgard Serpent) and an alien woman named Marrina, who in one storyline turned into a huge sea-monster and attacked Atlantis…

keep reading on Undead Backbrain

S.S. Great Eastern (British Steamship, 1859)
Originally named Leviathan

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph (full size)

Photograph of an engraving, published circa the later 1850s, depicting the ship fitting out in the Thames River, off Deptford, England, at some point following her 31 January 1858 launching. The ship was originally christened (on 3 November 1857) as “Leviathan”, but was thereafter known as Great Eastern.

The print also features a statistical table and other information concerning the ship.

SS Great Eastern was an iron sailing steam ship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (right), and built by J. Scott Russell & Co. at Millwall on the River Thames, London.

By far the largest ship in the world, it was equipped with a single screw propeller, paddlewheels, and a full set of sails. It had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers around the world without refuelling. In 1865, she laid 4,200 kilometres (2,600 mi) of the 1865 transatlantic telegraph cable.

Jules Verne travelled on the Great Eastern to New York and back in March and April 1867, describing it in a letter as ‘an eighth wonder of the world’ and writing the semi-fictional A Floating City (1871) about his trip.

more on wikipedia

• The Great Eastern and Cable Laying on History of the Atlantic Cable
• The SS Great Eastern – Brunel’s Great Ship

Leviathan March To the Members of the Boston Germania Serenade Band, composed by Hermann Kotzschmar, published by William Paine; Portland, Maine c. 1858; Library of Congress

In 1856 the Leviathan, world’s largest ship, was supposed to arrive in Portland on her maiden voyage, and all sorts of preparations were made, but due to a boiler explosion, the ship never came.

The Eastern Steam Navigation Company had made an agreement with the Canada’s Grand Trunk Railway to use Portland, Maine as its US destination, and the railway company had built a special jetty to accommodate the ship.

Kotzschmar wrote this march for piano as a part of the anticipatory activities. The cover is a famous etching of the ship.

(see full size)

James Bard Online Art Gallery: Leviathan-1855 (full size)

Contemporary Cartoons inspired by the Ship

Great Eastern’s enormous size and advanced technology inspired much public interest, and the optimistic spirit behind her creation encouraged speculation about future shipbuilding trends, published while she was under construction during the late 1850s.

Built by Blohm & Voss Hamburg as Vaterland
54,282 GRT – 948 x 100 feet
Quadruple screw, 24 knots, turbines
752 first class, 535 second class, 850 third class
1,772 passengers; 1,243 crew

Launched April 3, 1913

When she was completed in April 1914 she was the largest ship in the world. Maiden voyage May 14, 1914; from Cuxhaven to New York. Vaterland was the second of Albert Ballin’s trio of great ships intended to be Hamburg Amerika Line’s answer to the Cunard and White Star four-stackers.  Image: Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive) – 5 mars 1914; Hamburg, Dockung 4

She and Bismarck shared a novel design feature: the uptakes which led from her furnaces to her funnels were split and ran along the outside of the ship, rather than straight up the middle. This allowed for much bigger public rooms, undivided by funnel uptakes, than had been possible on earlier ships.  GreatShips (more photos and postcards)

1914

She barely lasted a year under the German flag before war broke-out.
1914: Britain on the eve of the Great War and the world’s largest liner VATERLAND on Cruising the Past

1917

April 4 — Seized by US after crew had inflicted considerable damage to boilers and engines. She was repaired and transferred for Navy Transport service, September 6, 1917 renamed LEVIATHAN, reportedly by Woodrow Wilson himself. Laid up in New York and handed over to US Shipping Board in September, 1919.

1922

In February she sailed to Newport News for reconstruction as passenger liner and re-measured at 59,956 GRT, at trials she made over 27 knots. (source)

1933

Begins New York-to-Southampton service on July 4rth for United States Lines. Fails commercially due to exorbitant operating costs and being an alcohol-free American ship during Prohibition. She made only five more transatlantic trips in 1934, before being withdrawn from service after arriving in New York 14 September 1934.

1937

Laid up in New Jersey for 3 years; she was sold for breaking up at Rosyth in December 1937 and arrived there under her own power in February 1938.

SS Leviathan; glass negative. 1917 – 1934 (approximate) – Boston Public Library (Original 1191 x 1500)

CHERBOURG; Transatlantique Leviathan, posted August 1925 – on GreatShips (more)

The Band – scan from History of the U.S.S. Leviathan: Cruiser and Transport Forces United States Atlantic Fleets. published c. 1919-1920. see full size

• read the book online on OpenLibrary

Arriving at Le Havre, France, 16 June 1934

This photograph, taken by a “New York Times” Paris Bureau photographer, looks forward from atop the Leviathan’s superstructure, being assisted by harbor tugs.

S.S. Leviathan and S.S. Vaterland Galleries on Naval Historical Center

Vaterland being broken at Rosyth (more)

GlobalSecurity.org

Leviathan (1989)
movie trailer on YouTube

Starring: Peter Weller, Richard Crenna, Amanda Pays, Daniel Stern, Hector Elizondo, Ernie Hudson

Leviathan is a 1989 science-fiction horror film about a hideous creature that stalks and kills a group of people in a sealed environment, in a similar vein to such films as Alien (1979) and The Thing (1982).

Tri-Oceanic Corp has hired undersea miners for a 90-day project. Martin (Meg Foster), CEO of Tri-Oceanic Corp, hired Steven Beck, a geologist, to assist in mining operations as well as command the undersea mining station. While outside their vessel in a pressure suit, Sixpack discovers a wrecked ship.

Dr. Thompson understands Russian and identifies the ship as the Leviathan. The crew discover that it is marked as an active ship on duty in the Baltic Sea. Sixpack and the rest of the crew open a safe from Leviathan and find crew records relating to deceased crew members, as well as a video tape from the ship’s captain.

The following morning, Sixpack awakes feeling sick. The doctor is unable to offer any explanation and collects a sample to analyze. He asks the computer for an opinion and it suggests “genetic alteration”  (more on wiki)

• IMDb »
• PirateBay »

print study drawn by William Blake

Night VIII, page 3, ‘The Charm that chains us to the World, her Foe’. Illustration to Young’s ‘Night Thoughts’; scaly merman in papal tiara and carrying a crozier riding sea-monster, Leviathan. c.1795-7 (full size image)

British Tars, towing the Danish fleet into harbour

‘The Broad-bottom Leviathan trying to swamp Billy’s old-Boat, & the little Corsican tottering on the Clouds of Ambition’ – three sailors rowing a small ship’s boat or dinghy, (‘the Billy Pitt’) are going through rough water caused by ‘Leviathan’ (l.), a porpoise-like monster with three heads and a forked tail. The heads spout water at the boat, particularly at Canning. They are (r. to left.) Grenville, who spouts “Opposition Clamour”; Howick (whom Canning had replaced as Foreign Secretary), spouting “Detraction”; and St. Vincent, spouting “Envy”.

hand-coloured etching, Print made by James Gillray / Published in London, 1807  more detailed explanation

Awakening Leviathan by richard sardinha (Visit Gallery)

Thalassophobia is fear of the sea, and over the years this it’s pushed forward some interesting (and terrifying) images of what people think might lurk in the depths. Never going swimming again. Ever.

What Lurks Beneath The Waves (sea monster gallery)

Original (1500 x 1193) Boston Public Library

USS Leviathan SP-1326 — photograph of the USS Leviathan in a dazzle camouflage pattern, off New York City, 8 July, 1918

see also:

Postcards from WW I collected by a member of the American Expeditionary Force

After 10 trips carrying troops to Europe, and 9 trips returning the troops home postwar, she was decommissioned in 1919 and returned to the Shipping Board.

USS Leviathan, Troop Transport

Troopship Leviathan during post-WWI reconversion to a passenger liner

The big ship was completely reconditioned at Newport News during 1922-1923, as seen here. Work included conversion from coal to oil fuel, extensive rewiring, and complete interior redecoration. In addition, completely new plans had to be drawn, as the Germans refused to provide the originals. She was operated by the United States Lines, on the transatlantic route, from 1923 to 1934. She proved to be uneconomical, forcing her lay-up in 1934

HazeGray Mystery Picture #86

Little Boney in the Whale’s Belley (full size) – John Bull, Emperor of the Sea: satirical print; hand-coloured etching. Published by Piercy Roberts, 1803

Title-page to Hobbes’s ‘Leviathan’ (London: Andrew Cooke, 1651)

Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury

(5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679), was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy.

His 1651 book Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective of social contract theory, the origins of creation of an ideal state, and his proper name for the Commonwealth.

Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

• Read Online on Open Library
• Hobbes Today blog

The modern Leviathan!! – satirical print, hand-coloured etching; Print made by Isaac Cruikshank / Published in London, 1796 – full size

see full size / What is Leviathan and Why should I Care? (religious analysis)

A tub for the Whale! – satirical print, hand-coloured etching, Print made by James Gillray, Published in London in 1805.

“Representing an Empty-Barrel tossed out to amuse great Leviathan-John-Bull, in order to divert him from instantly laying violent hands uponye new Coalition Packet – Vide Swifts Preface to the Tale of a Tub.”

more detailed explanation »

The Leviathan by forgottenpurpose

by Luke Pearson

Moby Dick by Mark Weaver
by way of fuckyeahmobydick

“Give me a condor’s quill! Give me Vesuvius’ crater for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs.”
– Herman Melville, Moby Dick, (Chapter 104 – The Fossil Whale)

While Moby Dick is the archetypal whaling story, the whale itself appears in just three of the 135 chapters of the book, while the term Leviathan shows up in 38.

The Leviathan is “all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down “ (Chapter 41 – Moby Dick).

While to Ishmael and the crew of the Pequod the whale embodies as an allegorical representation of God, an inscrutable and all-powerful being that humankind can neither understand nor defy, that often harkens back to biblical references to creation-era sea monsters:

“When I stand among these mighty Leviathan skeletons, skulls, tusks, jaws, ribs, and vertebrae, all characterized by partial resemblances to the existing breeds of sea-monsters; but at the same time bearing on the other hand similar affinities to the annihilated antichronical Leviathans, their incalculable seniors; I am, by a flood, borne back to that wondrous period, ere time itself can be said to have begun; for time began with man.”

(Chapter 104 – The Fossil Whale) – (image source)

“This Leviathan comes floundering down upon us from the head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly inquired, whether, in the long course of his generations, he has not degenerated from the original bulk of his sires.”

(Chapter 105 – Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish? – Will He Perish?)

Rockwell Kent (via Animalarium: White Whale Gallery)

Rockwell Kent (June 21, 1882–March 13, 1971) was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, and writer born in Tarrytown, New York.  Moby Dick by Herman Melville (illustrated by Rockwell Kent; 1930)

A transcendentalist and mystic in the tradition of Thoreau and Emerson, whose works he read, Kent found inspiration in the austerity and stark beauty of wilderness. He lived for extended periods of time in Monhegan Island, Maine, Newfoundland, Alaska, Tierra del Fuego, Ireland, and Greenland.

Approached in 1926 by publisher R. R. Donnelley to produce an illustrated edition of Richard Henry Dana, Jr.’s Two Years Before the Mast, Kent suggested Moby-Dick instead. Published in 1930 by the Lakeside Press of Chicago, the three-volume limited edition filled with Kent’s haunting black-and-white pen/brush and ink drawings sold out immediately; Random House produced a trade edition which was also immensely popular. A previously obscure book, Moby Dick had been rediscovered by critics in the early 1920s. The success of the Rockwell Kent illustrated edition was a factor in its becoming recognized as the classic it is today.

more on wikipedia

see also: Divers find remnants of unlucky captain’s ship (NY Times)

Jens Harder’s “Leviathan”

from Biblioklept

Jens Harder’s Leviathan is a graphic novel in the truest sense. Harder uses scratchy but fluid images to tell the story of a mystical whale who battles a giant squid, saves Noah’s ark, attacks the Pequod, wreaks havoc on a cruise ship, and eventually battles an armada of anachronisms.

The only text Harder employs in Leviathan are excerpts and quotes from a variety of sources including the Bible and a host of philosophers; the bulk of quotes come from Melville’s Moby-Dick.

Just as that novel begins with an “Etymology” followed by a section called “Extracts,” Harder begins with a section called “Leviathanology,” a collection of quotes about leviathans from the likes of Hobbes, Milton, and the book of Job.

These quotes inform the story of Leviathan, connecting the whale to a sublime and unknowable mystery that Harder will explore. Harder’s surreal images often invert notions of “proper” space and time, giving the whale an awesome significance, but also positing the beast as something that denies signification.

By eschewing the traditional forms of graphic storytelling, which rely on speech bubbles and clear-cut panel transitions, Harder is able to capture something that is essentially too large to capture. This book works. Highly recommended.

also: Fish Tales By Andrew D. Arnold

Travel Posters:  (L) R. S. Pike, United States Lines (RT) Leviathan – World’s Largest Ship

Passenger List covers, Southampton to New York via Cherbourg 1924-1932 on Gjenvick Archives

Vaterland – Leviathan postcards on simplonpc.co.uk

J.C. Leyendecker 1918 Kuppenheimer Ad

Section of Turbine for VATERLAND; Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. (Original 1024 x 750)

Lady Sybil and Lady Evelyn Grey Jones on VATERLAND; Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division (Original 1024 x 743)

Daughters of the 4th Earl Grey, Albert Henry George Grey (1851-1917), Governor General of Canada, and his wife Alice Holford: Lady Evelyn Alice Grey (1886-1971) married Sir Lawrence Evelyn Jones in 1912; her sister Lady Sybil Grey (1882-1966) married Lambert William Middleton in 1922. (source)

This is a wonderful view of the broad boat deck of the VATERLAND – the largest liner in the world. An archivist has written a caption on the original negative: “Lady Sybil Grey & Lady Evelyn Grey-Jones on the Hamburg Amerika Line ‘Vaterland.’” After the US Government seized the liner during WWI, she was renamed Leviathan and sailed with the United States Lines. –Cruising the Past

VATERLAND funnels (Original 1024 x 736) – Library of Congress

SS Leviathan drydocking – South Boston by Boston Public Library (Original 1500 x 1188)

Boston Public Library: SS Leviathan (Set: 279)

Art of William Blake: Behemoth and Leviathan; 1825
from Illustrations to ‘The Book of Job’

Behemoth, who dominates the land, as ‘the chief of the Ways of God.’ Leviathan, a Sea Monster, is ‘King over all the Children of Pride.’ In his book ‘Jerusalem’ Blake has these two monsters representatives of war by land and by sea. (source)

William Blake: The spiritual form of Nelson guiding Leviathan, in whose wreathings are infolded the Nations of the Earth (in which the monster is a symbol of military sea-power controlled by Nelson)
c. 1805-9
Tempera on canvas 30″ x 24″
(76.2 x 62.5cm), Tate Britain, London
Provenance and history on Tate.org

from The spiritual form of Nelson guiding Leviathan on smarthistory:

The painting was first shown in his solo exhibition of 1809, held at his brother’s house in London’s Soho; a site, incidentally, that also served as the family shop, selling women’s stockings. The reviews were mostly negative, one famously describing the paintings as “the wild effusions of a distempered brain.” Not everyone hated it, though, and some of the paintings did sell, including this portrait of Admiral Nelson.

Instead of a lifelike portrait, Blake paints Nelson’s “Spiritual” likeness. He stands on top of the Biblical sea creature, Leviathan, whose body encircles him. Nelson controls the beast with a bridle, attached to its neck, which he holds loosely in his left hand. Trapped in, crushed under, or in one case, half-consumed within Leviathan’s coiled body, ten figures, male and female, are arranged around the figure of Nelson; these represent the European nations defeated by the British during the Napoleonic Wars. Under his feet is a black body, whose wrists are fettered. The head and arms of the figure to the bottom left appear to be submerged under water, which occupies the lowest portion of the painting.

inset image

from Breaking with Britain; an essay on British Romantic Art on
Die Wanderwege und Die Beobachtungen:

(William Blake) was a proto-Romantic in the mid 1700s who held an intense, spiritually infused perspective on the world. He saw contemporary figures like Nelson, Pitt, and Newton as Biblical warriors in combat with chaos and evil, so he illustrated them as such. In a dim room above his print shop he exhibited a series of 17 paintings depicting Biblical scenes, historical scenes, and images from his own rabid imagination. Each image was accompanied by a poem or extended, rambling essay. At the time he was basically considered a nut. Now he’s a genius

A William Blake Gallery »

Leviathan Harnessed By Harlow’s Nightie; by Van Arno (more on American Gallery)

Leviathan by Ian Edginton and D’Israeli

Leviathan is the name of a monster cruise liner a mile long and half a mile wide, that sets sail from England, destination New York, in 1928 with 30,000 people on board, only to never arrive.

The book opens 20 years on from the ship’s launch, with the double suicide of a now elderly couple. For twenty years, the ship has been drifting in unknown seas, and having hoped and prayed for an answer like many others before them, the couple have chosen to finally end their ordeal.

It’s the murder of a passenger in the upper echelons of the ship, however, that propels events into motion…

It’s a genuinely fantastic book and D’Israeli’s art is a big contributing factor.

• more on Comics&Cola

Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan saga

Leviathan is a steampunk novel written by Scott Westerfeld and illustrated by Keith Thompson. It was released on October 6, 2009. The book won the 2009 Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Novel.

It is the first in a young adult fiction trilogy set in an alternate version of World War I, wherein the Central Powers (Clankers) are characterized by their use of mechanized war machines, while the Entente Powers (Darwinists) are characterized by their use of living creatures evolved specifically for war. The main characters are the teenage son of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and a Scottish girl with dreams of joining the Air Force.

more

scottwesterfeld.com

also: With “Behemoth,” the Leviathan saga becomes the perfect hit of escapism

Leviathan or, The Whale

author: Philip Hoare
Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd
designer: Leo Nickolls
image source: Book Cover Archive

An extraordinary journey into the underwater world of the whale.

After Melville published his book in 1851, no one saw whales in quite the same way again. Melville created a modern myth out of an already legendary beast. But what is the true nature of the whale? Why does it fascinate us? All his life, Philip Hoare has been obsessed with these creatures, from the huge skeletons in London’s Natural History Museum to adult encounters with the wild animals themselves.

Whales haunt him, as they seem to elide with dark fantasies of sea-serpents and other antediluvian monsters that swim in our collective unconscious. In ‘Leviathan’, he seeks to locate and identify that obsession. Why does the whale so vividly inhabit our imaginations?

Travelling around the globe in search of the whale, Philip Hoare sheds light on our perennial fascination with the strange creatures of the sea, whose nature remains tantalizingly undiscovered. Travel back to the history of whaling, to a time when entire cities were lit by whale oil; to places far below the surface of the ocean, where giant whales battle with three hundred foot squid.

You don’t have to be obsessed with Moby Dick to love this book, but it doesn’t hurt. –Amazon

Philip Hoare’s top 10 whale tales on theguardian

On Whales Eating Men Alive by brian lam

Leviathan melvillei, ‘Sea monster’ whale fossil unearthed

Researchers have discovered the fossilised remains of an ancient whale with huge, fearsome teeth.

A Peruvian desert has turned out to be the final resting place of an ancient sperm whale with teeth much bigger than those of the largest of today’s sperm whales. The fossil, dated at 12–13 million years old, belongs to a new, but extinct, genus and species.

Klaas Post of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam in the Netherlands stumbled across the fossil in November 2008 during the final day of a field trip to Cerro Colorado in the Pisco-Ica Desert on the southern coast of Peru — an area that is now above sea level owing to Andean tectonic activities. The fossils were prepared in Lima, where they will remain.

The name given to the creature combines the Hebrew word ‘Livyatan’ with the name of American novelist Herman Melville.

more on NewsQuest

The giant bite of a new raptorial sperm whale from the Miocene epoch of Peru on Nature.com

Leviathan by Arthur Rackham

“Ere the Leviathan can swim a League” – Illustration for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare, Illustrated by Arthur Rackham, published 1914

from There Be Dragons: Big, Dangerous and Sometimes Misunderstood

Hellmouth close-up from “The Hours of Catherine of Cleves” (Gothic illuminated manuscript)

below right: Hellmouth or the Mouth of Hell from the Getty Tondal, (detail)

Leviathan, Satan & Hell

In Paradise Lost, Milton uses the term Leviathan to describe the size and power of Satan, the ruler of many kingdoms.

In Satanism, according to the author Anton Szandor LaVey, Leviathan represents the element of Water and the direction of West. The element of Water in Satanism is associated with life and creation, and may be represented by a Chalice during ritual.

Leviathan is listed as one of the Four Crown Princes of Hell. The whale-monster Leviathan has been equated with this description, although this is hard to confirm in the earliest appearances.

The Church of Satan uses the Hebrew letters at each of the points of the Sigil of Baphomet to represent Leviathan. Starting from the lowest point of the pentagram, and reading counter-clockwise, the word reads “לִוְיָתָן“. Translated, “this is (LVIThN) Leviathan”

For more appearances of Leviathan throughout history, see
Christian demons in popular culture

Wreck of the Secil Japan; Hell’s Mouth, Cornwall

The ship was lost in March 1989 when it ran aground on Cornwall’s North Coast, near Hell’s Mouth. The ship split into 2 sections and was declared a complete loss.

• more about Hell’s Mouth, Cornwall on The British Geological Survey
• South West Coast Path (section North Cornwall)
• Shipwrecks around Rhiw, Aberdaron and Bardsey

altered postcard: The Ponders End Leviathan

Monkey Fist

Monkey Fist is a smack-talking, potty mouthed, Yankee hating, Red Sox fan in Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to compiling Maritime Monday, she blogs about nautical art, history, and marine science on Adventures of the Blackgang.

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com. She can also out-belch any man.

original: Kommissar X / Heft-Reihe

Twelfth body found, divers retrieve captain’s papers

Divers yesterday found a woman’s body on the sunken Costa Concordia, bringing the death toll to 12. The woman was found wearing a ­life jacket in a corridor on an underwater section of the ship’s fourth deck. By late yesterday she had still not been named.

more

Seafarers outraged that captain jumped ship

STOCKHOLM

Seafaring tradition holds that the captain should be last to leave a sinking ship. But is it realistic to expect skippers to suppress their survival instinct amid the horror of a maritime disaster? To ask them to stare down death from the bridge, as the lights go out and the water rises, until everyone else has made it to safety?

From mariners on ships plying the world’s oceans, the answer is loud and clear: Yes.

“It’s a matter of honor that the master is the last to leave,’’ said Jorgen Loren, captain of a passenger ferry operating between Sweden and Denmark and chairman of the Swedish Maritime Officer’s Association. “Nothing less will do in this profession.’’

more on The Boston Globe

A Short History of The COSTA CONCORDIA on Maritime Matters

BBC; Jan 20th: Costa Concordia disaster; What happened?

USAtoday: Cruise ship might have had unregistered passengers

Christian Science Monitor: Stowaways the latest uncertainty

MirrorUK: Captain: I wouldn’t have wanted to be in charge of the Titanic

msnbc: Cruise ship captain says he was told to perform fatal maneuver — Video: Robots monitor beached ship

TelegraphUK: cruise ship captain ‘cried like a baby’

Father Raffaele Malena said he was among the last to leave the ship at around 1.30am local time on Saturday and then stayed “close to the injured” in the tiny harbour of Giglio.

“I descended on the rope ladder. I was picked up by a little lifeboat,” he said.

Around an hour later, the captain, Franceso Schettino, appeared.

“I spoke to the captain. He embraced me for about a quarter of an hour and cried like a baby,” Father Malena told French magazine Famille Chrétienne…

more

TelegraphUK: Costa Concordia: stricken cruise ship becomes tourist spectacle

Hundreds of visitors travel from all over Italy to see the half submerged vessel for themselves. ‘Disaster day-trippers’ have flocked from all over Italy, many driving for hours, to see the 1,000ft-long, 14-storey luxury liner wedged at an angle of 90 degrees…

Cruise liner served as a self-conscious metaphor for western capital ploughing through choppy waters in Film Socialisme

Anyone who sat through Film Socialisme may have suspected that the Costa Concordia was heading for trouble. The cruise liner was the setting for the first “movement” of Jean-Luc Godard’s ambitious, infuriating 2010 picture, serving as a self-conscious metaphor for western capital ploughing through choppy waters.

In Godard’s film, the Concordia plays the role of a decadent limbo where the tourists drift listlessly amid the ritzy interiors. The passengers include a UN official and an elderly war criminal. The onboard entertainment comes courtesy of an unsmiling Patti Smith… (Xan Brooks – guardian.co.uk)

Costa Concordia provided setting for a 2010 Jean-Luc Godard film

Jan. 20, 2012 -  As investigators try to figure out exactly what went wrong with the capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Italian coast, maritime experts look back at historic maritime disasters so horrific they prompted new rules.

“I like to say the laws and regulations are written in blood,” said Kevin Gilheany, a consultant based in New Orleans who specializes in maritime safety compliance and spent 20 years in the U.S. Coast Guard.

The past is full of tragedy at sea. Gilheany and other maritime experts highlighted these five deadly maritime disasters involving passenger vessels as ones that particularly shocked the public.

Here, the MV Princess of the Stars is seen capsized off the coast of San Fernando, Romblon. The ship capsized at the height of Typhoon Fengshen on June 21, 2008. More than 800 people died in the accident.

Five Maritime Disasters That Shocked the World on Discovery News

Tissot (French, 1836–1902) is best known for his depictions of fashionable Parisian women – HMAS Culcutta, painted in 1877;  A Peaceful Christmas – see also The Hull of a Ship

Fog At Sea – Back to work. Pilot boat pulls away after getting pilot off at the seabuoy. Ran in thick fog across Galveston Bay. LARGE – photo by OneEighteen

The German maritime artist Zeno Diemer (who died in 1939) was not afraid to use strong contrasts. His paintings have that typical German precision but are in no way lacking in energy.

The use of a warm colour (red in the ships) acts as a foil to the the cool colours in the waves. Golden yellow in the sky contrasts with the Prussian or Cobalt Blue waves.

Michael Zeno-Diemer (more images)

BBC: Mapping Earth’s surface in 3D

The German satellite radar twins – TanDEM-X and TerraSAR-X – are a year through their quest to make the most precise, seamless map of varying height on Earth.

They’ve now acquired data across the entire globe at least once. However, some tricky sampling areas, such as tall mountains and thick forests, will require several passes and so we don’t expect to see a fully finished product before 2014.

The Digital Elevation Model, or DEM, has become one of those must-have technical tools…

keep reading

Vintage Postcard: Il disasiro di Messina

This rather disturbing postcard was sent home to Llyn on the 9th of January 1912, and the message on the back reads; “SS Harrovian, Messina. Arrived here this morning for coal (bunkers) we will be sailing tonight for Constantinople. This is the place where they had the earthquake three years ago, All the Best, Evan.”

On December 28, 1908, at approximately 5:20am, Europe’s most powerful earthquake shook southern Italy. Cantered in the Messina Strait, the quake’s magnitude equaled a 7.5 by today’s Richter scale. Moments after the quake’s first jolt, a devastating Tsunami formed, causing forty-foot waves to crash down on dozens of coastal cities. Messina’s population of 150,000 was reduced to only hundreds, and the total death toll throughout Italy was estimated at nearly 200,000. The uniformed men in the photograph were from a Russian Naval warship, who helped with the rescue.

• a collection of postcards sent home to Llyn, by seafarers on their travels

Messina: The once beautiful Water-front after the earthquake – Underwood & Underwood

News of the disaster was carried by Italian torpedo boats to Nicotera, where the telegraph lines were still working, but that was not accomplished until midnight at the end of the day. Rail lines in the area had been destroyed, often along with the railway stations.

The Italian navy and army responded and began searching, treating the injured, and evacuating refugees (as did every ship). Looters soon had to be shot. The disaster made headlines worldwide and international relief efforts were launched. With the help of the Red Cross and sailors of the Russian and British fleets, search and cleanup were expedited.

Recently it has been proposed that the concurrent tsunami was not generated by the earthquake, but rather by a large undersea landslide it triggered.

In the midst of reconstruction many of the Italian residents were relocated to various parts of Italy. Others were forced to emigrate to America. In 1909 the cargo ship RMS Republic (1903) carried 850 such passengers away from Naples. Lost in a dense fog, the Florida collided with the Republic, a luxury passenger liner. Three people aboard the Florida were killed instantly.

Within minutes, pandemonium broke out on the ship. The captain of the Florida, Angelo Ruspini, used extreme measures to regain control of the desperate passengers, including firing gunshots into the air. Eventually the survivors were rescued at sea and brought into the New York harbor where they would start a new life.

• source
• inset image of SS Florida source: RMS Republic (1903) on wiki

vintage postcard of White Star liner R.M.S. Republic

The morning of January 23rd was a foggy one in the busy shipping lanes off the eastern coast of America. White Star liner R.M.S. Republic was 50 miles into her journey from New York to the Mediterranean and was proceeding with caution due to the poor visibility. Suddenly, at 5.30 am, Republic was rocked by an enormous collision – she had been hit by another liner!

“Rammed by unknown steamship…Badly in need of assistance”

keep reading

Wreck of the RMS Republic

In the summer of 1986, 37 men sailed from NYC aboard the salvage vessel Twin-drill to the last known location of the RMS Republic which had sunk in 1909 following a collision with the vessel SS Florida.  Sixty miles south of the Nantucket lightship this team of explorers put 4 men in helium/oxygen saturation and spent 12 to 16 hours bottom time per day diving on the wreck.

The crew also used submarines and robot vehicles to probe the wreck and document thousands of rare artifacts including a working Edison light bulb.  The Republic was the first ship to use the Marconi radio in an emergency and the first ship to be electrified with Edison lights.

The ship carried some of the world’s leading businessmen and their families, some of whom would later be killed on the Titanic.  The entire 2nd class quarters were filled with provisions for the US Navy’s “Great White Fleet”.

Three people were killed in the initial collision; and more than 1600 were transferred first to the Florida and then to the Baltic, which had been summoned by radio.  All came ashore safely.

• source (text)
• See also Treasure of the RMS Republic
• image: Republic Starboard from The RMS Republic image gallery

SS Florida in Drydock (see full image)

Floating Dock arrives in Bermuda 1869

In 1854, a 600-foot slip was proposed at a cost of 35,000 pounds sterling but considered too costly. Three years later there was a plan for a dry-dock and yet another slip in 1862. Then it was decided Bermuda should have a floating dock. It was built by English floating dock engineers Campbell & Johnstone at Blackwall on the River Thames and completed on June 23, 1869.

from Bermuda’s Royal Navy base at Ireland Island from 1815 to the 1960s

see also: Location of the Bermuda Floating Dock

Ogden’s Cigarettes “Records of the World” (series of 25 issued in 1908)
#22 “Great Western” ~ the first steamship to cross the Atlantic, 1838 – #13 R.M.S. Mauretania ~ “the largest steamship afloat”

The wreck of the Peter Iredale on the Oregon coast in 1906. Thanks to the lighthouse Terrible Tilly, all 27 members of her crew survived.(via crueltyandgrandeur)

Amphicar (1961): equally bad on the road and in the water

There was a certain sinking feeling about this bizarre concept car, seemingly thought up by a drunk car designer who had watched far too many Bond films.

Able to drive on land and ride on water, the Amphicar wasn’t watertight and therefore only floated for as long as a pump held out or passengers could bucket the rising flood overboard.

With a top speed of 7 mph when on water, consumers decided to keep their cars and boats as separate vehicles.

The World’s Worst (and Ugliest) Cars

Gibraltar; vintage postcards on  RMS Republic – above: Bird’s eye view of the Harbour

Gibraltar; Bird’s Eye View, panorama photo.  see full size: 2374 by 515 px

The SR.N4 (Saunders-Roe Nautical 4) hovercraft (also known as the Mountbatten class hovercraft)  Built by the British Hovercraft Corporation (BHC). BHC was formed by the merger of Saunders-Roe and Vickers Supermarine in 1966.

The first design was 40 metres (131 ft) long, weighed 190 long tons (193 t), was capable of 83 knots (154 km/h) and could cruise at over 60 knots (111 km/h). The SR.N4s operated services across the English Channel between 1968 and 2000, until the abolition of duty free made their service unprofitable.

more on wiki

“Established over 40 years ago as a fast, efficient and futuristic means of crossing to France, the service was seen as the future of sea travel. The Princess Margaret went on its first trip in 1968 (this photo was taken in 1997), but in 2005 the service was cancelled and the giant SR.N4s now sit at the Hovercraft museum at Lee-On-Solent.”  (image source)

The Costa Contadora voyage was a one-way trip to ignominy. But the USCG Cutter Healy made a voyage to cheer: breaking 300 miles of ice to escort a tanker bringing desperately needed fuel to Nome, Alaska.

The Healy voyage in pictures. (via captainrande)

Fier’s Ship House Gigantic water vessel, permanently grounded in Southern Albania

A good distance inland from the blue-green Adriatic Sea, and with no harbor in sight for miles, this strange house that looks like a ship rises out of the flatlands of inner Albania.

Although much of Albania’s architecture often strays from the boring, this humongous ship house towers seven stories over the landscape on the road between Fier and Berat, Albania. Complete with multiple layers, giant portholes and a massive front deck, the ship house is a unique, white-washed tribute to Albania’s nautical history.

Atlas Obscura

• see also: Nazino Island; Social outcasts and cannibalism in Stalin’s Soviet Union

• Vozrozhdeniye Island – Former island in the Aral Sea used to be a top-secret Russian bio-weapons facility

• The First Sea-Punk Mural – Art from the latest counter-culture; kids who dye their hair blue and believe the future will be a post-apocalyptic water world

fuckyeahtattoos

Source: hollow-anchors – via theladyfish

Maori children onboard HMS Penguin; between 1902 and 1905

SS City of Columbus – See the image gallery

This Day In Wrecks (via fuckyeahwrecks)

01-18-1884: The City of Columbus runs aground on Devil’s Bridge Reef near Gay Head, MA, drowning 103 of her 132 passengers and crew.

• Historical Perspective: City of Columbus wrecked 128 years ago on The Martha’s Vineyard Times
• DISASTER ON DEVILS BRIDGE S.S. City of Columbus on Quest Marine Services

Olympics terror drill on the Thames

Edgar Allan Poe ‘toaster’ tradition is no more

By Maura Judkis; 01/19/2012

For the final time on Jan. 19, fans of Edgar Allan Poe conducted a graveside vigil waiting for a mysterious Poe fan to leave a late-night tribute. The tradition of the “Poe Toaster” — an anonymous man who, for more than 60 years, appeared at Poe’s Baltimore grave on the author’s birthday in a wide-brimmed hat and white scarf, leaving three roses and a half-empty bottle of French cognac — is nevermore.

more on The Washington Post

Panama Canal expansion workers strike over pay

Several thousand workers at a major project to widen the Panama Canal are on indefinite strike over pay. The strikers are demanding higher wages, as well as back pay. The consortium behind the $5.25bn (£3.4bn) project says its salaries are above average but acknowledged there had been payroll problems.

The Panama Canal, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, handles some 5% of world trade with about 14,000 ships passing through each year. Workers at the site downed tools on Monday.

They are demanding an increase in the basic pay from $2.90 to $4.90 an hour, with skilled workers getting a rise from $3.52 to $7.10. They also say they are due overtime payments and are calling for an improvement in safety.

• more on BBC
• Panama Canal expansion halted amid labour dispute; Dredging News Online

Cargo ship Aztec Maiden runs aground off Netherlands

A cargo ship has run aground on the Dutch coast 20km (12 miles) west of Amsterdam after its anchor slipped in an overnight storm. The empty vessel appeared to be stable after drifting towards the coast and rescue services said there was no sign of any fuel leak. It was named as the 155-metre (500-foot) Aztec Maiden, a Philippine-registered freighter with a crew of 21.

There were no reports of injuries after the ship broke free and drifted, coming to rest on sand about 200m (yds) offshore, near the North Sea coastal town of Wijk aan Zee.

more on BBC

Cargo ship damaged off Istanbul after brushing against 2 other vessels

ANKARA, Turkey — A cargo ship brushed against two anchored vessels during severe weather off the coast of Istanbul on Friday and was left tilted to one side and taking on water, officials said. A senior maritime official said the disabled ship is not in danger of sinking, but most of its crew members were evacuated.

• more on The Washington Post
• Ships Collide in Bosporus — Wall Street Journal
• Ship sinking after collision in Bosphorus: agent — Reuters Canada

Chew Trading Co. of Singapore – trade card, 1950s – Chinese fancy goods – including reptile skin hand bags and Bali heads. – posted by mikeyashworth

Monkey Fist

Monkey Fist is a smack-talking, potty mouthed, Yankee hating, Red Sox fan in Baltimore, Maryland.  In addition to compiling Maritime Monday, she blogs about nautical art, history, and marine science on Adventures of the Blackgang.

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com.  She can also out-belch any man.

Graysby, Epinephelus cruentatus, Key Biscayne, FL, USA – (photo: Evan D’Alessandro, MBF) (via rhamphotheca)

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 Photo Gallery:

Cruise ship runs aground off Italy on The LA Times

Autoxylopyrocycloboros, the creation of artist Simon Starling during its short time on this earth. The work is named for a Greek mythical character of a snake eating its own tail, which was at the time a symbol of rebirth. Autoxylopyrocycloboros was also self-consuming, but in our time this is an act of total destruction. The little vessel was piloted out into Loch Long, in Scotland, with the boiler fed by pieces of wood removed from the hull until it ultimately sank. The Loch is on the Clyde Estuary, home of the UK’s Trident nuclear submarine base. The piece suggests that the arms of war destroy the idea of rebirth, and make innovation and consumption a one-way journey.

This is one of many pieces I will be featuring in an exhibit of Contemporary Art at ABM next summer. Stay tuned. If you would like to learn more about the ill-fated little craft, watch Simon’s talk here: dictionaryofwar.org/concepts/Autoxylopyrocycloboros

evsboats

1946 Victory Parade (set)

H.M.N.Z.T. Maunganui departing the Wharf, Wellington New Zealand, 20 April 1946  –Adelaide Archivist

the wreck, 1911; artist unknown (via bluewaterblackheart)

This Week in Wrecks

January 8th

1979: The oil tanker Betelgeuse suffers a structural failure and explodes at the Whiddy Island oil Terminal off West Cork, Ireland, killing 50.  A diver also dies during the salvage.

2005:  The USS San Francisco, a Los Angeles-class submarine, collides with an undersea mountain and is badly damaged.  One crew member dies, but the vessel is able to surface.

January 9th

1972:  The Seawise University, formerly the RMS Queen Elizabeth, catches fire and capsizes in Victoria Harbor, Hong Kong.  Insurance fraud is suspected.

2005:  The Elizabeth M towboat is pushed over the Montgomery Locks and Dam during high water while pushing 6 barges through the lock on the Ohio River near Industry, PA.  4 crewmembers are lost and 3 escape.

January 13 –January 11  — Brought to you by fuckyeahwrecks

Caricature of Ferdinand de Lesseps

Cover of La Lune 29 September 1867
Hand-colored Engraving
29 September 1867
André Gill; 1840-1885

Ferdinand Marie, Vicomte de Lesseps, (19 November 1805 – 7 December 1894) was the French developer of the Suez Canal, which joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas in 1869.

He attempted to repeat this success with an effort to build a sea-level Panama Canal during the 1880s, but the project was devastated by epidemics of malaria and yellow fever in the area, and the projected de Lesseps canal was left uncompleted and eventually partially superseded by a non-sea-level canal with locks, built by the United States and completed in 1914.

The Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez was organized at the end of 1858. On 25 April 1859 the first blow of the pickaxe was given by de Lesseps at Port Said. On 17 November 1869 the canal was officially opened. From 17 November 1899 to 23 December 1956, a monumental statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps by Emmanuel Frémiet stood at the entrance of the Suez Canal.

In May 1879 a congress of 136 delegates (including de Lesseps) assembled in the rooms of the Geographical Society in Paris and voted in favor of the creation of a Panama Canal, which was to be without locks, like Suez. De Lesseps was appointed President of the Panama Canal Company, despite the fact that he had reached the age of 74. The decision to dig a Panama Canal at sea level to avoid the use of locks, and the inability of contemporary medical science to deal with epidemics of malaria and yellow fever doomed the project.

His name was used in a speech by Egyptian President Gamal Nasser as the codeword to order the raiding of the Suez Canal Company’s offices on 26 July 1956, the first step to its nationalization. In the course of the raid and seizure of the canal by Nasser, the statue of de Lesseps at the entrance of the Suez Canal was removed from its pedestal, to symbolize the end of European ownership of the waterway. The statue now stands in a small garden of the Port Fouad shipyard.

(image source) Tyrone Power played de Lesseps in the movie Suez (1938), a film over which de Lesseps’ family sued for libel, claiming it was too highly fictionalized.

more on wiki

image source: MCMXXXVIII; movies from 1938

(full image) and source page

vintage albumen print from Suez: Choke hold on world shipping

French Engineers designed and built this steam powered conveyor dredge to excavate sand from the Suez Canal in the late 1860s – (full size) from Military Geology PowerPoint Presentations

Ferdinand de Lesseps statue at Suez; vintage postcard

French Ship Aigle Enters Suez Canal Antique Print 1869

vintage postcard; Port Said, Egypt

Port Said Canal 1880

Building of Suez Canal Authority in Port Said — full resolution‎ (1,024 × 667 pixels)

An 19th Century engraving from “Appleton’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art”, 1869, showing the first vessels through the Canal between Kantara and El-Ferdane

(full size)

The Suez Canal Company set up a postal service to prepay correspondence internally within the company’s territory between Port Said and Suez and intermediate points. However, the stamps were in use for less then six weeks, before the Egyptian Government suppressed the service. COMPANY STAMP ON David Feldman Auctions

part of the Samir Fikry Collection of Postal Services in the Suez Canal Zone.

Albumen photo, 81/2″h x 11″w (21 x 28 cm), of the “Quai de Port Said”, Egypt by the Zangaki Brothers, active 1870′s –1900′s (full size 3126×2172)

Lighthouse and Breakwater at the Entrance of the Suez Canal
Port Said. The Illustrated London News, No.2255—Vol. LXXXI, Saturday, July 22, 1882

Ship and dredge in the Suez Canal

Port Said, northern entrance Suez canal, with statue of De Lesseps,1921

northern entrance to the Suez Canal

Two French ships in Port Said, Egypt; c.1880s

PORT SAID. Egypt. Street Of Francis Joseph (postcard heaven)

Old Port Said and the Suez Canal on transpress nz; World transport history (13 image gallery)

Suez blockade …In 1956 Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the canal, which led to the Suez crisis. During the battle for the Suez the Egyptions sank ships to create a blockade. The canal was of strategic importance as it had become the main passageway for oil to get to Europe. The crisis is seen by some as marking the end of long phase of British imperial history.

Suez Canal: from crisis to crisis, 7 image gallery on The Telegraph

see also: aerial view in The Suez Canal Crisis: Events that Shaped Maritime History on marineinsight.com

1956: Nasser tells crowd he has seized Suez Canal, (partial newsreel) VIDEO

Entrance to the Suez Canal, Port Said – Egypt ca.1869 (albumen print)

huge ass map of Suez (Maps from Baedeker’s Indien: Handbuch Für Reisende, 1914)

Construction of the Suez Canal 1869

Dredgepoint.org: Suez Canal Authority, Dredging Department

Arrival of a steamer, Port-Said, Egypt. Photographer: Lehnert & Landrock, Cairo

Deck Officers of the Eastern Telegraph Company’s CS Electra in the Suez Canal about 1910

Apparently the deck officers of the Electra always donned the fez when they entered the Suez Canal. In North Africa a fez was (and still is) an emblem of authority and commanded respect to its wearer and conversely showed respect towards the natives. -more about the CS Electra on History of the Atlantic Cable

Port Said, 1922 (full size)

As the port linking East and West it’s an ideal location for all kinds of pulpy goodness. It’s one of the few cities outside the United States that was visited by one of Lovecraft’s protagonists- Nathanial Wingate Peaslee traveled through Said on his journey to Australia in “The Shadow Out of Time”.

-more on Propnomicon; Curious devices, forbidden artifacts, mysterious creatures, and intriguing documents

Scene on the Quay of Suez

The city of Suez, founded in the 15th century, had already gained considerable commercial importance as a stop-over for sailings to India and the East Indies. In his travel journal, Roberts described Suez as “a wretched place” and, even though he found the bazaars “ptiiresque”, chose to depict in one of his drawings the quays of the port, somnolent by day but greatly animated by the arrival of the Bombay steamer during the night.

General View of Suez …

David Roberts set out from Cairo for the Holy Land on 7 February 1839, with a, small caravan including servants in Arabian and Turkish dress, an armed escort oj Bedouins and twenty-one camels which transported provisions and baggage as well as tents for overnight encampments. With Roberts travelled two Englishmen, John Pell and John G. Kinnear, who two years later dedicated his own book of memoirs, Cairo, Petra and Damascus, to Roberts.

Guiding the party was Hanafi Ishmael Effendi, an Egyptian converted to Christianity during his stays in England, who spoke English fluently and with whom Roberts had become friends while in Cairo.

The first stop on their itinerary was the city of Suez, at the extreme southern tip of the isthmus of the same name, which had at the time yet to be cut through by Ferdinand Ijesseps to place the Mediterranean in communication with the Red Sea.

DAVID ROBERTS A Journey in the Holy Land

Aida is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette. It was first performed at the Khedivial Opera House in Cairo on December 24, 1871.

Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, commissioned Verdi to write the opera for performance in January 1871, paying him 150,000 francs, but the premiere was delayed because of the Franco-Prussian War. Contrary to popular belief, the opera was not written to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, nor that of the Khedivial Opera House in the same year.

Verdi had been asked to compose an ode for the occasion, but refused on the grounds that he did not write “occasional pieces”.

from canalmuseum.com

In 1915, Mack Sennett assembled a bevy of girls known as the Sennett Bathing Beauties to appear in provocative bathing costumes in comedy short subjects, in promotional material, and in promotional events like Venice Beach beauty contests.

more on How to be a Retronaut; Sennett Bathing Beauties, 1915 

Suez Canal on TrekEarth

Monkey Fist

Monkey Fist is a smack-talking, potty mouthed, Yankee hating, Red Sox fan in Baltimore, Maryland.  In addition to compiling Maritime Monday, she blogs about nautical art, history, and marine science on Adventures of the Blackgang.

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com.  She can also out-belch any man.

Maritime Paintings by Anton Otto Fischer

The charred head of a dodo. Find out more about it here. (via drtuesdaygjohnson)

Above, a 1945 Esquire magazine pin-up calendar by Peruvian artist Joaquin Alberto Vargas y Chávez, who back then went only by the moniker Varga. We can’t think of a better way to start the year than with a dozen of his paintings…

VIVA VARGA on Pulp International

The Cray XK6 supercomputer; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Gaea climate research supercomputer, housed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee

Image by Jay Nave (via oneblackline)

Some people just like to watch (via feastingonroadkill)

Phosphate cargo ship runs aground

January 08, 2012 3:32PM — CREW on board a ship carrying phosphate dust had to be rescued this morning, after their vessel is believed to have run aground at Christmas Island in a heavy swell. The vessel is believed to have run aground near a wharf about 7.30am.

A spokeswoman for the Australian Federal Police confirmed that “police on Christmas Island responded to an incident involving a sea cargo vessel that was moored in the phosphate mining dock” this morning.

“The AFP worked with agencies, including the Navy, to rescue the 15 crew members on board the vessel,” the spokesperson said.

“They have been transferred to Christmas Island where they are undergoing health and welfare checks.”

Perth Now

Napoleonic Prisoner of War Bone Model

78 Gun Ship; 1700 to 1900 Anglo French

Medium: Bone, horse hair, metal pins

Provenance: Ex Collection of the Younge Family, Puslinch House, Yealmpton,
Devon, England. The House in the ownership of the Family Since 1709
See Finch & Co catalogue no. 13, item no. 59, for a Napoleonic Prisoner of War Model of a 16 Gun Three Masted Merchant Vessel.

One can only be filled with wonder and amazement at the skill, patience, ingenuity and fortitude displayed by the unknown French seamen of the Napoleonic era who produced these accomplished works of art in the most sordid and terrible conditions of the prison hulks with primitive tools and equipment.

Standing and running rigging, planked and pinned hull with open gun ports and cannon. A fine arched, curved and galleried transom and a carved horse figurehead.

more

Graham Inglis, Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue Service: “We’re pumping
water from starboard to port to bring Britannia to the vertical”

Royal Yacht Britannia in dry dock after leak

The Royal Yacht Britannia has arrived at a dry dock several hours later than planned after fire crews were called when it started taking on water while being moved.

The yacht, which is now a tourist attraction in Edinburgh, developed a leak in a door seal on Friday which caused it to tilt on its starboard side. It has now been moved to a dry dock across the harbour in Leith for repainting after fire crews pumped water from the vessel.

• more
• BBC: Royal Yacht Britannia’s list problem fixed

Rainbow (William Starling Burgess, 1934 – photography: Morris Rosenfeld, 1937) – via yama-bato

Nelson’s Column during the Great Smog of 1952: A cold smog descended upon London that today is seen as the worst air pollution event in the history of the United Kingdom. It was responsible for at least 4,000 deaths.

This Day in History

Arlan Ettinger, president of Guernsey’s Auction House, stands next to a model of the Titanic, during a press conference and preview of Titanic artifacts on Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012 in New York. The complete collection of artifacts recovered from the wreck site of the RMS Titanic will be auctioned by Guernsey’s Auction House in April. (BEBETO MATTHEWS / AP)

Titanic auction not popular at Maritime Museum

The sale of more than 5,000 artifacts salvaged from the world’s most famous shipwreck is causing concerns for a local museum official.

Concerns serious enough the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic will never consider hosting the Titanic relics — even as a temporary exhibit.

“No maritime museum in the world that is part of the (International Congress of Maritime Museums) would display any of these items,” the museum’s registrar Lynn-Marie Richard said in a recent interview.

• more
• more yet

When word got around that scientists nicknamed a particularly hairy-chested kind of deep-sea crab after “Baywatch” star David Hasselhoff, “The Hoff” didn’t get huffy. Instead, he proudly tweeted the news to his 358,000 Twitter followers. The Southern Ocean’s “Hoff crabs” are just the latest critters to get celebrity nicknames.

The saga of Hasselhoff’s crabs came out this week when researchers reported the discovery of a “lost world” in waters off the Antarctic coast in the journal PLoS Biology.

‘The Hoff’ loves his celebrity crabs

Niagara Falls souvenir

Russian Cruiser Varyag; May 18 1901 on English Russia

Varyag used to be an Admiral Kuznetsov class multirole aircraft carrier of the Soviet Union. She was built in 1898 in Philadelphia and given to the fleet of the Russian Empire in 1900.

This Russian cruiser had a fascinating, rich and sad history. She will always be the pride of the Russian fleet.

• see also: Antiterrorism Training In Vladivostok
• and: A Ship That Will Never Sail Again

Queen Astrid Comes No More Illustration by N.C. Wyeth for “Song Programs for Youth: Treasure,” Ginn and Company, 1938 Book Covers by N.C. Wyeth (Set: 45)

Discovery of Greenland by Eric the Red – lar Exploration Cigarette Card. John Player and Sons, 1915 see the set of 25

“WIll inventive genius evolve an ocean liner that can defy all the elements which now threaten voyagers? Judge’s artist here pictures the Aerotania, an imaginative vessel, which, at its helmsman’s will, can even mount into the air and clear icebergs.”

The Flying Liner: A frisky creation by H. A. Petersen, Judge magazine, Nov 2 1912

Cigarette Card – Ferry “Duke of Lancaster” – Player’s Cigarettes “Shipping” (series of 50 intended for issue c1960) #11 “Duke of Lancaster” ~ ferry used on the Heysham-Belfast route

see also: Canadian Pacific Liner “Empress of England”

L’Isle’s Map of the Barbary Coast (1707) on Big Map Blog – see also: Plan of Baltimore, Sidney and Neff (1851)

Loading Rice for Export – The steamer Sheppy Allison is seen loading rice in New Orleans in this postcard view. She was built in 1899 by Wm. Gray & Co. LTD, West Hartlepool, England. She was 302 feet long with a 43 foot beam, and a displacement of 2,285 GT. In 1912 she was renamed “Ramon,” a name she held until being scrapped in 1936. FULL SIZE

In Saint-Nazaire – A view of various ships at the piers in the harbor of Saint-Nazaire, France. The only one of which I am able to identify is the ship in the foreground, “Reindeer,” and even at that point, I just have a name, no details. (Posted by By Fairlane221)

left: Flying Spinnakers, 1938 » (© Mystic Seaport, Rosenfeld Collection
right: The Larchmont Yacht Club, 1939 by Morris Rosenfeld (via yama-bato)

knotformation

We Made This – see also:shipping label from the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company

Sailors with two cats aboard cruiser Olympia, circa 1898.

Photograph from the Littlejohn collection at J. Welles Henderson Archives & Library, Independence Seaport Museum (via drtuesdaygjohnson)

Olympia at the Battle of Manila Bay.

Cover of an antique children’s book; see full image in hoodoothatvoodoo

Das grosse Weltpanorama / Bild 34 – (Berlin & Stuttgart / Deutschland; 1909)

Das grosse Weltpanorama der Reisen, Abenteuer, Wunder, Entdeckungen und Kulturtaten in Wort und Bild — Ein Jahrbuch für alle Gebildeten — (posted by micky the pixel)

Oyster Study by Ronald Cowie (via thingsihappentolike)

Molly Aida from Fitzcarraldo

…Up on the plateau between the two rivers, woodsmen had been felling trees, barefoot as usual, and one of them had been bitten by a snake. Snakes had never been seen anywhere near chain saws, because the noise and the exhaust fumes drive the snakes deep into the jungle, but this man had suddenly been bitten twice in the foot. He had dropped his chain saw and just caught a glimpse of the snake before it disappeared into the underbrush; it was a chuchupe. Usually this snake’s bite causes cardiac arrest and stops breathing in less than a minute, and cases in which a person has survived a bite longer than seven or eight minutes without treatment are almost unknown. Our camp with the doctor and the antivenom serum was twenty minutes away. The man, so I was told by someone who had been working next to him, had stood motionless for a few seconds, thinking hard. Then he had picked up the chain saw, which had stalled when it hit the ground, pulled the cord to start it, the way you pull an outboard motor, and had sawn off his foot above the ankle…

from Conquest of the Useless, based on the diary Werner Herzog kept whilst making Fitzcarraldo, the 1982 movie about a rubber baron obsessed with transporting his steamship over an isthmus between two rivers to access untapped territory.

tomsmovies.blogspot.com

Torpedo tubes are from a World War Two era submarine now located in Portsmouth in the UK

Cramped Efficiency: Inside a Submarine

Newsweek cover, 1957 – The 1950s: “We Add Nuclear Power to Everything”

Brainless ‘fish’ among aquatic wonders found in Scottish waters

The Guardian – Amphioxus, seen as representative of first animals to evolve a backbone, among 15 marine species discovered this year. A brainless and faceless “fish” was one of 15 species discovered during a series of Scottish marine surveys this year.

The prehistoric amphioxus, was found in waters off Tankerness in Orkney. It has a nerve cord down its back and is said to be regarded as a representative of the first animals to evolve a backbone…

more

For All the Chefs Among You — (via I’ve done all these things : reddit funny)

The RMS Viceroy of India – P&O Line’s crowning achievement of the 1920s.

Cruise History: The RMS Viceroy of India was an ocean liner that was owned and operated by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company Ltd. of Great Britain. During World War II she was converted to and used as a troopship. The Viceroy of India was sunk in November of 1942 by German U-boat U-407. Her service was succeeded by SS Chusan from 1950 to 1978. — CruisingThePast.com

The P. and O. Pocket Book, 2nd edition (London: Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., 1899)

The P. and O. was widely considered the premier shipping line for transportation to India (“a junior branch of the Royal Navy,” according to some). The little guidebook provided for passengers (first published in 1888) included information on ports of call, essays on countries served, advice for travellers, maps, and meteorological tables.

The Passage to India

Technology may have improved, but large ships have always needed large propellers. This is from the SS Great Britain, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the world’s largest vessel when it was launched in 1843. The ship crossed the Atlantic in 1845 in only 14 days, a record at the time.

The World’s Largest Ship Propellers

SS Great Britain fitting out alongside Gasworks quay in Bristol Floating Harbour (not Cumberland Basin), April 1844. This photograph of Great Britain taken by pioneering photographer William Henry Fox Talbot is not only the first taken of Great Britain, but also believed to be the first photograph ever taken of a ship. Date: April 1844

SS Great Britain, showing the ‘false sea’ that effectively seals the lower hull from the air

By 1998, an extensive survey discovered that the hull was continuing to corrode in the humid atmosphere of the dock and estimates gave her 20 years before she corroded away. Extensive conservation work began which culminated in the installation of a glass plate across the dry dock at the level of her water line, with two dehumidifiers, keeping the space beneath at 22% relative humidity, sufficiently dry to preserve the surviving material of the hull. The engineers Fenton Holloway won the IStructE Award for Heritage Buildings in 2006 for the restoration of the SS Great Britain. In May of that year the ship won the prestigious Gulbenkian Prize for museums and galleries wikipedia

August 6, 1914:  first U-boat battle in the Atlantic, WW1

U-118 – Following surrender U-118 was to be transferred to France where it would be broken up for scrap. However, in the early hours of 15 April 1919, while it was being towed through the English Channel towards Scapa Flow, its dragging hawser broke off in a storm. The ship ran aground on the beach at Hastings in Sussex at approximately 12:45am, directly in front of the Queens Hotel. (via thingsihappentolike)

more

German Imperial Navy / Deutsches Kriegsmarine ship Real Photo Postcard (RPPC). German Depeschenboot / Dispatch boat picking up feldpost from a Torpedo boat.
—Transportation->Ships

One of the 2,751 Liberty Ships built during WWII. One of these, the SS John Harvey, sunk and
caused a terrible disaster, but it was one which led to a major medical breakthrough.

1943 – A Luftwaffe bombing raid on the harbour of Bari, Italy, sank numerous cargo and transport ships. Included in these was an American Liberty ship, the SS John Harvey, with a stockpile of World War I era mustard gas aboard. The bombing caused the single (and unintentional) release of chemical weapons in the course of the war by the Allies.

The John Harvey was built at the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company in Wilmington, North Carolina. Her Maritime Commission Hull Number was 0878 and she was rated as capable of carrying 504 soldiers.

On December 2^nd Bari was struck by a major German air raid (so big that it shut down the port for more than two months; sixteen ships were sunk and it was dubbed “Little Pearl Harbor” at the time). The John Harvey was not hit, but it was showered with flaming debris, caught fire and blew up. Its cargo was unleashed on its crew and the defenseless town…

• more on wikipedia
• The SS John Harvey, Saviour of Millions

The cataclysmic explosion of one of the ammunition ships John Harvey or John L. Motley at Bari, Italy

(Argosy cover via The FictionMags Index)

1950:  Most of the Soviet Air Force ice hockey team is killed in the Sverdlovsk air disaster when their DC-3 crashes on approach during a severe snowstorm.  The Air Force and Vasiliy Stalin hide the accident from Joseph Stalin.

1975:  The bulk carrier Lake Illawarra, unable to reverse in time, crashes into the pylons of the Tasman Bridge in Hobart, causing a section of the bridge to collapse.  7 sailors drown and 5 motorists are killed.

1993:  The MV Braer oil tanker runs aground near Quendale in the Shetland Islands after engine failure.

fuckyeahwrecks: This Day in Wrecks

mabelmoments:

Thousands of dead herring washed up on a beach in Kvaenes, Norway.

That little dog is in stinky-must-roll-in-it heaven.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Vinnie Jones shows how hard and fast Hands-only CPR to Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees can help save the life of someone who has had a cardiac arrest. This is excellent (and life-saving). (via mabelmoments)

サソリトカゲス (via grottu)

Monkey Fist

Monkey Fist is a smack-talking, potty mouthed, Yankee hating, Red Sox fan in Baltimore, Maryland.  In addition to compiling Maritime Monday, she blogs about nautical art, history, and marine science on Adventures of the Blackgang.

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com.  She can also out-belch any man.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Be Bop Deluxe – Ships In The Night (via feastingonroadkill)

Men in Conflict, June 1962 – (via grottu)

Tradition states that the first entry of the new year in the official log in CG and Navy must be in verse and rhyme.

So, here’s to tradition…

Zero one January two thousand one two.
Eight glasses for the old year and eight for the new.

Clear, windless day; low tide at o8h14,
The river has that beautiful blue-brown, cold sheen.

Hair making good knots, rolled out of my berth,
Dismayed by the thickening of the girth

After bubbly and beer and something chateau,
Feeling like sierra hotel india tango

see the full post on Bowsprite: A New York Harbor Sketchbook

Theodore Clement Steele, The Boatman, 1884

Theodore Clement Steele (September 11, 1847-July 24, 1926) was an American Impressionist painter. Steele was born in Owen County, Indiana, and later moved to Indianapolis after study in Cincinnati, Chicago and Munich. He is considered to be the most important of the Hoosier Group of painters and his work is widely collected by museums and individuals. Steele earned his living primarily as a portrait painter, and enjoyed plein air, or outdoor, painting, which is reflected in many of the landscapes he painted.

more paintings by T. C. Steele at The Athenaeum

Sailor Made Oil on Milk Glass of SS TEMPLEMORE circa 1890 (Australia)

see also: photo/ Templemore (ship) Departure of the transport Templemore from Pinkenba, c. 1901; State Library of Queensland

This Day in Wrecks via fuckyeahwrecks:

1915: The SS Persia, an ocean liner with 519 passengers and crew, is sunk without warning by U-38 off the coast of Crete. Only 176 survive. U-Boat commander Max Valentiner is considered a war criminal by the Allies for this act.

S.S. Persia (image source)

One of the most potent weapons of war is to starve the opponents population. During the First World War, Germany and Britain had this in mind. Britain with its large war fleets and merchant marine had a distinct advantage. Germany faced with this reality and the dwindling of her sea trade adopted the art of underwater attacks.

Submarines, according to the morality of the time had to surface and give the captains time to abandon ship. This lost the primary surprise so vital in war and exposed the Submarine to extra dangers. By 1915 the gloves were off and Germany abandoned International Agreements and unleashed unrestricted submarine warfare…

dive, dive, dive…

SS Persia Landing stage; Aden, St. Point

—The Persia’s fateful voyage:

The P&O liner Persia was the first passenger ship to be torpedoed without warning during WW1. She sank in December 1915 – hundreds of passengers lost their lives. Among them was a woman who later became one of the world’s best-known icons…

read

Litho Düsseldorf Kaiserswerth, Dampfer Prinz Heinrich

Litho Helgoland, Dampfer Prinz. Heinrich, Segelschiff

Gruss aus postcard from the Rhein Torpedoboots Division / Rhine Torpedo Boat Fleet – May 1900. Sent from Karlsruhe to Freiburg.

The Guardian
HMS HOOD and a sailing merchant at sea; 1936 – Montague Dawson (British 1895-1973)

HMS Hood (pennant number 51) was the last battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy. One of four Admiral-class battlecruisers ordered in mid-1916, her design—although drastically revised after the Battle of Jutland and improved while she was under construction—still had serious limitations. For this reason she was the only ship of her class to be completed. She was named after the 18th-century Admiral Samuel Hood.

Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood ( Butleigh, 12 December 1724 – London, 27 January 1816) was a British Admiral known particularly for his service in the American War of Independence and French Revolutionary Wars. He acted as a mentor to Horatio Nelson.

more

left: Last picture of Hood, sailing toward her rendezvous with Bismarck, as seen from Prince of Wales. right: Hood during and after the explosion; sketch prepared by Captain JC Leach (commanding HMS Prince of Wales) for the second board of enquiry in 1941

John Stobart – Savannah, World’s First Steamship Leaving Savanna, Georgia, May 20, 1819

Paintings Made With Human Blood by Vinicius Quesada

Vinicius Quesada is a talented street artist from Brazil who likes to add a shock value to his artwork. His series entitled Blood Piss Blues were created using exactly what it says – blood and urine. The Brazilian street artist makes incredibly detailed psychedelic art of violent geishas, smoking monkeys, and other apocalyptic and imagery.

Map: Happy Birthday, Boston (B. Harbor, 1776) originally posted to the BIG Map Blog.

A hundred years after Robert Scott‘s disastrous mission to the South Pole, a pair of Kiwi scientists are traveling to his observation hut today to continue the work he began there: tracking the Earth’s magnetic field. Since 1957, New Zealand has measured the field at Scott’s base every five years, accruing data that, along with measurements from other, more comfortable sites around the world, helps maintain the model used by NATO and nations’ defense departments for navigation.

Following in Scott’s Footsteps: Measuring the Magnetic Pole

Manning the rails on light cruiser Köln in 1935

HMS Agincourt (British Broadside Ironclad, 1868) In drydock, showing her bow decorations. From U.S. Naval Historical Center

HMS Agincourt was one of three Minotaur class ironclads, the sistership of HMS Minotaur and a near sister to HMS Northumberland. She was a fully rigged ship with a steam engine and an armoured iron hull and was launched in 1865.

via thingsihappentolike

Uboat 155 exhibited in London after World War I (1918)

MARINE – à bord – Tambours et clairons (vintage postcard)

Lahusen’s Tonic’s (Iron-Iodine-Liver Oil) Sinbad the Sailor c1900 – Via MONSTER BRAINS: Vintage German Advertisement Cards. (via 50watts)

Noah’s Ark

from ‘Liber Floridus,’ a compilation of extracts from nearly two hundred late Classical and early Medieval works by authors such as Isidore of Seville, Orosius, Julius Honorius, Pomponius Mela, Solinus, Venerable Bede, Rabanus Maurus, Pseudo-Callisthenes and Martianus Capella… The manuscript was completed by hand by ~1120 and is regarded as the first encyclopædia of the High Middle Ages. This manuscript – of about 300 folio leaves – is a real treat to look at closely.

see on Bibliodyssey

Museo El Fósil A museum built around a bus-sized fossil

When dinosaurs walked – or in this case, swam – the earth, they reigned supreme. Now long dead, their remains lay hidden beneath layers of earth, waiting to be discovered. This one was lucky enough, not only to be discovered, but to have an entire museum built around it.

more on Atlas Obscura

WIRED: China’s Noisy Subs Get Busier — And Easier to Track (via coldisthesea)

Communard Girl, Paris 1871

Nauti-Gal; BadAss Edition: “Hortense David, Cannonier of the Seine Fleet: targeted pieces of ordnance, sentenced to life imprisonment’”  –via feastingonroadkill.tumblr.com

More Petroleuse portraits here.

Construction of Nelson’s Column William Fox Talbot, 1843

Lowestoft, Entrance to the Jetty — Yarmouth Beach — Herne Bay Clock Tower

In the early nineteenth century a trip to Egypt and up the Nile aboard a native dhahabîyeh (large sailing craft) was reserved for only the most adventurous traveler, or howadji, a Turkish word originally meaning ‘merchant’ or ‘shopkeeper’. Howadji soon became a term applied by local inhabitants to all foreign travelers.

Augustus Hoppin [W] left his law profession in 1848 to study art and pursue a career as an illustrator. He became quite successful and widely known for his illustrations for novels. In 1873, he embarked on a extensive tour of Egypt and soon followed his adventure with a fully illustrated book, On the Nile…

see on Bibliodyssey

Moore’s Poetical Works  (click to see full size)

Inside the book is a handwritten notation stating, “Merry Christmas from Edi, Dec 25, 1871”

SMS Vineta; 1864 and 1900 – vintage postcard

Two ships of the Imperial German Navy bore the name SMS Vineta, named after the mythic city of Vineta:

Vineta or Wineta (sometimes held to be identical with Jomsborg) was a possibly legendary ancient town believed to have been on the coast of the Baltic Sea. In 1043 Vineta was to be conquered by the fleet of the Danish and Norwegian king Magnus I of Norway. MORE ON WIKI

SMS Vineta (1863, top) was a corvette built in 1863 (SMS Vineta 1863; wikipedia; in German)

SMS Vineta (1895) was a protected cruiser built in the Imperial Dockyard in Danzig. She was laid down in 1895, and completed in Sept. 1899.

image via Delcampe.net

ESCADRE à VILLEFRANCHE sur MER; vintage postcard

Villefranche-sur-Mer is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region on the French Riviera.

Villefranche-sur-Mer adjoins the city of Nice to the east along Mont Boron, Mont Alban and Mont Vinaigrier, and 10 km (6.2 mi) south west of Monaco. The bay of Villefranche is one of the deepest natural harbours of any port in the Mediterranean Sea and provides safe anchorage for large ships, reaching depths of 95 m (320 ft) between the Cape of Nice and Cap Ferrat; it extends to the south to form a 500 m (1700 ft) abyss known as the undersea Canyon of Villefranche at about one nautical mile off the coastline.

Villefranche sur Mer on wiki

German Imperial Navy / Deutsches Kriegsmarine Real Photo Postcard showing the crew aboard ship, with a Marineschffspost (MSP203) cancel for the SMS Pelikan, a minelayer

Coat-of-arms of the Great Western Railway incorporating the shields of the cities of London (left) and Bristol (right).

Launch of SS Great Britain in July 1843

SS Great Britain was an advanced passenger steamship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel for the Great Western Steamship Company’s transatlantic service between Bristol and New York. While other ships had previously been built of iron or equipped with a screw propeller, Great Britain was the first to combine these features in a large ocean-going ship. She was the first screw steamer to cross the Atlantic, which she did in 1845, in the then-record time of 14 days (one day faster than the previous record holder, the SS Great Western).

Great Britain carried thousands of immigrants to Australia until 1881. Three years later, the vessel was retired to the Falkland Islands where she was used as a warehouse, quarantine ship and coal hulk until scuttled in 1937.

In 1970, Great Britain was returned to the Bristol dry dock where she was first built. Now listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, Core Collection, the vessel is an award-winning visitor attraction and museum ship in Bristol Harbour, with between 150,000–170,000 visitors annually.

(from an Isambard Kingdom Brunel fan page)

Avec Castrol 1932  —posted by paul.malon

Original Currier & Ives Lithograph, The Sailors Return (c. 1860’s) – see right full size

Marin & navire de guerre; Année: 1934

The Year in Pictures: Part I 
The Year in Pictures: Part II 
The Year in Pictures: Part III

The Big Picture; Boston.com

2011 in Lego: the year’s news – in pictures on The Guardian

via sealust

1877 Newfoundland Dog Chromolithograph From Glascow Scotland

Monkey Fist

Monkey Fist is a smack-talking, potty mouthed, Yankee hating, Red Sox fan in Baltimore, Maryland.  In addition to compiling Maritime Monday, she blogs about nautical art, history, and marine science on Adventures of the Blackgang.

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com.  She can also out-belch any man.

The Captain’s Christmas: Cartoon; MGM/United Features Syndicate.
Originally Released on December 17, 1938

…The Captain is going to surprise the kids by dressing as Santa Claus, but the peg-legged pirate villain, John, takes his place. However, John and his wacky henchman get into the spirit, giving the Captain and the kids a Christmas Eve celebration that brings down the house- on their heads…

The Big Cartoon Database: Watch The Captain’s Christmas On Video »

Ice-bound Russian ships wrecked off Kamchatka »

Aral: the sea that vanished overnight »

The Art of cartoonist Kurt Schaffenberger; The Aquaman Story » (via grottu)

Military divers to help clear undersea tires in Fort Lauderdale »

Having cleared harbors and assessed dam safety in Iraq, a team of military divers is likely to come to Fort Lauderdale to work on an environmental mess inflicted on South Florida in the 1970s.

Broward County has requested the return of Army and Navy divers to haul up thousands of waste tires that had been dumped off Broward County in a failed attempt to create artificial reefs. Previous operations brought up about 72,000 tires before being suspended as divers became busy with the war in Iraq, earthquake rescue in Haiti and other missions.

keep reading (video) »

Snapped in the Sea: Underwater Photo Winners

Makassar, Sulawesi Island, Indonesia: Once the world most busiest port and center of global spice merchants, the port of Makassar is not used much anymore.

National Geographic: winners of global photography contest »

Remembering the Christmas Whale from
A Cape Cod Notebook on WGBH (via thingsihappentolike)

St. Mary’s College of Maryland staff wave farewell Sunday to the Sea Voyager, which housed 240 SMCM students for almost two months. STORY ON BAYNET »

St. Mary’s floating dormitory sets sail »

Officials at St. Mary’s College of Maryland announced Monday that the Sea Voyager, a 286-foot cruise ship that served as an impromptu residence hall for 240 students, had returned to sea.

So ends a unique experiment in waterfront living. Students at Maryland’s public liberal arts school spent nearly two months housed in cabins on the idle ship, as college leaders repaired their mold-sullied dormitories on land.

• also: Maryland college says goodbye to cruise ship dorm (USA Today)

German POWs carrying body of American soldier killed in Battle
of Bulge through snowy Ardennes field

Vivid new Battle of the Bulge photos offer never-before-seen look at the war-weary soldiers braving the frigid weather as they fight off Nazi Germany’s last major offensive of World War II »

Breathtaking new photographs, including several vivid full-color images, offer a never-before-seen look at the war-weary soldiers in the Battle of the Bulge who fought through the frozen Ardennes Forest in a mountainous region of Belgium in the dead of winter.

They show soldiers on both sides battling the frigid weather as they fought each other during Nazi Germany’s last-ditch effort to drive back Allied forces between December 1944 and January 1945. The pictures were released by Life Magazine on the 67th anniversary of the start of the grueling battle. –via greatestgeneration

go see »

Ship Sunk 4 Centuries Ago Virtually Reconstructed In 3-D

Sunk in 1606, the Portuguese merchant ship Nossa Senhora dos Martires is sailing again — in 3-D presently but perhaps one day in reality. If the cyber-replicated vessel ever does hit the high seas, the way will have been paved by the research of a persevering Texas A&M University nautical archaeologist combined with the high-tech applied study of a graduate student well versed in computer-based visualization techniques.

more »

Poster forSergei Eisenstein‘s October (1927); Posters of the Stenberg Brothers »

IMDb: October (Ten Days that Shook the World): In documentary style, events in Petrograd are re-enacted from the end of the monarchy in February of 1917 to the end of the provisional government and the decrees of peace and of land in November of that year. Lenin returns in April. In July, counter-revolutionaries put down a spontaneous revolt, and Lenin’s arrest is ordered. By late October, the Bolsheviks are ready to strike: ten days will shake the world. While the Mensheviks vacillate, an advance guard infiltrates the palace. Anatov-Oveyenko leads the attack and signs the proclamation dissolving the provisional government.

Love at Sea by Cassia Lupo (via thingsihappentolike)

Rambles Through our Country – Children’s Map (1890) originally posted to the BIG Map Blog.

Brooklyn Bridge by Currier and Ives (1885) originally posted to the BIG Map Blog.

Chevalier map of San Francisco (1912)

see also:

• Map of Proposed and Operational Telegraph Lines (1855)
• Los Angeles – the wonder city of America (1934)

The Neptune on Penfeld River, c. 1892, by Edmond Chagot

The Neptune was an ironclad battleship of the French Navy. She served in the Mediterranean squadron until 1898, when she was used as a school ship, and as a hulk from February 1908, and was was eventually sunk as target off Cherbourg.

see also: Le Neptune (via myoctoberrevolution)

New Orleans: Showing Mississippi excursion boat The President, c 1955 »

Gottfried Franz – Munchhausen Underwater (via mudwerks)

Sea Gull in Heavy Seas by Alfred T. Agate

On August 18, 1838, six United States Navy ships left Norfolk, Virginia on an expedition to the South Pacific. On board were 424 officers and crewmen and nine scientists, setting off on a mission to explore and survey the islands of that region, investigate their commercial potential, and assert American power.

Lieutenant Charles Wilkes commanded the expedition. At the time of his appointment he was in charge of the Depot of Charts and Instruments at Washington, D.C., an organization now known as the Naval Observatory.

Being a peaceful expedition of discovery, the ships were stripped of heavy armament and its space was given over to scientific exploration. The nine civilian scientists, referred to as the “scientifics” by the sailors, were tasked with observing and describing the resources of the various islands.

These men were among the most able in their fields: James D. Dana, Minerologist, Charles Pickering, Naturalist, Joseph P. Couthouy, Conchologist, Horatio C. Hale, Ethnographer, William Rich, Botanist, William D. Brackenridge, Horticulturalist, Titan Ramsay Peale, Naturalist, and Joseph Drayton and Alfred Agate, the two artists, or “draughtsmen.”

keep reading on thingsihappentolike »

Captain John Gray’s parents grave in Old Calton burial ground in Edinburgh (by Stephen Callaghan) – via darknightatsea

Cable Laying Ship Giulio Verne by NJ Photographer

Chinese Navy Hospital Ship “Peace Ark” – November 8, 2011

Peace Ark Ship (Set: 27)

It’s a time-honored tradition at Navy homecomings – one lucky sailor is chosen to be first off the ship for the long-awaited kiss with a loved one. Today, for the first time, the happily reunited couple was gay.

The dock landing ship Oak Hill has been gone for nearly three months, training with military allies in Central America. As the homecoming drew near, the crew and ship’s family readiness group sold $1 raffle tickets for the first kiss. Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta bought 50 – which is actually fewer than many people buy, she said, so she was surprised Monday to find out she’d won.

Her girlfriend of two years, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, was waiting when she crossed the brow. They kissed. The crowd cheered. And with that, another vestige of the policy that forced gays to serve in secrecy vanished.

–By Corinne Reilly; The Virginian-Pilot © December 21, 2011

Video report on You Tube »

cryptofwrestling

H.P. Lovecraft by Sean Phillips (via dirtyriver)

Some great gag cartoons from a very well-worn copy of SEX REARS ITS LOVELY HEAD, “a rib-splitting collection of cartoons about the biological urge assembled from the best of America’s foremost family magazines,” edited by Jerome Beatty, Jr. Copyright 1956 by Bantam Books, Inc.

Mike Lynch Cartoons: SEX REARS ITS LOVELY HEAD edited by Jerome Beatty, Jr.

Coast Guard releases Top 10 videos of 2011, announces Video of the Year contest »

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Coast Guard announced Wednesday the release of its Top 10 video compilation for 2011, highlighting the year’s most compelling cases from the work done every day by America’s Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard also announced its 2011 Video of the Year contest in which the public is invited to vote for their favorite video. The contest begins Thursday, with voting open through Jan. 13, 2012. Starting Thursday, and continuing through Dec. 31, the Coast Guard’s official blog, the Coast Guard Compass, will publish one of the Top 10 videos each day including commentary from a service member who participated in the mission. Voting for the 2011 Video of the Year will remain open through Jan. 13, 2012, so each video will have ample opportunity to be “Liked.”

Each day of the contest people may vote for their favorite videos by choosing “Like” on the Coast Guard’s Facebook page or on the Coast Guard’s YouTube 2011 Videos of the Year playlist.

more on the 1790 blog

Beaver Harbour, New Brunswick — Original (3767 x 5079)
On the Bay of Fundy, 1955. The illustrator’s signature appears to read “Hames Hill”.

The Schneider Trophy Contest 1929 – official programme cover

A stirring front cover from the 1929 Schneider Trophy Contest souvenir programme that was produced by Gale & Polden (a major publisher of thing military in Aldershot) on behalf of the organisers the Royal Aero Club. The competition to take the coverted trophy took place over a course across the Solent on England’s south coast as illustrated here. It really captures the feeling of excitement that flight had in peoples imaginations at the time – fast, sleek seaplanes speeding through the skies!

Original (4308 x 5862)

Clovelly harbour and village, Devon

Clovelly was a working herring-fishing port before its scenic charms started to attract sightseers in the 19th century. Reaching the town was difficult for paddle steamers, whose passengers had to be carried ashore by rowing boats. As this photograph shows, the village is built on a cliff, and the High Street, known locally as ‘Up-a-long’ and ‘Down-a-long’, is one of the steepest streets in England. Photo circa 1906

grottu

The story behind the French navy pompom onI See Stripes

A Girl in Every Port; German Navy Postcards

Two 17 cm/40 (6.75″) guns on SMS Deutschland

Kaiserliche Marine: German Imperial Navy Postcards, Set 42

vintage postcard – SMS Deutschland and SMS Gefion. Arrival at Kiautschou Bay, 1899

• from Imperial Germany in China »
• another view: SMS Deutschland + SMS Gefion

SMS Deutschland + SMS Gefion3

SMS Deutschland postcard on MaritimeQuest

Torpedo Boat Crew / Torpedo Division 1. Photographed at Wilhelmshaven, original postcard dated 24th November 1914 (worldnavalships.com)

The Deutschland; LIFE magazine 1939 — Original (3815 x 5188)

Real photo of the German Imperial Navy / Deutsche Kreigsmarine ship SMS Deutschland

Our beloved beneath-the-sea behemoth battles Krampus, the Anti-Santa, to help keep your Christmas Merry. Happy Holidays from The Kraken Rum. (kraken-research)

Happy Boxing Day!

Few Americans have any inkling that there even is such a thing as Boxing Day, let alone what the reason might be for a holiday so named. And even though Boxing Day is celebrated in Australia, Britain, New Zealand, and Canada, not all Gift that many people in those countries have much of a notion as to why they get the 26th of December off.

The holiday’s roots can be traced to Britain, where Boxing Day is also known as St. Stephen’s Day. Reduced to the simplest essence, its origins are found in a long-ago practice of giving cash or durable goods to those of the lower classes. Gifts among equals were exchanged on or before Christmas Day, but beneficences to those less fortunate were bestowed the day after.

And that’s about as much as anyone can definitively say about its origin because once you step beyond that point, it’s straight into the quagmire of debated claims and dueling folklorists. One of the more elaborate versions of this origin involve boxes kept on sailing ships:

The title has been derived by some, from the box which was kept on board of every vessel that sailed upon a distant voyage, for the reception of donations to the priest — who, in return, was expected to offer masses for the safety of the expedition, to the particular saint having charge of the ship — and above all, of the box. The box was not to be opened until the return of the vessel; and we can conceive that, in cases where the mariners had had a perilous time of it, this casket would be found to enclose a tolerable offering. The mass was at that time called Christmass, and the boxes kept to pay for it were, of course, called Christmass-boxes. The poor, amongst those who had an interest in the fate of these ships, or of those who sailed in them, were in the habit of begging money from the rich, that they might contribute to the mass boxes; and hence the title which has descended to our day, giving to the anniversary of St Stephen’s martyrdom the title of Christmas-boxing day, and, by corruption, its present popular one of Boxing Day.

more on Snopes

sovietpostcards: Happy New Year postcard by T. Sazonova and Yu. Prytkov (1964)

Merry Pirate Christmas by Phredd »

Uke Hunt Podcast #12 by bossa – via feastingonroadkill

The Swashbuckling Bearded Old Man of Christmas and his marauding band of famous shipmates follow their map to Christmas Treasure.

Monkey Fist

Monkey Fist is a smack-talking, potty mouthed, Yankee hating, Red Sox fan in Baltimore, Maryland.  In addition to compiling Maritime Monday, she blogs about nautical art, history, and marine science on Adventures of the Blackgang.

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com.  She can also out-belch any man.

nautical tattoos; history and art

illustrations by Bowsprite

Something England DIDN’T Expect:

Friday, December 16th is the 238th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.  Map: Anniv of Boston Tea Party, Boston Harbor (1905) originally posted to the BIG Map Blog.

see also: 1906: Boston Harbor & waterfront. Panorama of two 8×10 glass neg »

GOLDEN GROVE by Frank Allen (more images)
One of the three storeships of the First Fleet built in Whitby. In 1780 this ship had the distinction of carrying on board the Reverend Richard Johnson, Australia’s first Chaplain, to our shores.

UK forces beef up Olympic security »

Christmas in 17th-Century England and Virginia »

Along with their friends and relatives in England, the Englishmen who came to Jamestown in 1607 considered Christmas to be one of the most special times of the year.  In England, the season lasted about two weeks, from December 25 to Twelfth Day, January 6.  During this period, festivities abounded and little work was accomplished.

When the first colonists left England to find the riches of the New World, they took with them the culture they had known in England.  The travelers to Virginia spent their first Christmas of 1606 on board their ships en route to the New World. Christmas of 1608 found the colonists in desperate straits – sick, hungry and impoverished.  Captain Smith and his men left Jamestown at the end of December to find the Powhatan and acquire some food.  Inclement weather forced them to stay at Kecoughtan (Hampton) for “6 or 7 daies.”

There, “the extreame wind, raine, frost, and snowe, caused us to keepe Christmas amongst the Salvages, where wee were never more merrie, nor fedde on more plentie of good oysters, fish, flesh, wild foule, and good bread…”

keep reading »

A lion’s mane jellyfish swims beneath the waters at the Farne Islands, England. The archipelago of 16 to 28 separate islands (depending on the tide) off Northumberland is a summer home to many kinds of wildlife. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

50 best photos from The Natural World; The Big Picture: Boston.com

In 2004 i started an assignment for an investment banking house, based in Hamburg, Germany. The termination of the project was, to take pictures of container vessels and oil tanker. They where used to illustrate the ship investment brochure of the bank. The pictures where taken in the harbour of: Hamburg, Kiel, Bremerhaven, Wilhelmshaven, Germany and in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Ships and Vessels 2004 – 2010 (more: Christian O. Burch)

Painting of the Battle of Flamborough Head by Dean Moser (FULL SIZE) – via thingsihappentolike

The Battle of Flamborough Head was a naval battle that took place on 23 September 1779, in the North Sea off the coast of Yorkshire between an American Continental Navy squadron led by John Paul Jones and the two British escort vessels protecting a large merchant convoy. It became one of the most celebrated naval actions of the American War of Independence despite its relatively small size and considerable dispute over what had actually occurred.  MORE ON WIKIPEDIA »

The Seven Gods of Good Fortune (Shichifukujin) are depicted here as humorous deities gathered together in their Treasure Ship (Takarabune). A picture of the Treasure Ship along with the Seven Gods became an essential part of the New Year celebrations. It was placed under the pillow in order to promote lucky dreams, for legend has it that the original ship sailed at this time of year bearing its treasures. The sail of the ship depicted here carries the character Ju, meaning longevity, and the print features other symbols of longevity, such as the crane, the long-tailed turtle and branches of pine.

The Treasure ship; Takarabune; woodblock, Japan, ca. 1840, by Hiroshige
Far Eastern Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum

Art of the Luggage Label »

Map: Parsons and Atwater’s Chicago, Illinois (1874) on the BIG Map Blog.

ca. 1850-55, [mourning bracelet woven from hair, with portrait of woman] –full size
via the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Daguerreobase (drtuesdaygjohnson)

ceramic plate: Sailing Ship; 1625-1650; Islamic Middle East
see also »
see also »

Image from TeamTom’s Facebook page showing Tom Sauer, left,
and Tom Fancett before their transatlantic attempt

Transatlantic rowers rescued after boat is
struck by “enormous wave”

Briton Tom Fancett and Dutchman Tom Sauer rescued from life-raft by cruise ship 500 miles south-west of Canary Islands

Tom Fancett, 23, from London and his Dutch friend Tom Sauer, also 23 and a student at St Andrews University, were picked up by a cruise ship nearly 500 miles south-west of the Canary islands, eight days after departing for Barbados in the 2011 Atlantic Challenge race.

In a message to race organisers Sauer told how the pair were changing places in the boat when disaster struck on Tuesday evening. “The ocean was quite calm. We were in great spirits after the first eight days in the race. Suddenly our boat was rocked by an enormous wave, the size of which we’ve never seen before. Our boat was thrown over and capsized. The cabin flooded.

more on The Guardian »

Thames Wharf »

Oil painting, London, ca. 1757 Samuel Scott (artist) — London began in ancient times as a small settlement next to a crossing point of the Thames, and until the mid-19th century the river was still the main route through which all the trading wealth flowed into the City.

The docks were literally the gateway to the world, filled with a huge mass of shipping. London has changed so much since the 18th century that it is now difficult to identify the exact location shown in this picture. There is some evidence that it represents the Old East India Wharf, as there is the mark ‘UEIC’ (United East India Company) on a bale. Therefore the traditional title of this painting may be correct. There were many such wharves on the Thames, with their wooden treadmill cranes for the unloading of merchandise.

Samuel Scott was a marine painter and a drinking companion of William Hogarth (1697-1762). He was commissioned by merchants, sea captains and naval officers to paint pictures of riverside and sea scenes and naval engagements.

England Expects, the Great Naval Card Game »

The First and Second World Wars generated a lot of games some of which were meant to be fun and others had an educational purpose. These cards are divided into four suits indicated by a Crown, Anchor, Lifebelt and Pennant, and are numbered from one to eleven with the exception of the Crown suit which is numbered from one to ten. The crown is always the Trump suit. The game was devised with the help of Francis E McMurtrie, who was, at the time, editor of Jane’s Fighting Ships.

Vintage WWI Poster – Remember! “England Expects; The Need is Great Today” (on ebay)

Flags Spelling Out ‘England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty’ »

Nelson’s Signal to His Fleet: from: Welcome to “The Life Of Horatio Nelson”. This video tells the story of how a young seasick boy grew up to be a national hero. We follow his progress through the naval ranks. We also find out about his great love Emma Hamilton and the national outpouring of grief after his death in battle. (A 6-minute video on Tales of Curiosity)

Poster available on AllPosters.uk »

England expects every man to do his duty. Lord Nelson explaining to the officers the plan of attack previous to the Battle of Trafalgar, engraved by James Godby, published by Edward Orme, 9th January 1806; William Marshall Craig (Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth, UK)

A Correct Representation of the Funeral Barge which conveyed the Body of the
Late Lord Nelson from Greenwich to Whitehall Jany. 8th. 1806

Picture transfer-printed on glass depicting Nelson’s funeral barge, shown on the Thames, flying the Royal Standard, white ensign and a flag with Nelson’s coat of arms. Inscribed below the image: ‘A Correct Representation of the Funeral Barge which conveyed the Body of the Late Lord Nelson from Greenwich to Whitehall Jany. 8th. 1806′

Made by W. B. Walker; Fox & Knot Court, Cow Lane, London; March 1806. See full size »

England expects – and England must not and will not be disappointed… (1915)
Recruits wanted for the Royal Naval Division; Andrew Reid & Co., Ltd., 50, Grey Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne. SEE FULL SIZE — Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. World War I Posters »

Fletcher’s Yard, Limehouse – FULL SIZE

Fletcher’s Yard was the site of one of the oldest firms on the Thames, as Fletcher had set up a shipbuilding business at Shadwell in the 18th century. They moved to Limehouse in 1818. As Fletcher, Son and Fearnall, they became pioneering steamship builders, and eventually switched to ship repairs.

This scene is of a ship in dry dock. Workmen are shown chopping wood, and pushing wheelbarrows. Piles of timber beams lie on the side of the dry dock. To the right is a large chimney. The dry dock is surrounded by warehouses and other buildings. In the background ships can be seen on the Thames with housing on the far bank. The English landscape painter Charles Deane lived and worked in London. He exhibited in almost all Royal Academy exhibitions between 1815 and 1851 and specialised in views of the Thames and Bristol.

National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

John Boydell’s view of the riverside at Limehouse in 1751 shows respectable houses and
shipyards crowding onto the riverfront

From its foundation, Limehouse, like neighbouring Wapping, has enjoyed better links with the river than the land, the land route being across a marsh. Limehouse became a significant port in late medieval times, with extensive docks and wharves. Although most cargoes were discharged in the Pool of London before the establishment of the docks, industries such as shipbuilding, ship chandlering and rope making were established in Limehouse.

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Map of Wapping from Charles Booth‘s Labour and Life of the People.

East London (London: Macmillan, 1889). The streets are colored to represent the economic class of the residents: Yellow (“Upper-middle and Upper classes, Wealthy”), red (“Lower middle class – Well-to-do middle class”), pink (“Fairly comfortable good ordinary earnings”), blue (“Intermittent or casual earnings”), and black (“lowest class…occasional labourers, street sellers, loafers, criminals and semi-criminals”)

The area was first settled by Saxons, from whom it takes its name. John Stow, the 16th century historian, described it as a “continual street, or a filthy strait passage, with alleys of small tenements or cottages, built, inhabited by sailors’ victuallers”

Wapping’s proximity to the river gave it a strong maritime character for centuries, well into the 20th century. It was inhabited by sailors, mastmakers, boat-builders, blockmakers, instrument-makers, and representatives of all the other trades that supported the seafarer.

Wapping was also the site of ‘Execution Dock’, where pirates and other water-borne criminals faced execution by hanging from a gibbet constructed close to the low water mark. Their bodies would be left dangling until they had been submerged three times by the tide.

Said to be England’s first, the Marine Police Force was formed in 1798 by magistrate Patrick Colquhoun and a Master Mariner, John Harriott, to tackle theft and looting from ships anchored in the Pool of London and the lower reaches of the river. Its base was (and remains) in Wapping High Street and it is now known as the Marine Support Unit.

The area’s strong maritime associations changed radically in the 19th century when the London Docks were built to the north and west of the High Street. Wapping’s population plummeted by nearly 60% during that century, with many houses destroyed by the construction of the docks and giant warehouses along the riverfront.

A woolwork picture depicting a warship at anchor, dressed overall with sails furled. A similar vessel is shown in full sail behind it. A small steamer with two funnels is placed in the foreground wearing the Admiralty flag. The embroidery is sewn in long and short stitch with button thread used for the rigging.

The maker Charles Weedon was born at Portbury, Somerset in November 1833. He entered the Royal Navy on 23 February 1859 after serving in the merchant service. He was rated Able Seaman on HMS Algiers and transferred to Leader on May 1863, also having spent a brief period on Duke of Wellington.

Although he had been promoted to Leading Seaman, then to Barge Cox, in July 1865 he was disrated to Able Seaman. He was discharged to HM Dockyard Sheerness in 1868 where he worked as a rigger. In 1869 in Bristol, he married Rosa Alberta Cook, age 27. The embroideries were donated by his daughter.

see full size »

Winston Churchill ironically portrayed as a propagandist hammering home his lies to the British people  -via greatestgeneration

Ten Weirdest Life-forms of 2011: Editors’ Picks on Nat Geo Top 10 Lists »

SS Mercator in Antwerp harbour; Edward Pellens (1872-1947) MORE on Linosaurus »

The barquentine Mercator lies at anchor in Ostend, Belgium She was named after Geradus Mercator. (1512-1594), Flemish cartographer. She was designed by the Antarctic explorer Adrien de Gerlache (1866-1934) as a training ship for the Belgian merchant fleet. She was built in Ramage & Ferguson, Leith, Scotland and launched in 1932. Besides being a training a ship, she was also used, mainly before World War II , for scientific observations, or as ambassador for Belgium on world fairs and in sailing events.

She participated in several races, winning the Oslo-Ostend race. During World War II she was commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Mercator. Based in Freetown Sierra Leon where she was used as a support ship for submarine forces in the area.

In 1961 she became a floating museum, first in Antwerp,and finally from 1964 in the marina of Ostend, just in front of the city hall. During all this time, she has become perhaps the best-known ship of Belgium.

MORE on Leith Built Ships »

Portsmouth paper archives describe secret departure of Edward VIII

It happened 75 years ago, when Edward VIII abdicated the British throne, leaving the making of history to his brother, the shy, inarticulate Duke of York.

The archives of Portsmouth’s Evening News newspaper reveal the details of how the former king slipped silently away from Britain.

One eye-witness, George Hale, 36, told the paper how he was asked for directions to the navy base by one of the drivers…

MORE »

see also: A female surgeon in the days of sail »

Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Urinal Discovered In Baltic Sea Shipwreck

Last week German archaeologists announced the discovery of a urinal once sprinkled by Kaiser Wilhelm II. The “porcelain potty,” as the Huffington Post reports, was discovered in the wreck of the Udine, a light-cruiser equipped with a special lavatory for the emperor’s convenience that was sunk by the Royal Navy in 1915…

keep reading »

• Mini Review: Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum »
• Shipwreck-themed beers and cocktails around the world »

New York. June 17, 1918. “Stokes stretcher on Comfort.” facilities aboard the World War I hospital ship.
FULL SIZE on Shorpy »

Pup Therapy: 1918 — Queen and Commoner: 1906 — Million-Dollar Pier: 1907 — Steamboat Annie: 1904

Positive copper plate of Royal Observatory, Greenwich, seen from the east. Shows the Shepherd Gate Clock and Porters Lodge with Flamsteed House in the background. ca.1890 – FULL SIZE »

Burgee of Pirate Yacht Club, Bridlington

Used as a sledge flag by William Colbeck RNR on the Borchgrevink Antarctic Expedition 1898-1900.

Inscribed on the mount: Burgee flown by Lieutenant Wm. Colbeck R.N.R, F.R.G.S, a member of the Pirate Yacht Club on Sledge journey across the Great Ice Barrier when in company with C. E. Borchgrevink F.R.G.S. the farthest south was attained Lat 78˚ 50΄ S. Long 164˚ 30́ W. on 17 February 1900.

The sledge was detached from S.Y. Southern Cross, during the expedition on which Lieutenant Colbeck was Chief Magnetic Observer. Previous farthest south 78˚ 10΄ by Capt Ross. The burgee is made of red wool bunting printed with a black skull and crossbones. circa 1898 – see full size »

Close-up view of lighthouse – World’s Transportation Commission photograph collection (Library of Congress)

The Rime of the Modern Mariner by Nick Hayes

This graphic novel is a beautiful re-telling of Coleridge’s poem for our modern plastic-filled times. It carries a really chilling message about our consumer-driven lives and its consequences on our planet and the ocean in particular.

The book is also an object of great loveliness with stunning illustrations. In and of itself it is a beautiful thing to have, but the story is also very touching and poignant.

And it has lots of science in there. I love the way Hayes has used his artwork and poetry as a really imaginative way of telling the stories of the oceans and getting ideas across about the problems that we are causing…

MORE: Helen Scales’ five ocean books »

It’s not too late to pick up a last-minute Christmas gift for one of your favorite bloggers…

Moby Dick (Das Spiel vom weißen Wal) – The board game

The game consists of an elevated round course with an underlying rotating cardboard disk – on their turn the players rotate the disk. Whenever a whale symbol appears, a small plastic whale miniature is put on the course. The players now try to catch the whale with their ships (reach the whale miniature), before it dives again (a hole in the rotating disk lets the miniature disappear into the game box).

The rotating disk also constantly changes the values for different whaling goods at a stock exchange. The player selling his cargo for the highest price wins. Sometimes a white (plastic) whale appears which cannot be caught, but the player “wounding” Moby Dick gets a gold doubloon worth $200.

Actually sounds like more fun that you might expect for a board game designed in 1962 and based on a 600+ page classic of American literature.

-via thingsihappentolike

1972: The wreck of Seawise University, the former Queen Elizabeth – via larboardwatch

In 1968, Queen Elizabeth was sold to a group of Philadelphia businessmen from a company called The Queen Corporation (which was 85% owned by Cunard and 15% by them). The new company intended to operate the ship as a hotel and tourist attraction in Port Everglades, Florida, similar to the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. The Elizabeth, as it was now called, lost money and was forced to close after being declared a fire hazard. The ship was sold at auction in 1970 to Hong Kong tycoon C.Y. Tung.

Tung, head of the Orient Overseas Line, intended to convert the vessel into a university for the World Campus Afloat program (later reformed and renamed as Semester at Sea). Near the completion of the £5 million conversion, the vessel caught fire on 9 January 1972. The ship was completely destroyed and the water sprayed on her by fireboats caused the burnt wreck to capsize and sink in Hong Kong Victoria Harbour.  More on wiki »

marinera y tiburon by Poleta Art

8 Bells: Author, pundit Christopher Hitchens dies at 62 »

“Christopher Hitchens, the author, essayist and polemicist who waged verbal and occasional physical battle on behalf of causes on the left and right and wrote the provocative best-seller “God is Not Great,” died Thursday night after a long battle with cancer.

“A most-engaged, prolific and public intellectual who enjoyed his drink (enough to “to kill or stun the average mule”) and cigarettes, he announced in June 2010 that he was being treated for cancer of the esophagus and canceled a tour for his memoir “Hitch-22.”

“Hitchens was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1949. His father, Eric, was a “purse-lipped” Navy veteran known as “The Commander”; his mother, Yvonne, a romantic who later kill herself during an extramarital rendezvous in Greece. Young Christopher would have rather read a book. He was a “a mere weed and weakling and kick-bag” who discovered that “words could function as weapons” and so stockpiled them…”

more on msnbc »

Monkey Fist

Monkey Fist is a smack-talking, potty mouthed, Yankee hating, Red Sox fan in Baltimore, Maryland.  In addition to compiling Maritime Monday, she blogs about nautical art, history, and marine science on Adventures of the Blackgang. Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com.  She can also out-belch any man.

Days of Adventure: New Adventure Comics # 28, July, 1938 – see also - via theticketthatexploded

Panoramic Photograph: The United States fleet in Colon Harbor, Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal

The Panoramic Photograph Collection contains approximately four thousand images featuring American cityscapes, landscapes, and group portraits. These panoramas offer an overview of the nation, its enterprises and its interests, with a focus on the start of the twentieth century when the panoramic photo format was at the height of its popularity. The images date from 1851 to 1991.  –via greatestgeneration

naval activities »

• Shipping. (9)
• Ships. (54)
• Shipwrecks. (11)
• Seaplanes. (3)
• Naval yards & naval stations. (16)
• Barges. (4)
• Bays (Bodies of water) (56)
• Beaches. (35)

Wind turbine bursts into flames as hurricane-force winds hit Scotland »

Honolulu, US: a sailor holds an urn with the ashes of Pearl Harbor survivor Lee Soucy during an internment ceremony. Soucy, who died last year at 90, wanted to have his ashes interred inside the USS Utah. Photograph: Marco Garcia/AP  –via mabelmoments

front cover for the program for the 1978 Chatham Navy Day »

Nude with Lobster ~ Richard Müller (Austrian 1874-1954) Etching, 1912 (via msbehavoyeur)

Colours of the reef by Tom Judkowiak on Flickr (via 100leaguesunderthesea)

USS Iowa Tow day 1 – 2011-10-27 »

The Iowa-class Battlehip U.S.S. Iowa (BB-61) just before she leaves the “mothball fleet” of Suisun Bay, California for a 2-day “push-tow” by 4 of the Bay Area’s largest tractor tugboats. Day 1 is the shortest, but not easy. She’s in the mud, must clear a huge shoal, then cross under 3 side-by-side bridges, including a Union Pacific railroad bridge that must be raised; even then, a man on the battleship could practically jump and touch the bridge! After clearing the bridges, she’s turned and moved to her overnight berth at the Benicia auto pier. Most of her crew sleep onboard during her overnight stop. It’s an expensive ‘room for the night’: $9,000! She will resume the tow the next morning

Greg Harlin’s mural at the US Naval Academy depicting the Ranger about to engage HMS Drake.
via ihavenotyetbeguntofight

Annapolis-based illustrator, Greg Harlin, has spent much of his twenty-five working years living in the past. His historical re-creation paintings have brought renewed life to archaeological discoveries from the earliest fossil recordsto turn-of-the-century America. His work has appeared in National Geographic (magazine, books,and television), the National Park Service (publications, waysides and exhibits) and the Smithsonian (museums and books).

Civil War Navy Sesquicentennial: The Blockade comes to Florida – I think historians of the Civil War Navies have established that blockade duty was boring, drudgery, tedious, and taxing. It was also a vital part of the Union war effort.

Map: Wood’s map of Portland, Oregon (1890) originally posted to the BIG Map Blog. See also: Three Maps of the Proposed Panama Canal (1895) and Vingboons’ Map of the Hudson River (1639)

Fritz Willis (1907 – 1979) – via hoodoothatvoodoo

The Pin-up Files: In 1946, Esquire announced an important new feature entitled the Esquire Gallery of Glamour & the magazine selected Fritz Willis to supply the inaugural illustration – it was his first published pin-up, and it launched a spectacular thirty-year career.

Kommissar X / Heft-Reihe; Espionage & Action Art Gallery

The Corpse Comes Ashore, 1945 – The Affair at the Boat Landing, 1943

Mitre gates on a navigational river or canal lock; Machine Power »

Amazing Stories, October, 1941 »

Vintage Men’s Mags #20: 100+ Pages of Pulp – via theticketthatexploded

Poster for Killers of the Sea (1937, USA) | Wrong Side of the Art – via mudwerks

Dell Books 351 – Errol Flynn – Showdown (with mapback)

A crusty old Marine Sergeant Major found himself at a gala event hosted by a local liberal arts college. There was no shortage of extremely young idealistic ladies in attendance, one of whom approached the Sergeant Major for conversation. “Excuse me, Sergeant Major, but you seem to be a very serious man. Is something bothering you?”

“Negative, ma’am. Just serious by nature.”

The young lady looked at his awards and decorations and said, “It looks like you have seen a lot of action.”

“Yes, ma’am, a lot of action.”

The young lady, tiring of trying to start up a conversation, said, “You know, you should lighten up. Relax and enjoy yourself.” The Sergeant Major just stared at her in his serious manner. Finally the young lady said, “You know, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but when is the last time you had sex?”

“1955, ma’am.”

“Well, there you are. No wonder you’re so serious. You really need to chill out! I mean, no sex since 1955! She took his hand and led him to a private room where she proceeded to “relax” him several times. Afterwards, panting for breath, she leaned against his bare chest and said, “Wow, you sure didn’t forget much since 1955.”

The Sergeant Major said, after glancing at his watch, “I hope not; it’s only 2130 now.”

–via Seaman Stains

A couple is photographed moments after learning that their 19-month-old child had been swept out to sea at Hermosa Beach. That morning, Times photographer Jack Gaunt was at his beachfront home when he heard a neighbor shout, “Something’s happening on the beach!” Gaunt grabbed his Rolleiflex camera and headed toward the shoreline. His photograph appeared on the front page of The Times the next day. The image won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for press photography; the Pulitzer committee called the photo “poignant and profoundly moving.” But for Gaunt, the image was hard to bear at first, his daughter recalled in Gaunt’s 2007 Times obituary.

View 130 photos for The Times’ 130th birthday on Framework »

Photo credit: Jack Gaunt / Los Angeles Time – via oneblackline

Unflinching Portraits of Pearl Harbor Survivors »

Seven torpedoes and two bombs struck the USS West Virginia. John Rauschkolb (above), then just 20 years old, felt the USS West Virginia shake violently as the torpedoes slammed into its portside below where he stood as a Navy signalman.

He witnessed comrades die within feet of him and recalls explosions occurring in spots where he had just been standing. The crew managed to counterflood a portion of the ship to prevent it from capsizing, but the USS West Virginia sunk into the muddy harbor floor, its deck left just above the water’s surface. In a small boat, Rauschkolb made his way to the even worse stricken USS Arizona, where he helped recover bodies.

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–via mabelmoments

Japanese soldiers wave at a plane from under their flag just before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbor 70th anniversary »

Some 100 survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor will gather in Hawaii today 70 years after the day which drew the US into World War II. The Japanese air and naval strike on the American military base claimed nearly 2,400 lives, destroyed over 160 aircraft and beached, damaged or destroyed over 20 ships. President Franklin D. called it ” a date which will live in infamy” when he addressed the Congress the next day asking to declare war with Japan. – Lloyd Young (35 photos total)

Huge model of battleship USS Missouri under construction in California »

A team of professional model-makers in Yorba Linda, Calif., is building a 28-foot replica of the battleship USS Missouri, which fought in World War II and is now a museum ship. The group at V-CAT Naval Models is using a technique called “stereolithography,” assisted by specialized computer-aided design software from SolidWorks of Waltham, Mass., to build an operational model of the warship for displays in museums and educational sites.

“Battleships like the Missouri bring waves of emotion to people. Seeing these floating parts of history conjures memories of sadness, joy and wonder,” said Donn McKinney, who’s leading the V-CAT team. “My goal is to bring living history to those people and cities who feel connected to these now almost mythical battle ships.”

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One of the Joys of Being a Marine »

lance-on-deck; Penobscot Marine Museum »

HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT: San Francisco Album, 1855 »

The USS Akron over San Francisco, California

Early 1930′s. The Akron carried 4 Curtis F9C-2 Sparrowhawk aircraft inside, to be  launched or retrieved by means of a trapeze.  Look closely and you can see a Sparrowhawk approaching the trapeze. Below the lower fin is another Sparrowhawk waiting to hook on to the trapeze.

Scientists Assess Radioactivity in the Ocean from Japan Nuclear Power Facility

With current news of additional radioactive leaks from the Fukushima nuclear power plants, the impact on the ocean of releases of radioactivity from the plants remains unclear.

A new study by U.S. and Japanese researchers analyzes the levels of radioactivity discharged in the first four months after the accident. It draws some basic conclusions about the history of contaminant releases to the ocean.

The study was conducted by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

More on National Science Foundation »

 

Japan Disaster Was Two Tsunamis Rolled into One »

The tsunami that spawned by the 9.0 earthquake off Japan this March was a disaster of massive proportions, reaching heights of over 130 feet in some areas and traveling up to six miles inland in others. Scientists at NASA and Ohio State University have now found another factor, beyond the sheer strength of the quake, that made the tsunami so ferocious: It started out as two separate walls of waves that combined to form one taller, more powerful “merging tsunami.”

more »

Deepest Trench Now With More Deep »

Deep Sea News: A new survey puts the depth of the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, at 10,994 meters, nearly 75 meters more than deepest of prior estimates…  MORE »

Antarctic Flight and Photography

Admiral Richard Byrd checks a sun compass from an aircraft in Antarctica (Watch a video on the Byrd expedition).

In 1929, carrying both the compass and a National Geographic Society flag, Byrd and four companions became the first to fly over the South Pole. In the process they photographed 60,000 square miles (155,400 square kilometers) of Antarctica from the air.

National Geographic’s Top Ten Discoveries »

see also: Best News Pictures of 2011: Your Picks From Nat Geo News »

If you’re a Simpsons fan, this fish looks awfully familiar. The three-eyed wolf fish was found in a reservoir in Argentina alongside other mutants. Named “Chorro de Agua Caliente,” or “Hot Water Jet,” the reservoir gets its water from a nearby nuclear power plant. The fisherman who caught it had no intention of eating the fish. Instead, they sent it in for tests and hope to have it preserved.

Top 25 Weirdest Stories of 2011: Photos »

The Kalakala faces seizure on January 1st, 2012

The Howling Wolf – via grottu

Float Home / Designs Northwest Architects »

photographer unknown – via lance-on-deck

Mort Künstler »

oldbookillustrations: A mandarin’s travelling boat. From The costume of China, written and illustrated by William Alexander, London, 1805. (Source: archive.org)

Knowledge Increases (posted by paul.malon)

Santa in downtown Annapolis via captainrande

Atelier Levitt-Him, Skamander Magazine cover, 1937 (via Take a Look at Me Now (1) – 50 Watts)
see also: Take a Look at Me Now (2) – 50 Watts »
both via heracliteanfire

Monkey Fist

Monkey Fist is a smack-talking, potty mouthed, Yankee hating, Red Sox fan in Baltimore, Maryland.  In addition to compiling Maritime Monday, she blogs about nautical art, history, and marine science on Adventures of the Blackgang.

Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com.  She can also out-belch any man.

Underwater Photography »

Jeff Butterworth, (founder of Alien Skin Software) enjoys amateur underwater photography and recently gave some tips on it. With some practice you can get surprisingly good shots from the inexpensive Canon D10 waterproof camera (to 10 meters).

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A Santa diver feeds whale shark “Hachibei” at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise aquarium in Yokohama, on November 13, 2011. (Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images)

The Big Picture: Christmas approaches »

Großer Pott – Port of Hamburg
© Joel Wagner / www.joelwagner.de\

The 2011 Hurricane Season in 4.5 minutes

Deep Sea News: The 2011 Atlantic hurricane season officially ends on Nov. 30 and produced a total of 19 tropical storms of which seven became hurricanes, including three major hurricanes. This level of activity matched NOAA’s predictions and continues the trend of active hurricane seasons that began in 1995.

keep reading and see the video »

China exports massive container-ship cranes to the US »

Three Super Post-Panamax cranes, made to handle the largest container vessels in the world, are brought through Elliott Bay and toward Seattle’s Terminal 18, Nov. 28, 2011, near Seattle. The cranes, made in Shanghai, China, will allow the Port of Seattle to expand the reach of unloading container ships to the maximum of 24 container widths. The cranes were transported aboard a ship specially outfitted for the transport of large and unusually sized cargo.

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Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine October 1957
see also: Popular Library G427 – and –1953; Dangerous Voyage by Gore Vidal

left: 1950 … hot shower – right: 1953 … Barracuda class USS Bonita
posted by x-ray delta one

The 16 inch guns of HMS Rodney, photogaphed in 1931

Sea Stories Redux by Cold is the Sea

Jorge Mascarenhas via octopoda / Jorge Mascarenhas Studio | Publishing »

 

right: E.A. (Edward Arthur) Wilson, 1886-1970. Illustration from Iron Men and Wooden Ships, a collection of Sea Chanteys, first published by Doubleday in 1924; from Howard Pyle and Norman Rockwell

left: Iron men and wooden ships (cover)

Read online »

Victorious (1969) — The Royal Navy’s last airworthy Swordfish dips its wings in salute as Victorious is towed out of Portsmouth for scrapping in 1969

USS ENHANCE MSO 437; Aggressive Class Minesweeper: Laid down 12 July 1952 as AM-437 at Maritinolich Shipbuilding Co., San Diego, CA; Launched, 11 October 1952; Redesignated an Ocean Minesweeper MSO-437, 7 February 1955; Commissioned USS Enhance (MSO-437), 16 April 1955; Decommissioned, 31 December 1991; Struck from the Naval Register, 21 February 1992; Scrapped 6 March 2000 by Crowley Marine Services, Long Beach, CA.

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left: Seattle’s Newest Night Spot – rt: 3 Shows Nightly (posted by paul.malon)

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis »

A survivor from the ‘Elingamite’ beng transferred from HMS ‘Penguin’ – 15 November 1902

The crew of the cargo vessel the Swanland called the coastguard in Holyhead, north Wales,
on Sunday morning.  Photo: Ken Smith/Athena Pictures

Prince William spearheads rescue for stricken Russian sailors »

The Duke of Cambridge helped lead search and rescue efforts for eight sailors swept into the Irish Sea after their ship sank amid gale-force winds off the coast of north Wales.

He co-piloted an RAF helicopter which winched two men to safety amid the debris of their cargo ship, the Swanland, in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Rescuers later recovered the body of a third man from the Irish Sea off the Llyn Peninsula as fears grew for the remaining five crewmembers.

• MORE »
• ABC video »

attentive crowd watch as Jane Anne is launched out to sea in the 1900s »

Scottish Maritime Museum: built by the Thames Ironworks Co. in Millwall, London in 1898 and soon after took up station in Irvine, where she was to remain in lifeboat service until 1914. She is an example of a double-ended, self righting sail and pull lifeboat, and relied on wind and muscle power for propulsion. This would have been extremely strenuous and dangerous work for the crew in bad weather.

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Ship to Shore — Sleeping with the Fishes; via theticketthatexploded

Sailor Swag … Civil War Era »

BOOK REVIEW: BLIGH: William Bligh in the South Seas »

Bligh was not born to the sea; his father was a customs clerk. But the navy was one of the few professions in Britain where a man with no money or connections could make good, and Bligh made the most of it. He rose to the rank of lieutenant and commanded one of Capt. James Cook’s ships on Cook’s third and last voyage to the South Seas.

In 1787, the admiralty chose to send a vessel to the South Seas to investigate the feasibility of transplanting breadfruit from that region to the West Indies. The choice of commander fell on Bligh, who was both an accomplished navigator and a veteran of one of Cook’s voyages.

Is Bligh a victim of history, or was he truly the monster portrayed in Hollywood? His career is the subject of an exhaustive study by New Zealand historian Anne Salmond…

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Images Postcards Photographs Ephemera of Huddart Parker & Co Pty Ltd.  »

Founded on August 1st, 1876 in Geelong as Huddart, Parker & Co. Pty. Ltd, by James Huddart, T.J. Parker, John. Traill, and Captain T. Webb. James Huddart’s uncle, Captain Peter Huddart had made his fortune importing coal for use in the Victorian goldfields. He was the first major operator handling coal from the port of Geelong. Mr. T.J. Parker, was a merchant who arrived in Geelong from London in 1853. T J Parker commenced as a ship’s agent for Howard Smith’s steamship ‘Express”, trading between Geelong and Melbourne.

By 1886 it had inaugurated the Melbourne-Adelaide shipping service and in 1882 entered the Sydney Melbourne trade. During the early 1890s its steamers were running to the principal ports of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania, and in 1893 it was also trading with ports in New Zealand.

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Australians – via climbing-down-bokor

Rum on board naval vessels goes back before the 1700’s and the tradition of offering all hands a tot of rum goes back to 1824. In making the tot official they brought down the amount issued each sailor from half a pint to 2 ½ ounces of pusser’s rum.

In case you were wondering, pusser is Royal Navy slang for a purser, a ship’s supply officer. the word became naval slang anything that is was supplied by the Navy, Pusser’s Rum is sometimes known as Nelson’s Blood, in honor of Admiral Nelson, the famous and arguably the greatest of the Royal Navy commanders it history.

In the 1960’s the pusser’s rum was supplied by Lamb’s  distilleries.

At six bells, the bos’n’s call would signal “Up Spirits.” It was the end of work for the morning and with the call, everyone would head back to their mess deck, grab their mug and line up for their measure of rum. Everyone had their favorite mug or glass usually purloined from some bar.

In the 1970’s the Navy was not so much looking for “iron men” as they were seeking out people who could operate and maintain the increasingly technical weapons systems. It is tough to work your way through the electronics after a couple of tots so the Canadian Navy stopped this tradition in 1972, the last Commonwealth to do so.

No Badge Killick »

BIRDS: left:  BibliOdyssey: Toucans right: Postcard by Xavier Sager 1919

RAF Empire Air Day, 1939 – Blackburn Aircraft - “Skua” advert: A cracking ad for the old Blackburn Aircraft Company, of Brough in East Yorkshire, in the 1939 Empire Air Day programme. A Skua seen above ships of the Royal Navy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hWOelrxLwvE

Gulf of Maine Research Institute works with fishermen to advance gear technology »

After working hard on the water all day, commercial fishermen have to fill out hand-written paperwork whether they’ve landed a full catch or caught nothing. The time-consuming paper reports can be frustrating, and many are looking forward to moving to an electronic reporting system. Electronic reports have recently been approved by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as an optional replacement for paper…

MORE »

thedailywhat:

Helpful Reminder of the Day: 45,000 people will be forced out of their homes this Sunday after a 4,000-pound unexploded World War II-era bomb was found in the Rhine River near the German city of Koblenz.

“[I]t has been known for some time that this type [of bomb] was dropped over Koblenz [by the British Royal Air Force],” said the city’s press office.

Refusing to risk any injuries, officials have ordered the evacuation of nearly half the city’s residents. According to explosives experts, the bomb, which was exposed due to the rain-deficient Rhine’s dipping water levels, could damage windows up to a half-mile away.

In addition to the British bomb, other unexploded ordnance, including a 275-pound American bomb and a German smoke grenade, was also discovered at the site.

via greatestgeneration

release the kraken! Christmas lights – via fuckyeahsquids

Sunday Book Review, NY Times: Hemingway at Sea »

That man seems to hold our interest, and inspire imitation, in ways other writers don’t. His personality and his travels continue to fascinate as much as, and perhaps more than, his fiction. A broad Gulf Stream of books about him flows on and on, year after year, leaving him, I fear, more read about than read.

This abiding interest in the man, as opposed to his books, has three causes: the undeniably adventurous and outsize details of his tragic life; his intentional cultivation of celebrity (and the resulting mountain of documentary records); and the fact that he wrote fiction so closely tied to the actual places, people and details of his life. We feel we know him because we have read his stories of protagonists very much like him doing things he actually did in places he really lived…

-via oldcortez

The Aran Islands – Another World » (via oldchum)

Nautical Babe; Artist: Carivna, Kiev, Ukraine – via sailorgil

Jack Brown’s Seaplane Base is not just a tiny and incredibly busy airport. It is also a monument to a man who believed that every person should get to enjoy the thrill of holding the throttle on a single-engine seaplane.

After flying seaplanes during WWII, Brown began his extensive career as an flight instructor in Florida. After a solid career working for the US Air Force, Brown struck off on his own, finding a large plot near Winter Haven, Florida. Settling on Lake Jessie, Brown wanted to open a school dedicated to civilians, where they could experience the total freedom of taking off from water and controlling their own destiny in the cockpit.

Although Brown died in 1975, his sons took over his legacy, maintaining the seaplane base and the same friendly and encouraging attitude that made their father so well known. Besides being the site of extensive and neighborly flight training, Jack Brown’s base is also the busiest seaplane base in the world. At its peak, it runs nearly 27 flights per day totaling 10,000 per year.

Read more about Jack Browns Seaplane Base on Atlas Obscura…

George Caleb Bingham – The Jolly Flatboatmen  1846 – via art-history

Why does it burn when I pee?

left: Deck scene on an Indiaman, artist: Capt Robert Williams FULL SIZE »
rt: ARSPHENAMINE aka SALVARSAN; treatment for Syphilis MORE »

Gil Bruvel by way of hollyhocksandtulips

Wills’s Three Castles Cigarettes c1940’s —cigcardpix

Map: Birdseye Map: View of San Francisco (1847) originally posted to the BIG Map Blog.

Great Gift Idea: Tabula Anemographica iPhone 4S Case, containing a fragment of an anemographic (wind) chart by Dutch cartographer Jan Jansson, published in 1650.
(via fuckyeahcartography)

Amor …. Pipe Smoking Sailor with Tattoos; by artist Javier Verdugo, Barcelona, Spain

(HEADER) The Sailor’s Dream, also by Javier Verdugo – both images via sailorgil

Monkey Fist

Monkey Fist is a smack-talking, potty mouthed, Yankee hating, Red Sox fan in Baltimore, Maryland.  In addition to compiling Maritime Monday, she blogs about nautical art, history, and marine science on Adventures of the Blackgang. Submit story ideas, news links, photographs, or items of interest to her at MM@gcaptain.com.  She can also out-belch any man.

(Source: grottu)

major-hellstrom:

via theticketthatexploded – A Sailor’s Life – Fairport Convention – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szrGtFxtWXU