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

more

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.

sussex / hastings: blessing of the sea – Anything Goes England; vintage postcards; LARGE

Fog Signalling at Sea – A postcard from “The Star Series – G.D. & D., London”.- Postmarked Hadleigh, Suffolk on 30 Dec. 1906

Cigarette Card – Disembarking Mail at Sea | Ogden’s Cigarettes “Royal Mail” (series of 50 issued in 1909) see also; click forward for entire set

4CP | Four Color Process

British Railways – British Transport Catering – Cornish Riviera Express train, 1962 »

Gas bag vehicles were built during World War One and (especially) World War Two in France, the Netherlands, Germany and England as an improvised solution to the shortage of gasoline. Apart from automobiles, buses and trucks were also equipped with the technology. The vehicles consumed ‘town gas’ or ‘street gas’, a by-product of the process of turning coal into cokes (which are used to make iron).

Gas Bag Vehicles »

Oh, There You Are… The latest from One Eighteen »

Mass Whale Hunting in Faroe Islands Leave Sea Blood Red

Being an autonomous province of Denmark, where whaling is banned, the Faroe Islands’ laws allow the mass slaughter of pilot whales, beaked whales and dolphins to observe the annual tradition. Whaling in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic has been practiced since about the time of the first Norse settlements on the islands. The meat and blubber of pilot whales have long been a part of the islanders’ national diet.  MORE »

Darwin Beer Can Regatta »

Roman Polanski’s Neptune »

Massive galleon from a box-office bomb docked in Genoa; Tunisian-built rig is docked in the Port of Genoa, where its looming rigging towers over modern Italian boats. MORE »

• see also: Rubjerg Knude Lighthouse »

Kennebec Captain: Moneyball and Safety Management Systems

In this post I  connect the book Moneyball with shipboard SMS (Safety Management Systems).

Moneyball, (stealing from Wikipedia) “is a book about the Oakland Athletics baseball team and its general manager Billy Beane The premise of the books is that the collected wisdom of baseball insiders  is subjective and often flawed.”

Shipboard, the process is the Safety Management System which  are: “instructions and procedures to ensure safe operation of ships” -  there’s more to it of course but that’s the heart of it…

KEEP READING »

Patterns of sea stars as exquisite mosaics, attractive, and each time is different. Cambodia (Photo and caption by Andrey Narchuk/Nature/National Geographic Photo Contest); Big Picture »

• go looky »
• See also: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner » - Iron Maiden: “Old English Geezers interpreting even older English geezer’s epic poetry about spooky maritime stuff”.
• Octopus Sends Dead Crab as Warning to Humanity » (be sure to read the comments)

…First he bought a written-off tug and hired craftsmen to rebuild it totally. Only engines and bottom of the old ship remained which will be substituted as well because old engines of the Soviet times occupy a lot of space… The ship belongs to Aleksandr Ktitorchuk who is one of the most famous photographers of Ukraine. People from showbiz and world of fashion know the person well enough… The ship is often hired by people who want to celebrate meaningful events of their life…

Awesome Ship In the Harbor of Kiev »

Yank Skipper Who Led Sumatra’s Riverboat Oil Pirates »

Bob Bartlett and local inhabitant aboard ship during Bartlett’s Arctic Expedition, 1933 »

• Smithsonian Institution Archives; Field Books of Waldo LaSalle Schmitt (1887-1977) »

General George Campbell of Inverneill CB., Esquire, sometime a Major General in the Honourable East India Company’s service »

Destroying Chinese war junks, by E. Duncan (1843) – The iron steam ship HMS Nemesis, commanded by Lieutenant W. H. Hall, with boats from the Sulphur, Calliope, Larne and Starling, destroying the Chinese war junks in Anson’s Bay, on 7 January 1841

Photograph of the East India Company factory in Painam, Sonargaon, Bangladesh, taken by W. Brennand in 1872. Sonargaon was a major producer of the celebrated Dhaka muslins. In the mid-17th century the East India Company established several factories in the district for exporting muslin. Company rule in India »

Chromolithograph, “Indigo factory, Bengal,” (1867) from William Simpson’s ‘India: Ancient and Modern’. Bengal was the world’s largest producer of indigo in the 19th century. Company rule in India »

Photograph titled, “Head of Ganges Canal, Hardwar” taken by Samuel Bourne in 1860, but published in 1895, showing the headworks of the Ganges Canal in Haridwar, India.  FULL SIZE »

Ceremonial barge or long-boat

Peking Embassy: An embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, emperor of China: delivered by their excellencies Peter de Goyer and Jacob de Keyzer, at his imperial city of Peking wherein the cities, towns, villages, ports, rivers, &c. in their passages from Canton to Peking are ingeniously described…  MORE »

Men at Work; Mauretania – Boiler room after the conversion to oil burning, 1921. Tyne & Wear Archives & Museum on Flickr

The SS Rohilla was built and launched by Harland and Wolff shipbuilders in Belfast. launched on the 6th September 1906, she was delivered to the British Indian Steam Navigation Co. Ltd on 17th November 1906. The SS Rohilla was named after Afghan tribes who had sought refuge in India during the 18th Century.

In 1908 the SS Rohilla entered service as a permanent military. On the 6th August 1914 she was requisitioned as a Hospital ship and became known as the HMHS Rohilla. She was refitted with the necessary equipment and all her passenger accommodation became hospital wards.

HMHS Rohilla departed from Southampton 16th August 1914 and sailed to Scapa Flow to start training. From there, on the 29th October 1914, the Rohilla set sail for what would be her last voyage…

MORE »

Nevasa; Built for British India Steam Navigation by Barclay Curle (Yard No. 498) Launched 26 Dec 1912 and completed 5 March 1913.

On completion she joined her sister ship Neuralia in the Calcutta service until the First World War when she was taken up in August 1914 as a troopship to carry Territorial army soldiers out to India to relieve the regular garrison.

In January 1915 she was converted to a hospital ship with accommodation for 60 wounded and was employed as such until March 1918 with most of her service in this guise being from India to Basra, Suez and East Africa. MORE »

Vallathol (The Shipping Corporation of India) »

Detail from Clyde Shipping Co’s April to May 1904 passenger handbook »

The mid-Victorian paddle steamer at its best: PS Columba, pictured here on a busy day (Paterson Collection) 1878 »

• Exhibition: SCOTLAND BY STEAM (Set: 82)

The puffer Vital Spark 

What is a Puffer? A Clyde Puffer is a steam coaster which could carry cargo and deliver it without needing external equipment to unload it: a mini-bulk carrier.  MORE »

• Scottish Maritime Museum; Puffers and Coasters »

Golden Age Comic Book Stories: Jerry Grandenetti (1926-2010) »

fuckyeahoceancreatures: Ciaran Duffy – The last two captains left on a tiny fishing island take the only boat and set out to hunt the Squiddlepus. Images are gouache paintings cut out and placed on a table, lit, and photographed. See All

grottu

via sailorjunkers

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Seafarers, Sea of Love  – Animated cartoon following the adventure of three sailors as they pursue the elusive “Ivory Mermaid” !!  [4-1/2 minutes] – Episode 2

A Celestial Planisphere, or Map of the Heavens: (Pl. VIII.) Engraved by W.G. Evans under the Direction of E.H. Burritt. Hartford, Published by F.J. Huntington 1835. Entered according to act of Congress Septr. 1st 1835, by F.J. Huntington, of the State of Connecticut. –via fuckyeahcartography

coolchicksfromhistory: There is no such thing as a female viking. The Old Norse term vikingar applied exclusively to men who sailed from Scandinavia for the purpose of raiding or trading. Women only ever sailed for the purpose of establishing new colonies in distant lands; for settlement.

Women in Viking Age society were in charge of the household, and in charge of making certain that food lasted through the winter. When the men were away raiding and trading, women were in charge of the farm. Although women were bound to house and family, they held a great deal of influence in society, often having full control over the distribution of food and clothing.

There is no evidence that female warriors, valkyrie, ever existed outside of mythology. Though women were most likely trained in swordsmanship in order to defend their homes.

BBC: Judith Jesch examines the role women played in the Viking world »

Every Girl Pulling for Victory, Back Up the Boys, Keep Him Smiling, Morale is Winning the War

These chipper slogans grace the 20 posters, handbills, brochures, stickers, song lyrics, newspaper ads, and cartoons found in a United War Work Campaign Scrapbook recently acquired by the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History. This collection of fundraising and morale-boosting materials was produced for a multi-institutional drive during the final months of World War I.

The campaign coordinated the efforts of seven organizations that had previously managed individual fundraising drives: the YMCA, YWCA, American Library Association, War Camp Community Service, National Catholic War Council (Knights of Columbus), Jewish Welfare Board, and Salvation Army. Each organization would continue to address their traditional demographic or service focus (for example, the Knights of Columbus worked primarily with Catholic communities, and the American Library Association sent books to soldier encampments) while organizing their activities around a central set of promotional messages.

• more »
• United War Work Campaign Scrapbook »

WW2 D-Day Landings Full Boat! »

…The aircraft is a Catalina PBY-5A model and was bought from the US Navy by Thomas W Kendall, a retired businessman who converted it to a luxury flying yacht. In the spring of 1960 Mr Kendall took a pleasure trip around the world with his wife and children together with his secretary and her son. A photographer joined the group to cover part of the trip for life magazine…

• HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT Abandoned Sea Plane »

The Island Of Dead Ships on English Russia

I Sea Stripes – Ho Chi Minh with (East) German Sailors »

via pinupenigma
- header image source valentinovamp -

For allowing Europe to dump it’s religious
loons on you since 1620;

Thank You America.

- via feastingonroadkill -

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.

Boat captain alleges actor Robert Wagner responsible for Natalie Wood’s death»

& Natalie Wood’s fatal voyage »

Globsters: Mysterious Organic Blobs

Nowadays, when massive sea beasts wash ashore, humane policy is to bury the poor brutes in the sand after the marine biologists and cetologists check things out. Occasionally, of course, we’ll pack the beached Krakens with TNT and blow blubber to the moon.

But when something strange, something off-putting and cryptozoological, drifts up from the depths, we tend to hang onto the unsightly specimens, in whole or in part. Globsters, as these putrid, pretzled, oftentimes boneless hunks of organic goo are unscientifically known in the otherwise scientific literature, have been washing up throughout history to the occasional bafflement of experts. Here’s a criminally brief catalog of just some of these mysterious organic blobs

• Take me to the Globsters »

Luis’ Esther Williams Page

The Canal Harbor, with a view of ships and grain elevators 1910

Boat Building, Nova Scotia, Canada 1936 
see also a – see also b

Anatomy of a Sailor – notrealthing

New Trailer For Aardman’s Pirates! Hilarity on the high seas

Depending on whether you live in the UK or US, Aardman’s salty new sea comedy The Pirates! Is either subtitled In An Adventure With Scientists (Blighty) or Band Of Misfits (America-land). But either way, all signs point to it being the comedy equivalent of a treasure chest loaded with shiny booty. We brought you an exclusive look at the UK promo last month, and now the new US trailer has arrived for your watching pleasure.

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=32497

Matrosen beim Segelsetzen auf dem schwedischen Viermastschoner ‘Pederson’, 1930

Holidaymakers in a fishing boat Grisslehamn, Sweden 1951

map showing stanley’s discoveries in africa – fuckyeahcartography

Misty Anchorage in Ha Long Bay – Tourist boats at anchor in the morning fog at Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. Photo by: Tom Blachford – via sailorgil

Bangkok, Thailand. Photograph: Altaf Qadri/AP – The Guardian

left: Ethel SPOWERS, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; The green lantern c.1927 (yama-bato)
right: André Kertész, Paris, 1982 (liquidnight)

LCT-202 off the coast of England, 1944 – via thegildedcentury

Hamburger Hafen – H.M. Yacht Britannia – vintage ship photos (Set: 113)

Shipping, St. John Harbour, NB, 1870 — Esquimault Dry Dock near Victoria, BC, 1887

• Vues du Canada (1858-1935)

Whaleback S. S. John Ericsson in locks, Sault St. Marie, ON, about 1890

• Bateaux; Musée McCord Museum

Imperialist Chic – Puck magazine, 6 April 1901. “Columbia’s Easter Bonnet” – feastingonroadkill

The Confessions of a Dime Novelist by Gelett Burgess, The Bookman 15 (NY) Aug 1902 – from Yesterday’s Papers, via mudwerks

part of south australia 1851- large http://96.125.172.21/~tumblr1/part_south_australia_1851.jpg
– via fuckyeahcartography

Amazing Neptune’s Cup Sponge Rediscovered in Singapore

“More than 100 years after it was last seen, the giant Neptune’s cup sponge (Cliona patera) has been rediscovered off the coast of southern Singapore.

“First discovered in 1822, the sponges grew so large—a meter or more in both height and diameter—that their cup-like structures were sometimes used as tubs for babies. But their size made them valuable to collectors around the world and they were overharvested until they disappeared from Singapore in the 1870s. The last time living sponges were seen was 1908, when collectors found some in West Java, Indonesia. The species was then thought to be extinct. In the 1990s, a few dead Neptune’s cup sponges turned near Australia, giving researchers hope that they might find these massive Porifera again in the oceans around Singapore…

• (read more: Scientific American)   (photo: DHI Water and Environment) - (link via rhamphotheca)

coolchicksfromhistory: Woman working in the shipyards in Mobile, Alabama during World War II.

Sink or Swim piece I did for an upcoming project. dereknobbs Not yet in the store, but if interested contact me

Ministry of Agriculture’s new “Dig for Victory” campaign launched: grow more food in UK to reduce German U-boat threat

• RealTimeWWII; WW2 Tweets from 1939 — Livetweeting the Second World War, as it happens on this date and time in 1939, and for 6 years to come.
  Contact via realtimewwii@gmail.com or Facebook.

Giant clipper ships at hangars, Pan-American Airways terminal, Miami, Florida, U. S. Coast Guard Air Base in background – Special Collections Division. University of Miami Libraries.

Life magazine, June 19, 1944 – TheGuildedCentury

Porcelain crab by a.j.mck on Flickr. (via bigwaves)

Baiae was an ancient Roman town overlooking the Bay of Naples, where rich Romans and emperors whiled away their time in their villas. It was also connected to the Roman Empire’s biggest naval base, Portus Julius. However, the town and port were built on a tract of volcanic land, the activity of which is said to have caused the structure to collapse into the ocean…

• Sunken Cities Of The Ancient World »

Wu Guanzhong – here (via yama-bato) – see also: link

Hokusai, detail; artdetails

toysailboats: Victorian Silver and Enamel Pocket Knife – London,  c.1890 (via bluewaterblackheart)

Pearl Frush: Pin Up and Cartoon Girls – via theticketthatexploded

theticketthatexploded: Cosmopolitan, “Special To The Navy” (1942) – (via Jon Whitcomb)

Jon Whitcomb (1906-1988) – American illustrator. He was well-known for his pictures of glamorous young women. During World War II, a series of illustrations for advertisements he created on the theme, “Back Home for Keeps,” became a pin-up fad for women deprived of their husbands or sweethearts.

• Masters of Illustrations – Jon Whitcomb: Pin Up and Cartoon Girls)

Short Stories, February 1951 – Pulp of the Day (theticketthatexploded)

(via Motor Boating – Pulp Covers)

The Book of Dogs; Washington, D. C.,The National Geographic Society (c1919) – via scientificillustration

Zoe Boekbinder – Salt water — WARNING: Contains probably-work-safe naked people. and boats.
via dirtyriver

Source: quartertofour

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.

grottu

 it’s deadlicious™: Terreur – Ed. Bel Air. 1965 – via mudwerks

Without science, we wouldn’t know that prehistoric creatures, like this short-necked plesiosaur
at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum were real (image source)

Why I Like Science By Sarah Zielinski
on Smithsonian’s Surprising Science

 Science is under siege these days. Some politicians proudly proclaim that evolution is just a theory and that climate change is a conspiracy among scientists. Health gurus advocate homeopathy or “natural” remedies rather than modern medicine. Parents ignore the advice of doctors and experts and refuse to vaccinate their children against deadly diseases. People who are quite happy to reap the benefits of science—new medical treatments, for example, or sci-fi-like technological devices—advocate for schools to teach religion in science class.

And so I think it’s time for the rest of us to speak up. Let’s explain what it is about science that satisfies us, how science improves our world and why it’s better than superstition. To that end, I’m starting a new series here on Surprising Science: Why I Like Science. In coming months, I’ll ask scientists, writers, musicians and others to weigh in on the topic. And I’m also asking you, the readers, why you like science.

keep reading »

Click here to view the embedded video.

Death of a Siren by Raoul Servais

This darkly surreal and poetic tale was created by the Belgian master of animation Raoul Servais in 1968.  The website of the Raoul Servais Foundation contains lots of info about the author and his works.     —via Animalarium

A lifeboat negotiates stormy conditions off Ile d’Ouessant in Brittany, France
Photograph: Phillip & Guillaume Plisson /Rex Features – The Guardian via mabelmoments

The Sea: First Wonder of the World – a feature in pictures »

Ernest Shackleton biscuit from 1907 South Pole expedition to sell for £1,500»

A single biscuit from Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctica ­expedition looks set to make a packet at auction. The Huntley and Palmers snack that stopped the explorer and his exhausted men starving to death in 1909 is expected to fetch £1,500. It has somehow survived intact for an amazing 102 years since returning from the intrepid group’s hut on the frozen wastes near the South Pole.

Specially made for the grueling trip and fortified with ­concentrated milk protein Plasmon, the biscuit helped keep up the mens’ diminishing strength as they returned from their trip, called the Nimrod mission. One, Frank Wild, later told how Shackleton made him eat the snack daily to stay alive as they headed home from their failed bid to reach the South Pole.

more »

Cobh, Ireland – (full size)

Lifebuoy Royal Disinfectant Soap 1904 »

Illustrated front covers from The Queenslander: (set A), (set B)

Published between 1866 and 1939, The Queenslander was the weekly summary of the Brisbane Courier (now The Courier Mail) newspaper . This weekly edition enabled the news to be distributed to the regional and outlying areas of the state.

A selection of beautifully illustrated covers from the 1920s-1930s are shown here. Some drawings depict the daily life of Queenslanders during this time while others highlight local and national events. –State Library of Queensland, Australia

The Capture of the Pirate Blackbeard by Jean-Leon Gerome Ferris
raiseyourraggedsails via sailorjunkers

‘Flying Merguin’ by Jon Carling : Slug Ship

World’s fastest Ferrari ends up in Atlantic Ocean in road race crash

THE world’s fastest Ferrari went for an unscheduled clean when it span out of control and ended up in the Atlantic. The 240mph Enzo suffered a “slight mishap” on gravel during a road race and careered into the ocean.

more »

Ship in Aberdeen Harbour fuel leak to be inspected

BBC Scotland – An offshore supply vessel at the centre of a leak of about 1,000 litres of fuel oil into Aberdeen Harbour is to go into dry dock for possible repairs.

Oil spilled from the offshore supply vessel Skandi Foula during refuelling at the Torry dock on Friday. The affected area was cordoned off.

Shell UK said 500 litres of oil had been recovered.

more »

more photos of Port of Felixstowe »

Felixstowe still the UK’s busiest container port »

UK ports handled 512 million tonnes in 2010, a 2% increase over 2009, but still 12% below the 2005 level, according to statistics from the Department for Transport (DfT).  Felixstowe, in the south-east, maintained its position as the UK’s largest container port in 2010 with just over two million containers, up 12% on 2009.

Although throughput figures for Felixstowe are not published by the port’s owner, Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings, the DfT’s container number is thought to represent around 3.4 million teu.

In the next few weeks, Felixstowe will officially open its new berths 8 and 9, which are able to handle the very largest container vessels, including the recently ordered Maersk Line Triple Es of 18,000teu capacity.

• keep reading »
• The Port of Felixstowe on No Way to Make a Living blog »

Churchill, Chance and the ‘Black Dog’

The wartime prime minister’s dark moods, plus a series of lucky encounters, may have transformed the course of human history, writes John Gray.

Towards the end of his long life, when he was staying in a house lent to him by friends in the south of France, Winston Churchill sent for a young man who was helping him write one of the books with which he occupied his retirement.

Churchill needed the young man as a researcher. But he also valued him as a companion, particularly in the evenings when he would otherwise feel lonely.

One cold night they were sitting before the fire, where pine logs were hissing and spitting as they were burnt away. Churchill watched the blaze in silence. Then he growled: “I know why logs spit. I know what it is to be consumed.”

keep reading »

Bulldozers Tear Into Big Washington Dams

Dignitaries and at least one bona fide celebrity kicked off the historic event for watershed restoration on Washington’s Olympic peninsula Saturday morning. It was the start of a three-year, $351 million project to dismantle two dams near the mouth of the Elwha River, opening the waterway to salmon for the first time in a century. (See a map of the region.)

It’s also the largest dam removal in the history of a country with 80,000 of the man-made structures, many of them aging, silting up, and no longer useful (or at least necessary). Some, like the two Elwha dams, were built without fish ladders, meaning they serve as completely impenetrable barriers to fish migrations. On Saturday at the base of the dam, officials counted only 72 salmon, unable to swim any farther upstream…

keep reading »

Staxxon’s Space-Saving Shipping Container

New Jersey startup’s recently-patented technology has the potential to revolutionize the shipping industry.

Failure magazine – Improvements in efficiency tend to be hard-won in the liner shipping industry—the service of transporting goods by means of high capacity, oceangoing vessels like the Emma Maersk. To be sure, ocean carriers are always looking for ways to make operations more efficient, efforts that have included: using low-friction paint to reduce hull friction, utilizing “smart” shipping containers that feature RFID technology, and building ever-larger ships, including the 20 “Triple-E” behemoths recently ordered by Maersk.

But Staxxon, a startup based in Montclair, New Jersey, is taking what might be loosely described as an “inside the box” approach to addressing the inefficiencies involved in moving empty intermodal containers. The company’s patented technology—utilized in steel containers that fold from left to right like an accordion—is elegant in its simplicity…

• keep reading »

Remembering 9/11′s Heroes Afloat»

Posted by David Braun of National Geographic

Growing up between Long Island and Manhattan where my father lived, and having him take me down to the tugboats in the Chelsea neighborhood as a child, or on Circle Line cruises or fishing out of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, I remember how quickly my perspective on the city changed: from weekend visitations defined by crowded streets and stores to salt brine and wonder, be it of a powerful diesel marine engine and the men who kept its pistons turning or the strange sen-sation of catching my first fish, a conger eel, a true sea monster, at the age of eight. New York for me became what it had been for my father when he’d arrived at Ellis Island as a boy of 12, a place where freedom and Lady Liberty were intimately linked by the great harbor and rivers of one of the nation’s founding port towns.

A clear September morning many years later, the men and women who make their livings on those same waters were rudely awoken to the fact that our nation’s bordering oceans can no longer protect us from our enemies.

Just off Governors Island, Coast Guard Petty Officer Carlos Perez was at the helm of a 41-foot utility boat sent from Staten Island to check out the initial report of an airplane hitting the World Trade Center…

keep reading »

Before Panama Canal, Snails Hitched a Ride

Long before there was a Panama Canal, at least two marine snails made a fantastic journey between oceans, crossing not on land or water but in the air.

By analyzing mitochondrial DNA from horn snail species on both sides of the North American continent, scientists concluded that this journey occurred twice in the last million years — 750,000 years ago, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and 72,000 years ago, in the other direction.

The snails were hitchhikers, probably attaching themselves to the leg or belly of a shorebird that flew across Mexico, said Eldredge Bermingham, a geneticist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

more on NY Times »

New Orleans: Algiers youngster enjoys monitoring river traffic

Nate King, 6, is lucky that he lives close enough to the Mississippi River to feed his hobby: watching ships, boats and barges go by.

Nate lives in Algiers, a couple of blocks from the river, and throughout the summer — and on weekends and many days after school — he drags one or both of his parents, Liz and Matt King, up to the top of the levee to spot ships.

His parents are responsible for bringing the binoculars. Persistently but not necessarily patiently, Nate will wait for a ship or a work boat to pass. He carries a pencil and a little notebook in which he records the names of the vessels. If a ship or boat is too far away to see the name, he will shout, with increasing urgency, “Try and get the back of that guy, Mom. Get that guy, Mom! Get that guy!” His mother will then use the binoculars to spot the name and call it out, clarifying the spelling if necessary, so Nate can record it accurately.

more »

The Most Famous Russian Polar Icebreaker »

The icebreaker symbolizes a whole epoch in the history of Russia. The place is very popular both among the guests of Saint-Petersburg and its native citizens. In the beginning of the 20th century Russia was a leading country that developed the Polar Ocean with the help of linear ice-breakers. Russian ships ‘Ermak’ and ‘Svyatogor’ were the strongest ice-breakers in the world. Ship ‘Svyatogor’ that was renamed into ‘Krasin’ later is the second Polar ice-breaker in Russia with the most perfect construction.

more photos »

Mikhail Mikhailovich Cheremnykh
(Russian, 1890-1962)
Crimea — The All-Union Health Resort, May 12, 1944
from a great new blog called Tass Posters

• The Order of Ushakov, April 15, 1944
• Our Pechenga, November 4, 1944
• The End of the Resort Season, September 16, 1944
• Expel the Pirate from the Black Sea!, September 15, 1944
• Fascist Reports, False Reports, August 17, 1942
• Naval Guardsmen, June 26, 1942
• Cargo Ships and Submarines, 1944
• There Was a Shout Near Orel and it Echoed in Rome, August 2, 1943

 from the Archives of ITAR-TASS »

Cool Retro Photos from the Archives of ITAR-TASS »

“A place for rest in a whale’s mouth”, Y. Muravin, 1960

Whale Fishing Facsimile of a Woodcut in the
Cosmographie Universelle of Thevet in folio Paris 1574

above: Flensing is the removing of the outer integument (blubber) of whales. English whalemen called it “flenching”, while American whalemen called it “cutting-in”.

New England ships began to explore and hunt in the southern oceans after being driven out of the North Atlantic by British competition and import duties. Ultimately, American entrepreneurs created a mid-19th-century version of a global economic enterprise. This was the golden age of American whaling.

An early winter in the north Pacific in September 1871 forced the captains of an American whaling fleet in the Arctic to abandon their ships. With 32 vessels trapped in the ice and provisions insufficient to weather the nine-month winter, the captains ordered the abandonment of the ships and the three million dollars’ worth of property carried on board but in the process saved the lives of over 1,200 men.

From the Civil War, when Confederate raiders targeted American whalers, through the early 20th century, the American whaling industry was overwhelmed by new, crippling economic competition, especially from kerosene, which was a superior fuel for lighting. New Bedford, once the fourth busiest port in the United States, gave up whaling. (+)

Whale Fishery — Attacking a Right Whale, New England whaling ca. 1860

see also: American Experience Timeline: The History of Whaling in America »

Humpback whales await flensing at a whaling station; Sechar, Vancouver Island, British Columbia »

Japan Quintessential: A Holiday Guide »

Whaling in Chukotka: Photos on English Russia »

Whaling is very popular type of hunting in Chukotka. Today we’ll meet locals of the village Lavrentiya, located on the shore of the Bering Sea.

The Chukchi Peninsula, Chukotka Peninsula or Chukotski Peninsula, at about 66° N 172° W, is the northeastern extremity of Asia. Its eastern end is at Cape Dezhnev near the village of Uelen. It is bordered by the Chukchi Sea to the north, the Bering Sea to the south, and the Bering Strait to the east. The peninsula is part of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of Russia. The estimated population of the region in 1990 was 155,000.

The peninsula was traditionally the home of the native Chukchi people, some Eskimo peoples (Siberian Yupiks and Sireniki Eskimos), Koryaks, Chuvans, Evens/Lamuts, Yukagirs, and some Russian settlers.

The peninsula lies along the Northern Sea Route (the Northeast passage). Industries on the peninsula are mining (tin, lead, zinc, gold, and coal), hunting and trapping, reindeer raising, and fishing.  (wikipedia)

tear sheets from illustrator Harold Von Schmidt on Today’s Inspiration

Sevenstones Light Vessel circa 1950

Gay sailors coming forward in wake of DADT»

The law banning gays from serving openly ended Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. Now that it’s history, gay sailors are coming forward in ways ranging from showy to subtle. Others are simply blunt.

One of them is Master-at-Arms Seaman Casie Jude, who’s posted in Italy. In a Facebook update on Tuesday she wrote, “Dear Navy: I’m gay. Duh.” One of her commenters replied, “I knew it!!!”

Another sailor coming forward is Lt. Gary Ross. The 33-year-old surface warfare officer was married very early this morning at a small ceremony in Duxbury, Vt. to his partner of 11 years, Dan Swezy. It was the first same-sex marriage after the repeal by a servicemember.

more on militarytimes.com »

‘There was nothing to find out’

JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. — As the highest-ranking member of the U.S. military to come out as gay, retired Rear Adm. Alan S. Steinman had much to celebrate when the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” became official.

To guard against discovery, Steinman said he remained celibate, refusing to even socialize with other gay men, during the 25 years he served in the military. “There was no possibility they would find out,” he said of military investigators, “because there was nothing to find out.”

Lt. Col. Chris Rowzee, an active member of the Air National Guard in Toledo, Ohio, spoke about how her partner was afraid to mow the lawn of the property where the couple lived, and how they both avoided shopping together. During one military deployment, Rowzee went into septic shock, requiring an emergency operation. Since Rowzee’s partner wasn’t listed as a spouse or family member, she only learned of the operation by scanning a list of U.S. casualties.

Lynn Briere, a chief warrant officer in the Coast Guard, said she used code words on email and during phone calls, not wanting to leave clues that she was in a same-sex relationship. “I even went on dates with guys, just to keep my cover,” she said.

more on msnbc »

Dozens of calls after explosion in Zeeland

A concrete caisson has exploded on a beach in the south-eastern province of Zeeland. The blast on Ritthem beach was heard in large parts of the province.

Police have sealed off the area which is covered with debris. A police spokesperson says pieces of concrete are spread up to a distance of 100 metres from the crater. The crater is three metres in diameter. The caisson, which is a huge hollow concrete structure used in underwater construction, has been completely destroyed.

Police believe a World War II mine may have come into contact with the caisson.

–keep reading »

update: Massive blast on Dutch beach deliberate

A blast in a caisson on a beach in the southern Dutch province of Zeeland on Friday evening was caused deliberately using high explosives, police report.

–more »

NASA Satellite Debris Likely Fell in Ocean, May Never Be Found

No credible reports yet of UARS spacecraft pieces, agency says.

National Geographic News

After 20 years in orbit, NASA‘s UARS satellite has fallen to Earth, most likely into a watery grave at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. But its exact resting spot may remain a mystery forever, NASA said.

(Also see “Space Debris: Five Unexpected Objects That Fell to Earth.”)

The U.S. military’s Joint Space Operations Center estimated that the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, toppled from the sky at 12:16 a.m. ET Saturday.  (See “NASA Satellite Falling Faster Due to Solar Activity.”)

If that’s correct, the 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of debris that were predicted to survive reentry would have splashed down in the northern Pacific, far west of California. But “we may never know” exactly where the spacecraft met its fate, NASA’s Nick Johnson said on Saturday.

• keep reading »

drtuesdaygjohnson (via ahoyhoyyy)

Scientists Want Publisher to Refreeze Greenland

The news release promoting the latest edition of Britain’s influential Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World hailed it as “the Greatest Book on Earth.”

Not the way climate scientists see it.

“Fiasco” was the word chosen by one scientist in an e-mail to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., alerting his colleagues to erroneous claims made by the publishers of the atlas (whose name derives from The Times of London) about the speed at which Greenland’s glaciers are melting.

A new atlas depicts Greenland as having lost around 15 percent of its ice since 1999, with significant portions of coast ice-free.

• keep reading »

(AP) Diana Nyad: Ending Swim Was ‘Huge Disappointment’

Diana Nyad ends Cuba-US swim bid after jellyfish stings

US endurance athlete Diana Nyad has abandoned her attempt to swim 103 miles (166km) from Cuba to Florida, after being stung by a dangerous jellyfish.

She ended the bid after doctors warned that another sting from a Portuguese Man-Of-War could be life-threatening. The 62-year-old had swum about 49 miles (79km) in shark-infested waters after setting out from Havana on Friday.

• more »

Everything Old is New Again:

Illustrated by Jack Davis, September 1974 – *see the set on Flickr »

Gemeinnüzzige Naturgeschichte des Thierreichs bd 2 plates Berlin;
bei Gottlieb August Lange, 1780-1789 »

New Species of Dolphin Discovered Off the Coast of Australia

A new species of dolphin was discovered by Australian zoologists off the coast of Melbourne, after they realized the 150 or so porpoises that were previously thought to be bottlenose dolphins actually differed significantly in skull shape and DNA. That, kids, is why you should always double-check your homework.

• MORE »

A Step-by-Step Guide to Celebrating »

Boston Globe: The Big Picture – Vessels sail during a great parade of the Culture Tall Ships Regatta on the Bay of Gdansk near the eastern Polish Baltic Sea city of Gdynia Sept. 5. The Culture 2011 Tall Ships Regatta featured two races from Klaipeda to Turku to Gdynia as part of the Tall Ships festival season, during which participating cities showcased their cultural activities, according to organizers. (Kacper Pempel/Reuters) #

Don’t ask…  no, really…  – via mudwerks

Maritime Monday is compiled every week by Monkey Fist

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

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

The Maritime Monday Archives »

Sure, the gCaptain forum contains a few surly comments but, just as a comment seems out of line, we are reminded of the intellect and curiosity of our fellow mariners. The post that best exemplifies this is titled “Best Nautical Books for the Merchant Mariner” , as it quickly reminds us why sailing is a noble profession and the reason why we continue to face the hardships of a life at sea.

To help get you through the winter weather, we have included a few of the books in a new widget located in the sidebar of this blog. You can also view most of the books in the gCaptain ship store located HERE.

*And be sure not to miss gCaptain’s very own book Fire on the Horizon: The Untold Story of the Explosion Aboard the Deepwater Horizon by publisher Harper Collins.

So what is your favorite Maritime Book? Add you comments to The List or leave a comment below.

Wikipedia has a good entry detailing the meaning behind each of the Signal Flags. Click on the image above to view the rest.

Lego Aircraft Carrier

This absolutely enormous Lego aircraft carrier was made from over 200,000 individual bricks. The leviathan weighs in at just over 350 pounds. It has working aircraft elevators, a hangar, radar dishes, electrical lights and a working catapult/slingshot for launching the jets.

Lego Lighthouse

The area of ‘LEGO City’, in LegoLand Windsor, is a mock-up of a small Lego town.One of the most visible attractions in the area is the LEGO City Harbour, a set where live stunt shows are performed at intervals throughout the day, including dives from the top of a lighthouse into the harbor below.

Mystery LegoMan

A daring rescue at sea was performed by tourists at the Dutch resort of Zandvoort. The efforts began when a large orange head was observed floating towards the beach. The man in question… well actually it was a giant, 8 foot tall, Lego person of unknown origin. Speculation leads to some sort of cargo mishap but details are yet unknown.

( Full Story | Photos | Video | gCaptain’s Original Post)

Lego Bulker

The Great Lakes Maritime Museum has on display the M/V STEWART J. CORT…  LEGO Ship. The vessel’s builder, Duane Collicott, tells us;

I have wanted to model the CORT for many years. My interest in her has many angles, including her status as the first thousand-footer and the uniqueness of her design among thousand-footers. Little did I know when I first considered it years ago that when I finally got around to actually building a model I would be using LEGO as the modeling medium. Read More…

r

Visit LegoLand San Diego (actually it’s in nearby Carlsbad) and you’ll be treated to a complete reproduction of a modern lego harbor… container ships, gantry cranes and all.

Thanks to Sea-Fever for the inspiration.

Here are gCaptain editor’s Top 10 upcoming picks of the week from gCaptain’s Maritime News Discoverer. Please Vote on the ones you like to have them published.

WIGS come to Alaska
This is a big deal. The first use of a commercial WIG is being planned for the Lynn Canal. A 12 passenger $1.2m vessel. Docks and Harbors Board ha read more »

Update on Arctic Expeditions – MAREX
In prior years, the question of who owns the North Pole and the Arctic in general was simply a theoretical one. The territory had been trapped in ice read more »

COAST GUARD CONDUCTING FIRST NORTH POLE FLIGHT
“The northern reaches of the Arctic is a new area for us to do surveillance,” said Rear Adm. Arthur E. Brooks read more »

BIMCO Feature – Feature: The blossoming of LNG shipping
The established, low-key world of LNG shipping is changing out of all recognition as trade volumes mushroom, the supply chain extends and offshore read more »

CNOOC Building Deep-sea Drilling Rig
China will finish its first deep-sea drilling rig with a maximum working depth of three kilometers by 2011, a spokesman for China National Offshore O read more »

Iran to Buy 52 ships by 2010
The Managing Director of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines says IRISL has signed a contract for purchase of fifty-two ships. Mohammad-Hosse read more »

Forward Looking 3D Sonar System for Collision Avoidance
FarSounder, Inc. a Warwick, Rhode Island based technology company has been awarded a $2 million grant from the US National Institute of Standards and read more »

Watchkeeper: Getting closer to the crew
There is concern about the quality of seafarers, and of the lack of experience of some given accelerated promotion to fill gaps. read more »

Crew Study Reveals Benefits and Perks Boost Morale and Retention
Amen! ….bring on the lobster tails. read more »

10 Reasons Why Captain’s Sink with the Ship
Whenever a ship sinks due to any reason, the Captain of the Ship prefers to sink with the ship. In my last post “Cargo ships collide in Thessaloniki read more »

Ships have been around for thousands of years but it’s interesting to note that most of the traditional names have survived. We know that not all our viewers at gCaptain.com are lifelong sailors so here is a short lesson for you! (Parts of a Ship)

I wanted to take some time and thank some of our partner sites; Maritime Experts from around the web. I also wanted to take the time to explain each one to our readers. The sites can be found at the bottom of the right sidebar —>

This is Part 2 of our series and concentrates on sites devoted to near coastal (boating) sites. When you are finished reading revisit Part 1; Big Ships.

Bitter End Blog

Formerly know as Maritime Ramblings this blog is written by Richard Rodriguez who also happens to be one of our most prolific contributers and winner of our last contest. Richard mixes stories about his adventures as a vessel asist Captain with interesting maritime news of the day as well as local Seattle area waterfront happenings. The blog is interesting, well written and updated frequently giving it the gCaptain seal of approval.

Panbo

From the newest VHF radios to the latest AIS information if your looking for goodies for your boat Panbo is the place to visit. What I like most about panbo is they always consider unlimited vessels in their reviews of small boat electronics. If every boater was a reader of this blog I would certainly feel more confident brining my ship into places like Port Everglades, the Puget Sound or even San Diego. Highlights of the site (from the unlimited tonnage perspective) include Digital Charting, AIS and pilot ride-along sections.

Sea Fever

I grappled with the decision of whether to categorize this site as “Big Ship” or coastal since it contains lots of interesting articles for us unlimited seafarers. The decision was made after reading the author, John Masefield’s Peter Mello’s, excellent “About the Blog(ger)” section. To quote, “The Sea-Fever blog is a work in progress that will cover subjects that interest me, professionally and personally. Topics will include maritime heritage and cultural initiatives, corporate social responsibility”. A great blog that’s on my daily reading list.

Tugster

This site is not about small pleasure craft, it is about New York Harbor’s working side. The site is filled with interesting pictures and commentary on the blue collar boats and ships that keep the harbor running. It’s a great site that first time visitors can spend hours reading, especially if (like me) they have roots in NYC’s maritime community.

Marine Firefighting Newsletter

Along with Tugster, Tom Guldner’s Marine Firefighting Newsletter has roots in New York Harbor. Tom was a New York City firefighter and worked a wide range of assignments including the FDNY’s fire boats and rescue trucks. This is not a blog, so it isn’t updated on a regular basis but it does contain valuable information that will help keep your crew safe in an emergency.

Honorable Mentions:

Navagear

Navagear gets left off our blog roll for the simple reason that it does not contain enough information relevant to our core audience; Ship Captains. Otherwise it is a great site that I read on a regular basis.

You can see the best stories from all the above blogs, as voted on by gCaptain readers, at our Maritime News Discoverer. Have a maritime blog post you would like to share, submit it now.