In his well reviewed 2007 book The Tankship Tromedy, Former MIT Naval Architecture professor and ship owner Jack Devanney has strong opinions on the best color to paint tankers: white! The most effective way of controlling deck dribs and drabs is simple: white decks and topsides. Most tanker owners paint their decks a dark color, usually a brownish red. This does an excellent … [Read more...]
Leadership On The High Seas, A Book Review
A search for leadership books on Amazon yields over 100,000 results and there is no shortage of Naval Leadership books (including a few excellent ones) but the commercial maritime domain is strikingly different from the navy and few books look at leadership from the perspective of merchant ship officers. Captain Parani discovered this problem when he took … [Read more...]
3 Hurricanes 24 Books Plus One Maritime Thriller
by R.E. McDermott (Sponsored) I remember sitting in a ship’s lounge some years back, watching a blow-dried weatherman on TV, standing in front of a map of the US East Coast with the track of a tropical storm superimposed over it. He tapped his pointer at the symbol for the storm and predicted it would be ‘safely out to sea by morning.’ I also remember the Chief Mate’s … [Read more...]
gCaptain’s Best Nautical Books Of 2017
gCaptain is proud to announce the winners of our second annual award for gCaptain’s Best Nautical Books Of The Year. The year’s notable nautical fiction and nonfiction books of late 2016 and 2017, as selected by gCaptain’s editors. This list represents books we have read or reviewed in the past year (or so) and we believe are well worth your time. P.S. … [Read more...]
Call Me Captain! (or not)
By Colin Dewey, Ph.D., MNI When is it correct to call someone “captain?” And where is it appropriate for people to use the title themselves? What’s the difference between a captain and a “master?” (1) When does a master, or any mariner, get to be called “master mariner?” The organized mind of a seaman naturally looks for structure: “Smokey, this is not Nam … [Read more...]