From the frigid waters of the Baltic Sea, a depressing reminder about the extremely long-term dangers posed by mines:
Dozens of Second World War mines that litter the floor of the Baltic Sea will be detonated by a British company this spring in the biggest commercial mine-clearance programme in history.
Sebastian Sass, head of EU representation for [...]
Entries Tagged as 'maritime'
Mines Never Sleep
March 4th, 2010 · 2 Comments
Tags:Bactec International·Baltic Sea·California·landmines·maritime·robots·San Francisco·UXO·World War II
A Shortcut for a Shortcut
October 22nd, 2009 · No Comments
In response to yesterday’s post on the onetime vogue for mining-by-nuke, a treasured commenter asked:
I remember a rumor that someone proposed building an alternative to the Panama Canal (perhaps even at sea level) using nuclear explosives. Did you find any evidence of that in your research?
Indeed we did! This was actually the pet concept of [...]
Tags:Edward Teller·maritime·nuclear power·Panama·Panama Canal·Project Ploughshare
Tilting at (Underwater) Windmills
August 5th, 2009 · 3 Comments
Apologies for the dearth of posting today. We’re hip deep in a pair of major projects right now, and we spent way too much time sorting through murder-for-hire data this morning. Now we’re off to cold call a bunch of Mexican scientists, who will doubtless chortle at our ugly Spanish. Wish us luck, and please [...]
Tags:maritime·submarines
Prowlers of the Seven Seas
August 4th, 2009 · No Comments
In keeping with our vow to consume lots of classic flicks while banging out Draft Two of the Now the Hell Will Start screenplay, we launched into the uncut version of Das Boot. We hadn’t seen the movie in about a decade, so we’d largely forgotten about its splendor. It’s tough to imagine a better [...]
Tags:Das Boot·engineering·maritime·movies·submarines·William Bourne
The Flag Racket
July 21st, 2009 · No Comments
Once again, we’re gonna use our platform here to highly recommend The Snakehead, Patrick Radden Keefe’s non-fiction account of the 1993 Golden Venture disaster. The book would be awesome enough if it just told the tale of Sister Ping’s rise and fall as the tsarina of human smuggling in New York’s Chinatown. But The Snakehead [...]
Tags:China·crime·Golden Venture·immigration·law·Liberia·maritime·Mongolia·Panama·Patrick Radden Keefe·Sister Ping·The Snakehead
Cold Ironing at Port Everglades
June 16th, 2009 · 1 Comment
A major East Coast port finally wakes up to the environmental benefits of cold ironing. Granted, running an idle ship off shore-side electricity is pretty energy intensive. But it pails in comparison to letting the ship’s diesel engines keep on humming:
Broward County Commissioner Kristin D. Jacobs said that by shutting down the engines and using [...]
Tags:energy·environment·Florida·maritime
The Winner in the Quagga Mess
June 10th, 2009 · No Comments
Despite mankind’s best efforts, the ultra-aggressive quagga mussel continues to spread unabated across our great land. Gorgeous Lake Tahoe is the latest victim, while the shellfish invasion’s in full swing over near Cleveland. And could the mussels even dim the Sin City lights someday? Nothing, it seems, can stop the quagga mussel, given the species [...]
Tags:animals·Cleveland·gadgets·Lake Tahoe·Las Vegas·maritime·quagga·quagga mussels·techonology
“He Plunges at Me, Guttering…”
June 8th, 2009 · 2 Comments
We’ve previously written about Allied mustard-gas experimentation during World War II, involving live human subjects who were occasionally given no protection whatsoever. But it wasn’t until we read about the Bari disaster that we realized hundreds of Allied troops perished from mustard-gas exposure. This wasn’t due to deliberate release, mind you, but rather a horrific [...]
First Contact: New Zealand
June 1st, 2009 · 4 Comments
Our semi-regular First Contact series continues with a look at the needlessly violent encounter between Captain James Cook and the Maori of New Zealand. Cook himself is our source, as he was a fastidious diarist during his travels around the world. And he recorded the strange events of October 9th, 1769 in great detail.
Things went [...]
Tags:Captain James Cook·First Contact·Maori·maritime·Sydney Parkinson·tattoos
Satellite Saviors
April 23rd, 2009 · 3 Comments
The Bouvet Rames Guyane is arguably the most grueling race on the planet. Solo contestants must literally row across the Atlantic Ocean, from Senegal to French Guiana. Yet even the strongest seafaring Frenchman is no match for Mother Nature, as Remy Alnet discovered about 400 miles from the finish line:
I was inside the cockpit and [...]
Tags:Atlantic Ocean·Bouvet Rames Guyane·Kannad·maritime·Remy Alnet·rescues·SARSAT·satellites·sports
The Ghost Fleet
April 10th, 2009 · No Comments
The ultimate fate of the National Defense Reserve Fleet has become a hotly contested matter in recent years, as environmentalists claim the aged ships are leaking nasty toxins into California’s Suisun Bay. That certainly seems logical, since these rusting hulks were built in the age of asbestos, lead paint, and other environmental bogeymen. But a [...]
The Greening of Shipbreaking?
March 25th, 2009 · 3 Comments
A surprise court decision in Bangladesh may shutter the nation’s vast shipbreaking industry, at least temporarily. The judges were swayed by arguments made by the Bandladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, who have long contended that the industry is among the planet’s dirtiest. Indeed, you probably don’t want to know what happens to the guts of a [...]
“Sleek Greyhound of the Seas”
March 24th, 2009 · 2 Comments
Over the weekend, the fam and I paid a visit to the Museum of the City of New York, primarily to check out the exhibit on our fair city’s stab at going green. But the exhibit that really drew me in was “Trade”, an overview of New York’s heyday as a bustling port. As noted [...]
Tags:maritime·New York City·Norman Bel Geddes·trade·transportation
Avast, Ye Scurvy Dogs
February 18th, 2009 · No Comments
I tend to distrust state-run news organizations, so color me skeptical upon reading this “doth protest too much” story from Russia’s RIA Novosti. It seems there have been some rumors floating about that crewmen on a Russian frigate came down with scurvy while patrolling the waters off Somalia. The official denial goes:
“Reports of technical failures [...]
Swallowed by the Mighty Sea
February 18th, 2009 · 1 Comment
If all had gone as planned, the S.S. American Star would now be a floating hotel in Thailand. But while being towed to its new home 15 years ago, the decommissioned luxury liner ran aground in the Canary Islands. The ship was left there to rot, slowly cracking apart and slipping beneath the waves. It [...]
