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| Saildrone Surveyor USV (unmanned surface vehicle) armed with Lockheed Martin JAGM (Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles) Missiles |
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| Suzanne |
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| U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle |
Built at the Blohm+Voss Shipyard in Hamburg, Germany in 1936, and commissioned as Horst Wessel, EAGLE was one of three sail-training ships operated by the pre-World War II German navy. At the close of the war, the ship was taken as a war reparation by the U.S., re-commissioned as the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter EAGLE and sailed to New London, Connecticut, which has been her permanent homeport ever since.
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| The Gallery of HMS Calcutta 1876 by James Tissot |
HMS Calcutta was an 84-gun second-rate ship-of-the-line of the Royal Navy, built in teak to a draught by Sir Robert Seppings and launched on 14 March 1831 in Bombay. - Wikipedia
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| The hulks of HMS Calcutta (left) and HMS Cambridge (right) off Plymouth, c.1890 |
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| Cargo Sailing Ship Anemos |
If you read Basil Greenhill's book The Merchant Schooners (it is about the end of sail in and around Britain) he describes how sailing ships were out priced by steam ships. The steam ships were NOT cheaper to run (the typical sailing schooners had a crew of four, maybe five including a "boy") but were often weather bound for weeks. Looking at old maritime charts, sheltered harbours, bays and inlets were marked as waiting grounds where the sailing vessels could wait favourable winds. The steam ship had a larger crew and had fuel costs but could, on average, make three voyages and earn more money in the same time period than the sail. The crew had to be paid, whether under way or not.
Nowadays, with high value cargoes, the time taken on voyages ties up a lot of capital (imagine a 20 foot container packed with the latest i Phones) which represents a lot of capital tied up and costing interest payments.
Howard I Chapelle laid out the economic case in his book The Search for Speed Under Sail.
Just like cars, if you want the small engine, basic model, it is cheap but the most powerful engined GTI version is a lot more expensive. Speed costs, whether a ship or car and the ship owners would not pay money for a fast ship if they didn't need the speed.
Bulk carriers, carrying low value cargoes (coal, iron ore etc.) plod along at about 12 knots, or about as fast as a bicycle. Container ships on the Trans Pacific route crank out over 30 knots, some as high as 35 knots. That is FAST but they are carrying valuable cargoes.
Add in the fact that ports are geared to handing containers from a ship with no deck obstructions (y'know, like masts, rigging and the clutter on that one) and you need to ask how is it going to be unloaded and where? Going back to the 1890's where men carried individual sacks and boxes off the vessel ain't gonna happen, unless it is a primitive part of the world like Asia or the Pacific Islands. Again, a fast turn around in port so the ship can be earning is the aim, not paying the crew to sit around and/or waiting for another cargo. So the ship has delivered it cargo, unless it can pick up a cargo for the return leg (what kind and what needs to be shipped back to Europe in such a small quantity?), then that is cost and no income if it has to return empty.
It is a bit like a millionaire buying a ranch so his wife can play at being a horse trainer/breeder. In other words, a hobby and a money pit.
Books:
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| HMS Victory Copper Bottom |
Liz goes for a cruise on the River Tawe and picks up some tidbits:
Three facts from my trip: Swansea has the second biggest tide in the world; the battle of Trafalgar was won thanks to the copper-bottomed boats of the British Navy, the copper having been produced in Swansea; and the only known occasion when yellow fever was transmitted in the UK was when a number of infected mosquitoes travelled to Swansea from Cuba with a cargo of copper ore.
Liz, Swansea and the River Tawe are all in Wales. Have I posted anything about Yellow Fever before? More than I realized.
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| Upper Gundeck of the HMS Victory |
HMS Victory is best known for her role as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805.
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| Putin reviews the fleet on Navy Day |
I'm watching a video on RT and Putin cruises by a big, old square-rigged sailing ship. I am a sucker for such ships, so I go digging around and find that the ship is the Poltava, a replica of a ship built by Peter the Great in 1712. The replica was launched in 2018.
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| Elaborate Stern |
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| Launch |
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| Monument |
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| Digital Model |
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| All Sails Set |
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| Sailing vessel Götheborg of Sweden approaches disabled sailboat off the coast of Brittany |
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| Sailing Yacht Champagne |
The spiritual sons of Moby Dick have returned to wreak vengeance on the puny humans who dare to sully their pristine ocean. A pod of Orcas attacked a sailboat in the Mediterranean and inflicted enough damage to sink the boat. Thankfully no one died or a bunch of hotheads bent on revenge would be scouring the sea looking for the killers.
Commercial fishing vessels lose miles of nets every year and those lost nets cause untold damage to the denizens of the deep. I imagine American fishing vessels are better behaved but that may be wishful thinking. The American fishing fleet is only a small fraction of the fishing vessels in use world wide.
Via Ross
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| Historic Vessel Vega |
Historic Vessel Vega, built-in 1892 by Ola Nerhus at his boatyard in Olve, Norway. Nerhus designed Vega to carry heavy concentrated cargo for trade in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. More than 125 years later Vega is still working. Since 2004 she carries free school and health supplies to remote islands in eastern Indonesia and to East Timor.
Because Olve is in Norway, we have to see how far it is from Bergen, especially since we were just there. Olve (there's no I, so it's not Olive) is about 30 miles (as the crow flies) south-southeast of Bergen, about twice that by land, or 50 miles by water:
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| Bergen to Olve by Water |
A few years ago when Marc was sailing around the Caribbean with his family, they were offshore from Venezuela and the water pump on the engine broke and sea water started coming in. He turned off the engine and the inflow of water stopped, but now he's kind of stuck because their isn't any wind. They go to bed thinking maybe there will be a breeze in the morning. There is, but it dies away before they can get organized. So now they are adrift with a broken water pump and only a couple of days provisions. He roots around in their stores and comes up with a water pump repair kit. The kit came with the boat but now we find that it's the wrong kit. So he's telling his wife about this horrible fix they're in and she tells him "don't be such a drama queen".
So he goes down below and roots around in stores and comes up with bits of pipe and hose and what-not. The plastic pipe is too small to fit the pump outlet so he heats it up until it gets soft and then stretches it out to fit. He has to shrink the other end to fit the inlet on an electric sump pump. He finally gets the whole thing cobbled together and she says "see?".
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| Russian Sail Training Ship Nadezhda 108 piece jigsaw puzzle |
This is third post about a sailing ship this month.
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| Kruzenshtern - Russian Sailing Ship 120 piece jigsaw puzzle |
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| A model of the barquentine Juan Sebastian De Elcano |
She has reached 17 knots with 75-knot winds . . .
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| Kalmar Nyckel 90 piece jigsaw puzzle |
Kalmar Nyckel was a Swedish ship built by the Dutch to carry Swedish settlers to North America. It was built around 1625. It made four successful round trips from Sweden to North America. The replica of the ship (above) was launched at Wilmington, Delaware, in 1997. - excerpted from Wikipedia
