Today is the 202nd birthday of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, one of the world's greatest engineers and a personal hero. I gaped at the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol when the shock of recognition dawned on my jetlagged brain. This was the man that laid the foundation for Britain's global economic might, built the first underwater tunnel, Paddington Station and inspired engineers everywhere. His legacy lives on in his works, a university, a museum or two among others.
posted on Apr 9, 2008 - View this thread

Edinburgh author Iain M. Banks, creator of the post capitalist space faring society The Culture and it's oddly named ships, has long been the UKs top science fiction writer, but has never had more than a toehold in the US (in part through lack of availability, in part due to lack of promotion and in part due to some pretty awful covers. That could change: Matter, his latest, has been heavily promoted in the US and sports a cover nearly identical to the UK edition. This week Orbit are releasing US editions of the two earliest Culture novels, with the third following in July, which could mean a complete release of all the novels in the US in order.
posted on Mar 23, 2008 - View this thread

A visual history of floating prisons shows that using ships at prisons did not end with the infamous prison hulks along the Thames. Today, New York (home to the Prison Ship Martyr's Monument commemorating the most deadly part of the Revolutionary War) uses the impressive Bain, anchored off the Bronx, as a prison barge, while the Australians have the sleek-looking Triton as a mobile prison ship patrolling national waters.
posted on Jan 10, 2008 - View this thread

The Skeleton Coast, so called for the whale skeletons that littered its shores when the whaling industry was at its peak, is now well known for the skeletons of shipwrecks. More. And a a bit of description here. Still, the coast is full of life. Each year hundreds of thousands of Fur Seals come ashore. (Video on this site of baby Fur Seal vs. a jackal.) (wp)
posted on Nov 17, 2007 - View this thread

Having served as a troop transport in WWII, a luxury liner, and a sea cadet training vessel, the Texas Clipper will come to her final resting place tomorrow as part of an artificial reef in the Texas Gulf. During preparations for sinking, a long lost mural (1 2 3 4) by Saul Steinberg, best known for his work at The New Yorker, was rediscovered hidden behind wallpaper and paint and saved from a watery grave.
posted on Nov 15, 2007 - View this thread

What do you know? Just when I thought ships were the way to go, I learned that global emissions of carbon dioxide from shipping are twice the level of aviation, one of the maritime industry's key bodies has said It came out on the BBC News this week.
posted on Oct 20, 2007 - View this thread

The Cutty Sark burns. Nineteenth century tea clipper, preserved as a museum-ship in Greenwich since the fifties, is currently ablaze.
posted on May 20, 2007 - View this thread

A modern day Mary Celeste. A ship has been found adrift near the Great Barrier Reef... without her crew. The engine was idling, the table was set, and all the expensive kit was still on board (pirates surely would've gutted the place). The mast was ripped and the life rafts were missing. It's looking less and less likely that three sailors will be found alive. Where is Jack Ryan when you need him?
posted on Apr 21, 2007 - View this thread

Oil Rig Disasters--Deadliest, most expensive, blowouts, sinkings. Building a rig. Barrels of rig pictures. NOAA's archive of spill pictures. ROVs, rigs, vessels. All kind of Canadian rig (and related) pictures. More.
posted on Feb 14, 2007 - View this thread

Float-on, Float-off cargo ships. They're huge. One carried the USS Cole. One class is called the Mighty Servants. There are also the Marlins, or the elegant honesty of the "Transshelf". Big ships need big dock cranes. For maximum impact, compare these monsters to the common penny. Previously, "Where do Supertankers go to die?"
posted on Feb 13, 2007 - View this thread

They are capable of loading lifts from approximately 50 to as much as 45,000 tons.
posted on Feb 9, 2007 - View this thread

Where, exactly, were commercial vessels in the San Francisco Bay in the past hour? Here, for one. Behold the power of AIS! Previously
posted on Jan 28, 2007 - View this thread

Pearl Harbor ship salvage began immediately after the attack and continued until 1944. It was dirty, dangerous, detailed, (and discouraging) work for U.S. Navy salvors and divers, but their impressive repairs eventually returned eighteen sunken and damaged ships to wartime service. Only one was left where she fell. [More in the book Resurrection: Salvaging the Battle Fleet at Pearl Harbor.]
posted on Dec 7, 2006 - View this thread

Amazing photoseries of 70 foot storm waves crushing the surface of a large tanker in the North Pacific. More on the post-storm damage here.
posted on Aug 28, 2006 - View this thread

Where all my ships at?
posted on Jul 15, 2006 - View this thread

Ships are so cool, except when they collide with bridges and catch on fire. [flash] You can also listen to some snappy dialogue from the USS Enterprise. [Warning: The laws in some countries may not permit you to listen these sound clips]. This, and other goodies (including hi-res downloads) from the Solent.
posted on May 2, 2006 - View this thread

Supertankers are so cool. Click previous sentence for more information.
posted on Apr 29, 2006 - View this thread

The Public Archives of Nova Scotia has some cool online exhibits. The original list of dead bodies recovered from the Titanic sinking caught my eye, they also have original log book pages from privateers, lighthouses, slavery and abolition, boats, boats, and more boats. [via]
posted on Apr 20, 2006 - View this thread

The Chittagong ship-breaking yards in Bangladesh disassemble half of the world's supertankers. Shipbreaking, though profitable, is not particularly safe for either the workers in the shipyard or the surrounding environment. It does, however, make for some spectacular pictures. Also, pinpoint the location of the shipyard and explore via satellite with Google Earth.
posted on Feb 18, 2006 - View this thread

Concrete Ships Toward the end of the First World War, and during the Second World War, the United States commisioned the construction of experimental concrete ships.
posted on Oct 13, 2005 - View this thread

Staten Island Ship Graveyard. A fascinating gallery of photographs of abandoned and decaying ships.
posted on Oct 10, 2005 - View this thread

The internet guide to freighter travel. "Traveling on a containership is not better than sex, though it does last longer."
posted on May 18, 2004 - View this thread

They that go down to the sea in ships, a really hauntingly beautiful collection of images of seafarers from the past. Some of the images have handwritten notes on the back as well. It's good to get a glimpse of the people and decades lived in by most of our grandparents. Who knows where all those digital images we all take will end up one day.
posted on May 2, 2004 - View this thread

Haze Gray is a sort of "all things naval", or at least comes pretty close to it. Browse through the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, check out the status of the Russian Navy (or perhaps you're more interested in Myanmar's), have a look at the photo gallery or read the log of the USS Denver, a World War II cruiser. And that's not even the half of it.
posted on Mar 3, 2004 - View this thread

131 years ago today, the Mary Celeste, an American ship bound for Genoa, was found adrift in the Atlantic. Thus began of one of the most well known and loved of maritime mysteries, with numerous possible solutions offered.
posted on Dec 4, 2003 - View this thread

ShipBreaking The photographer Edward Burtynsky captures some dramatic images of ShipBreaking. The Perils of this industry were first highlighted in a Pulitzer prize winning series of articles by the the Baltimore Sun. Today, these ship graveyards still pose serious environmental issues as highlighted by this shipbreaking weblog maintained by Greenpeace.
posted on Nov 28, 2003 - View this thread

Sail ho! "In the spring of 1788, the original Lady Washington sailed into the northwest waters, becoming the first American vessel to make landfall on the west coast of what would one day become the United States...Launched in 1989, the Lady Washington is a full-scale replica of the first American vessel to explore the Pacific Northwest Coast." Any tall ships in your local area? Now I'm in the mood for some Barrett's Privateers or Canadee-I-O .
posted on Sep 19, 2003 - View this thread

Transportation around the world is a huge database of photos focusing on two topics: transportation mode and geography. From bullet trains to dogsleds and camel caravans to tramways, - browse by location or by topic. Also related: One of the best transportation museums in the world is the Verkehrshaus der Schweiz in Lucern, Switzerland. (via booknotes)
posted on Aug 10, 2003 - View this thread

The Tricolor, a 50,000-ton cargo vessel carrying 3000 automobiles worth more than $40 million, is being raised. Cost to raise the Tricolor: $40 million. It sunk, then was hit three times, once by the Nicola, then by the Vicky (an oil tanker which spilled some, and killed marine life), then by a salvage tug. Good summary of the collisions in Dutch and English, with photos (similarly in French). Official press briefings offer good outline of all stages since the beginning. The automobile manufacturers tried to prevent pictures being taken of the destroyed automobiles, but there they are and even more and better. The official Tricolor salvage site offers a PDF file on how the salvage is being done: in part, with a huge cutting wire.
posted on Aug 8, 2003 - View this thread

Heavy Seas is an all too brief gallery of terrifying photos of huge waves crashing down around large boats & drilling rigs. I wish it were a little longer, but I did think the photos were impressive, as one who has never been at sea in very rough weather.
posted on Mar 9, 2003 - View this thread

In 1628, the Swedish man-o-war Vasa sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea moments into her maiden voyage. 333 years later this remarkably well-preserved ship was resurrected from her ocean grave and brought to drydock.
posted on Nov 3, 2002 - View this thread

Everything you ever wanted to know about sunken ships. Passenger liners from the Titanic to the Andrea Doria. Military vessels from aircraft carriers like the USS Forrestall to submarines like the Kursk. I found this site by accident and got lost in it, some of the sections are just gorgeous, even though all the stories are tragic.
posted on Oct 16, 2002 - View this thread

The Spiegel Grove was supposed to be sunk upright, creating the largest and most accessible artificial reef ever. Cool!

Unfortunately, the ship had other ideas and now appears to be impersonating a giant turtle. One of the nation's top marine salvage outfits has been called to the rescue. Looks like a potential Discovery Channel show in the making. (Check out the pictures on the Spiegel Grove site, they're pretty cool.)
posted on May 27, 2002 - View this thread

Kalakala.org: World-famous art-deco Seattle ferry (most recently an abandoned Alaskan shrimp factory) rescued from rusty oblivion. Gutenberg's earlier post about "ghost pictures" on the old ferry Kalakala sent me looking for more info on the vessel, which I now know was once the second most photographed object in the world, next to the Eiffel tower. Volunteers are now slowly restoring it near Gas Works Park. Cool.
posted on Apr 4, 2002 - View this thread

The J.W. Westcott II delivers toilet paper, the occasional pizza, and, most importantly, mail to freighters making their way through the Great Lakes. And now it's the only boat in the U.S. to be assigned it's own zip code.
posted on Jun 30, 2001 - View this thread

It is the middle of November, better get your boat off the Great Lakes. Nautical fans might wish to purchase this excellent model of the Edmund Fitzgerald, sunk 25 years + 2 days ago today.
posted on Nov 13, 2000 - View this thread

Need to know about starfleet ship classes? and I mean all the starfleet ship classes. Geek away and beware the MIDI file embedded in the page if you surf at work and wish to remain a closeted trekkie.
posted on Apr 3, 2000 - View this thread