May 20/2025: Early assessments of the apparently botched departure of the Mexican Navy tall-ship Cuauhtémoc from a Manhattan pier, leading to a fateful collision with the Brooklyn Bridge this past Saturday evening, had it as just a dope-slap nav problem. As in: those dopes should have waited until the tide and current were in their...
Oct. 6/24: Back in August, while crawling around for a while in Lunacy’s engine bay, on top of and behind the engine itself, I somehow injured my elbow. On my left arm, same side as the now mostly healed fractured wrist. I didn’t even notice at first. But after I got home to Portsmouth, my...
LIVE TESTIMONY at the U.S. Coast Guard hearings into the loss of HMS Bounty is wrapping up this week. That and the recent publication of an excellent investigative story in Outside magazine at last make it possible to hazard some answers to the questions that have been nagging me about the tall ship's tragic demise...
Yesterday was the second anniversary of the sinking of the Canadian school ship Concordia, a tragedy I will always relate to the controversial sinking just over 50 years ago of Chris Sheldon's school ship Albatross. This is a story that ties into a strong tide that has long flowed through my mind. It in fact...
What the heck is it about a yard arm that sets the public to salivating so? Over the holiday weekend we had a Tall Ship invasion just around the corner here from where I live in the South End of Portsmouth, NH, and, per usual, hordes of people turned out to wait in line forever...
