Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Huffington Post - Seeking Woodes Rogers: Piracy, Terrorism and International Law

The Huffington Post has seen fit to publish my thoughts once again on the current outbreak of piracy off Somalia. You can read it here:

Seeking Woodes Rogers: Piracy, Terrorism and International Law

“Get a Life” - An Interview with Julian Stockwin

Julian Stockwin’s new Thomas Kydd naval adventure, The Privateer’s Revenge (published as Treachery in the United Kingdom), is set in the Channel Islands. As with the previous Kydd novels, Stockwin and his literary partner and wife, Kathy, went on location, crossing the English Channel to Guernsey to research the ninth title in the Kydd series.
The author reflects on his journey as a writer and Thomas Kydd’s amazing career in the Royal Navy in this interview with Quarterdeck:

Read More on the Old Salt Blog

Monday, December 15, 2008

Great News from Rhode Island - OLIVER HAZARD PERRY

The past decade has been a mixed bag for tall ship enthusiasts in the North East. On the one hand the HMS BOUNTY, which for years had a rotten foremast and was being kept afloat by a motor driven pump, has been restored and is back sailing again. She is currently on the West Coast, which is either good or bad news depending on how you look at it. The HMS ROSE was purchased for the movie Master and Commander and is now in the care of the San Diego Marine Museum and is no longer a sail training ship.

The great news is that Captain Richard Bailey, long captain of the ROSE, is leading an effort to build the OLIVER HAZARD PERRY, a three masted training ship to be completed in Newport, Rhode Island, named in honor of the Newport Naval hero. Commissioning is planned for 2010.

Read more on the Old Salt Blog

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Wake of the Windjammers


I just came across Frederick LeBlanc’s wonderful blog, Wake of the Windjammers. It features recent posts about the Schooner Sultana, the Stad Amsterdam, the Spirit of New Zealand, the Soren Larsen, the Barque Kaskelot and the Elissa, among others. Great stuff.

Read more on the Old Salt Blog

Saturday, December 13, 2008

The Nigger of the Narcissus – by Joseph Conrad


As much as we are all fond of Hornblower, Aubrey, Ramage, Kydd and the rest, it is good from time to time to be reminded that writing about the sea doesn’t begin or end with the Georgian Navy. Some of the greatest sea battles in literature are not fought between great navies or even single ships. The greatest battle is often with sea itself. I was reminded of this when I reread a novella by Joseph Conrad with the somewhat unfortunate title - The Nigger of the Narcissus. It is, to my mind, the best writing about ships and the sea by Conrad or anyone, for that matter. Sadly, the novella rarely, if ever, gets taught these days in school. Of it Conrad wrote, “after writing the last words of that book, I understood that I had done with the sea, and that henceforth I had to be a writer.”


Forget Sodomy and the Lash – Let’s Talk Rum



Winston Churchill is often credited with opining that the only Royal Navy traditions were rum, sodomy and the lash. Apparently Churchill never said any such thing. “Anthony Montague-Browne said that although Churchill had not uttered these words, he wished he had.” Let’s us, put aside sodomy and the lash for a moment and consider only the rum.
Years ago when I lived on a sailboat, a friend of mine living aboard d his boat a few slips over would stop by on the occasional winter’s night with a bottle of Pusser’s Rum and a volume of the poetry of Robert Service. Service might seem an odd choice, but nevertheless reading of Alaska while hunkered down in a tiny cabin heated by a coal stove on dark winter’s night in Connecticut, with the wind blowing and the thermometer hovering in single digits, it somehow made perfect sense. Especially while drinking blackstrap rum. Poetry, like the woman sitting next to you in the bar, often becomes compelling after the first rum.


Thursday, December 11, 2008

Help Save the Falls of Clyde


Falls of Clyde is the only surviving iron-hulled four-masted full rigged ship and the only surviving sail-driven oil tanker in the world. She was launched in 1878 in Port Glasgow, Scotland, for the Fall Line . The ship was towed to Hawaii 1968 and opened as a museum in 1971. In 2008, the Bishop Museum, which had control of the ship, was preparing to tow her out to sea and scuttle her.


In an attempt to save her, the Friends of Falls of Clyde, a tax-exempt group was formed and purchased the ship in September 2008. They are currently working to raise funds to tow the ship to drydock at Kalaeloa by December 29th.



To donate to help save Falls of Clyde: Make a Donation