Maritime Musings Angeles Blogs

RV Mirai

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on September 23, 2014

The Japanese Government’s oceanographic research vessel Mirai, at 8,687 GT and a length of 421 feet, is one of the largest vessels of its type in the world. The ship, originally named Mutsu when launched in 1970, was one of only four nuclear…

Sand dollar

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on July 18, 2014

Sand dollar is a general term for various species of extremely flattened sea urchins of the order Clypeasteroida. They may be found in temperate or tropical marine waters worldwide and are also known as sea cookies, snapper biscuits, or pansy shells.

William Lewis Herndon

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on February 18, 2014

William Lewis Herndon (1813-1857) was appointed Midshipman in the relatively new United States Navy in 1828, serving afloat in the Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Gulf of Mexico. From 1842 through 1847, he served at the new Naval Observatory and Hydrographic Office in Washington…

Andres de Urdaneta

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on February 7, 2012

Andres de Urdaneta (1498-1568) sailed in the Loaisa Expedition that departed Spain in 1525 to reach the Spice Islands via the Pacific Ocean, thus avoiding the Portuguese monopoly on the Indian Ocean route. The expedition, initially comprised of seven ships, was a disaster.

LORAN

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on November 25, 2011

The Legislative and Executive Branches of the United States jointly decided several years ago that LORAN was outmoded. In a budget-cutting effort, funding for the program was deleted and the US Coast Guard was required to cease transmission…

Nauru

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on December 17, 2010

Nauru is a small island nation in the South Pacific Ocean. It is located south of the Federated States of Micronesia; west of Kiribati; north of the Solomon Islands; and east of Papua New Guinea. Nauru consists of a solitary island with a land mass of 8.1 square miles, surrounded by a coral reef.

Admiral Ivan Kruzenshtern, Russian Imperial Navy (1770-1846)

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on February 26, 2010

Though born into a German family (birth name: Adam Johann Ritter von Krusenstern) living in what is now Estonia, he is better known by his Russian name Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenshtern. He joined the Russian Imperial Navy in 1787. He served in the…

Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838)

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on February 9, 2010

Born in Salem, Massachusetts on March 26, 1773, Nathaniel Bowditch had little formal education. He left school at age ten to work in his father’s cooperage. He was then indentured as a bookkeeping apprentice to a ship chandler. Through prodigious self-study…

100% scanning – 50% dead

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on December 8, 2009

As Congress was reviewing draft legislation to implement the recommendations of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, someone made a suggestion. The proposal would require, by 2012, each maritime shipping container…