American Admiralty Books: October 2012

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

10/31/2012 Station Identification and Test Pattern (2)

WELCOME TO AMERICAN ADMIRALTY BOOKS!

Barque: ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLT II, Named for the Oceanographer
Photo by Hans Georg Schroder

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 31, 2012

SPACE AS AN OCEAN

LESSONS FROM THE AGE OF EUROPEAN MARINE EXPLORATION FOR THE SPACE AGE.

SPACE AS AN OCEAN

We 'd like to thank all of our visitors who read the Space as an Ocean Series. The entire series in chronological order of appearance is posted in the MARITIME LITERATURE SECTION. To the right of our sailing vessel image you'll see a list of special sections starting with INTRODUCTION. Scroll down and click on MARITIME LITERATURE. Once in MARITIME LITERATURE simply scroll down until you see images of a Caravel sailing ship under sail and a Space Shuttle on takeoff.

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NEW AND RECOMMENDED FOR THE SERIOUS SAILOR, NAVAL ARCHITECT, MARITIME HISTORIAN, AND BOAT BUILDER.

Illustrations, photos, drawings, plans histories and more on the schooner designs of William Burgess, Cox and Stevens, Samuel Crocker, the greats of American schooner design A reference work for yacht designers, and nautical historians ,and a work of art for the rest of us. If you have a serious sailor on your Christmas list just click on the book cover icon link below and put one of these babies in your Amazon shopping basket

  Click on this icon to order book or peruse through the Amazon description.

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The National Anthem to day is presented with all of the words as written by Francis Scott Key. We have previously presented the mostly forgotten final stanza, but there is more. Click on the link below for the Star Spangled Banner as you have never heard it before. Everything else has been a pale shadow of the original. All words appear in print as well. We are going to run this version for a while and then repeat it often.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiyKiUCiKcE

10/31/2012 Frankenstorm

FRANKENSTORM PASSES: EGO ALLEY ANNAPOLIS OVER TOPS ITS BANKS

Hurricane Isaac on its final approach to New Orleans

We had to evacuate our home in advance of Hurricane Isaac in September and when we returned we had to endure about seven days without power and we are still repairing the minor damage to our house, where we never fully finished the repairs from Katrina. Yet a news event completely missed by the national media that we just received from on scene by E-mail is causing more pain than our own property damage. EGO ALLEY IN ANNAPOLIS OVER TOPPED ITS BANKS DURING THE STORM. THE FLEET RESERVE CLUB MAY HAVE WATER DAMAGE. This may not seem like a truly notable event in a storm that killed a half dozen people or more, turned thousands homeless, shattered communities, and will cost the already strapped U.S. Treasury billions of dollars. But this is a story of a different kind of "homelessness" that affects people even thousands of miles away and physically untouched by the events. There are probably many such stories involving other occupational communities that know no geographic boundaries, as well as local community gathering spots. This is a part of the massive destruction that the mind can absorb.

EGO ALLEY, ANNAPOLIS LOOKING TOWARDS THE CAPITOL DOME FROM THE VICINITY OF THE FLEET RESERVE CLUB

The over topping of EGO Alley is always bad news for the shops and restaurants located along Dock Street. But for the FLEET RESERVE CLUB sitting right on the water's edge it probably means water in the club! That means temporary closure, clean up and repairs. The FLEET RESERVE CLUB is the main watering hole for many of us old boatswain's mates. The damage to the soul of even a temporary closure or loss of artifacts is too painful to imagine. Picture a bunch of old lions that have utilized the same watering hole for sixty years, then it goes dry! The pain reaches across the nation. not limited to just Annapolis. The Fleet Reserve Club is part of a larger naval psyche, a place of the heart that goes with members and patrons, including Midshipmen long after one leaves the area. With closings over the last several years in Pensacola, and San Diego of vintage naval watering holes, "THE FLEET" as it is often simply called ,stands alone as a cross generational ultra traditional naval watering hole, eatery, and gathering place. Its like wilderness, the naval soul needs to know it is there even if it is a thousand miles away. Let us hope that "the Fleet" is up and running and once again serving area sailors active , retired , and veteran in a day or two and not weeks. THE FLEET BY GAWD MUST AND SHALL BE PRESERVED!

10/31/2012 Re-post/update

We published the guest blog below on the situation on the ground in Syria back in August. We publish it again as an update, because more than 60 days later, the situation is largely unchanged. This is true despite the comings and goings of combined elements of Russia's Northern and Black Sea fleets in the past weeks. After all is said and done the situation is still pretty much as Vic saw it back then.

A Background Guest Blog on the Situation in Syria by Vic Socotra. Link to the Daily Socotra at bottom of page. This is the situation that the Russians find their only Mediterranean Naval Base in the middle of.

Secret Finding

U.S. sources familiar with the matter told press sources that President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing US support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his brutal government. I don’t know if the ink was dry yet on the document.

I mean, it is comforting to learn that there is a Presidential Finding on the matter, and I am getting resigned to the fact that the first thing people in power decide to do was rush out and find a reporter to tell about it.

I thought there was at least a half-hearted effort underway to find the people who have been running their mouths about things that have potentially fatal consequences to real operatives in real places. This non-stop public affairs approach to national security is depressing. Who would trust us with a real secret?

Like yesterday’s speculation about Saudi Prince Bandar’s health and welfare. Did the Iranians kill the newly-installed Saudi Intelligence Chief in revenge for the suicide bombing against President Assad’s inner circle last month?

I had a colleague advance the proposition that it was far too early to accept the notion that the Prince was dead. I had to laugh- if the Prince was fine, the first thing Riyadh would do would be to trot the former fighter pilot out and have him flash that famous grin.

The fact that the Saudis have not done so means one of two things. They either cannot produce him because he is dead, or he is badly injured.

Of course it is actually more complex than this, something that the sound-bite society has a hard time conveying with nuance. Nuance is all about the Middle East, and to distill for truth you have to factor in the significant and sophisticated Syrian chemical warfare inventory and medium-range rockets to deliver them.

There are some dangerous people- us included- who have a distinct interest in their security and whereabouts.

The local players with skin in the game include, in no particular order: Turkey, Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran directly as combatants or force-providers for combatants. Russia and the US (and China to a lesser degree) as the one-step removed super-players.

Internal Syrian dynamics can only be seen in the context of the fact that many Free Syrian Army commanders are not Syrians, but Iraqi Sunnis playing a regional war against their Shia-majority countrymen back home.

Progressives in the US support the uprising in the name of Democracy and in the interests of completing the Arab Spring. That is hardly what is going on here. In this version of The Great Game, the overthrow of the cruel Assad regime would likely result in a regional victory for the Saudis and the US, while the losers would be Iran and Russia.

The beach areas around the Russian port facility of Tartus are pleasant, and I can certainly understand why Mr. Putin wants to keep a toe in the Syrian waters. It is the last offshore Russian military base, Al-Assad is the last Russian friend in the Muslim world, and you can understand the bluster.

But it isn't even that simple. A pal wrote succinctly that the anti-Assad campaign contains elements of Sunni militants, Salafist and al-Qaeda-style jihadists. The last two are thought to be coming in from Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq, where the post-war calculus favors the Shia majority and the formerly dominant Sunnis are in eclipse.

The short story the media is comfortable in depicting is that Syrian opposition figures are Sunnis fighting the domination of an Alawite Shia minority- the precise opposite of the situation in the Emirates and Jordan.

In a macro sense, the Syrian population is about three-quarters Sunni, of various flavors, while the Shia Alawites are only 13%, with the Christian minority about the same percentage. There is a schism in the Sunni ranks- not all of them are Arabs, with fifteen percent of Kurdish or Turkman origin.

Slice and dice that into regional distribution, and things get stranger. Most of the Christians are in Damascus and Aleppo. Alawites are concentrated in Latakia Privince, where they are an 80% majority.

This is a mess. Prince Bandar’s mysterious absence is a symptom of the regional war, Saudi versus Iran, and we are now, according to really secret decisions, supporting Sunni expats from Iraq as we support a Shia majority in Baghdad. You cannot say we lack a certain inconsistency in all this, but like Libya, it is not the first time we have wound up aligned loosely with elements of al-Qaida. It should be a little surprising, but really is not.

As a point of interest, Prince Bandar bankrolled a couple of the 9/11 terrorists, and he was at the same time a confidant of both the Bush Administrations and the Clinton one in the middle in his twenty-odd years as Ambassador to Washington.

Between April 1998 and May 2002, the Prince provided as much as $73,000 in checks and cashier's checks to two families in southern California. Those families in turn bankrolled at least two of the 9/11 hijackers during their pre-attack sojourn in the States.

The story was investigated by the 9/11 Commission, but never fully resolved. The Prince decamped back to the Desert Kingdom before anyone could challenge his diplomatic immunity in a matter of mass murder.

It may be too late to ask the Prince what was really up- the 9/11 terrorists were Sunni, by the way- and although we may not be able to keep a secret, we certainly have placed ourselves foursquare on the side of…oh, hell.

I don’t know either.

www.vicsocotra.com

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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

10/30/2012 Station Identification and Test Pattern (2)

WELCOME TO AMERICAN ADMIRALTY BOOKS!

Barque: ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLT II, Named for the Oceanographer
Photo by Hans Georg Schroder

TUESDAY OCTOBER 30, 2012

HOW FAR WILL THE DRAGON SWIM? RIGHT INTO YOUR TERRITORIAL SEA AND TELL YOU TO GET OUT!

Six Chinese ships enter waters off Diaoyutais: Japanese media

Tokyo, Oct. 30 (CNA) Six Chinese ships entered waters off the Diaoyutai Islands in the East China Sea on Tuesday, marking the fifth time this month that Chinese vessels have sailed into the disputed area, Japanese media reported Tuesday.

Four Chinese marine surveillance ships and two Chinese fishing boats have entered "Japan's territorial waters" near the island group around 11 a.m. Tuesday, the Asahi Shimbun said.

One of the Chinese ships put up a message in Chinese and Japanese on an electronic board telling a Japanese patrol vessel to "immediately leave" the area as it had "entered China's territorial waters," according to the Japanese daily.

Click on link below for full story
http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aIPL&ID=201210300033
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And Don't Think This Dragon is Cold Blooded, Its Going to Claim the Antarctic Continent Next!

Chinese icebreaker embarks on Antarctic expedition

SHANGHAI, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese research vessel and icebreaker Xuelong, or "Snow Dragon," left Shanghai on Tuesday for Guangzhou, where the vessel will set sail for the country's 29th scientific expedition to Antarctica.

AAIS Source No links to English Media yet.
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SPACE AS AN OCEAN

LESSONS FROM THE AGE OF EUROPEAN MARINE EXPLORATION FOR THE SPACE AGE.

If you didn't catch it as it was posted the entire series is now posted in the MARITIME LITERATURE SECTION. Just click on MARITIME LITERATURE in the section descriptions to the right and scroll down until you see the illustrations depicted above.

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NEW AND RECOMMENDED FOR THE SERIOUS SAILOR, NAVAL ARCHITECT, MARITIME HISTORIAN, AND BOAT BUILDER.

  Click on this icon to order book or peruse through the Amazon description.

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The National Anthem today is presented with all of the words as written by Francis Scott Key. We have previously presented the mostly forgotten final stanza, but there is more. Click on the link below for the Star Spangled Banner as you have never heard it before. Everything else has been a pale shadow of the original. All words appear in print as well. We are going to run this version for a while and then repeat it often. Share it with others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiyKiUCiKcE

10/30/2012 reproofed 3/10/2015

NAMAZU AND FRANKENSTORM

What the Namazu School of Climate Change Thought Had To Offer The Federal Government Before "Frankenstorm" , (AKA Hurricane Sandy, Tropical Storm Sandy, Hurricane Sandy revival, Weird Winter Storm/Tropical combo killer event supposedly never seen before hence, "FRANKENSTORM".

Hurricane Sandy would have stayed an ordinary hurricane and hit the usual targets on the Gulf Coast had it not been for an early cold front and now its doing things never seen before, or more properly never seen during the short period that mankind has kept reliable weather records .

What is the Namazu School ?

Namazu the mythological Giant catfish of ancient Japan whose wiggling was credited with causing earthquakes and tsunamis is the name we have adopted for our on going discussions of climate change. Departing a bit from our usually laser sharp focus on things maritime we said that we'd open the Namazu discussions to other changes like food security that may not appear so maritime in nature, yet it is grain exports that provide a little less than half of the cargoes for the American towboat and barge industry. Its' a connected world and waterborne transport does a lot of the connection. Today, as we write, ports from Southern Virginia to New York are under threat from the weather event formerly known as Hurricane Sandy but now co-mingled with two winter storm systems into what can only be described as "Frankenstorm".

NAMAZU, "THE EARTH SHAKER

The other thing that makes the Namazu School a different type of climate change forum is that we aren't concerned with the source of climate change. The entire series began with a guest blog posting describing the Namazu legend and the many ways that climate can change radically, suddenly, and without any input from man. While we debate the present situation surrounding our own influence on climate through our industrial, transportation, and domestic consumption activities; solar flares, a wide spread outbreak of vulcanism, axis wobble, ocean current changes, or any combination of these and other elements can generate a massive global climate change over night. The Namazu school notes that this has happened before in the earth's past, all of the climate change elements still exist in nature, so it can happen again. What we have been soliciting comment on is the measures that governments national, regional, and local should take to mitigate the effects of a radical and unexpected climate change. We want to focus on this, vice the present arguments over what to do to reduce any effects that human activity may be having on climate change. If we are successful in neutralizing our own effects on the atmosphere, that doesn't eliminate the probability of climate change, and it can be sudden, radical and dangerous and caused by cosmic forces over which we have no control.

There will be those who will argue that "Frankenstorm" is a sign of global climate change, others will argue that it is only a rare weather event. In either case it presents more than half a dozen low lying industrial and naval ports in the Mid Atlantic and North East of the United States with the necessity to deal with a temporary rise in sea level that is truly catastrophic and the opportunity to consider how to rebuild in such a way that temporary weather induced , or long term climate change induced major changes in sea level do not disrupt port operations in the long term.

The Namazu School started back in March of 2012 when the blog was just starting up. There have been a few postings on the subject since but many of our visitors have missed the previous postings so we repeat our basic focus again here. The previous postings are up, if interested, scroll through the postings starting in March 2012 and look for "Oceanography, Climate Change", or the Key Word "NAMAZU".

AS THE STORM CLOSES ON THE PORTS OF NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA BALTIMORE, PORTSMOUTH, NORFOLK, AND OTHERS SOME NAMAZU TYPE THOUGHTS COME TO THE FORE.

New Orleans is Not the Only Port that is Low in Terms of Sea Level. Hurricanes Tend to Destroy Them One at a Time and We do tend to Rebuild. But a Large Enough "Frankenstorm, or Tsunami could wipe Out All of the Low Elevation Ports on a Single Coast at Once and Instantly. What Should We Do to Mitigate Against that Eventuality?

New Orleans isn't the only port barely above sea level and sea level is increasing

What should we do? In some ways the fact that sea level is in fact slowly rising may help us to be willing to finance the changes that we must make to mitigate the damages that will occur the day when sea level changes over night such as in the wake of a meteor strike. In America perhaps an earlier civilization may have left us a hint. The Mississippi Valley was once peopled by a civilization that we call the Mound Builders who fostered urban developments of as many as 50,000 people at a time when a big town in Europe had about 15,000 people. The Mound Builders did this in a major flood plain. Their large wooden public buildings of real consequence to their society were all built atop large rubble mounds that were elevated well above all remembered over flows of the Great River. Certainly the lesson of Katrina ought to be that levees and pumping stations not with standing, we ought to elevate police and fire stations, public libraries, hospitals, and old folks homes on such mounds. Some how the water always eventually gets into even the best ring levee system. In the port itself perhaps the most expensive infrastructure that can be so elevated, should be, and what can not, we may have to ask ourselves if we shouldn't shift to floating docks and similar port infrastructure.

Namazu School thinking accepts that sudden dramatic climate change can mean sudden dramatic sea level change. The Namazu School also accepts that while the threat may not be immediate it is real. And the threat to nearly 60 million Americans who don't usually have to deal with hurricane force tides, winds and rains is immediate today as "Frankenstorm" approaches. The questions of climate change/sea level change are not will it happen, but when. So at a very minimum we ought to be thinking, discussing, and writing about what to do to mitigate the damages on that day. Houston, Galveston, Tampa, Charleston, New York are just a few of the ports that would be wiped out by a change in sea level of just a few feet. It is almost as though the periodic ruin of New Orleans is a lesson and warning to us to do the necessary there and everywhere else to assure that we have working ports the day after the next sudden and dramatic climate change throws a monkey wrench into human history.

After "Frankenstorm" passes there will have to be rebuilding in the port areas. The media and FEMA focus will be on the restoration of power and getting the newly homeless adequately sheltered. However, there are some untold stories to post Katrina New Orleans that ought to now be considered. While the news media was focused on video of dramatic Coast Guard helicopter rescues of people stranded on roof tops, other less dramatic elements of the Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineer, State Pilot's Associations, Port Authorities, Longshoremen and Harbor Workers struggled to bring the Port of New Orleans back on line. Its been seven years since the storm's passage and the city still bears visible scars, but the port was 86% operational within 48 hours of storm passage due to non stop work by the above described maritime organizations. The rapid rescue of a major portion of the ports operational capacity saved not only the economic base of the City of New Orleans but possibly a major portion of the economy of 18 to 33 American states linked to New Orleans by inland barge transport.

Katrina struck New Orleans at the start of the export grain season when at least a portion of the export grain production of 33 American states, and the overwhelming vast majority of the production of 18 states is shipped to New Orleans by river barge for reloading to ships for export. In many of the 18 directly shipping states as many as 7 out of 10 jobs are in some way related to, if not outright dependent on the export grain trade. At that same moment in time it was the start of the heating oil shipping season out of New Orleans and Baton Rouge refineries to the Mid West with much of the production transported up the Mississippi, Ohio river navigation systems by tank barge. While the nation watched the people of New Orleans try and dig out from under the wreckage of their city few realized that thousands of maritime workers , many of them newly homeless themselves labored 16 hour days to restore port operations. The consequences of failure? Plain and simply had these workers and military members failed grain would have rotted on the ground as 33 states suffered economic damage and perhaps 18 were cast into a 1930s style depression, all while many portions of the Mid West froze in the dark.

But there was a down side to the rapid restoration of navigation in New Orleans. Every thing was restored to the pre- storm levels and once up and operating little thought and virtually no expense has gone into improving the lower Mississippi port infrastructure to make it less vulnerable to future such events, and they will come. Fortunately no one port in the target area of "Frankenstorm" is as connected to a hinterland as vast as the New Orleans connection to the Mid West , but their collective impact probably approaches the type of net loss that a prolonged closure of the Port of New Orleans represents. After "Frankenstorm", will we start building some elevated road ways into these ports and elevating cargo warehouses, administration buildings, other critical infrastructure that assures enough surviving operational capacity to resume business rapidly after a major weather event or in response to a slow but steady rise in water levels due to climate change?

The New Orleans metropolitan area when Katrina hit probably had a total population of a little over one million people and the adjacent Mississippi Gulf Coast maybe had a half million people.

Federal, state, and local governments, business, and people in general continue to struggle with recovery efforts now seven years after the storms' passage. Basically we proved during Katrina and continue to prove in the South East Louisiana Coastal Mississippi region that the United States is ill equipped for disaster recovery. Now "Frankenstorm" will affect 60 million people in states with serious Congressional representation and Electoral College power.

Will the U.S. Government perform better, especially considering that it is still borrowing half of every dollar it spends? More importantly will we build the key ports back up in such a way as to seriously mitigate the effects of the next such event?

The Namazu School always begins with the absolute belief that there will be a next time, so each time we should rebuild better and more damage resistant; or in some cases, we should build cheap and readily replaceable. In all cases when presented with the necessity to rebuild we should rebuild with the sure and certain knowledge that the earth and climate/weather are not static. Whatever has happened can and will happen again. We have less than 200 years of solid formal weather observations recorded. But the fossil records do tell us that mankind has enjoyed a relatively favorable global climate for the last 5,000 years compared to previous periods of similar length. If past is prelude, that has to change and probably not for the better. We need to start dealing with that reality.

Monday, October 29, 2012

10/29/2012 Station Identification and Test Pattern (2)

WELCOME TO AMERICAN ADMIRALTY BOOKS!

Barque: ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLT II, Named for the Oceanographer
Photo by Hans Georg Schroder

MONDAY OCTOBER 29, 2012

SPACE AS AN OCEAN

SPACE AS AN OCEAN

We 'd like to thank all of our visitors who read the Space as an Ocean Series.While it concluded last week, it is still up on the blog postings for anyone who hasn't read it yet. But we have an easier way to read it start to finish. The entire series in chronological order of appearance is posted in the MARITIME LITERATURE SECTION.

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TODAY'S BLOG POSTINGS:
We reintroduce you to "Ben's Tech Spot", a feature in our Navigation section where "Cap'n Ben explains and links you to sites that make your wireless laptop a force multiplier of effectiveness for all of your electronic navigation equipment.

We also update you on some 19th century ship wrecks found in the Gulf of Mexico and link you to the NOAA SHIP OKEANOS EXPLORER
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------NEWS NEWS FLASHS:

A vessel with a nine-person crew and 700 tons of gold ore on board has gone missing in stormy seas off Russia's Pacific Coast.

Click on the link below for the full story from the Huff Post World

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/russian-ship-gold-ore-missing_n_2037908.html

HMS Bounty abandoned amid Hurricane Sandy

All 17 crew were accounted for in the life rafts and a US Coast Guard
helicopter has effected rescue.

An owner's spokeswoman stated: "As far as we know the ship is still upright and we're
going to assess the situation to see if anything can be done to save
the ship but at this point our main concern is with the crew."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/20124128

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NEWS STORIES POSTED OVER THE WEEK END IN THE NEWS SECTION:

U.S.Coast Guard posts STCW Crew Rest Requirements in Advance of publishing regulations.

Unfortunately Jones act and other domestic trades not subject to STCW international requirements remain unreformed despite a second request to Congress by the national Mariner's Association.

SOURCE: MARITIME Executive: http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/united-states-coast-guard-refines-requirements-for-crew-rest-on-ocean-going-vessels

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NEW AND RECOMMENDED FOR THE SERIOUS SAILOR, NAVAL ARCHITECT, MARITIME HISTORIAN, AND BOAT BUILDER.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiyKiUCiKcE

10/29/2012 UP Date

OCEANOGRAPHY, MARINE ARCHAEOLOGY :

TWO HUNDRED YEAR OLD SHIP WRECK FOUND IN THE GULF OF MEXICO, UP DATE FROM A STORY RUN LAST SPRING

File:Underwater Archaeologists, 19th Century Shipwreck.png

U.S.Navy Photo of Divers on another 19th Century Ship Wreck

Quite a number of wrecks have been found in the Gulf of Mexico since we reported on this one last spring. This has been the result of increased offshore oil exploration and a drive to update the area's charts by NOAA, sometimes called "The Wet NASA". In this article we promised to tell our readers more about NOAA and the NOAA Corps. Recently NOAA found and identified a Union civil war vessel lost to the famed Confederate Raider ALABAMA. Last week we did provide an article on the NOAA Corps and one of their ships engaged in arctic exploration. We will get around to providing a comprehensive or series of comprehensive articles describing the entire range of NOAA services and work products, the recent discovery of the long lost Union transport lost to the CSS ALABAMA reminded us of our promise to do so. But we can't get to it this week , so we thought that we'd look for NOAA related past articles that most of our new visitors probably didn't read when they were first published and add some hyperlinks that take you into the NOAA fleet to look around. At the bottom of this article are two hyperlinks. The first one takes you to the original story on these specific Gulf of Mexico ship wrecks with photos. The second takes you to the web site for NOAA's most recent ship wreck hunter the NOAA ship OKEANOS EXPLORER.

Shell Oil discovered an unknown anomaly on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico in 2011. Recently the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration ship (NOAA) OKEANOS EXPLORER conducted a protracted expedition in the area and confirmed the Shell discovery as a nineteenth century ship wreck. The Huff Post for May 18, 2012 carried a story and clear as a bell photos and even a video of the wreck. the NOAA ship OKEANOS EXPLORER also discovered, and NOAA is investigating a total of three ship wrecks in the general vicinity of the wreck you may view through the below hyperlink to the HUFF POST story.

While the name of the vessel and the date of the sinking are not yet known, dating the vessel to the early to mid nineteenth century was fairly easy due to the water clarity and the nature of the items in the hull's remains and debris field. The lower portion of the hull is sheathed in copper, a typical shipbuilding practice of the era. The debris field has muskets and cannon scattered about, these weapons are generally identifiable by type for a particular era, actual manufacture dates may be available when one is recovered. China plates were noted of a type well known to be popular between 1800 and 1830. Also noted in the underwater photography is a ship's stove which to our eyes appears to be a very small masonry construction. Only a few such stoves have ever been found , this we think is the second one in the Gulf of Mexico. We have other interesting ship wreck photos scattered about in the OCEANOGRAPHY and MERCHANT MARINE INTEREST pages of blog.

As the collection of ship wreck images grows we will review them and eventually organize them to determine which ones we may retain in the long term and post them in an organized manner in probably the OCEANOGRAPHY section under a subheading such as MARINE ARCHAEOLOGY Meanwhile, the monthly blog log still carries pictures of the wreck of the COSTA CORDOVIA. By the way, have you ever wondered about NOAA, and what type of ships and aircraft they have, and what they do and who operates them? Keep watching the blogs, in the near future we'll tell you about America's smallest uniformed naval service that finds and protects historic ship wrecks, charts the world, maps the ocean bottom, protects marine mammals and coral, researches ice burgs, and dozens of other arduous sea research tasks and while it has been in service to America since about the time of Louis and Clark is still mostly unknown and unseen by the average American, the NOAA CORPS. Click on the hyperlink below for the full story, photos and video from the Huff Post.

Original Story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/17/19th-century-shipwreck-gulf-mexico-200-year-old_n_1525084.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl4%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D162129

Check out the NOAA's shipwreck hunter the OKEANOS EXPLORER
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/ex1202/about.html

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10/27/2012 An update

Oceanography, Naval Interests, Merchant Marine Interests, Sailing:

A FREE VOYAGE PLANNING TOOL AND GUIDE CREATED ESPECIALLY FOR OUR VISITORS

Nautical chart showing northern extent of Cape Henry at entrance to Chesapeake Bay.

AN INTRODUCTION TO BEN'S TECH SPOT

Find it in our Navigation Section

Your laptop can now be a force multiplier for your voyage planning and navigation .

One of the American Admiralty Informational Services members who helped originate this blog is an actively sailing officer aboard a scientific research ship. He recently submitted this voyage planning guide and tool from sea where he was actively using it in conjunction with his navigational duties. We hope this is simply the first in a series of blogs of real navigational utility. In this blog "Cap'n Ben" describes and hyper- links you to the best sources for weather information, sunrise and sun set calculation ( the first step in computing "star time": if you are navigating celestially), he then introduces the reader to Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) and hyperlinks you to a helpful site. "Cap'n Ben" then takes you to a remarkable site via hyperlink that may be used to integrate your lap top into your voyage planning / navigational routine with elements like electronic chart overlays, eventually radar overlays, and AIS integration, all free and not difficult to use. "Capn' Ben" originally sent this with actual pictures from the hyper-linked sites. The pictures didn't copy to this format. But we think this tool is so useful that we placed the whole thing in the Navigation section., with cross references to other sections with navigational interests where "Cap'n Ben" can update and improve the tools he creates for you as time and technology change with the tides. While you're collecting "Cap'n Ben" laptop navigational tools, drop into the Oceanography section and look for "The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the Rights of Innocent Passage" There you will learn of some of the political complications involved in voyage planning when your ship must cross a coastal nation's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). You will also be able to use another of "Cap'n Ben's contributions, a hyperlink to a site where you can see in navigational chart form the World's EEZs and disputed zones.

If you have any problem with the hyperlinks please let us know via the Comments section, the editor on duty today is an old gnarled and grizzled Boatswains mate known for fat fingered and ham handed key stroking. If the links didn't come through we'll sober up the regular guy and get him on it by Monday, but we really wanted our actively navigating visitors to see this ASAP. Welcome to:

Ben's Tech Spot

Ever notice how some things in the Maritime Technology world advance at a lightening pace while others are locked in a time capsule? A perfect example is some Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) equipment still runs on DOS based software. DOS is a software system from the 80s! Remember having to type commands in command windows before the time of point and clicking with a mouse! While some aspects of Maritime Technology have been locked in time or are released years after the shore side equivalents are released to the public, there are some cool new tech tools that every mariner can take advantage of.

Internet at sea is becoming more and more available for both day sailors and the professional mariner alike. Internet at sea brings with it a whole slew of new and exciting tools that can help with planning, safety, navigation, weather, and communication. Many near coastal sailors are now able to simply tether their smart phone to a laptop and get real time weather updates, check vessel traffic, and even broadcast their AIS or positional information to free traffic servers so shore side family and friends can keep track of them along their voyage.Many links in today's blog are my short list of new cool technology and resources as well as some tried and true links that every mariner should know. Even if you aren't able to surf the web at sea, many of these links are great planning tools and software that can be used underway regardless of web access or not.

Weather

Most Mariners are familiar with NOAAs weather forecasts available on most marine radios or many go to www.weather.gov to get NOAAs near shore and off shore forecasts. NOAA has some other great links that aren't as well know.

National Data Bouy Center's Interactive Buoy Map

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/

NDBC has an interactive Google Earth Map that has real-time information from a world wide array of meteorological buoys. Simply find a buoy, click on it, and get real-time info about wave height, wind speed and direction, sea and air temp etc. It's a great tool to compare what the forecasters predicted and what is really happening along your route or at your destination.

NOAA Current Forecasts

http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/OceanProd_tab.shtml

For worldwide current forecasts point your browser to the above address. This is another great tool for voyage planning. Want to take advantage of the loop current or avoid it, simply take a look at the current models for the region you will be sailing in.

Just as we should never rely on any one form of navigation alone, never put all weather forecasting faith in any one group or forecaster. Here are some other great weather forecasting sites to use and compare.

Weather Underground

http://www.wunderground.com/

A great site that is good to use for their Sever Weather section. During hurricane season, check out the "Compiled Model". Usually a hurricane forecast is the average of a bunch of different models that forecasters have developed over the years. They usually will average these or pick the route that most of the models seem to follow to use in their hurricane track forecast. Wunderground's compiled model lets you do the averaging by showing you all the major models prediction of the storm path.

Storm Surf

http://www.stormsurf.com/

A forecasting site that was originally designed and used by surfers. In some parts of the world these forecasts have proven to be more accurate than local models. Easily find wind, surf, and sea forecasts for select regions of the world. A must have site for any surfers out there.

SailWX

http://www.sailwx.info/

SailWX is a great little site that has real-time meteorological observations from ships all over the world. Any ship that is a member of the Voluntarily Observing Ship (VOS) program is listed on the site. While the interactive map isn't as user friendly as some of the other sites it is still fairly easy to navigate. Simply click on a ship on the map to get real time observations for any meteorological readings the ship is reporting. The site is a great little "Ship Tracker" site that has a very high number of ships participating. Chances are if you're on a cruise ship, oceanographic ship, tall ship, or container/cargo ship, you're on the map. The site also has tide and current predictions.

Sunrise/Sunset Calculator

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/

Google Map page that provides Sunrise Sunset calculations for any point on earth. Simply click on a spot on the map and get your calculations.

XM Weather

http://www.xmwxweather.com/marine/

For anyone wanting real-time weather information and forecasts but don't have a weather fax or internet at sea, SiriusXM has the product for you. XM WX Marine Weather is a program that uses the XM Sirius Satellite system to broadcast weather products to your laptop. Coverage is for the majority of US waters. I'll provide a more detailed review of the Master Mariner version of the program later.

Automatic Identification System (AIS)

AIS is a technology that has propelled the bridge of ship's light years ahead. AIS is an automatic tracking system used by ships and vessel traffic systems for reporting a vessels identification and basic navigational information. It's a standard used throughout the world on vessels 300 GT and greater. Many smaller vessels have been equipped with AIS transceivers as well due to its benefits. The cost of AIS has come down considerably. As anyone who sails with AIS know it makes instantaneous identification of other vessels a breeze. Simple turn on your AIS overlay on your basic navigation software and you instantly see all reporting vessels around you. You can quickly get their name, navigation status, position, course, speed, as well as basic voyage information. Most navigation programs are able to overlay AIS contacts directly on the chart.

Since AIS information is free and can be received by anyone with a receiver there has been a push to unify and establish an online AIS system available to all for free. A few sites have tried to do this. One that seems to be way out front is http://www.marinetraffic.com This website uses a Google Earth map to display a large world wide database of real-time AIS information. Basically anyone with an internet connection and an AIS receiver can submit their data to a central server that Marine Traffic then uses. Marine Traffic has by far the largest network of receivers all over the world. It's nothing for the site to be tracking over 50,000 AIS contacts at one time throughout the entire world! The site does a great job of displaying them and making them interactive.

You can simply click on a ship on the map and get its most current information as well as see pictures of the vessel. Marine Traffic has one of the largest collections of ship photos I have seen. Most appear to have been uploaded by the general public.

Marine Traffic also lets you embed their AIS map directly into your webpage, has mobile apps for both iPhone and Android, as well as a really nice Google Earth overlay kml. Anyone with that wants to set up a base station can follow the directions on their site and begin adding to the overall coverage. There are even instructions on how to build an AIS receiver using a old marine radio!

OpenCPN

http://opencpn.org

Is a great free open source navigation program that is by far the best on the market today. A quick google of "Free navigational program" quickly shows you the lack of programs out there that are really free. Most of the free ones out there are old and outdated as well as fairly buggy. OpenCPN has a great following and its open source code allows for others to develop addons. So the feature possibilities are fairly limitless. It already has AIS integration and can even accept a networked GPS feed. It can display both Raster and ENC Vector charts, is light weight, quick, and clean. Developers are currently working on a radar overlay function as well. Why spend hundreds on the name brand software packages when OpenCPN does almost everything they can for free.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

10/27/28/2012 Station Identification WEEKEND EDITION

WELCOME TO AMERICAN ADMIRALTY BOOKS!

Barque: ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLT II, Named for the Oceanographer
Photo by Hans Georg Schroder

WEEKEND EDITION OCTOBER 27/28, 2012

SUNDAY

NEW TO OUR SITE? WONDER WHAT WE ARE ALL ABOUT? CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR AN ENTERTAINING VIDEO EXPLANATION http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFw32RRJY98:

If you want more detail after the video click on the INTRODUCTION page in the right hand margin.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TODAY

The "Funny Pages" return scroll down for today's blog posts which includes the return of the Sunday "Funnies".

Check Out our re-run of the impromptu beached dolphin rescue.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPACE AS AN OCEAN. Excerpts from the Book PROTOCOLS.
The final installment, the conclusion appeared a few days ago today. The series in its entirety is now available to read in the MARITIME LITERATURE SECTION.
------------------------------------------------------------------
/CHECK OUT "SAILING INTO THE ABYSS" in our Merchant Marine Section and in today's blog post where you will find a great deal of information on the casualties suffered by the U.S. Merchant Marine in the Vietnam War. Many Americans are surprised to learn that the U.S.Merchant Marine and the U.S Coast Guard were involved in Vietnam. Yet the Coast Guard maintained a force of over 1300 men out its then 35,000 man force in Vietnam during most of the war. The Coast Guard experienced 7 deaths and 70 wounded but lost no ships and one aircraft that actually belonged to the U.S. Air Force. The U.S. Merchant Marine lost about 55 men, an inaccurately counted number of wounded, two ships, and one tug. Not a single Merchant Marine name appears on the Vietnam Memorial . The American Merchant Marine, a commercial enterprise in peace time is a "naval auxiliary" by law in time of war and often called on for dangerous logistic support missions. Read about their efforts in the Vietnam conflict in todays blog and about their biggest single loss in SAILING INTO TH E ABYSS

----------------------------------------------------------------

NEW AND RECOMMENDED FOR ALL SERIOUS SAILORS, BOAT BUILDERS, AND NAUTICAL HISTORIANS

GREAT AMERICAN SCHOONER YACHTS by Rudolph Arp

Illustrations, photos, drawings, plans, histories and more on the schooner designs of William Burgess, Cox and Stevens, Samuel Crocker, the greats of American schooner design A reference work for yacht designers, and nautical historians ,and a work of art for the rest of us. If you have a serious sailor on your Christmas list just click on the book cover icon link below and put one of these babies in your Amazon shopping basket

Click on this icon to order book

------------------------------------------------------------
TODAY'S POSTING: "FRANKENSTORM"

-------------------------------------------------------------

ANNAPOLIS A SAILING CAPITOL LIKE NEWPORT AND MARBLE HEAD BUT WARMER LONGER INSPIRING GREAT SAILORS AND SPAWNING GREAT SAILING BOOKS

-----------------------------------------------------

The National Anthem today is presented with all of the words as written by Francis Scott Key. We have previously presented the mostly forgotten final stanza, but there is more. Click on the link below for the Star Spangled Banner as you have never heard it before. Everything else has been a pale shadow of the original. All words appear in print as well. We are going to run this version for a while and then repeat it often. America, you need to hear this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiyKiUCiKcE

10/28/ 2012 Sunday Funnies

The Sunday Funnies:

We don't do cartoons much mostly because we don't know how. But we love to browse through YouTube looking for funny videos that relate to our special pages such as fishing, boat building, navigation , etc.. Its Sunday, time to relax and follow that ancient Sunday tradition kick back and watch our maritime "funnies". Click on the links below and then hit the back arrow on the YouTube tool bar to come back here for the next selection. .

NEW THIS WEEK:

Have fun creating your own caption: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=9qW86rcZL2o&feature=endscreen

Funny Divers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYwxJDPr-Pc

WOMEN OF THE USS RONALD REAGAN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsnlO-hpc_8&feature=endscreen&NR=1

MARINES MEET LADY GAGA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfi128NAEHI&feature=fvwrel

THE BOATING SCENE FROM CADDY SHACK:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGD-tUsySPs

SHARK ATTACK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmZ-GNOExo&feature=fvwrel

CLASSIC FUNNIES: The next few videos received such appreciation and so many people have forwarded these that ,we have decided to retain them long term.

I gotta get me one of these! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgFhJN4H0T0l ( A Retained Classic!)

THE SMU WOMEN'S ROWING TEAM FUNNY IN THE TEAM VAN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=K7ppxF4O130&NR=1-held over by popular demand

"When Its OK To Pee in Your Pants" A Seaplane and Boat Encounter
A Sunday "Funnies Classic " held over by popular demand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1Ki2R7zO8o

RECENT FUNNIES: (Vote for future classics by sending in a comment, these recent videos are candidates for retention as "classics", tell us what you think

Prior Fishing Rights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alPmPSls-9s

Jet Ski as prop in funny Old Spice Commercial:http://www.youtube.com/user/oldspice?v=lI7FKpmWL

Going to Extremes To Bring You Salmon:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2anomrgUnvk&feature=related

Sharks as an aid in quitting Tobacco :http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=pMp3C_NgWKU&NR=1

THE TASTE TEST: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=2djs-hy4s8k

10/28/2012

A Replay Worth Watching:

OCEANOGRAPHY:
ATTITUDES HAVE CHANGED WATCH THIS SPONTANEOUS MARINE MAMMAL RESCUE

Watch this YOUTUBE video of a spontaneous dolphin rescue on a Brazilian beach. Less than forty yeas ago this event probably would have ended quite differently. The Dolphins for some inexplicable reason cruise into the beach and strand on the surf line. This is usually a fatal event for the entire school of dolphins. This time humans, immediately come to the rescue. Notice the total lack of fear of the beach goers around these large toothsome mammals. But perhaps the most amazing aspect of this event is that no matter what went wrong with the dolphin's built in sonar directional system, once they are physically turned around by the humans they know the way out of the surf line and don't repeat the stranding. We want to popularize this video as much as possible in the hopes that the next stranding on a populated beach will go the same way. Time is critical. Worrying excessively over the right or wrong way to handle the animals can mean death. The beach goers quickly figure it out and grab the animals by the tail and pull them to safety where they can be seen swimming off to deeper water apparently none the worse for wear.

http://elcomercio.pe/player/1384898

Shop Amazon Warehouse Deals - Deep Discounts on Open-box and Used PCs

Saturday, October 27, 2012

10/27/28/2012 Station Identification WEEKEND EDITION

WELCOME TO AMERICAN ADMIRALTY BOOKS!

Barque: ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLT II, Named for the Oceanographer
Photo by Hans Georg Schroder

WEEKEND EDITION OCTOBER 27/28, 2012

SATURDAY

NEW TO OUR SITE? WONDER WHAT WE ARE ALL ABOUT? CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR AN ENTERTAINING VIDEO EXPLANATION http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFw32RRJY98:
If you want more detail after the video click on the INTRODUCTION page in the right hand margin.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPACE AS AN OCEAN. Excerpts from the Book PROTOCOLS.
The final installment, the conclusion appeared a few days ago today. The series in its entirety is now available to read in the MARITIME LITERATURE SECTION.
------------------------------------------------------------------
/CHECK OUT "SAILING INTO THE ABYSS" in our Merchant Marine Section and in today's blog post where you will find a great deal of information on the casualties suffered by the U.S. Merchant Marine in the Vietnam War. Many Americans are surprised to learn that the U.S.Merchant Marine and the U.S Coast Guard were involved in Vietnam. Yet the Coast Guard maintained a force of over 1300 men out its then 35,000 man force in Vietnam during most of the war. The Coast Guard experienced 7 deaths and 70 wounded but lost no ships and one aircraft that actually belonged to the U.S. Air Force. The U.S. Merchant Marine lost about 55 men, an inaccurately counted number of wounded, two ships, and one tug. Not a single Merchant Marine name appears on the Vietnam Memorial . The American Merchant Marine, a commercial enterprise in peace time is a "naval auxiliary" by law in time of war and often called on for dangerous logistic support missions. Read about their efforts in the Vietnam conflict in todays blog and about their biggest single loss in SAILING INTO TH E ABYSS

----------------------------------------------------------------

NEW AND RECOMMENDED FOR ALL SERIOUS SAILORS, BOAT BUILDERS, AND NAUTICAL HISTORIANS

GREAT AMERICAN SCHOONER YACHTS by Rudolph Arp

Click on this icon to order book

------------------------------------------------------------
TODAY'S POSTING: "FRANKENSTORM"

-------------------------------------------------------------

ANNAPOLIS A SAILING CAPITOL LIKE NEWPORT AND MARBLE HEAD BUT WARMER LONGER INSPIRING GREAT SAILORS AND SPAWNING GREAT SAILING BOOKS

-----------------------------------------------------

The National Anthem today is presented with all of the words as written by Francis Scott Key. We have previously presented the mostly forgotten final stanza, but there is more. Click on the link below for the Star Spangled Banner as you have never heard it before. Everything else has been a pale shadow of the original. All words appear in print as well. We are going to run this version for a while and then repeat it often. America, you need to hear this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiyKiUCiKcE