Engineering 101: Steam Engines

Note: the model in the above video is actually of the CSS Virginia, formerly the Union ship Merrimac.

The earliest ships were powered by human muscle or wind, but early in the nineteenth century the Industrial Revolution brought steam power to the world's waterways. Steam has been superseded only within the last century by other types of power. There are still ships at work today that are powered by steam, from small replica paddlewheel riverboats to large cargo ships.

Paddlewheeler steam engine. Image from Twaintimes.

Steam engine systems, or "plants," have many advantages over other types of propulsion. They have relatively low vibration and noise, low weight, can be fit into small engine room spaces, and, despite their sometimes complicated looking appearance, are simple to operate and repair. On the other hand, steam engines tend to burn fuel at a higher rate than other engines. It was this drawback that forced the British Navy to set up coaling stations all over the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The need to maintain and protect these coaling stations was one of the reasons the Britain needed its empire in the first place, for better or worse.

In a basic steam engine, water is heated by burning coal or something else to create steam in a boiler. Sometimes the "something else" is nuclear energy. In modern steam engines the steam is heated up even more, or superheated, to give it even more energy.

A "Parsons"-type steam turbine.
Image from The Leander Project.

The steam is then directed through nozzles to concentrate it, and is then applied to a turbine, a disc or wheel with blades or paddles mounted on its edge. There are usually two turbines, one for both forward propulsion and astern.

The exact arrangement of pistons, arms, and gears varies after that, but eventually the steam's energy is used to turn the propeller shafts and thus the propellers themselves. Because modern steam turbines work best at speeds between 4000 and 7000 revolutions per minute, reduction gear must be used to reduced the speed of the shaft and propeller to more practical speeds

The steam is then cooled. Inevitably, some steam escapes the system during all this, so it is replaced with fresh liquid.

Steam engines require more planning and attention than diesel engines. The high temperatures involved (approaching 400 degrees Fahrenheit) and constant presence of water can dangerously stress materials of not handled correctly. It can take four hours or more between the time the order is given to get underway and the time the boiler is up to the needed temperature. The engine itself must be warmed up as well. Similar attention to detail must be observed when cooling down an engine.

Related Posts

Henry Shreve and the Washington

Shipboard Noise

Mysteries of the Monitor and Merrimack

Related Articles

Steamlaunch Artemis, Steamboat Primer

Atlantic Wreck Divers, Triple Expansion Marine Engines

Andrea Doria

On July 25, 1956 the ocean liners Andrea Doria and Stockholm collided near Nantucket. Fifty-two passengers and crew members on the two vessels died and hundreds were injured. Eleven hours after the collision, the Andrea Doria sank to the bottom, where she remains today.

More than forty years after the Titanic sinking, the lessons learned in that earlier disaster were incorporated both into the design of the Andrea Doria, and in the response of her crew when the collision occurred. The collision made half the lifeboats on the Andrea Dorea unusable or inaccessible, but more than 1600 passengers and crew members were rescued and survived. Watertight compartments were properly secured, unlike in the Titanic incident, giving rescuers time to get most people to safety. Of the 52 dead, most had died in the initial collision.

There was no formal finding of fault. The two shipping companies that owned the Andrea Doria and Stockholm reached out of court settlements with each other and survivors, so no legal determination was ever made. An initial inquiry placed most of the blame on the officers of the Andrea Doria for improperly maneuvering their vessel in the minutes before the collision. Later investigations point to the Third Officer of the Stockholm and his misuse of a new technology called radar.

Fixation

In the study of human error, fixation is the tendency to focus on one or two inputs when things get stressful. Fixation has been a factor in industrial accidents like the one at Three-Mile Island nuclear plant, in aircraft crashes, and in maritime accidents. In the Andrea Doria incident, many believe the Stockholm’s Third Officer was so focused on his radar that he not only ignored other sources of information, he didn’t even notice the radar was set at a different scale then he believed it to be: the Andrea Doria was only five miles away; he thought she was twelve.

Following the collision, radar set designed was improved to make such mistakes less likely, and radar training requirements for bridge officers put into place.

Related Posts

Understanding Titanic

SOLAS

The Captain's Code

Related Articles

WNET: Secrets of the Dead: The Sinking of the Andrea Doria

CBS New York: New Jersey Couple's Garage Houses Historical Relics of Sunken Italian Luxury Ship

Sutton Technical Books: Human Reliability Analysis

Merchant Mariners at D-Day

The Liberty ship Jeremiah O'Brien is the only surviving merchant ship from the D-Day armada.Photo by Mike Hofmann

Every man in this Allied command is quick to express his admiration for the loyalty, courage and fortitude of the officers and men of the Merchant Marine. When final victory is ours, there is no organization that will share its credit more deservedly than the Merchant Marine.-- Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower

From the hot deserts of Africa to the icy waters north of Russia, American merchant mariners saw some of the most hazardous duty of World War II. When the long-awaited Allied invasion called D-Day finally came on June 6, 1944, merchant mariners were there, too.

Ships Without Ports. Some merchant ships began their preparations weeks before the actual invasion. Pulled off their regular runs, these ships cruised the waters around Britain waiting for a pre-arranged rendezvous to pick up cargo and men before heading to the French coast. These “ships without ports” were intentionally kept away from land to avoid enemy planes and ships spotting any concentration of vessels. Many of these vessels continued to shuttle between Britain and the European mainland up until the end of the war. In the first week alone, merchant hulls carried a large portion of the 326,000 troops and hundreds of thousands of tons of equipment and supplies necessary for the invasion.

Operation Mulberry. The night before the Normandy invasion, a force of civilian-crewed US Army tugs lead a fleet of concrete-hulled ships from the Isle of Wight and out into the English Channel. On the night of June 5, 1944, about the time that Allied paratroopers were landing behind German lines in Normandy and several hours after the largest invasion force in history had set out across the English Channel, a fleet of civilian-operated U.S. Army tugs pulled away from the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England. As they approached the French coast, the ships were intentionally sunk; creating breakwaters for huge artificial harbors that would serve as disembarkation points until a natural harbor could be liberated from the Germans. More than 1,800 merchant mariners manned the tugs and “blockships”.

High Merchant Marine Casualties. One in 26 American merchant mariners in World War II was killed in the line of duty, a ratio higher than any other branch of the military. Fourteen of those mariners died near Normandy, and are buried there alongside their comrades from the other services. But because they were not in the armed services, and despite Eisenhower’s praise, none were recognized as “veterans” for more than 40 years. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the WWII Merchant Marine Service Act, providing merchant marine veterans with veterans’ benefits.

Related Posts

Misunderstood Mariners: The Roosevelts

Liberty Ships

The Merchant Marine Cadet Corps

Related Articles

The Valley Patriot: Charles & Edward Boddy

USMM.org: D-Day 1944 And Why They Owe Me A Trip On The Queen Mary
USCG National Maritime Center: World War II Requests, Veterans Qualification Process

Sinking The Bismarck

Courtesy German Federal Archive

When the battleship Bismarck was launched in August 1940 she was – along with her sister ship Tirpitz – the largest battleship ever built by Germany, and one of the largest anywhere. Her short (eight month) career was cut short in an unnamed battle after an all-out effort by the Royal Navy to find and “Sink the Bismarck!”

The 41,000-ton, 823-ft long Bismarck was indeed formidable, with eight 15-inch guns, dozens of smaller weapons, and armor more than a foot thick in some places. In sea trials, she had reached speeds of 30 knots. Her crew of more than 2,000 was commanded by Otto Ernst Lindemann, one of a relatively few officers who had been serving continuously in the German navy since World War I.

Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen were assigned to attack Allied merchant shipping in the North Atlantic. After being spotted by a Swedish vessel while en route to her new assignment, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were intercepted by British ships in what would come to be known as the Battle of Denmark Strait. Bismarck was damaged in this battle, but forced the British battleship Prince of Wales to retreat with heavy damage, and sank the HMS Hood, a battlecruiser called the “pride of the Royal Navy.”

The sinking of the Hood was a blow not only to the fighting power, but the pride of the British Navy, and an all-out search and pursuit of the German battleship began by more than three dozen British warships. Lindemann made for occupied France and the protection of german aircraft and U-boats while engaging in a running artillery duel with his pursuers. The British eventually lost track of Bismarck, but on May 26, 1941 she was spotted by a (supposedly still neutral) American pilot, and intercepted by a nearby British force. Damaged heavily in attacks by torpedo bombers that day, the Bismarck sank the next day. The British claimed the coup de grace was delivered by an attack by the heavy cruiser Dorsetshire, while many of the 114 survivors of the Bismarck’s crew claim the ship was scuttled to avoid capture.



Related Posts
Revenge of the Battleships


Related Articles
MilitaryFactory.com: KMS Bismarck
KBismarck.org: Bismarck Myths

Understanding Titanic

It’s human nature to try to make sense of a tragedy, and the sinking of the RMS Titanic 100 years ago this weekend certainly qualifies. Eight hundred fifteen passengers and 668 crew died in the icy waters of the north Atlantic on that “Night to Remember,” and since then many have tried to make sense of the events of that night. But it’s possible to read too much into the Titanic disaster and lose the real lessons of the liner’s loss.

Conspiracy Theories. One way to find meaning in a big, public disaster is to make the event seem more significant than it is. Almost from the time the first SOS signals were received, conspiracy theories have sprung up in an attempt to explain Titanic’s sinking. In one theory, the ship was sunk intentionally in an attempt by the Jesuits to kill wealthy opponents of a centralized world banking system. In another, it was a massive insurance fraud perpetuated by Titanic’s owners. In yet another, Titanic’s sinking was the secret, opening salvo of World War I.  Along the way, many of the usual conspiracy suspects have been blamed: communists, Jews, war profiteers, even the Irish. Conspiracy theories add a level of significance that helps us deal with great events. How could Titanic have been just another shipwreck? The ship was too big, her passengers too glamorous, the voyage itself too celebrated. It’s the same impulse that makes some unable to accept that President Kennedy was killed by a lone, confused gunman, or that Princess Diana died in an ordinary car accident like the kind that occur in every city of the world every day.

Special Explanations. Even people who don’t accept a full-blown conspiracy theory explanation for Titanic’s demise look for that one thing to explain the sinking. This year alone, the media reported claims that her captain was drunk at the time of the collision and that a “supermoon” tidal event caused more ice to be in the ship’s path than would normally be expected. Other explanations range from a fire in the boiler room to a mummy’s curse.

An Ordinary Shipwreck. The fact is there was nothing special about the Titanic sinking. The conclusions reached by official inquiries immediately after the disaster sound similar those reached by any maritime incident inquiry in modern times: failure to proceed at safe speed, inadequate or improperly-used safety equipment, proceeding despite weather and other warnings. But Titanic was famous even before it sailed, and that fame – soon to become notoriety – called attention to those conclusions that led to reforms of equipment requirements, manning, and watch keeping, many of which are still in force today. If a lonely fishing boat or a beat up old tramp steamer had suffered that same fate that night, there would have been no headlines, no inquiries with far-reaching consequences. Titanic’s legacy is not that she’s famous because she’s special; it’s that she's special because she’s famous.

Related Posts

SOLAS

Britannic & Olympic

Misunderstood Mariners: Edward J. Smith

Related Articles

BBC News: Five Titanic Myths Spread By Film

Live Science: Did A "Supermoon" Sink The Titanic?

gCaptain: IMO Reflects On Titanic Tragedy, Traces Roots of Safety Of Life At Sea

Ghost Ships

US Coast Guard photo.

When the Ryō Un Maru was sunk off the coast of Alaska last week, many news reports referred to her as a “ghost ship.” The 150-ton squid-fishing vessel was bound for the scrap yard when the March 2011 earthquake hit Japan, resulting in a tsunami that swept the Ryō Un Maru and millions of tons of other ships and debris into the Pacific. But was Ryō Un Maru really a “ghost ship,” or is that just a colorful term the media glommed on to?

Ghost ship has three different but related meanings:

• A vessel that is haunted or is itself ghostly. The most famous example of this is the legendary Flying Dutchman.
• A vessel drifting but with no crew. The most famous example of this is the Mary Celeste, an American brigantine found under sail off Portugal in December 1872 with all her crew and passengers and one life boat missing, but otherwise completely intact. More recently, the Tai Ching 21, a Taiwanese fishing vessel with a crew of 29, was found floating off Kiribati in November 2008. There had been a fire, and several lifeboats and rafts were missing, but there was no sign of the crew.
• A vessel decommissioned but not yet scrapped. The most notorious example of this may be the French aircraft carrier Georges Clemenceau, decommissioned in 1997 but not dismantled until 2010 due to environmental concerns.

The Ryō Un Maru probably falls into this last category. She might also be referred to as a derelict, which the Dictionary of Maritime and Transportation Terms defines as “an abandoned vessel at sea.” Ryō Un Maru might also be referred to as flotsam, the floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo (distinguished from jetsam, which is intentionally abandoned or discharged equipment or cargo).

The Ryō Un Maru’s origins and history are known, but this is not always true for “ghost ships.” In 2006, the Jian Seng, a tanker of unknown origin, drifted into Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria. Except for a cargo hold full of rice, the vessel had been stripped of anything valuable, Some broken towing lines indicated the Jian Seng may have been under tow at the time she was lost, but no one ever stepped forward to claim her. The Australian government sank her later that year.

Related Posts

Happy Halloween!

Tsunami Debris

Related Articles

NOAA Office of Response and Restoration: Abandoned Vessels: Drifting Across the Pacific Ocean Since 1617.

gCaptain: "Tsunami Ghost Ship" No More -- USCG Sinks Derelict Vessel

Alaska Dispatch: Alaska's Ghostly Maritime Past.

That Romantic Age Of Sail

Punishment on board ship, from the Journal of a Cruise on the USSCyane, 1842-43, by William H. Myers, Gunner

Yet a sailor’s life is at best, but a mixture of a little good with much evil, and a little pleasure with much pain. The beautiful is linked with the revolting, the sublime with the commonplace, and the solemn with the ludicrous.

-- Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before The Mast

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

-- James Boswell, Life of Johnson

In movies, on television, and in novels, shipboard life in the Age of Sail is often portrayed as very romantic. Swashbuckling action, hard drinking and shanty singing, tropical islands with exotic women; these are the images often brought to mind by popular media. The truth is, life on board sailing ships could be very harsh but, as some have pointed out, this was a time when life ashore could be very harsh as well.

Impressment. Writer Rupert Taylor notes in understated fashion that “[because] of the possibility of drowning, dying of disease, or being shot through with a cannonball, England’s Royal Navy often found itself short staffed.” The answer was the press gang, in which men from the Navy would search taverns and other gathering places ashore in what amounted to an on-the-spot draft. Sometimes a Navy vessel would stop a merchant vessel at sea and impress men from that vessel into Navy service. The impressment of American seamen by British ships was one of the causes of the War of 1812.

Cramped Quarters. Once on board, sailors lived in very cramped quarters. There was no privacy, even for officers. Although many berthed in the forecastle, others just slept where they could. Richard Henry Dana describes his first night as a merchant seaman on the Pilgrim in Two Years Before The Mast:

The steerage in which I lived was filled with coils of rigging, spare sails, old junk and ship stores, which had not been stowed away. Moreover, there had been no berths built for us to sleep in, and we were not allowed to drive nails to hang our clothes upon. The sea, too, had risen, the vessel was rolling heavily, and everything was pitched about in grand confusion. There was a complete “hurrah’s nest,” as the sailors say, “everything on top and nothing at hand.” A large hawser had been coiled away upon my chest; my hats, boots, mattress and blankets had all fetched away and gone over to leeward, and were jammed and broken under the boxes and coils of rigging. To crown all, we were allowed no light to find anything with, and I was just beginning to feel strong symptoms of sea-sickness, and that listlessness and inactivity which accompany it.

Bad Food. On long voyages only a few days supply of fresh food could be carried, the rest of the time the crew ate salted beef, pork, or horse meat, and “sea biscuits,” or hardtack. It was not uncommon for unscrupulous vendors ashore to sell ships supplies that were already spoilt or infested with pests, and reduced rations and malnutrition were common. As common was theft of food. Stores were kept locked, and a crew member caught stealing food could be punished severely, including having his hand cut off.

Discipline. Discipline could be harsh as well. The most common form of punishment was flogging, consisting of several dozen lashes with the end of a rope or a “cat o’ nine tails,” a form of whip. More severe offenses were punished by keelhauling, in which the offender was pulled across the underside of the ship by rope, often dying in the process. The most severe crimes, mutiny and murder, were punished by hanging.

A Contrary View. Naval historian Andrew Lambert says that, while maybe not exactly romantic, shipboard life in the Age of Sail was not the “concentration camp” that some have made it out to be. Lambert was part of a recreation of one of Captain James Cook’s voyages. According to him, food on board was superior to what was available to many on shore at the times. “For them such regular, hot, protein-rich meals, together with a nearly limitless supply of beer, would have been a luxury,” Lambert says.

Lambert also notes that discipline, while harsh, was consistent with society-wide norms of the time: “If anything, naval punishment was less severe, for sailors were a scarce and valuable resource that no captain would waste; also, flogging meant that the punishment was quickly completed, and the man could return to duty.”

Related Posts

The Union Label

Avast! Ahoy!

Related Articles

Military History at Suite 101: Harsh Life Aboard Navy Sailing Ships.

Authorama: Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before The Mast.

BBC History: Life At Sea In The Royal Navy of the 18th Century.

Life Jackets

The crew are wearing Type V PFDs, also called "work vests." The coxswain
(driver) is wearing a Type III "float coat."

Some people just don't like life jackets. One morning I was helping passengers board an inflatable launch; in a few minutes they would all be on a sunny, isolated Mexican beach. But one guy just couldn't go along with our safety requirement to wear a PFD (personal flotation device) while in the boat.

"I've crossed the North Atlantic three times on a 40-foot boat without wearing a life jacket," he barked. "I don't see why I should have to wear one now."

We all waited while he grudgingly donned his life jacket, then we headed for the beach. All I had said was "I'm not allowed to get underway until everyone is wearing a life jacket." What I wanted to say was "You'd think you'd have learned by now."

But many people only learn the hard way. Earlier this month, Sheldon Olsen and his two-year-old son Jace disappeared while canoeing on Lake Limerick, Washington. The older Olsen's body was eventually found, but the toddler is still missing. Also found: the canoe, with two life jackets in it.

Type I PFDs, also called "offshore life
jackets.

Aversion to life jackets is not limited to recreational boaters. Seeing a preview of the TV show Deadliest Catch once, I commented to a fellow crew member, and former commercial fisherman, that maybe the job wouldn't be so "deadly" if the crew working on deck were wearing life jackets. He replied that, in the cold Alaska waters where the Deadliest Catch boats work, you're going to die from hypothermia before you're going to drown. He was wrong, though. A crew member wearing a Type I PFD, the kind that keeps the wearer's head above water even when he or she is unconscious, will hold off hypothermia several times longer than someone without a PFD.

Keith Colburn, captain of one of the Deadliest Catch boats, insists that much of the footage show does not accurately portray conditions on the vessels most of time. As he told Chris Landry of the website Soundings

The most dramatic action, of course, usually makes it on the show. The “Deadliest Catch” often portrays the fishermen as “working in unsafe conditions, working unsafely and on the edge of capsizing at any given moment,” says Colburn. That’s simply not accurate, he maintains.
     “The mariners who work in the Bering Sea are prudent and professional and constantly working to minimize risk and maximize safety,” says Colburn, who has participated in the show for four years.

Colburn was selected to be the spokesman for the US Coast Guard's "Boat Responsibly" program in 2009, in part because he requires his crew to wear PFDs when on deck, even in calm water.

Related Posts

The Deadliest Blog Post

Related Articles

US Coast Guard: PFD Selection, Use, Wear & Care

KIRO-TV: Body Of Missing Man From Canoe Found In Lake

Soundings: "Deadliest" Skipper On A Safety Mission

Misunderstood Mariners: Edward J. Smith (Re-post)

With the death of Millvina Dean on May 31, 2009 the last survivor of the Titanic disaster has passed on. A whole industry has grown up around the story of the Titanic and its captain, Edward J. Smith, an industry fueled by speculation, conspiracy theory, and outright falsehood.

Smith was born in England in 1850, and left school at age 13 to go to sea. He joined the the White Star Line, the line that would one day build the Titanic, in 1880 as Fourth Officer and seven years later was given his first command. He commanded larger and more prestigious ships as the years went on, along the way earning decorations, a rank of Commander in the Royal Navy reserve, and a reputation as the best and safest passenger liner captain in the world. The only major blemish on Smith’s career prior to Titanic was a September 1911 collision between the White Star Liner Olympic, which he commanded, and the British cruiser HMS Hawke.

Smith took command of the Titanic in 1912 and no sooner had the ship sailed on April 10 when quick action on his part helped avert a collision with the SS City of New York, which broke free of its mooring lines due to the surge caused by the Titanic’s passing. He was not so fortunate four days later: he was one of the roughly 1500 people who died when Titanic sank after striking an iceberg.

The popular image today is that of Smith going down with his ship, standing stoically on the bridge as the waters rose over his head, an image portrayed in the 1997 James Cameron film. One legend has him diving into the water with an infant in his arms, which he places on a lifeboat before swimming off to either die or look for more survivors. The last person know to have seen Smith alive was junior radio officer who says he saw the captain dive into the water from the bridge wing a few minutes before Titanic’s final plunge.

In terms of loss of life, Titanic was not the worst passenger ship disaster in history. More than 7,700 refugees, crew, and military personnel were killed on the German liner Wilhelm Gustloff when she was torpedoed by a Russian submarine in January 1945. Eighteen other liner disasters have higher casualty figures than Titanic’s. But the attention given this sinking was unequalled, and led to major reforms in maritime safety and eventually to the International Convention for the Safety of Life At Sea (SOLAS) that we operate under today.

Related Posts

Britannic & Olympic

Helm Commands


Related Articles

thisisannouncments.co.uk: Smith, Edward John Obituary

The Daily Telegraph: Titanic's Captain Edward Smith In Bed When Drunk When Shop Struck Iceberg.

Economic Times (India): Titanic Has No Survivors Left.

Armed Merchant Vessels

Armed guards on a merchant ship. Photo by Hanuma Bhakta

As shipping companies and maritime nations struggle to fight the ongoing threat of piracy, debate continues as to the best method for doing that. One of the most common suggestions is to arm the crews of vessels transiting dangerous waters, or hire private security forces to stand guard on vessels in these waters. The issue is far from settled, with opinions even among mariners divided, and the laws of various countries in conflict.


History of Armed Merchant Vessels. Arming privately owned vessels is not a new idea. Many merchant ships back to ancient times armed themselves against the threat of pirates or naval vessels of a hostile power. In Elizabethan England, ship captains were sent out with the express purpose of raiding enemy vessels; the Queen's privateers were the King of Spain's pirates.


This process became more formalized later with the concept of letters of marque and reprisal. These documents were charters authorizing merchant captains to arm themselves and attack enemy shipping or other targets on behalf of the issuing country. Even with such letters, the line between pirate and privateer was sometime still blurry: Capt. William Kidd was executed for piracy in 1701, despite insisting that he was acting under British authority.


The US Constitution specifically authorizes Congress to issue letters of marque and reprisal; it was considered a necessary expedient for a new nation with little or no naval power of its own.


The use of letters of marque and reprisal fell off following the Napoleonic Wars (the War of 1812 in the United States), as the world's great powers built larger navies and needed less help from merchant vessels. Increasing labor unrest and the reputation of merchant sailors as rowdy, drunken criminals also made governments wary of putting weapons into civilian hands. By the time of World War I, a special act of Congress was required to authorize merchant ships to sail armed. In both world wars, arming merchant vessels sailing into war zones was common practice.


The Modern Debate. Whether the modern piracy epidemic rises to the level of danger of the two world wars is behind the debate about arming merchant vessels today. Although some US mariners -- specifically those employed by the civilian Military Sealift Command -- have received small arms training for years, others balk at being armed, especially in light of ever-increasing regulatory, liability, and training requirements. Increasingly, the trend is to use private security forces, but the cost of these can run to tens of thousands of dollars a day.


Another issue is conflicting laws regarding armed persons on ships. The International Maritime Organization (IMO), the world organization charged with standardization of maritime regulations, is against arming merchant vessels. Some large organizations of shipping companies were against armed vessels at first, but have softened their stance. Following the 2009 Maersk Alabama incident, the US Coast Guard began issuing guidance to US vessels for when and where to carry armed guards but other countries, notably South Africa, have detained both ships and crew caught carrying weapons for use against pirates. The International Chamber of Commerce notes that armed guards are not a complete defense against piracy, but should only be part of a larger plan: "If armed Private Maritime Security Contractors are to be used they must be as an additional layer of protection and not as an alternative to [best management practices]."


Related Posts
An "Alternative" Look At Somali Pirates
Mariners in Review: The Pirate Queen
Piracy Update


Related Articles
captainkidd.org: Ultimate Captain William Kidd: History
International Chamber of Commerce Commercial Crime Service Piracy Reporting Centre: Advice To Masters
Mid Day (Mumbai): Merchant Ships Get Guns

Misunderstood Mariners: John F. Kennedy

The PT-109 crew, Kennedy at far right. US National Archives photo.

When John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States in 1960, he became the first Navy veteran to reach the country’s highest office. Many soldiers had been elected president, including George Washington and Kennedy’s predecessor Dwight Eisenhower, but Kennedy was the first sailor and, with the exception of Ronald Reagan, every president for the next 32 years would be a Navy veteran.

Kennedy was already in the Navy when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Back problems had kept him out of the Army, but his father’s influence got him a commission and a desk job in the Navy. With the coming of the war, Kennedy trained for service aboard patrol torpedo (PT) boats, and went on to serve in Panama, then the South Pacific.

The events of August 2, 1943 have become part of the Kennedy legend, and helped catapult him into international fame and, eventually, the White House. While on night patrol in the Solomon Islands, Kennedy’s PT boat, the PT-109, was cut in half after being rammed by a Japanese destroyer. Kennedy rallied his men and led them to a nearby island, towing his wounded second-in-command’s life jacket with his teeth. Except for the two crewmen lost in the collision, all were rescued a few days later.

Kennedy’s heroism in dealing with the loss of his boat was celebrated, but many questioned his judgment in getting the PT-109 into trouble in the first place. The boat’s radio was unmanned while many crewmembers rested, thus Kennedy was unaware of the larger situation that night. Kennedy’s handling of the PT-109 may have caused it to stall, resulting in the collision. Kennedy, while a popular commander, may have been a sloppy ship captain.

Whatever the truth, the PT-109 legend was a centerpiece of Kennedy’s political campaigns after the war. His actions after the PT-109 collision had earned him the lifelong loyalty of his crew: many appeared on a float in Kennedy’s inaugural parade next to a replica of the boat.

As President, Kennedy believed in a strong Navy. The now-famous SEAL teams were started during his administration. The Navy was key in his handling of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. He said in a 1963 speech on board the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk that

Events of October 1962 indicated, as they had all through history, that control of the sea means security. Control of the seas can mean peace. Control of the seas can mean victory. The United States must control the seas if it is to protect your security...."

This is the second in a series of posts about presidents and near-presidents who had a nautical background, in honor of the US election this year.

Related Posts

Misunderstood Mariners: The Roosevelts

Related Articles

Department of the Navy: Naval History & Heritage Command: Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, USN.

Historynet.com: John F. Kennedy's PT-109 Disaster

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Muesum: Remarks at the US Naval Academy, August 1 1963

St. Brendan

And then Saint Brandon bade the shipmen to wind up the sail and forth they sailed in God's name, so that on the morrow they were out of sight of any land. And forty days and forty nights after they sailed plat east, and then they saw an island far from them, and they sailed thitherward as fast as they could, and they saw a great rock of stone appear above all the water, and three days they sailed about it ere they could get into the place, but at the last by the purveyance of God they found a little haven and there went aland every each one. And then suddenly came a fair hound, and fell down at the feet of Saint Brandon and made him good cheer in his manner, and then he bade his brethren be of good cheer, for our Lord hath sent to us his messenger to lead us into some good place. And the hound brought them into a fair hall where they found the tables spread, ready set full of good meat and drink. And then Saint Brandon said graces, and then he and his brethren sat down and ate and drank of such as they found, and there were beds ready for them, wherein they took their rest after their long labour.

-- The Golden Legend: the Life of Saint Brandon

It is a source of Irish legend and pride: that 1000 years before Columbus a band of Irish monks led by an abbot named Brendan set out on a voyage of spiritual discovery that would instead lead to the first European contact with the Americas. To some the voyages of Brendan are a religious allegory, to others a stylized account of an actual group of brave and lucky voyagers, led by an extraordinary man.

The man who would become know as Saint Brendan the Navigator was born in AD 484 in southwest Ireland. After a short career building monastic cells, Brendan heard the story of Saint Barrid and his visit to the Island of Paradise. Accounts vary from there, but the basic story is that Brendan set out on a seven-year-long voyage, accompanied by fourteen monks (or sixty pilgrims), having many adventures. Among the most remarkable incidents is his coming ashore and celebrating Easter Mass on an island that turned out to be the sea monster Jasconius. Brendan also

• discovers an Island Of Sheep where the voyagers stop for Holy Week
• finds a “Paradise of Birds,” where the birds sing psalms
• passed a silver pillar wrapped in a net
• had rocks hurled at him by a mountain

Finally, Brendan and his companions arrived at “The Promised Land of the Saints,” a beautiful island divided by a great river.

The earliest known written version of the legend dates from the 1100s. Soon “Saint Brendan’s Isle” began appearing on nautical charts, first near the coast of Ireland, then moving westward and southward as time passed. By the 1700s, the island of “San Borodon” was reported to lie off the coast of Africa, in or near the Canary Islands.

Model of St. Brendan's carrach
Photo by Michealol

By this time, scholars were beginning to think Brendan’s voyages were more allegory than fact. The similarities to other Irish tales of the time, called immrams, and elements in common with other, clearly fictional tales, like those of Sinbad and Jason, led to the conclusion that whatever truth may lay at the core of Brendan’s story was covered by centuries of religious and folktale embellishment.

In 1976, British explorer Tim Severin set out to prove that -- whatever the truth of the tale -- it could have been done. Severin built a 36-foot carrach, the type of boat used by Irish mariners of the time, made from wood and leather. From mid-1976 to mid-1977, Severin sailed his craft from Ireland to Newfoundland, stopping along the way in the Hebrides and Iceland. Along the way he found many places with parallels to places in Brendan’s story, including the Island of Sheep and “Paradise of Birds in the Faroe Islands. Others have identified the "silver pillar" as an iceberg, and the mountains hurling rocks as the volcanoes of iceland.

Related Posts

Misunderstood Mariners: Amerigo Vespucci

Misunderstood Mariners: Samuel Eliot Morison

Related Articles

Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Brendan

turasireland: In the Footsteps of St. Brendan the Navigator

Irish Culture in Legends: St. Brendan, The Navigator

The Merchant Marine Cadet Corps

In the first century of US history, every merchant mariner in the United States came “up the hawespipe,” working his way up the chain of command from the lowest ranks on the ship. By the end of the nineteenth century, as the Age of Sail faded into the Age of Steam, demand for trained officers increased, leading Congress to step in. Starting in 1874, the Navy was authorized to lend ships to ports that wanted to train young men in “navigation, seamanship.” Schools in New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts were set up to take advantage of the new law, followed by institutions on every coast. Many of these schools remain merchant marine academies today.

Soon the schools were working with shipping companies to fill the demand for  trained officers. Under the 1891 Postal Aid Law, ships accepting government mail contracts were obligated to take on a cadet for each 1000 tons of a ship’s weight. The program was a mixed success: many cadets got little real training, being treated a free menial labor instead. On the other hand, many cadets used the program as a free ride to Europe or elsewhere and abandoned their ship once it reached a suitably exotic port.

When the US entered World War I, the Shipping Board set up a six-week program to train officers for the “Emergency Fleet,” the concrete-hulled ships built due to a shortage of steel. The program was so successful that soon its graduates were manning other ships, and by the time the program was phased out in 1921 it had produced nearly 11,00 officers.

The success of the World War I program, the failure of the Postal Aid Law, the disastrous fire on the Morro Castle, and the looming need for more mariners as Europe girded for war yet again, convinced the Roosevelt Administration that a direct federal hand was needed in providing America’s merchant vessels with officers. On March 15, 1938, the United States established the Merchant Marine Cadet Corps.

The first 99 cadets in the program trained on government-subsidized but privately-owned vessels in various ports. The Coast Guard took over running the program briefly after Pearl Harbor, then the War Shipping Adminstration. The war effort made apparent for a more centralized school with a permanent home, and in September 1943 the United States Merchant Marine Academy was established in King’s Point, New York. Schools were also established in San Mateo, California and Pass Christian, Mississippi, but both of those schools were closed with a few years.

Related Posts

Morro Castle

Misunderstood Mariners: The Roosevelts

Related Articles

USMM.org: History of the US Merchant Marine Cadet Corps

Concrete Ships.org: The World War I Emergency Fleet

Popular Science (on Google Books): New School to Train Ships Officers

Monday Morning Mariner: Sailboats, The Jones Act, Gas Prices, & The Great Blizzard of 1888

Giles Martin-Raget/Americas Cup

On this date in 1888, a huge blizzard struck the northeast United States and adjacent areas of Canada. Snow piled up several feet in just three days, and winds blew 40 to 50 miles per hour with gusts up to 80 miles per hour. Four hundred people died, a quarter of whom were seamen on the more than 200 ships that were wrecked or driven aground. "A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for," goes the old saying attributed to Admiral Grace Hopper, but that's not always true.


Shipping out can be a dangerous occupation although, frankly, I feel safer on most ships than I do driving on most Interstate freeways. The insurance industry doesn't agree with me. When I recently went looking for private disability insurance, I found that many companies wouldn't even consider me because I was Class 1A or not eligible at all. So, I'm happy to have the Jones Act in place, even if I'm only covered when "in service of a vessel."


But, once again, the Jones Act is under attack. Last year the Congress approved, and President Obama signed, the America's Cup Act of 2011. When the world's premier yacht race series scheduled some of its events in Newport, Rhode Island and San Diego and San Francisco, California, the normally logjammed federal government found a way to get together on something. The Act allows yachts, support vessels, and other vessels to operate without Jones Act restrictions during the event, which runs through 2013.


On another front, gas prices threaten to become an issue in the 2012 presidential election and with rising prices come calls to rescind the Jones Act. Republican Newt Gingrich has made "$2.50 gas" a talking point of his campaign; last week following the Super Tuesday voting, Gingrich supporters could be seen waving signs decorated with that figure over a gas pump. It's unclear how rescinding the Jones Act would help lower gasoline prices, which are not based on supply but by investor reactions to political events in the Middle East, specifically the current saber rattling between Iran and the US and Israel. Once again, the Jones Act is being used as a political straw man.


Related Posts
Monday Morning Mariner: President Barack Obama
The Republicans On Maritime Issues
Monday Morning Mariner: Jones Act Update


Related Articles
Madden Maritime: America's Cup Act of 2011 (H.R. 3321) UPDATED -- Turns Out It IS All-American.
US News & World Report: Rescinding Jones Act First Step To Lowering Gas Prices.
MarineLog: With Pain At The Pump, AMP Moves To Head Off Jones Act Waivers.

Ships Are Safe in the Harbour
(Author Unknown) 

All I live for is now
All I stand for is where and how
All I wish for are magic moments
As I sail through change
My resolve remains the same
What I chose are magic moments
Because ships are safe in the harbour
But that is not what ships are made for
The mind could stretch much further
But it seems that is not what our minds are trained for
We call for random order
You can't control Mother nature's daughter
Ships are safe in the harbour
But that is not what ships are built for
The witch hunter roams
The scary thing is that he's not alone
He's trying to down my magic moments
As we sail through change
Ride the wind of a silent rage
And sing laments of magic moments

Mysteries of the Monitor and Merrimack

March 8, 1862. The iron clad steamer Merrimac had come down from Norfolk, sunk the sloop of war Cumberland, fired a number of shots at the Congress. She surrendered and at night was set on fire. Both vessels were lying at Newport News. We stacked our arms and slept in the open air. About midnight the magazine on the Congress blew up with a terrific noise.
March 9. A lovely day today. (Sunday) This forenoon witnessed the naval battle between the rebel steamer Merrimac and the U. S. iron clad steamer Monitor and Minnesota. After 4 hours fighting the rebels retreated.

-- Eugene Goodwin, 99^th New York Infantry Regiment

The Civil War Battle of Hampton Roads, fought 150 years ago this week, is often considered the beginning of the end for the wooden warship. The USS Monitor, with a crew of 59, fought the CSS Virginia (formerly the Union vessel Merrimac) with a crew of more than 300, in a battle that, while indecisive, proved the tremendous advantage an ironclad warship had over wooden vessels. Other aspects of this historic battle, however, are not  so clear.

The Ship Without A Captain. Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones was executive officer of the Virginia. He had overseen the repair and refitting of the former Merrimac, but other Confederate officers senior to him wanted the captain’s post on board. To avoid an uncomfortable situation, the Confederate command just never got around to appointing a captain. Thus, Virginia entered the battle with Jones as acting captain only.

The Fog of War. Monitor’s orders were to defend the crippled Union warship Minnesota, which had been damaged by Virginia on March 8. On the morning of the 9^th, Jones took Virginia back toward Minnesota, hoping to finish the job. At first he didn’t realize that Monitor was a warship, thinking her a barge carrying a boiler of some kind. As soon as he realized what he was dealing with, however, he ordered Virginia’s guns to fire, and the battle was on

For several hours, and at close range, the two ships fired on each other. Neither had been sent into battle with the proper ammunition for penetrating a metal hull, however. Finally, Virginia fired a shot that blinded the captain of the Monitor, who was the only person who could see to direct the movement of the vessel. Monitor withdrew so the ship’s second-in-command could move into the observer position, but by the time she returned, Virginia has withdrawn as well, Jones thinking he had won the day.

Who Won The Battle? Both sides claimed victory, but at the time the Battle of Hampton Roads was not about the ironclads, but about the Union blockade of the South. Virginia had been ordered to inflict as much damage on the Union fleet as possible in hopes of lifting the blockade. The South may have won the battle in terms of number of ships destroyed and casualties inflicted, but ultimately the blockade held.

Faces of the Dead. Neither ship survived the year. Virginia was destroyed by her own crew in May to avoid her being captured by Union troops. Monitor sank in rough weather off Cape Hatteras in December, with a loss of 16 of her crew. There she remained until her re-discovery in 1973.

In 2002, Monitor’s turret was recovered, along with the skeletal remains of two of her crew. Unable to identify them by other means, scientists reconstructed the faces of the men based on their skeletal structure in the hopes that someone would recognize them from a family resemblance or an old photo. Failing that, the remains will be interred as “unknowns” at Arlington National Cemetery.

Related Posts

Blockade

Related Articles

Eugene Goodwin Civil War Diary: Battle of Monitor and Merrimac 3/8/62

The Capital and The Bay: Narratives of Washington and the Chesapeake Bay Region ca. 1600 - 1925: The Battle of Hampton Roads.

Navy Times: Scientists Reconstruct Faces of Monitor Sailors.