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Dutch Tall Ships Arrive in Cape Town on route for Sydney

Three Dutch Tall Ships have arrived independently in Cape Town on their way around the world following the route marked out by Dutch explorers in the seventeenth century. The ships all left the Netherlands last year and made their own way to Cape Town via the North and South Atlantic Oceans.

The three ships are the Tecla, the smallest of the three, the Europa, the oldest and the Oosterscheide, which is the fastest. The Tecla was built in 1915 and served as a fishing boat for many years in the North Sea, before switching trades and countries after it was sold to a Danish owner and was used as a coastal trading boat. It was sold back to a Dutch owner again and now, refitted several times, it takes paying crew as passengers on long, extended voyages. Passengers can choose how many different legs they wish to stay on board for. The present owners have owned the Tecla since 2006 and keep the gaff ketch rigged design as traditional as possible.

Camps Bay, Cape Town, South Africa

Ariadne Van Zandbergen

The Europa is a 56 meter long bark and has been through quite a metamorphosis since being built in Hamburg in Germany in 1911. It served for much of its life as a light ship on the River Elbe, its flat bottomed bark hull, being well designed for that purpose. It ended up in Holland in 1986 and was completely rebuilt and set up as a sailing boat for the first time. It has three masts and is rigged a a top sail schooner. It changed its name to Europa, after the Greek Godess, after being rebuilt.

The Oosterscheide is a shade smaller than the Europa, at 50 meters. It was built in the Netherlands in 1918 and was used as a trading boat in home waters until the 1930s. It then changed hands and was turned into a coaster. It was. like the Europa, completely rebuilt and re rigged as a fore and aft topsail schooner in the 1980s and now spends most of its time on extended voyages to many different destinations which have included Antarctica and South America as well as one circumnavigation already under its belt. It spends the winter months sailing to and from the Cape Verde islands off the West Coast of Africa.

The thee ships are following in the footsteps of Dutch explorers and seafarers who by the mid seventeenth century were regularly plying the route between the ports of the Netherlands and the colonies of the Dutch East Indies, now modern day Indonesia. In the early days of sail, the boats used the trade winds to sail to the coast of Brazil. Here the dreaded doldrums – the area of calms and storms which could prevent steady progress by vessels that depended solely on the wind – were at their narrowest. From Brazil, boats sailed to Cape Town, Mauritius and then on to Indonesia. The route around the world had already been sketchily mapped with earlier voyages by Spanish and Portuguese circumnavigators. The southern lands of Australia and New Zealand were first mapped in part by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in the first part of the seventeenth century from his base in Batavia (now Jakarta).

The three ships now in Cape Town will be soon heading off for Mauritius following the Sardine Route along the East Coast of South Africa. They will then be taking part in a major tall ships regatta and race between Sydney, Hobart in Tasmania and Auckland in New Zealand in September this year before sailing on to Cape Horn, the Falklands Islands Antarctica and back to Europe via the Azores.

May 4, 2013 | Alison Williams

Tall Ships

The Age of the Tall Ship Has Not Been Forgotten

The age of sail as an epoch may be over, but there is still a fascination with the graceful tall ships that still sail our coasts and oceans. They some how seem to inspire feelings of romance and adventure.

This summer is no exception, as many celebrations that will take place along the coasts of America will allow residents the chance to admire at least one of these swans of the ocean.

In the region of the Great Lakes, eager captains will respond to a maritime war that for 200 years has been absent. In Miami, an impressive Spanish vessel will sail into port to rendezvous with the 500th birthday celebration. The West Coast of the U.S. will see the biggest tall ship festival, which is expecting more than 200,000 visitors.

The Clipper William Mason

William Pierce Stubbs

Both now, and in the past, these boats are and were sailed by sailors who had no fear, and manoeuvred themselves manually without restraint up and down masts that tower 30 metres high into the sky. This is no easy feat as the ship pitches and rolls in the ocean swells and waves. The crew has to synchronize perfectly in order to release the enormous sails that have a width of 15 metres. In a good wind, these sails can confidently move a ship weighing in at 400 tonnes through the water at modest speeds up to 30 kph.

The masters and crew of the tall ships of old were challengers and researchers, as they unravelled the mystery of the shape of the Earth, which was for thousands of years thought to be flat.

There is often a dark side to many things and they are often shrouded in secrecy. The slave trade soon became one of these. The great ships attempted to help in the building of nations by snatching people from faraway lands and taking them to a land that needed developing. These times have never been forgotten.

Today, with their displays of elegance, they show that wind power has, and will always be, a source of renewable energy. The courage and determination of captains and their crew succeeded in opening the door to world travel, which encouraged further explorers to unearth what was on the other side of the world.

There are 5 events taking place this summer off the coasts of America.
The highlight will most likely be the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie, which-celebrates its bicentennial re-enactment. This is to be the first opportunity in 200 years that so many ships will fire black gunpowder cannons against one another. It is the re enacting of the battle waged against the British, which let the U.S.A. secure its present frontier with Canada. The impressive “Sorlandt” from Norway will be present at the event. It is 86 years old and 210 feet in length.

Miami will be welcoming the Juan Sebastian de Elcano. The length of this Spanish boat spans a U.S. football field, at 120 metres. It acts as a training ship for navy midshipmen in the Spanish Naval academy. It was launched in 1927 and has since circumnavigated the world 10 times. The tall ship will show its presence in Miami as a way of celebrating 500 years since the discovery of what is now termed the Sunshine State. It will be in the vicinity in early May.

There are many more tall ships that will be attending these events and others up and down the two coasts of the U.S.A. With the constant discussions over renewable resources of energy, tall ships may never sink back into the past.

April 2, 2013 | Alison Williams

Tall Ships

Las Palmas Farewells Spanish Navy’s Iconic Tall Ship

It is rare that this writer gets to farewell a national maritime icon, but it happened yesterday in the waters off Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in Spain’s Canary Islands, 200 km off the shores of Africa.

With trumpets blaring, water cannons shooting columns of spray from tug boats and a cavalcade of lesser craft including yachts, sailing dinghies and kayaks, the Spanish Navy’s sail training ship, the Juan Sebastián Elcano, left town en route to Puerto Rico.

The four masted brigantine had been making a good will visit to Las Palmas to coincide with a maritime fair and exhibition organized by the city council. Hordes of Canarian school children and curious residents had been given the chance to pay a visit to the ship as it docked alongside the navy wharf in Las Palmas.

Juan Sebastian Elcano, “entre castillos”. Ferrol by Pablo Avanzini

The ship, built in 1926, and no stranger to the Atlantic, is now on passage once again across to the Caribbean. It will be joining sister tall ships from South American nations on a cruise from Puerto Rico to Colón in Panama to celebrate the original voyage of Juan Ponce de León, who made the same trip back in 1513.

The Juan Sebastián Elcano, captained by Alfonso Gómez Fernández de Córdoba, has a complement of 45 officers and 140 crew. It will be 100 days away from Spanish waters, visiting Miami and Rhode Island in the United States before returning to Europe via the Dutch city of Den Helder.

The ship is named after the first captain of any ship to complete a circumnavigation of the globe, retuning with the remnants of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition in 1522. Elcano has remained in relative obscurity outside his native Spain ever since his voyage, but an account of his exploits and that of the original Magellan voyage makes astounding reading.

Magellan lived at a time when Europe had already mapped out a route to the East Indies, but the route was largely controlled by Spain’s maritime rival, Portugal. Magellan was convinced that a route to the East Indies was possible via the Americas, at that time only just being colonised, thus allowing Spain to access the spice island treasure house without hindrance from Portugal.

Elcano was one of 242 men and five ships which left Spain in 1519 to endeavour to reach the Moluccas via South America. The voyage was understandably difficult and was dogged by storms, mutiny, hunger and disease. Elcano himself was part of the first mutiny in Patagonia, but was later pardoned. Magellan thought that the Moluccas would be found soon after penetrating the Magellan Strait at the bottom end of South America. It wasn’t until many months later, however, that the four remaining ships arrived in Guam, then the Philippines.

Elcano eventually came to lead the last remaining ship in the expedition, the Nao Victoria, after Magellan and other officers were killed during fighting amongst tribes in the Philippines. Elcano eventually arrived back after completing the first circumnavigation of the globe by any means – no mean feat.

He later died of starvation in another ill fated venture organised by Spanish King Carlos 1 to capture the East Indies for Spain as he and many other fellow sailors crossed the Pacific Ocean.

March 11, 2013 | Alison Williams

Tall Ships

Tall Ship ‘Ly’ Finds Winter Haven on the U.S. East Coast

The Lynx Educational Foundation which manages the tall ship “Privateer Lynx” has selected Fort Myers Beach in Florida as its winter destination.

The “Privateer Lynx” is presently on a 5 year voyage, which commenced in 2010. Its principal route has been covering the East Coast of the USA and Canada while commemorating the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 along with the raising of the Star-Spangled Banner.

This relatively short war was fought between the newly independent Eastern States as they were then with the old colonial master Britain. It was thanks to the defense of American ports off the Eastern seaboard by gallant privateers like the Lynx that the war was won in favour of the young nation, which otherwise might have found it subject to Her Majesty Queen Victoria once again!

Lynx U.S. Privateer

Roy Cross

The primary aim of the modern day ship is that it serves as a reenactment of the life of an actual privateer, also called “Lynx”. It was originally constructed in 1812 by a Thomas Kemp in Maryland. She was actually one of the first ships to act in defense of American liberty by keeping out of the way of the British navy fleet, then defending U.S. ports and serving in the crucial privateering tussles.

The privateers were owned by wealthy businessmen and intended for trade, but were often as not used for adventurous and illegal raids on other ships. These acts of piracy were alternately condemned and praised depending on whose fleet was getting the worst of the treatment!

She was captured early on during the war, but still the initial Lynx design was held in high regard. Her rakish profile and great sailing capabilities always inspired designers of ships that followed in her wake. Naval architects for years afterwards continued to study her power and grace. The modern day counterpart is currently fitted with weaponry of her era and her flags and pennants represent the period around 1812.
The importance of her appearance helps immensely with her educational role and offers a chance for students of history to really get a feel of what that era was really like especially has she has been decked out with regalia of those early days. Many U.S. students and adults view the 1812 war as a significant link to American heritage and was just the start in the evolution of a true national identity.

As well as her role in education, “Privateer Lynx” has also been involved as a training base for the crew and cast of the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Currently, the ship is on a visit to Florida’s Fort Myers Beach and will soon be sailing to St Petersburg in Russia. She is expected to return in February, when she will spend the months of February and March, the harshest of the winter months in port. These great sailing ships truly evoke feelings in people when they reflect back to early American days when the sovereignty of the country was in its infancy. The people of Fort Myers Beach will no doubt make use of their newly acquired resident as she sits gracefully in the harbour tended by her dedicated crew.

January 18, 2013 | Alison Williams

Tall Ships

Cornwall will be host to the Iberian Tall Ships Regatta

Falmouth, in Cornwall, England, has one of the largest natural harbours in the world and is only too happy to play a host to the next Iberian Tall Ships Regatta. The regatta is not due until 2014 – next year – but the city is gearing up for the event already.

The Tall Ships Regatta is organised by the Sail Training Association and usually involves some of the world’s best known tall ships. These are used by their respective nations as sail training venues for their own navy cadets or for character building opportunities for youth or anybody else in the community for that matter.

The regattas are staged over a period of several months and the various host ports are staggered so that the regatta can proceed smoothly from one to another.

The 2014 event already includes the Port of London’s Greenwich site while a third port in either Spain or France is yet to be announced.

Flushing, Near Falmouth, Cornwall, En…

Ken Gillham

The City of Falmouth is excited about the regatta as it has already hosted one before in 2008. During that event, over 100,000 spectators poured down to the harbour side to watch the majestic tall ships carry out their manoeuvres. Financially, the regatta brought in over 12 million pounds to the cash registers of Falmouth, so perhaps it’s not surprising that the event is being looked at with avid eyes.

Falmouth is a particularly scenic and historic harbour with two twin castles on either side of the “heads” – Pendennis and St Mawes – both built by Henry 8th, one of the first English kings to take his own national navy seriously. This is the entrance to the harbour proper and probably one of the best vantage points if you are now thinking of heading to Falmouth for the 2014 event.

Falmouth’s hosting of the event will see a number of organizations cooperating to make it memorable. The Falmouth Town Council will be working in partnership with the local Falmouth Tall Ships Association, the Festivals and Events Team from the Cornish Tourism Office and Cornwall’s National Maritime Museum, just to mention a few.

Falmouth is no newcomer to Tall Ships’ Visits. Of course, the harbour was used in the golden days of sail by the British Navy because of its large size and it was an important commercial port for a long time before the sheer size and draft of modern ships meant that deepwater ports like Plymouth became more important. One of the reasons for Falmouth’s busy harbours before the nineteenth century drew to a close was its easy access to the Atlantic Ocean, the west coast of France and Spain and the run down and across the Atlantic. This gave it strategic importance, allowing as it did a chance to berth and find stores for those vessels without the benefit of a thudding diesel or coal powered engine to help navigate its way up the English Channel with its contrary winds and tides.

More recently, when large sailing ships have become objects of leisure and used for team building and sail training the harbour has seen several events take place within its waters. The first Tall Ships event took place in 1966 and every few years the graceful craft return in large numbers through Falmouth’s heads for yet another occasion.

January 6, 2013 | Alison Williams

Travel and Cruising

Historic Junk makes it back to Taiwan the Easy Way

A Chinese junk with a mysterious and amazing past has made it back across the Pacific to its original home after 55 years on the West Coast of America.

The junk, named “Free China” on its maiden ocean voyage in 1955 that saw it battle typhoons and steering failures, was originally built fifty years earlier and plied the Chinese coast as a fishing boat and was sometimes in charge of pirates and worse.

In fact, the early history is something of a mystery to its present owners. All that is known is that the junk changed hands several times as owners were alternately jailed or killed.

View of a Chinese Fishing Junk on the…

Joseph Baylor Roberts

What was known was its toughness and speed under sail. In the typhoon season, the junks in the first part of the twentieth century had no warning system for the savage storms of that area and learned to copy the movements of the larger trading ships. When they turned back to port, it was assumed that a typhoon was brewing and so the junks would head back too – often getting back earlier than their engine powered cousins as the strong winds of the gathering storm would send them shooting ahead.

The “Free China” caught the attention of a sailor called Chow who had been working on the large, motorized trading ships that plied the coast of China. He had wanted to enter a boat in a new sailboat race from Rhode Island to Sweden across the Atlantic and thought that the Chinese junk had the sail power and stamina to make a realistic entry.

The name of the junk was changed to make a political statement about the desire of the island of Taiwan to gain its independence from the Chinese mainland. The government had given enough money to purchase the junk for Chow and his fellow enthusiastic crew members.

The only obstacle was to get the junk from Taiwan to Rhode Island – a journey that was to become far more challenging than the race itself.

The Free China set sail from Taiwan eventually with a crew of 5 including Chow, but had its fair share of trials and tribulations in the first part of the passage. It sailed through a typhoon, but lost its steering and had to be towed into a Japanese port. It eventually docked in San Francisco two months after the trans-Atlantic race had started.

The boat and its crew were greeted with acclaim from the city and especially its Chinese inhabitants but led an extraordinary life, mostly of neglect over the next fifty years. It was donated by Chow to the San Francisco Maritime Museum, who abandoned it and, for the most part, it lay neglected and deteriorating in one boatyard after another.

It was only recently that the son of one of the original crew, a businessman called Dione Chen decided to take it back to Taiwan, where it is to be restored as part of the island nation’s history. The junk was loaded on to a container ship and made its second Pacific voyage in a less romantic, but far safer way.

September 11, 2012 | Alison Williams

Travel and Cruising

Tall Ships Plan to Set their Sights and Sails for Australia

This October the magnificent tall ship ‘Oosterschelde,’ a Dutch three-masted topsail schooner, will sail from Rotterdam with the intention of sailing the ancient trading route, which will take them to the remote Cape Verde Islands, 600 kilometres off the coast of Gambia, Africa and then on to Brazil in South America and to the famous South African city of Cape Town.

At the same time, the ‘Europa’ a three masted barque, will be sailing East after completion of an earlier expedition to Antarctica (Terra Australis). These two ships will meet up in Cape town and they will then continue their voyage across to Australia together. Their journey will allow them to sail, with favourable westerly winds, transiting the Indian Ocean to Australia and this will be following the wake of well renowned Dutch explorers Abel Tasman, Cornelis de Houtman and Van Diemen. These familiar Dutch tall ships will be reliving ancient days once more.

The route will take them to Madagascar on to Mauritius, then Reunion and on to Perth. They will negotiate the notoriously rough seas of the Great Australian Bight to Adelaide, sailing to Melbourne and Hobart in Tasmania. After their arrival in Hobart a race is set to be organized, finishing in Sydney.

Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge…

Christopher Groenhout

Less then a year after setting sail from Holland, on the 4th October 2013, the ships will be representing the Netherlands at the International Fleet appraisal of the Australian Navy which will be commemorating a hundred years since the entry of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) into the sheltered waters of Sydney harbour. A Tall Ships’ Race is scheduled from Sydney to Auckland after this event.

After this race has been completed the ‘Europa’ and ‘Oosterschelde’ will begin preparations for their long arduous voyage around Cape Horn at the end of November 2013. This section will take them to the bleak desolate Falkland Islands and then to the dramatic ice mass of Antarctica, which still abounds in unique wild life. Once this expedition has been completed the ‘Oosterschelde’ will sail back North and then on to the Netherlands, their home, and ‘Europa’ will be taking part in more expeditions in Antarctic.

With inspiration given by this sailing programme of the Dutch tall ships, the ‘Lord Nelson’ has now announced plans to embark on a global circumnavigation which will include participating in the tall ships’ races that will take place in Australia. The ‘Lord Nelson’ is funded and run by the well known Jubilee Sailing Trust in Britain and has been specially designed and constructed to allow people with a varied assortment of physical abilities to sail alongside each other as equals. It is hard to imagine that any early tall ships ever had the same compassion as the Lord Nelson. However, they will be experience the strict routine that was apparent in early days and is still a necessity when transiting our crowded oceans.

September 3, 2012 | Alison Williams

Tall Ships

Damaged Tall Ships Make Early Landfill in Dublin

A crowd of one million are anticipated to come and visit Dublin’s docklands later on this week for the 2012 Tall Ships Festival.

The ships were not due to dock today but many came in early as they encountered a severe storm at sea and substantial damage was done to some of these historic icons.

Eight junior trainees from Dublin were crewing on the Guayas, the training tall ship belonging to the Ecuadorean navy, which was one of the ships that was damaged during the voyage.

The Guayas Captain, Amillar Villavicencio, recalled that winds exceeding 50 knots accompanied with 10m waves and swell had ripped eight sails and succeeded in damaging the masts as well. He said they are used to Pacific sailing waters, which are Pacific compared to the Atlantic.

Ecuadorian Naval training vessel Guayas by Pablo Avanzini

A further vessel suffered a mast breakage while making the crossing and another had to request a tow into Dublin Port after quite substantial damage. Despite the damage encountered by some of the ships, the crossing was faster than expected.

The tall ships had been cruising together since 5th July where they rendezvoused in St. Malo, France and sailed along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts. Their final departure to Dublin was from A Coruña in North West Spain an ill-fated voyage for some despite being the summer sailing season.

The forty ships hail from as far away as Mexico and Ecuador with entries from many European countries.

Mary Weir reported that The Tall Ships Festival has budgeted spending €3.6 million and they are expecting this investment to inject €25-€30 million into the local economy.

She also recalled that up to not so long ago, paintings of tall ships could be seen adorning areas around the Port of Dublin but they are now rarely seen, which makes this event even more attractive, particularly for young families who resort to the TV and the Internet to gain any images of past life.

However, there is going to be a photographic exhibition to accompany the fleet of tall ships, which will be a further reminder of their role in the past.

Dublin’s port head of operations said that the whole event is not just about sailing. It is also focused on making use of a tall ship to teach us about comradeship. Sailing aboard one of these vessels has often been described as a life-changing experience. He said that when youth join as crew on a ship, they are often complete strangers and by the finish of the experience they have become a team of people who have learnt how to co-ordinate and work together with a common goal.

After the recent bad spate of weather there has be no firm weather predictions for the event that will take place over the coming weekend.

August 22, 2012 | Alison Williams

Tall Ships

The London Games draws Olympian sized yachts to its waterfront

The 40 metre aging sailing yacht, “The Flying Dutchman,” is one of a number of huge yachts chartered solely for the Olympics by Dutch businessman, Xander Tiedemann, who as well as his charter arrangement is also staging live concerts, a large-screen television and removable hot tubs on the wharf near to the ships.

The Flying Dutchman is not alone in the Thames’ tea coloured waters as twenty tall ships and the more modern super-yachts, with million dollar price tags, have moored alongside the river Thames in London to act as floating hotels for the Olympic Games. Apart from the June boat extravaganza for the queen’s Diamond Jubilee, London has never viewed so much high value floating capital, commentators have said.

The Flying Dutchman

Tim Thomas, editor of Boat International, a yachting magazine covering luxury yachts which, has its base in London said that sometimes boats come up the river, but it’s not a common sight to see any super-yachts.

Most of these super-yachts cruise the Mediterranean, particularly the waters between St. Tropez and Monaco. Dismal, rain sodden London, which is situated far inland from any coast does not feature in cruising itineraries. However, the Olympic summer has meant that super-yachts are queuing up for prime London waterfront space.

The largest of the ships named “Octopus” ranks as the tenth biggest yacht globally, a giant so enormous it shadows a local apartment block. The 130m “Octopus” houses a garage, a helipad and enough storage area for a mini-sub.

Additionally, “Ilona”, which is moored up to Wood Wharf, owns a swimming pool as well as a helipad, and “Seanna” has its own movie hall, gym and spa.

There are at least six giant yachts moored in an area that was only six months a building site and there is no need for the guests to use the grubby, congested underground rail system to get into Central London as there are a team of speed boats at hand to do that job.
The owners of these shows of conspicuous wealth do not freely advertise their presence or announce who they are. It appears that discretion is the order of the day for most. However, the “Dannebrog” is definitely not discreet. Gilded and carved crowns decorate her stem and stern, and positioned at the base of the gang plank is a sailor in a traditional white and blue sailor’s outfit who is standing on guard. The yacht was constructed in 1931 and has 57 crew and it is owned by the Danish royal family.

Usually, the “Dannebrog” spends long summer days sailing along the Danish coast, but this August the Queen and Prince are holidaying on the Thames watching the Olympic Games. No one knows if any of the other yachts have their owners on board, as many of them charter their yachts outs for tax purposes, but often for cash at around $125,000 a week.

London is still a city with its quota of the world’s rich and famous and local residents are quite used to seeing displays of lavish consumption, but super-yachts they are not certainly accustomed to and they have not been a feature of any recent Olympic Games draw card. Britons and thousands of overseas visitors appear to be looking in awe at these glistening, floating pillars of wealth.

August 7, 2012 | Alison Williams

Maritime News and Events

World Piracy Threat Down but Not Out

Good news on the piracy epidemic in the Indian Ocean has come too late for some sailors, eager to get home after years cruising the world’s oceans. European yachts in particular have been stranded in South East Asia as the year on year prospect of running the Somali pirate gauntlet down the Gulf of Aden has been a very unattractive prospect. The alternative – to sail right around the Cape of Storms – at the bottom of South Africa, and then along trek over to Brazil through the Caribbean and back via the Azores seemed equally uninviting.

Barbary Pirates Attacking a Spanish Ship

Willem Van De II Velde

For the wealthier, there has been the option of putting their yacht on to a giant yacht transport ship in Thailand which carries the yachts on board in relative safety all the way through to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, minus anything upward of thirty thousand euros for the priviledge.

The International Maritime Bureau has reported that the piracy problem off the east African coast and the Horn Of Africa has eased this years with fewer hijackings and fewer seamen being taken as hostage. The IMB has its own Piracy Monitoring Centre which keeps a track on any pirate attempts anywhere in the world.

The Somali piracy issue has become of very serious significance to shipping passing through from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea or vice versa over the last few years as the ever present pirate attacks became more numerous. The reduction in piracy has been credited to coordinated action by naval forces from several nations, especially the EU, USA, Australia and Malaysia. Some merchant shipping companies have resorted to spending many millions of dollars on hiring private armed security escorts to protect them as they transit the most dangerous area.

The IMB has, however, reported that while the situation off the East Coast of Africa has eased, the opposite has happened in the Gulf of Guinea. The number of ships attacked and hijacked off the coasts of Togo, Nigeria and Guinea has gone up as also has the number of similar incidents in Indonesia.

The number of ships hijacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean was down to 13 this year, and the number of incidents reduced from 163 to 69. The Somali pirate gangs are still holding 11 ships with 218 hostages in isolated and remote communities on the Somali coast.

Piracy itself includes both actual hijackings as well as armed robberies and hold ups. For most ordinary seafarers the prospect of one’s ship or yacht being hijacked and one’s life put up for ransom is a far worse prospect than an armed robbery. There were only 25 actual hijackings last year, but many more armed robberies involving attacks by armed gunmen boarding substantial sized ships. Most commercial ships these days have only very few crew on board and they are certainly not normally trained to defend the ship against an armed attack.

The IMB says that the Indian Ocean piracy threat, although less than in previous years, was still very serious and would require coordinated action by naval warships for years to come. Part of the problem is that the area in which the pirates have been operating is vast, stretching from inside the Red Sea to the coasts of Yemen and Oman to India, the Maldives, the Seychelles through to the coasts of Kenya and Tanzania. The pirates had become faster and more effective as they had accumulated millions of dollars paid out in ransom demands and the marine electronics and technology they had looted off the ships they had attacked.

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July 23, 2012 | Alison Williams

Maritime News and Events

Tall Ships will Never be Forgotten

A hundred or more years ago when engines took over from sailing ships, there was no great interest in returning to sail as a means of transport. It was slow, too weather dependent and needed a large able bodied crew to hoist and trim the sails. Good for explorers and pirates of the past but, quite surprisingly, they are not just elderly relics of times that have passed.

Tall Ship the Kalmar Nyckel, Chesapea…

Scott T. Smith

Their filled sails, massive masts and lengthy wooden hulls still draw flag waving crowds at the increasing number of sailing events designed for them and hosted in ports far and wide. As a result, a new tall ship industry has developed and grown to meet the needs of adventure-thirsty sailing enthusiasts who love things from the past.
The 2012 nautical calendar shows how appealing these vessels are.

Only a month ago, a whole fleet of tall ships sailed into Manhattan Harbour in the USA in an awe inspiring celebration that remembered 200 years since the 1812 war, which was the basis of the 3-year conflict that raged between America and the ailing British Empire.

Firework Display at Belfast Tall Ship…

Chris Hill

Only a week passed by and,. in Britain, Queen Elizabeth II was out celebrating her Diamond Jubilee watching a huge flotilla of 1,000 vessels, which included many tall ships.

Maritime fanatics who plan to visit London throughout the Olympics will have the opportunity of sailing down the river Thames and passing key Olympic venues on the way on one of the 16 tall ships that have been commissioned for the extravaganza.

The largest will be the 3 masted “Oosterschelde”, a 1918 Dutch cargo carrier that was subsequently adapted in the 1930’s to a modernised sailing boat.

These types of events aren’t the only times the onlooker can encounter a tall ship as there has been a mushrooming in enterprises offering holidays on such boats. The fastest selling sailing excursion this year takes its passengers from Newfoundland to Britain, calling at Greenland and Iceland. The tall ship is the 55 meter-long replica of an old barque named “Lord Nelson.” Once advertised, the trip was sold out in just 3 days. Another popular trip is a two-month sailing journey from Latin America to South Africa with a visit to Antarctica.

This year, in July, heralds the 20th year of “Les Tonneres de Brest,” a famous maritime festival taking place in Brittany. Here, tall ships line the horizon in a manner rarely seen today in the maritime world. It proves to those lovers of the sea and its maritime heritage that has staged wars, carried explorers and ferried passengers to far-flung places that their history has not been forgotten and will live on like the great oceans that have been sailed with winds as their gift.

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July 3, 2012 | Alison Williams

Tall Ships

The Stad Amsterdam Brings Back the Glory Days of the Age of the Clipper

While life aboard the world’s clipper ships in the nineteenth century was anything but romantic it doesn’t stop twenty first century dreamers building replicas.

Stad Amsterdam

The Dutch clipper ship, the “Stad Amsterdam” (City of Amsterdam in Dutch) is as modern as can be in many ways but is built with the design specifications of a Dutch mid nineteenth century clipper.

Stad Amsterdam

The ship was the brainchild of Frits Goldsmeding, who was the man who started up the Dutch based employment agency, Ranstad. He was perplexed during the Sail Amsterdam festivities in 1995 why so many other nations seemed to have a tall ship to represent them, but not Holland. And yet Holland had had such an important shipbuilding and marine trading tradition. Dutch clippers, for instance, were built to bring back spices and tea from the East Indies in record breaking times for years before the age of steam displaced sail.

Stad Amsterdam

The idea became reality when Ranstad joined forces with Amsterdam’s city council to get a clipper built to the same specifications as the 1854 vessel, De Amsterdam. The hull was built in steel rather than the old clipper material of timber, but as soon as the hull had been constructed in 1997, the rest of the ship was put together at Amsterdam’s Scheepvartmuseum, which is a nautical history museum. This included all the woodwork, the copper and brass trimmings and a circular staircase that really gave the new clipper the look and feel of its nineteenth century counterpart.

Romance of Sail

Frank Vining Smith

The Stad Amsterdam provides opportunities for youths to gain experience and a sense of confidence in them selves as well as competing in various tall ships races held around the world, represent Holland, and particularly Amsterdam, on good will visits. In 2009 the ship departed Plymouth in England on a voyage around the world to commemorate the expedition of the legendary “Beagle”, the ship that carried Charles Darwin as naturalist and provided him the opportunity to gather evidence for ideas he formulated about evolution. This trip was commissioned by the Dutch TV channel VPRO.

Wind and Sun

Montague Dawson

The ship was only launched in 2000 but has had to act as a multi purpose vessel ever since. It is not cheap to build and maintain a 76 metre ship and the managers of the Stad Amsterdam find a number of ways to subsidise some of its other commitments. What brings some of the needed cash in are commercial trips in different parts of the world with paying guests and passengers on board. At the time of writing of this article the Stad Amsterdam was on voyage from Italy to Spain. Despite the wealth of modern technology on board and the capabilities of a sturdy diesel engine to supplement the ship’s 31 sails, it is amusing to read the captain’s log for the voyage. The Mediterranean is probably one of the most difficult of all seas to navigate by sail alone, especially a clipper with its square rigging.

Sun-Flecked Foam – The ‘Barnabas Webb’

Montague Dawson

The Med is well known by sailors as a place where there is either too much wind or none at all – quite unlike the tempestuous roaring forties and the trade winds of the tropics where steady and continuous aft winds propelled the sleek and agile craft to the East Indies and back via the Cape of Good Hope. The captain of the Stad Amsterdam records how the ship decides to dodge below Sardinia to avoid one of the regular forecasted mistral winds that frequently roar across the Golfe des Lyons which would make it hard to sail to the Spanish coast.

Stad Amsterdam, Top Sails

What is unlikely to be a replica is the living and working conditions of the old clipper crews. To cope with cut throat competition, the crew numbers were kept to a minimum and the work was long and hard with abysmal sleeping quarters and terrible food. The crew had to keep the pumps manned day and night to keep the water out of the boat that leaked in through the timber planks and haul the rope sheets that pulled up the sails by forming a human chain. Perhaps the only reminder of the human aspect of the old clipper routines might be a recording of the sea shanties that the men used to sing while working at their chores.

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June 22, 2012 | Alison Williams

Tall Ships

Tall Ships from Around the World Steal Limelight in two US Maritime Pageants

Tall ships from several different countries took part in one of New York’s most popular maritime events, held each year in May, and stole the limelight from the other ships and boats taking part in the annual Fleet Week celebration.

The event was only kick-started in 1984, but has become a popular pageant which tends to celebrate different parts of US maritime history each year. This year’s Fleet Week commemorated the 1812 War of Independence between the fledgling would-be independent US and its former colonial master, Britain.

Sailing Ship Docked at To…

Janis Miglavs

Whatever the historical circumstances surrounding the week long flotillas and sailing events, it was the arrival of the world’s giant sailing ships which took most bystanders’ interests despite comments from some that this year’s event was a little downscaled from past years because of the financial crisis.
First to appear off New York’s Hudson River was the Spanish four masted top sail schooner, the “Juan Sebastian Elcano”. This ship has been used by the Spanish navy for decades as a training vessel for its cadets and, like many other countries, Spain uses it to showcase its nation overseas on a series of international goodwill trips, which takes the “Elcano” around the globe regularly.

US Coast Guard Ship, the Barque Eagle

Scott T. Smith

Eight other tall ships also took part in the sail down the Hudson, including those from Indonesia, Mexico, Ecuador and France.

The Indonesian ship is a three masted schooner called the “Dewaruci”. Indonesia has had some previous misfortune with its tall ship fleet. In 2005, one of its navy sailing and training ships blew ashore on a notoriously dangerous part of Australia’s East Coast and the cadets who were unlucky enough to be aboard on the day learned some lessons about being shipwrecked that they would never forget. The ship was eventually pulled off the beach, refloated and repaired.

The United States Coast Guard Ship Ea…

Medford Taylor

The French contingent sported two navy tall ships, which were the “Etoile” and “La Belle Poule”. Latin America supplied navy tall ships from Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Colombia.

The local contingent included a complement of US navy warships, 14 in all, which met the international fleet outside the River and sailed past the Statue of Liberty together. Just a little shorter than the “Juan Sebastian Elcano”, the US Coastguard’s own tall ship, the 80 m barque, the “Eagle,” met the flotilla at this point and together they made a transit of the Hudson River and then sailed back to tie up at the New York dockside. Many of the ships then opened doors to curious onlookers for a look down below and on decks.

The “Eagle”, despite its use by the US as a training vessel since the end of the Second World War, was actually originally built in Hamburg in Germany and used to train German seamen during the war. It was captured by the US navy and has been in its ownership ever since.

Just a little further up the US East Atlantic coast, in the state of New England, two separate events have been competing to attract some of the world’s tall ships to take part in their sponsored Tall Ships Challenge events. The OpSail2012 in New London and the Ocean State Tall Ships Festival in Newport, Rhode Island, are both mounting events as part of the Tall Ships Challenge. The Rhode Island event also has to compete both financially and for spectator numbers with the last of the Americas Cup World Series Regattas that is taking part off its waters in June.

Some of the ships that took part in the New York Fleet Week event will sail to New England to take part in either of the two events there, including the “Eagle”. The “Bounty” replica, which has been used in innumerable memorable and not some memorable historical film sets will also be taking part in the Ocean State Festival event.

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June 6, 2012 | Alison Williams

Maritime News and Events

Pleasure Craft Frequent Maritime Engineering Marvel

“Sailing boat, sailing boat, let go your lines and go now!” The voice from the canal control tower crackled over the radio and we did as we were told. We were the only boat to enter the 6.3 kilometre Corinth Canal which links the Ionian Sea between Italy and Greece with the Aegean. It took nearly an hour to motor at full speed against the 1 knot current between towering limestone walls only 25 meters apart to make the full transit.

Corinth Canal, Peloponnes…

Walter Bibikow

The canal is a maritime engineering marvel to be sure. Cut through Greek territory near the site of ancient Corinth, it separates the mountanous Peloponnese from the rest of the mainland and effectively makes the former an island.

The canal certainly cuts down the time taken to make East to West passages or vice versa and eliminates the passage around the often wild and tempestuous southern capes of the Peloponnese, but one wonders why there are so few boats using the waterway today. Has this masterpiece of construction become a white elephant?

Ships in Narrow Corinth C…

Diana Mayfield

Corinth’s power in the golden age of Greece lay in its key position controlling the passage by sea from the Ionian to the Aegean across the narrow isthmus or the landward passage from Greece proper to the Peloponnese. It takes little imagination to see why the construction of a canal occupied so many minds through the ages.

It was the building of the Suez Canal in the late nineteenth century which spurred the independent Greek government to finally make the canal a reality, but the result was a passage way so narrow that few modern cargo vessels can use it. Additionally, the earthquake prone territory and crumbly stone make maintenance of the canal an ongoing expensive concern.

Construction of the Corin…

Today, the canal is more of a route for tourist traffic than a serious seagoing option for commercial craft. Large ships avoid the canal because they are either too wide or too deep.

“Sailing boat, go faster, go faster,” the voice implored us. We were encountering the strong current and adverse winds that funnel through the canal that the canal is well known for. Now followed by an impatient fishing boat, it still seemed faintly ridiculous that there was any hurry. But the canal is a one way maritime traffic system – it is so narrow that boats can only pass through one at a time, with several vessels following in line at busy times. Larger ships which just fit must be towed through by tug boats.

Nowadays, about 10,000 boats use the canal each year, avoiding the 700 kilometres trip around the three southern capes.

Ahead we could see the last bridge still blocking our passageway out into the Gulf of Corinth. Several road bridges including a motorway bridge cross the canal high above the water and allow motorists and pedestrians a fascinating glimpse of the passing boats far below. Two bridges need to be dropped into the water to allow boats to pass and the passage is carefully controlled by the canal authorities.

Finally, we popped out from the canal into the choppy gulf waters and passed a small freighter and two yachts waiting to pass through the opposite way. Although the canal is reputed to be the most expensive to transit of any of the world’s major canals per kilometre we reckoned the saving in time and diesel was well worth it. Perhaps the Corinth Canal was not such a white elephant after all!

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May 22, 2012 | Alison Williams

Maritime Articles

Juan Sebastian Elcano the Tallship of the Spanish Navy still proudly sails the world’s oceans

Tall Ships Stad Amsterdam and J. Sebastian Elcano

Any homesick Spaniard cast ashore anywhere around the world would probably shed a tear and feel a warm heart at the sight of the Spanish Navy’s training ship, the 94 metre “Juan Sebastian Elcano” glide into port.

Apart from serving the nation for over 80 years as a cadet training ship, the huge square rigger acts as a “floating ambassador” for Spain as it makes its good will voyages around the globe.

Built in 1927 in Cadiz, by shipbuilders Echevarrieta y Larrigo, the ship’s chief construction engineer’s wish was for his creation to be named after one of Spain’s most famous seafarers. Juan Sebastian Elcano was one of the men who led the 5 strong expedition to discover a fast and simple route to the East Indies in the early sixteenth century, an expedition commanded by an even more famous man, Ferdinand Magellan. Every boat but one was lost on that ill fated voyage and Magellan too perished at the hands of natives of the Phillipines. Juan Sebastian Elcano was the captain of the only boat to survive, the “Victoria”.

Tall Ships Stad Amsterdam and J. Sebastian Elcano

At 94.1 metres long, without the bowsprit, and 13.3 metres in beam, the four masted top sail schooner is one of the largest of the world’s class A tall ships, and also one of the oldest.

Its inaugural voyage, after being launched by the then Prime Minister’s daughter, Carmen, was to Malaga with the King, Alfonso XIII, on board. It subsequently made a successful trip to the Canary Islands, San Sebastian, on the Basque coast and then back to Cadiz.

On its seventy fifth anniversary, King Alfonso’s grandson, the current King Juan Carlos, was a passenger on an identical trip from Cadiz to Malaga. The king probably reminisced about his time spent on the ship in earlier days when he was a navy cadet with 40 odd others.

Juan Sebastiano Elcano, Spanish Navig…

As might be expected, the grand dame of the Spanish Navy has made innumerable long voyages in its lifetime as well as having had several refits. One of the most recent embellishments was a new figurehead carved from North American cedar. The figurehead was a carving of the Roman goddess Minerva and has the Spanish coat of arms at its feet.

The ship has circumnavigated the globe ten times, but has also transited the Straits of Magellan at the bottom of South America twelve times. The total distance the Juan Sebastian Elcano has covered in the last eighty years is over one and a half million nautical miles and it has visited 180 ports in over 68 different foreign countries.

Juan Sebastian Elcano

Its 20 sails, when all set, cover a total sail area of 3,150 square metres and have helped carry the great ship across the Atlantic with the use of sail three times. When at full speed, it can sail at 17 knots.

The Juan Sebastian Elcano has full membership of the Sail Training Association, that includes most of the world’s tall ships used as training ships for their respective navy cadets or for the youth of their nations. The ship has won the Association’s Boston Teapot Trophy eight times. The trophy is awarded to the tall ship that covers the longest distance in any twenty four hour period . With only two major refits above its keel, and a still busy schedule, the Juan Sebastian Elcano is expected to remain a figure of maritime elegance for many years to come.

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May 17, 2012 | Alison Williams

Tall Ships

Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707)

Willem van de Velde the Younger (Leiden, December 18, 1633 – London, April 6, 1707) was a Dutch sea painter.

Son of Willem van de Velde the Elder, also a painter of seascapes, he learned from his father and later from Simon de Vlieger, a famous artist of the time. In 1673, the year he moved to England, he had already gained fame in his native country.

In London, King Charles II hired him to paint drawings and sketches of sea battles for a salary of 100 pounds a year. Part of his job was to color drawings by Willem the Elder, also hired in court. He is also commissioned by the Duke of York, later crowned as James II, and by several members of the nobility.

Dutch Shipping Offshore in a Rising Gale

Willem Van De, The Younger Velde

The most beautiful paintings of van de Velde are views out to sea from the Netherlands, showing Dutch ships. His best paintings are delicate, inspired, detailed and very accurate in describing the ships and their components. Many figures are introduced with great eloquence, and the artist successfully represents the sea, either calm or stormy.

Many of his works are now in museums around the world.

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May 11, 2012 | admin

Marine Artists & Photographers

Montague Dawson (1895-1973) British Painter

Considered by many as the greatest painter of the sea in the 20th century, and one of the most skilled craftsmen in the line of the British marine artists, Montague Dawson is known for his beautiful clipper ships, emerging from the waves and gliding majestically under the sky. In his paintings, the ships and the elements become one, together in a harmony of movement and color that reflect an astonishing reality.

Dawson was born in Chiswick, England, son of a Thames sailing enthusiast, and grandson of the famous English landscape painter Henry Dawson. Early in life he moved to Southampton where he spent his free time fishing, sailing and admiring the world’s largest ships during their port call. He served as a naval officer during World War I, where he met English artist C. Napier Hemy who’s influence on him was such that he spend the rest of his life devoted to painting and professional illustration.

Wind and Sun

Montague Dawson

Much of the work of Montague Dawson is divided into various private collections as well as important museums around the world. His reputation as “the king of Clipper Ship School ” has reached all corners of the planet. Close to the end of his days, only Picasso was paid higher for his work. He was one of a kind, whose style and genius we might never see again.

Montague Dawson. The Flying Cloud

With the original paintings reaching ever higher prices, today we can enjoy Montague Dawson’s fascinating work as an affordable goutteletteÂ® print on paper. An exclusive digital printing process combining new technology with the traditional expertise of craftsmen which creates a unique fidelity to the original.

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May 7, 2012 | admin

Marine Artists & Photographers

Arrival of Japanese Ghost Ship revives Seafarers’ Fears

When the Ryou-Un Maru slowly slipped across the North Pacific Ocean and appeared to endanger the Alaskan coastline the other day, the response from the US Coast Guard was to blow up while it still floated in deep, ocean water.

The ship, a deep sea fishing vessel, destined for the scrap yard was close to the centre of the Japanese tsunami that struck the North Eastern coast of Japan about a year ago, causing reverberations and controversy in its wake.

The ship was set adrift, with about five million tonnes of other rubbish and flotsam, and was slowly blown across the sea towards the US and Canadian Western coastline. With nobody aboard, but unknown cargo and 4000 litres of diesel oil still in its tanks, it was a veritable “ghost ship.”

The great natural disasters like tsunamis and cyclones or hurricanes, are some of the maritime industry’s greatest modern day dreads, damaging more ships and smaller craft than any human activity, including war.

Fortunately, in many cases, communications and forecasting help to provide sufficient forewarning of some of the worst natural events. The dozens of pearl luggers that were swept ashore in Australia’s 1899 Cyclone Mahina knew nothing of the great storm that bore down on them, ultimately killing 400 or more seamen. Similarly, it was the lack of a proper tsunami warning system that led to the destruction of hundreds of boats, mostly small fishing boats, which were lost in the 2004 “Boxing Day” tsunami that originated deep below the sea off the coast of Sumatra.

Even modern yachts were caught unawares in the latter event, despite their ultra modern radios and on board email systems. In Thailand’s marinas and sculpted bays and islands, even as far as Malaysia, dozens of yachts were trapped by the triple whammy of great waves that engulfed the Andaman coast.

The only warning that some people had was when the water suddenly retreated, as if the tide was going out. Twenty minutes later, the first of the three large tsunami waves reared up as it approached the coast at speeds of up to 400 kilometres an hour.

In some ways, boats and ships have better luck than those on land when a tsunami strikes. As long as there is sufficient warning, these craft can put to sea. Tsunami waves are only dangerous in shallow water. Strange as it seems, even a large tsunami like the 2004 event only causes an almost imperceptible gentle rise and fall for a boat floating in deep water.

The Pacific Ocean has had a good tsunami warning system for quite some time. It is a boon for boats and ships as long as they are far enough from the epicentre of the earthquake that triggers the waves.

No such good luck for those that are too close, as no warning can ever be long enough when within the range of a nearby tsunami. Such was the fate of the Ryou–Un Maru and many other boats like it in last year’s Japanese tsunami.

Hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons – they are all the same thing, but are given different names, depending on the area that these tropical storms are experienced. The correct meteorological term is a “tropical revolving storm” and can exert its malevolent influence anywhere within the tropics, normally in the hotter, wetter summer months of the western sides of all the great oceans.

These storms can now be predicted with reasonable accuracy, their origins within oceanic thunderstorm complexes and their evolution into deadly systems tracked with the aid of satellites and a legion of weather instruments.

They are now not much of a hazard for large, ocean going commercial ships, more of a nuisance than a danger, as the forecasting service is able to allow a change of plan or route.

Smaller fishing boats, commercial ferries, trading boats and pleasure boats can take shelter, given adequate forecast, but some cyclones are still so powerful that even the best forecasting system can not avoid total destruction.

Cyclone Yasi, last year’s East Australian category 5 storm, blew home close to the 1899 Mahina and caused death and destruction wherever it struck. In one marina, in one of Australia’s most sheltered areas, in what had been thought to be a “cyclone hole”, a hundred pleasure boats were thrown across the water in the cyclone’s storm surge and smashed against the shore like matchsticks.

April 11, 2012 | Alison Williams

Maritime News and Events

Cargo Ships just keep Getting Bigger

Container Cargo Ship © jurand - Fotolia.com

While the size of cargo ships seems to be getting larger and larger each decade, with the advantages that brings in terms of economies of scale, the ports and handling facilities often find it difficult to keep pace.

Some evidence of this is that the very largest of the cargo ships that have been built over the last ten years are now far too big to even get through one or other of those famous distance and time saving canals, like the Suez and the Panama.

Just recently, a huge Korean built ship, owned by the Mediterranean Shipping Company, called the “Fabiola”, docked at the Port of Long Beach, dwarfing the port installation and becoming the very largest ship to have ever docked in either North or South America.

Anybody watching the giant making its way slowly into port on the morning of its arrival could be forgiven for thinking that a huge unnatural island had just arrived.

The spatial figures are indeed awesome. The ship is as long as the Empire State Building, as wide as a ten lane Californian freeway and can carry up to 12,000 containers at any one time.

Although this sort of size is now favoured by many of the world’s shipping companies, the ports and canals are lagging behind in infrastructural support. The Panama Canal is currently undergoing modifications so that the very largest of container ships or bulk tankers will be able to fit through its locks, but the work will take at least two more years to complete and who knows what will be the length of the very largest of ships by then!

Few harbours or ports anywhere in the Americas – North or South – are capable of handling these giants because their wharves are either too short or the approach is too shallow. These huge ships represent a valuable catch for any port that undergoes modifications that will allow it to handle them. There are several ports up and down the Americas that are frantically trying to get their act together.

At present, the twin West Coast ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are getting the lion’s share of the trade that these giants bring.

The Mediterranean Shipping Company now has 43 mega sized ships amongst its 484 strong fleet. The company’s commercial fleet is more extensive than that of the US Navy.

It is not just port facilities that are inadequate at present. The huge ships need careful pilotage. For the Long beach docking of the “Fabiola”, the century old family run Jacobsen Pilot Service, which handles all of the Long Beach arrivals, had to have special training on a simulator in San Francisco so that they could practise the manouevres needed to safely bring the giant into dock. The docking also needed the coordination of three tug boats which were used to deftly turn the huge boat around in the entry channel and guide it past several shallow water patches and shoals on either side of the fairway.

Jacobsens were reportedly said that the arrival of the “Fabiola” is just the beginning and they expect to have many more huge visitors arrive in the near future.

March 28, 2012 | Alison Williams

Maritime Articles

Turanor Planet Solar confronts pirates in the Gulf of Aden

Türanor Planet Solar © Dr. Karl-Heinz Hochhaus

The annual yacht migration from South East Asia through the Gulf of Aden and on to the Mediterranean does not have many takers this year as the notorious pirate ally along the sea route via the Gulf of Aden remains a constant threat to any seagoing vessel.

Many vessels remain in ports scattered throughout the Asian region or foot the hefty bill to load onto a container ship for a safe transit to the Med. However, Turanor PlanetSolar, the biggest solar-powered boat on earth and attempting to be the first to complete a solar or sun assisted circumnavigation has just conquered this, the most dangerous stretch of water from a pirate point of view, and is well on its way home.

“Thoughts of Home” Saturd…

Norman Rockwell

Turanor is a specially equipped catamaran that is powered entirely through its hundreds of solar panels. The power stored in its batteries can keep it going for about three days if the sun becomes hidden by clouds and allows the boat to move at about 7 knots. As pirate skiffs can skoot along at about 20 knots, the solar boat could be a sitting duck, even if it had full power.

It seems they had been quite aware since 2006 that this part of their journey would be the deciding factor in the completion of their epic trip around the globe – the first by any solar powered vessel. As they approached the Arabian Sea just a few weeks ago and on arrival in Abu Dhabi they realised that they would have to seriously prepare Turanor Planet Solar if they wanted to get through unscathed. Solar boats do not have the same speed as big ships or even sail driven yachts if extra effort is required to escape the clutches of pirate kidnappings.

In the end, they decided that they would have to employ an armed security team to maintain a 24 hour security watch as they manoeuvred through the 1800 nautical mile area. On board were six ex soldiers from the French Army. However, this was not enough for them, as they also surrounded the perimeter of the boat with barbed wire to evade boarding pirates.

Once on the journey, they moved at night unlit, as they not only did not want to be seen but they also had to maintain a reserve of battery power in case they had to move faster in order to evade any potential attack. Two armed men were steadfastly on duty night and day scanning the horizon for potential threats.

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They could have risked arrest if they had not remained a reasonable distance off the coast of Oman and Yemen, as armed ships are not permitted in the waters of these two countries.

However, the heavily guarded Turanor did have one suspected encounter with a pirate skiff and that was on 16th February. Fortunately for them, the boat turned away when they saw the well armed security men positioned around the boat.

It took Turanor 20 days to navigate the pirate infested water between Abu Dhabi and Djibouti and their current position is now abeam of the Egyptian coast heading slowly northwards in to the reaches of the Suez Canal and back home to the Med. Monte Carlo is their final destination. They have so far covered 55,379 kilometres in 330 days and they do not have too far to go to achieve the prize of the first solar boat to circumnavigate the Earth.

March 12, 2012 | Alison Williams

Maritime News and Events

Maritime GPS Navigation at Risk from Jammers and Spoofers

Marine navigation all over the world has increasingly become reliant on global positioning systems or GPS for short, and its Russian, European and Chinese equivalents. So much so, that it would be hard to imagine the vast number of commercial vessels, let alone smaller fishing and pleasure boats being able to go anywhere on the sea without their GPS system working properly.

However, reports are now coming in which point to an increasing and very real risk to GPS systems and therefore, the whole of marine navigation by “jammers” and “spoofers” who, for a small cost, are able to upset the way in which satellite positioning is received and processed.

GPS is a more sophisticated version of earlier satellite navigation (satnav) systems that surfaced in the nineteen seventies. It had its origin in the US military’s need to deploy “seek and destroy” cruise missiles that could locate and blow up an enemy target using a GPS aided detection system buried in their nose cones. The US military kindly allowed its many orbiting position indicating satellites to be used by civilian devices. These were quickly developed for use at sea and, a little later, adapted for widespread use on land as well. From the tiniest fishing dinghy to the largest oil tanker, from family cars to taxis and buses, and from gliders to passenger aeroplanes, the GPS system lets people know wherever they are on the surface of the planet.

In the early days of GPS, the system was used with some caution and mariners still learnt the traditional craft of navigation with compass and sextant. The fear was that the US military would switch off the signal from the satellites in the event of perceived conflict, making all navigation immediately inoperable. The fears were, for the most part, unrealised. Apart from a few scares, no collisions or shipwrecks are known so far to have been caused by a disappearing signal, although many vessels have gone aground or sunk as a result of too heavy a dependence on electronic GPS navigation without the use of a corresponding use of common sense.

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Now the danger lies in simple technology which apparently almost anybody with a head for electronic communication coupled with a few hundred euros could devise or simply buy online.

“Jammers” are already widely available on the internet and can be bought quite legally, although their use is illegal. Pranksters and gangsters alike have used these jammers to disrupt navigation systems at airports and on busy highways. Criminals have been known to use jammers to deliberately disrupt the GPS systems in trucks in order to be able to hold them up for their valuable contents.

Henry the Navigator at th…

C.l. Doughty

Some jammers have much more signal strength than the low level signals emanating from orbiting satellites. A research experiment in the English Channel in 2010 used a low level jammer and discovered that it had remarkable effects on ships traversing the busy waterway between France and England. Reports came in of ships veering suddenly off course from the use of the jammer. Most commercial ships use an automated system to link their GPS with their steering by autopilot, so jammers can potentially have a devastating effect.

Perhaps more potentially dangerous than jammers are the “spoofers”. These are able to create a false GPS signal that can be used to fool anybody reliant on GPS to provide accurate time and location. The technology that makes spoofing possible has only just become available and is not yet widespread, but reports indicate that the components to construct a home made spoofer would cost less than a thousand euros.

Spoofers could be used in all sorts of devious ways to create false positions for illegal fishing boats and even motorists who want to evade fines from traffic infringements to havoc, even in the financial world. Stock exchanges depend now on precise timing for the exchange of stock.

Although, no serious incidents have yet been ascribed to the use of spoofers, an Iranian engineer is reported to have claimed that a US spy drone had been brought down over Iran by a home made spoofer. The report has yet to be confirmed but experts in the field say that is “in the realms of possibility and that is the scary part of the story.”

February 23, 2012 | Alison Williams

Maritime News and Events