USS COLE (DDG 67)

12 OCTOBER 2014:  Besides being Columbus Day, it is the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the USS Cole (DDG 67) in the port of Aden, Yemen. The ship is (I didn't say "was" because she is still on active duty, having been repaired - more on that shortly) an Arleigh Burke class destroyer - the 17th in her class. Here's what she looks like:

One of the better designed and functional destroyers of the "modern" navy!

It was a the morning of 12 October and Cole had moored out in the harbor at Aden to take on fuel. A small craft - it was a hard-bottom inflatable - manned by two men and carrying over 500 pounds of explosives - approached the port side of the ship. Alongside, the shaped charge in the boat detonated and blew a hole 40' X 60' in the side of the destroyer. The explosion blew through the galley where the crew had just lined up for the midday meal and also opened the engineering spaces to the sea.

 17 sailors were killed outright and 39 were wounded in the blast. The crew fought the fires and flooding for three days before it was brought under control. After an inspection by divers, it was found that the keel was not damaged.

The injured men were removed to the Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center at Ramstein Germany and from there to the United States. 

This was the deadliest attack on a US warship since the Iraqi attack on the USS Stark in May 1987.

Al-Qaeda took credit for the attack (they had failed in an attempt on the USS The Sullivans in Aden in January of the same year due to an overloaded attack boat which sank during the run-in) and the so-called master-mind, Khalid al_Mihdhar was not caught (in spite of presidential promises to the contrary!)  and would return to the United States to help fly American Airlines Flight 77 which crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11/2001.

The British Type 23 frigate, HMS Marlborough first on the scene to help the stricken Cole and provided both medical and damage control assistance. 

A monument/memorial was erected in Norfolk to commemorate those who lost their lives in the tragedy.

 

"Distilled of all impurities, these days (Autumn) are the true sparklers of the year." Mary Jane Hayes
                                                                                                                                Eye of the Sea

                               Fair Winds,               

                                              Old Salt

SCHOOL SHIP OLIVER HAZARD PERRY

9 October 2014: Yesterday's post gave some highlights and overview - along with some pictures and a neat video - of the French replica frigate L'Hermione. With renewed interest, sparked by Tall Ships America, Operation Sail and the bicentennial of the War of 1812 gathering of these magnificent vessels, I expect we will see more of tall ships appearing on the horizon with the passage of time. There is currently building in Rhode Island a modern version of a full rigged ship named the Oliver Hazard Perry. Full rigged means three masts fitted with square sails and a mizzen mast with a gaff rigged fore- and aft sail. Here's a rendering of what she will look like:

The hull was begun in Canada where a failed project to build a replica of the British ship HMS Detroit, a 20 gun vessel which was captured by Oliver Hazard Perry on Lake Erie became available at the right price. The 138' hull had cost $3 million but the Rhode Island Trust procured it for $325,000, had it towed to Rhode Island where work commenced to create a modern (below deck only) full rigged ship of 207'. Topside she is all traditional and has recently been "masted" (her masts were stepped). She is the largest privately owned tall ship and the largest civilian sail training vessel in the United States. She will sail as Rhode Island's official tall ship - a good will ambassador - and school ship, a floating classroom.


With almost 7 miles of rope rigging - both running and standing controlling 20 sails of 14,000 square feet, she is the first full sized tall ship to be built in the United States in over 100 years!

   

           

She will carry no passengers; everyone aboard will be functioning as crew and will take an active role in her management and sailing the ship. She meets and exceeds all USCG and ABS mandates for a ship of her size, and will accommodate 49 people overnight and 100 for day sailing.







While she is not ready to sail yet, she will be soon and will undergo sea trials once she is complete.

                                                    Fair Winds,
                                                            Old Salt
Thanks to the Rhode Island Trust for this information and the images.  OS

FRENCH FRIGATE L'HERMIONE

8 OCTOBER 2014: A long awaited project in France has finally seen success! The reproduction French frigate of 1780 fame (more about that in a moment) has been launched and sailed! This is the first wooden tall ship built from scratch in recent times by the old methods. A remarkable task no matter how you cut it!
The project began life as a concept in 1993. "Let's build a replica of L'Hermione, the frigate that carried Lafayette to America in 1780 (near the end of the American Revolution) and sail her to America in 2015 in commemoration of that event." Plans began and teams researched British archives for drawings of the lines of the ship. They ultimately used the lines of Concorde, an exact sister ship of L'Hermione captured by the British during the Napoleonic wars. The original L'Hermione had wrecked in 1793 and her plans were never archived, apparently. But the British had a habit of taking the lines off any ship they captured and those archives have proved a real treasure-trove for modern day researchers. As a matter of interest, the organizers decided to build their replica in Rochfort on the Bay of Biscay, the same town where the original was built (the original only took 11 months, though!).

The original 1780 L'Hermione

Construction began in 1997 as funds were raised and by 2000, the hull had taken shape. In 2011, the hull was complete. Construction was done by volunteers, both skilled and unskilled, who worked as they were able on the project. (Thus, 11 years as opposed to 11 months!) She was launched in 2012 and in 2013, her masts were in place.

 The ship headed to sea in September of 2014 for sea trials and the timeline held for sailing her to America in 2015. When she arrived originally at Boston, she carried the Marquis de LaFayette who brought the news that France would help the Patriots with their revolution. And indeed, in 1781, Admiral deGrasse' s fleet arrived at the Virginia Capes in time to preclude British assistance to General Cornwallis in his fight with Washington at Yorktown. (The Battle of the Virginia Capes) The fighting ended with the Patriot victory in that battle.

  
                                            Here's L'Hermione in September under sail.   
  
And clicking on the link below will hopefully show you a time lapse video of her creation!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3labVPJOLzg

Not to be outdone, the American's have constructed a tall ship - differently built - in Rhode Island and we'll have a look at that project in a future edition.

                                                     Fair winds,
                                                          Old Salt

PADDLEWHEEL STEAMERS

7 OCTOBER 2014:  Getting away from the salt water for a moment or two now. Today is significant in that it was on this date in 1816 that the first steam-driven paddlewheeler - double decked on top of it - arrived in New Orleans. The design would prove essential for the shallow waters of the western rivers and would revolutionize trade and transport in the west.

 While the image here is not the Washington, it representative of the style: shallow draft, stern mounted wheel, tall chimney, high pilot house, and powered by high pressure steam.

Washington was designed and built by Henry Shreve who launched his ship on the Monongahela River near Pittsburgh. His design proved the concept and the ship began regular runs between New Orleans and Louisville Kentucky. She could make 16 kts up river (against the current) fully loaded with cargo and passengers and downriver, a blistering 25 kts was possible!
By the 1850's, the peak of the paddle wheeler era,over 700 steamers plied the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and carried over 3 million passengers every year! Settlers heading west often, if they could afford the passage, took a paddle wheeler on the first leg on their journey, then going overland from Independence, St. Joseph, and Council Bluffs.

By the later part of the century, the western steamboat had been eclipsed by rail and diesel towboats hauling barges. But the iconic paddle wheeler had made its mark.

Now, they  are tourist vessels that ply the same waters, hauling modern day folks on sightseeing trips.

Here are a couple of the modern day reproductions. I am told by those who have experienced the trip, it

 is worthwhile and fun!                         

                                                         

"I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky, and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by."John Masefield Sea Fever

                                                            Fair winds, 
                                                                       Old Salt 

MOUNT RUSHMORE

4 October 2014: Today is an anniversary which I think deserves a mention in these pages: The beginning of work on Mount Rushmore National Monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota. What's that? Oh, yeah! I am well aware that South Dakota is not exactly the meta-center of things maritime or even that it's near water beyond a river or two. But maybe branching out a bit will broaden all our horizons and we'll discover some new and fun stuff. And no, I am not leaving permanently for dry ground. This merely a slight detour on our course. So what's the big deal?

 This is the big deal. While I have never seen it in person, it is on my "bucket list" and I hope to get there one day. It is hard to fathom the scope of this masterful carving from pictures, but try because it's nothing short of amazing. For some indication of scale, look closely at the workmen in the images below.

 On this date (4 October) in 1927, an historian named Doane Robinson hired sculptor Gutzon Borglum to carve the faces into the mountain in an effort to attract tourism to the Black Hills. The first face carved, appropriately, was that of  George Washington.

Borglum had begun to create Jefferson's likeness to Washington's right, but about two years into the carving, the rock "canvas" cracked so badly he had to start over, placing Jefferson on the other side. Washington was completed in 1934 and Jefferson in 1936.

It was dedicated then with President Franklin Roosevelt present. In '37, Lincoln was finished and by 1939, Teddy Roosevelt was added. Here's another amazing factoid: the whole project, funded by the federal government, cost $1 million! That's it! Imagine what it would be today!

Borglum kept working, touching up his work with the intention of adding inscriptions on the mountain, giving a capsule outline of American history. Sadly, he never got the opportunity to add what surely would have been a worthy improvement as he died quite suddenly in 1941.

I hope you will agree that this little gem of information was worth a bit of  a detour from things maritime!

"The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators." Edward Gibbon

                                            Fair winds,
                                                          Old Salt 

AMAZING DISCOVERY

2 OCTOBER 2014: A couple of weeks ago, I reported that an archeological expedition might have found the lost ships of the Franklin Expedition which vanished about 170 years ago. I thought/hoped it might have been the HMS Terror, a bomb ship which participated in the bombardment of Baltimore during the attack on Fort McHenry on 14 September of 1814. Yesterday, experts with Parks Canada have released a side scan sonar image of the ship they found and have identified it as HMS Erebus, which, while definitely one of the Franklin ships - in fact, it may well have been the one Franklin himself was in, it was not the same Erebus which took part in the bombardment of Baltimore. There was in fact another ship of the same name in Baltimore then. The Royal Navy, as with many others including the U.S. Navy, often reuses a ship's name causing some confusion among later historians.

  Here is the image Parks Canada released:

HMS EREBUS from Franklin Expedition

The Canadian government took on the task of searching for the lost ships as the discovery would assert Canada's ownership of the Northwest Passage. Recent melting of the Arctic icecap has opened the very waters in which Sir John Franklin was unsuccessfully searching. While Canada claims ownership of the passage, the rest of the world, including the U.S., says it is international territory.

The wreck is located in 50 feet of really cold water some 2,000 kilometers northwest of Toronto and is in amazingly good condition, preserved is it is by the very cold water which typically allows little growth of marine critters which can do serious damage to a wreck, especially during  a period of 170 years.

So, what was Franklin doing out there? He was searching for the Northwest Passage, a short route to the Orient. He left England with 128 men and two ships (HMS Terror - yes, the one from Baltimore - and HMS Erebus) in 1845 and, when his ships got locked in the ice near King William Island, historians believe they abandoned them to walk to safety. Didn't work, and Inuit lore describes "starving white men" on the Royal Geographical Society Island. Dozens of rescue/search missions were launched, many of which also ended in disaster. Some of them actually found a Northwest Passage, but because of ice and generally horrible weather, the ones they found were unusable. The first successful "sea crossing" did not occur until Amundsen of Norway did it 1903-1906.

Needless to say, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society are very excited about the discovery and it is likely that further examination will be undertaken. Due to a fear of looters (though why in those waters someone would go pleasure diving is beyond me!) they did not disclose the exact location of the wreck.

Should more information surface (!) I will pass it on here.

"The two most important days of your life are the day you were born, and the day you find out why!"
                                                                                                                 Mark Twain

                                                        Fair winds!
                                                                Old Salt

USS NAUTILUS SS(N) 571

30 SEPTEMBER 2014: This date, 60 years ago (wow! That long? Holy Cow!) First Lady Mamie Eisenhower christened the world's first nuclear powered submarine, USS NAUTILUS SS(N) 571. The U.S. Navy launched the ship at Groton, CT and she ran for the first time under nucler power on the morning of 17th January, 1955. 

 

The ship was built under the auspices of Admiral Hyman Rickover, likely one of the most controversial officers in the navy, before or since! His detractors, of which there was no shortage, referred to him as a fanatic, but the Russian-born engineer, who joined the U.S. nuclear program in 1946, pressed on with a focus of single minded purpose. He developed the concept of a nuclear powered submarine when he joined the nuclear propulsion program in 1947 and by 1952, had laid the keel for the ship. Actually, President Harry Truman presided at the keel laying.

 Nautilus was significantly larger than her predecessors, measuring 319 feet and displacing 3,180 tons. With her nuclear powered engine, she could stay submerged almost indefinitely. Her uranium powered reactor produced steam to run her turbines which gave the ship an underwater speed in excess of 20kts. Prior to this time, the best most subs could manage submerged was 5 or 6 kts on electric motors. During the first few years of her service, Nautilus broke all manner of records including speed and submerged endurance. In 1958 the ship sailed under  the geographic North Pole.

 Following a 25 year career during which she put over 500,000 miles on the odometer, Nautilus was decommissioned - 3 March 1980. In '82, she was declared a National Historic Landmark and went on exhibit in 1986. She is still a big attraction in Groton, CT at the Submarine Force Museum there.

 

"A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships." Franklin D. Roosevelt

                                   Fair Winds,

                                             Old Salt