I saw a comment post on gcaptain that sparked my interest. It said “Time to bring back the Q ships”. While the entire world now engages in discussing how to stop piracy, I took a moment to research this, as I did not recall what exactly the Q ships were. Q ships where heavily armed merchant ships used in WWI and WWII with concealed weaponry that were designed to lure enemy subs into engaging them in a surface attack. Essentially decoy ships.

Maritime security – A topic that has recieved near continual attention since 9/11 and was re-enforced following the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Are we addressing the right aspects? Do our current regulations effectively create a secure maritime domain? Are we more secure along our maritime borders than 4 years ago? What about 8 years ago?

I took a trip to Ireland recently and learned a surprising bit of history concerning one of my favorite brews, Guinness.  Did you know that Guinness shipped a good amount of the “black stuff” over to England with their very own beer tankers?  Talk about a great gig!  If you go way back, you find [...]

“We’ve fetched up hard aground, north of Goose Island, off Bligh Reef and evidently leaking some oil and we’re gonna be here for a while.” Exxon Valdez has indeed been here a while.  One can only wonder if CAPT Hazelwood realized the impact his ship would have on the maritime industry when he made that [...]

The largest floating crane on the U.S. West Coast was successfully offloaded from the M/V ZHEN HUA 22 in San Francisco Bay yesterday.  The impressive crane that is going to be used to complete construction on the East Span of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge floated off the heavy lift ship M/V ZHEN [...]