Sail with New Freebooters

UK newspapers have been publishing a steady stream of reports of the nonsensical consequences of Health & Safety regulations and the way they are interpreted, but this is just one facet of a worldwide trend towards regulation and micro-management. Mainland Europe is suffering, too – and it is affecting the operation of tall ships and [...]

Jim Murrant, author of The Boating Bible Manual of Seamanship, includes an excellent video of what happens when you use various different means to fight an oil or fat fire in a pan on a galley stove. Just about everybody knows that you should not use water, but this video shows how much better it [...]

Source: Inmarsat Newsroom On 11 Feb 2009,  Inmarsat C helped to repel pirates who tried to attack a bulk carrier in the Indian Ocean. The 53,500 DWT vessel was approximately 100 miles south east of Socotra Island when the attack happened. Five pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault guns approached and attempted to board. [...]

CS Forrester, Patrick O’Brian, Dudley Pope… These and other authors have all written about young officers in Nelson’s Navy squirming under the intimidating pressure of oral examinations. Their young heroes usually had a tough time with the mathematics of navigation, but delighted in proposing ways of coping with steering gear and rigs severely damaged by [...]

I’m getting a bit like my grandfather. I’ve been around long enough now to notice that some things have changed. I want to talk about the differences between then and now, and perhaps comment on where things seem to be going. Note that I call them the good old days, not the better old days. [...]