Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
January 27, 1989 Aviation pioneer Thomas Sopwith died at his mansion near the city of Winchester in southern England. He was 101. “The Genius of Flight is Dead,” announced a headline in the London-based Evening Standard. Sopwith was born on January 18, 1888, in the Royal Borough of Kensington (now part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea) in... Continue Reading →
November 29, 1987 Kay Cottee departed from Sydney, Australia, on board the yacht Blackmore's First Lady for what would become a notable voyage across the globe. When she returned to Sydney Harbour 189 days later, Cottee made history as the first woman to sail around the world solo, non-stop, and without any assistance. Cottee, who... Continue Reading →
October 26, 1972 Uffa Fox, a renowned boat designer and sailing expert, died in London at the age of 74. He had been born on January 15, 1898, on England’s Isle of Wight. Fox is widely credited with popularizing modern-day dinghy sailing and making several major contributions to that small-boat activity. One of these contributions was Fox’s... Continue Reading →
July 8, 1862 In the Australian colony (now state) of New South Wales, a group of 19 men met in the office of merchant William Walker in Sydney to establish a club to promote local boating activities. (Along with being an avid yachtsman, Walker was the head of a prominent shipbuilding firm; in addition, he... Continue Reading →
June 27, 1898 Joshua Slocum completed the first solo circumnavigation of the world at 1:00 a.m. when he sailed into the harbor at Newport, Rhode Island, on board his oyster sloop (a type of one-masted sailboat) named the Spray. The Canadian-born Slocum had first set sail in that vessel from Boston on April 25, 1895,... Continue Reading →
Antonio Valent, the son of a seaman who immigrated to Texas from Spain, was born in 1884 in the town of Point Isabel (now Port Isabel) in the Lone Star State. He launched a fishing business in that region of the Gulf coast in 1902. The market for the fish he caught was initially restricted... Continue Reading →
July 7, 1902 Two months after being christened, the sailing vessel Preußen – named in honor of the German kingdom and state of Prussia – was completed at the Joh. C. Tecklenborg shipyard in the German Empire’s seaport of Geestemünde (now part of the city of Bremerhaven in the Republic of Germany). Preußen, which is... Continue Reading →
March 31, 1791 U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton contracted with architect John McComb Jr. to design the first version of Cape Henry Lighthouse on Virginia’s Atlantic shore and at the southern boundary of the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. (At the time, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Lighthouse Establishment was responsible for all lighthouses in the United... Continue Reading →
January 30, 2017 The extensive sea trials for the Indian Navy sailing vessel (INSV) Tarini were successfully completed. INSV Tarini, which had been built at Aquarius Shipyard in southwestern India’s state of Goa, was only the second ocean-going sailboat to become part of the Indian Navy. (ISNV Mhadei, the first of these sailboats, had been... Continue Reading →
November 27, 2003 The yacht Mirabella V was launched at the VT shipbuilding company’s shipyard at Woolston in the city of Southampton in southeastern England. With a length of more than 245 feet (74.7 meters) and a height of 290 feet (88.5 meters), Mirabella V is the largest single-masted yacht (sloop) ever built. The designer... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 