Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
August 28, 1858 A corvette (small warship) built for the British Royal Navy (RN) was launched at Sheerness Dockyard, which was located at the mouth of the River Medway in southeastern England. The afternoon ceremony for HMS (Her Majesty’s Ship) Clio was described in effusive terms by the London-based Standard. This newspaper reported, “The launch of... Continue Reading →
August 22, 1945 A cargo ship named after the capital of Louisiana was launched at Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyards in Baltimore. SS Baton Rouge Victory was one of the vessels known as Victory ships. A large number of these ships were built during World War II to help transport cargo for the United States in its global... Continue Reading →
August 18, 2015 Macif, a 98-foot (30-meter)-long vessel, was officially launched. This vessel is an Ultim-class maxi-trimaran, which is a type of multihull boat built with a main hull that has two outrigger hulls (floats) attached to it via lateral beams. Macif -- named for the French insurance company that owns her -- was designed... Continue Reading →
March 21, 2022 After more than a quarter-century of service, the patrol ship USS Whirlwind (PC-11) was decommissioned at the U.S. Navy base Naval Support Activity Bahrain. (That military installation in the Kingdom of Bahrain serves as home to both U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the U.S. Fifth Fleet.) Whirlwind had been built at... Continue Reading →
December 2, 1594 Gerardus Mercator, whose influential work in cartography included a seminal 1569 map that depicted sailing courses worldwide, died at the age of 82 in the city of Duisburg in present-day Germany. He had been born on March 5, 1512, in the town of Rupelmonde in what is now Belgium. Mercator established a niche... Continue Reading →
September 13, 2005 National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) began construction on USNS Alan Shepard (T-AKE-3), a U.S. Navy underway replenishment (UNREP) vessel. (This type of vessel is used to transport fuel, munitions, and various other supplies to ships out at sea.) The building of the Alan Shepard took place at NASSCO’s shipyard in San... Continue Reading →
August 28, 1945 Just a few days before World War II ended with the formal surrender of Japan to the Allies, the U.S. Navy tanker USS Chukawan (AO-100) was launched at the Bethlehem Steel Company’s shipyard in Sparrows Point (an industrial area in the vicinity of Baltimore). As part of those festivities, this vessel --... Continue Reading →
On April 29, 2022, Mary MeleNaite Tufui Likio McCray became the first female U.S. Navy officer of Tongan descent. (Tonga is a Polynesian country and archipelago in the southern Pacific Ocean.) McCray achieved this naval milestone during a commissioning ceremony in which she transitioned from the enlisted position of Boatswain’s Mate 1st class to the... Continue Reading →
Elizabeth Whitney Williams was one of the longest-serving lighthouse keepers in American history. In 1904, the Detroit Free Press underscored both the challenges and significance of Williams’ lifesaving role on behalf of maritime transportation. This article stated, “For more than three decades she has been in charge of one of Uncle Sam’s lighthouses on the... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 