Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
The cargo ship ARA Canal Beagle was launched in Buenos Aires. She was named after the Beagle Channel, a strait in Tierra del Fuego (an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland). Canal Beagle was the first of three Costa Sur-class cargo ships built for the Argentine Navy to replace increasingly obsolete... Continue Reading →
Domingo Marcucci (1827-1905), who started out life in the part of the South American republic of Gran Colombia that now encompasses Venezuela, became a leading trailblazer for maritime activities in the United States. “Captain [Domingo] Marcucci is the pioneer boatbuilder of the Pacific Coast and the first to establish a shipyard in San Francisco,” asserted... Continue Reading →
Steamship captain Manuel A. Gonzalez (1832-1902) immigrated to the United States from his native Spain in 1846. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1859. During the Civil War, he put his maritime skills to effective use by using a boat on a regular basis to transport needed supplies to the Union Army troops stationed... Continue Reading →
Sampo, a pioneering icebreaker that the British manufacturer Armstrong-Whitworth (AW) had just built for the Finnish government, left the AW shipyard in northeastern England for her second sea trial. The first sea trial for Sampo took place about a month earlier and quickly ended in failure when the new vessel’s bow propeller shaft malfunctioned. Sampo’s... Continue Reading →
In 1928, former U.S. Naval Academy midshipman Henry Garcia received a U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) commission. In doing so, Puerto Rican-born Garcia made history by becoming that military branch’s first officially recognized minority officer. A decade later, he achieved another milestone when he was made the captain of the patrol boat USCG Morris. This assignment... Continue Reading →
Just over six months after being launched, the Japanese training sail ship Kaiwo Maru was fully completed by Sumitomo Heavy Industries. The four-masted vessel, measuring more than 361 feet in length, was built to replace a 1930 training ship bearing the same name. (The original Kaiwo Maru is now a museum ship in the Japanese... Continue Reading →
The Argentine Navy icebreaker ARA Almirante Irízar, which was built and launched in Finland, first arrived in Argentina. The vessel was named in honor of Admiral Julián Irízar, who played an important role in modernizing the Argentine Navy’s fleet. He also commanded the ARA Uruguay when the gunboat rescued members of the 1903 Swedish Antarctic... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 