#ships — Public Fediverse posts

Sailor from Tamarac serves as a command master chief in Japan | Local News

YOKOSUKA— Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP) Fleet Logistics Center Yokosuka (FLCY) recently welcomed Denise Guerrero as the new…
#EuropeSays #Japan #JP #commandmasterchiefpettyofficer #guerrero #navalwarfare #navies #Nihon #shipping #ships #shipsoftheunitedstates #warships #watertransport
https://www.europesays.com/japan/89147/

本日発売「SHIPS any」の7大機能BIGボストンバッグが付録、MonoMax 10月号。1～2泊の荷物、キャリーオンも可能
https://travel.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/2139252.html

#travel_watch_impress #コンビニ #セブンイレブン #雑誌 #宝島社 #ムック #キャリーケース #付録 #SHIPS #セレクトショップ #シップス #ショルダーバッグ #ボストンバッグ #軽量 #旅行バッグ #2WAYバッグ #MonoMax #撥水 #ボトルホルダー #キャリーオンバッグ #リフレクターチャーム #MonoMax_2026年10月号 #SHIPS_any #シップス_エニィ #スーツケースに固定できる #リップストップ生地 #旅のアイテム #旅行グッズ #バッグ #生活雑貨 #旅の情報 #目的 #推し活 #書籍_Web #旅行 #観光

Useless Facts, Badly Drawn # 530: The RP FLIP.
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#rpflip #strangebuttrue #wtf #science #ships #comics #webcomics #ocean #oceanography #uselessfactsbadlydrawn

#SchiffSamstag #ShipSaturday

Dragon Boat, (龍舟)

(Details in the #AltText) (Described by Human)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_boat

#NoGenAi #NoAi #No2Ai #Photo #Photography #Travel #TravelPhotography #PhotoOfTheDay #POTD #Ship #Ships #ShipsOfMastodon #Maritime #Nautical #Water #Sea #CamelCase #BNW #BlackAndWhite #Monochrome #Landscape #BlackAndWhitePhotography #LandscapePhotography #Bateaux #Bateau #Navire #Navires #DragonBoat #Boat #Boats #HongKong #China #Chinese #龍舟

Monday, August 31, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/08/monday-august-31-2026/

#SchiffsSamstag #ShipSaturday

Dawn On The Miami River

(Details in the #AltText) (Described by Human)

#NoGenAi #NoAi #No2Ai #Photo #Photography #Travel #TravelPhotography #Ship #Ships #ShipsOfMastodon #Schiff #Schiffs #Navire #Navires #Buques #Barco #Port #Harbour #Hafen #Harbor #Miami #Florida #River #Water #Sea #Ocean #Sunrise #Dawn #SchiffSamstag #CityScape #City #UrbanPhotography #Urban #Bridge #Bridges #Tugboat #Tug #CargoShip

#FotoVorschlag 'Leuchtturm'
#PhotoSuggestion 'Lighthouse'

The Angels Gate Light

(Details in #AltText) (AltText by Human)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Harbor_Light

#NoAi #No2Ai #Photo #Photography #Travel #TravelPhotography #Ship #Ships #ShipsOfMastodon #Schiff #Schiffs #Navire #Navires #Buques #Barco #Port #Harbour #Hafen #Harbor #PortOfLosAngeles #California #SoCal #Water #Sea #Ocean #Sunrise #Dawn #SchiffSamstag #Lighthouse #Lighthouses #Phares #Fyr #Leuchtturme #Leuchtturm #Faro #Faros #Fari #Nave #Navi

#SchiffsSamstag #ShipSaturday

One In - One Out

(Details in the #AltText) (Described by Human)

#NoGenAi #NoAi #No2Ai #Photo #Photography #Travel #TravelPhotography #Ship #Ships #ShipsOfMastodon #Schiff #Schiffs #Navire #Navires #Buques #Barco #Port #Harbour #Hafen #Harbor #Vancouver #BC #Canada #Water #Sea #Ocean #Sunrise #Dawn #SchiffSamstag #BritishColumbia #Canadian #VancouverHarbour

#SchiffsSamstag #ShipSaturday

Leaving LA

(Details in the #AltText) (AltText written by Human)

#NoAi #No2Ai #Photo #Photography #Travel #TravelPhotography #Ship #Ships #ShipsOfMastodon #Schiff #Schiffs #Navire #Navires #Buques #Barco #Port #Harbour #Hafen #Harbor #PortOfLosAngeles #California #SoCal #Water #Sea #Ocean #Sunrise #Dawn #SchiffSamstag #Lighthouse #Lighthouses #Phares #Fyr #Leuchtturme #Leuchtturm #Faro #Faros #Fari #Nave #Navi

Thursday, August 13, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/08/thursday-august-13-2026/

Sunday, August 9, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/08/sunday-august-9-2026/

#SchiffSamstag #ShipSaturday

The Singapore Strait. (Not The Other One)

(Details in the #AltText) (Possibly A Repeat)

#NoGenAi #NoAi #No2Ai #Photo #Photography #Travel #TravelPhotography #Ship #Ships #ShipsOfMastodon #Schiff #Schiffs #Navire #Navires #Buques #Barco #Port #Harbour #Hafen #Harbor #Singapore #SingaporeStrait #Water #Sea #Ocean #Sunrise #Dawn #SchiffsSamstag #AnchoredShips #AnchoredShip #Anchorage #Tropics #Tropical

Monday, August 3, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/08/monday-august-3-2026/

#SchiffSamstag #ShipSaturday

Sea Fog

(Details in the AltText) (A Repeat?)

#AltText #NoAi #No2Ai #Photo #Photography #Travel #TravelPhotography #PhotoOfTheDay #POTD #Ship #Ships #ShipsOfMastodon #Maritime #Nautical #Water #Sea #CamelCase #BNW #BlackAndWhite #Seascape #Monochrome #Landscape #BlackAndWhitePhotography #LandscapePhotography #Ferries #Bateaux #Bateau #Navire #Navires #US #USA #California #NorCal #SF #SFBA #Fog #Mist #Weather #AdverseWeather #GoldenGate #GoldenGateBridge #Bridge

Low water levels: The EU clears old Nazi warships from the Danube.

Near Prahovo in Serbia, relics of the Second World War emerge when river levels are low.

On the riverbed lie numerous wrecks of German warships scuttled by their crews in 1944 as they retreated from the Red Army.

https://mediafaro.org/article/20260730-low-water-levels-the-eu-clears-old-nazi-warships-from-the-danube?mf_channel=mastodon&action=forward

#Serbia #Danube #WW2 #History #Ships #Shipping #WarShips #Salvage

The Art Itself is Nature — Shakespeare / Art is but Nature Better Understood — Pope (1841) by Charles Ellms, from The Tragedy of the Seas; or, Sorrow on the Ocean, Lake, and River, from Shipwreck, Plague, Fire and Famine.

Source: Library of Congress / Internet Archive

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/500e3ec6-2630-4c8f-9aaf-701281976408

#ships #water #nature #accidents #propellers #disaster #sea #oceans #shipwrecks #art #publicdomain

#FotoVorschlag #PhotoSuggestion

'Im Hafen' (Leaving Port)

(Details in the #AltText) (Possibly A Repeat)

#NoAi #No2Ai #Photo #Photography #Travel #TravelPhotography #Ship #Ships #ShipsOfMastodon #Schiff #Schiffs #Navire #Navires #Buques #Barco #Port #Harbour #Hafen #Harbor #PortOfLosAngeles #California #SoCal #Water #Sea #Ocean #Sunrise #Dawn

Monday, July 27, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/07/monday-july-27-2026/

#SchiffSamstag #ShipSaturday

Anchored

(Details in the AltText) (A Repeat)

#AltText #NoAi #No2Ai #Photo #Photography #Travel #TravelPhotography #PhotoOfTheDay #POTD #Ship #Ships #ShipsOfMastodon #Maritime #Nautical #Water #Sea #CamelCase #BNW #BlackAndWhite #Seascape #Monochrome #Landscape #BlackAndWhitePhotography #LandscapePhotography #Ferries #Bateaux #Bateau #Navire #Navires #US #USA #California #SoCal #Catalina #SantaCatalina #Avalon #Anchor #Anchored

Thursday, July 23, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/07/thursday-july-23-2026/

Monday, July 20, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/07/monday-july-20-2026/

#SchiffSamstag #ShipSaturday

In Norway, It's Hard To Go Far Without Travelling On A Ferry

(Details in the AltText)

#AltText #NoAi #No2Ai #Photo #Photography #Travel #Norway #Norge #TravelPhotography #PhotoOfTheDay #POTD #Ship #Ships #ShipsOfMastodon #Maritime #Nautical #Water #Sea #CamelCase #Ferry #Nordic #BNW #BlackAndWhite #Seascape #Monochrome #Landscape #BlackAndWhitePhotography #LandscapePhotography #Ferry #Ferries #Bateaux #Bateau #Navire #Navires #Trondheim #Trondheimsfjorden

Wednesday, July 15, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/07/wednesday-july-15-2026/

Sunday, July 12, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/07/sunday-july-12-2026/

#MeerMittwoch #SeaWednesday

Where We'd All Like To Be Today

(Description In AltText)

#AltText #NoAI #No2AI #Photo #Photography #POTD #PhotoOfTheDay #Travel #Sea #Ocean #TravelPhotography #Water #California #SoCal #US #USA #Pacific #PacificOcean #CamelCase #Surf #Surfing #Surfer #Sport #Sports #Watersport #Watersports #Street #StreetPhotography #People #Seascape #BNW #BlackAndWhite #BlackAndWhitePhotography #Monochrome #OrangeCounty #OC #Ship #Ships #ShipsOfMastodon #Schiff #Schiffs

Rough Draft Atlanta: Legal battle resurfaces over Titanic artifacts. “A legal battle is resurfacing over items salvaged from the Titanic. Recently unsealed court documents reveal a back-and-forth between the U.S. government and a Metro Atlanta company over artifacts recovered from the famous shipwreck.”

How Little #Sea Creatures Could Keep #Oil Scarce Long After The #StraitOfHormuz Reopens
A new report from The DeepDraft, shines a light on how "#biofouling" — #ships fouled by biological contaminants like #barnacles — can cause a whole host of issues for tankers leaving the Strait of Hormuz. Issues include an inability to reach top speeds, excessive fuel consumption trying to get there, and even risks of being blocked from ports upon arrival.
https://www.jalopnik.com/2191436/strait-hormuz-sea-creatures-delay/

Media: An Oil Tanker And Dry Cargo Ships Caught Fire In The Russian Town Of Taganrog

https://charter97.org/en/news/2026/6/5/686662/

#WarOfAggression #Ukraine #drone #Ships #OilTanker #CargoShips #Taganrog #warfare #army #war #Russia #missiles #WarCriminal #invaders #Moscow #occupiers
#перемогаYкраїни

Sunday, April 19, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/04/sunday-april-19-2026/

Thursday, April 16, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/04/thursday-april-16-2026/

https://www.europesays.com/iran/44709/ Strait of Hormuz shipping blockade update | Nation #afp #FreightTransport #GasCarrier #Hormuz #InternationalMaritimeOrganization #MaritimeTransport #OilTanker #PersianGulf #ship #Shipping #ships #StraitOfHormuz #Tanker(ship) #WaterTransport

https://www.europesays.com/iran/43988/ Facts about Strait of Hormuz shipping blockade | National #afp #FreightTransport #GasCarrier #Hormuz #MaritimeTransport #OilTanker #PersianGulf #ship #Shipping #ships #StraitOfHormuz #Tanker(ship) #WaterTransport

https://www.europesays.com/iran/43283/ Facts about Strait of Hormuz shipping blockade | Nation #afp #FreightTransport #GasCarrier #Hormuz #MaritimeTransport #ship #Shipping #ships #StraitOfHormuz #Tanker(ship) #WaterTransport

Monday, February 23, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/02/monday-february-23-2026/

The arrival of the Englishmen in Virginia (1590) by Johann Theodor de Bry, from Briefe and True Report.

Source: Harvard University

Available to buy as a print.

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/3b6b815a-daac-402a-accd-de396e1ba3a5

#native-american #maps #exploration #ships #romans #islands #british-america #native-americans #sea-monsters #colonial-america #colonialism #shipwrecks #art #publicdomain

Labour dodging security questions on #Scottish firm #Russian gas #ships

#SNP MP Chris Law tabled a parliamentary question asking whether the Foreign Office has assessed whether #UK-linked companies or #vessels, including Arc7 ice-class #LNG carriers operated or managed by #Seapeak, are contributing to LNG exports connected to Russian state or security agency activities at the #Arctic-based #Yamal LNG project.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/25832397.labour-dodging-security-questions-scottish-firm-russian-gas-ships/

#ToxicLabour #corruption #DemocracyNOW #Scotland

Tabular Iceberg (1890), from Twenty Years Before the Mast
.

Source: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign / Internet Archive

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/bc7cc68b-9025-4d32-add7-7111bd800993

#ships #icebergs #sailing #sea #oceans #shipwrecks #art #publicdomain

Divernet: War Log maps out 1,000+ Baltic shipwrecks. “A new open-access database called the War Log has been released, recording the many forgotten but often well-preserved historic Swedish warships that sank in storms and battles or were scuttled in the Baltic Sea.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/12/06/divernet-war-log-maps-out-1000-baltic-shipwrecks/

Saturday, October 4, 2025

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2025/10/saturday-october-4-2025/

by Wenceslaus Hollar

before 1677

#illustration #ships #1600s #oldillustration #ship

In a world of extreme weather, might one of my characters embrace not a sailboat, but rather a submarine as her residence...

Read more at my #blog: https://www.adamasnemesis.com/2025/03/09/crash-dive-auntie/

This post's featured image is of the interior of the tourist submarine Atlantis, by Leonard G. of Wikimedia Commons.

#writer #writing #author #story #scifi #sciencefiction #submarines #worldbuildng #sailing #ships #sailingships #ocean #sea #scifistory #sciencefictionstory #underwater #characters #OCs #originalcharacters

Fire!….Fire!

Down the memory line. The picture is from a fire drill we performed with the ship's 3 fire teams, and all the support teams. It also included a trip to Bangkok Port Fire brigade's training facilities, where we could have "live training" which included smoke inside a building, and putting out real fire.

http://khunkai.org/2024/05/22/fire-fire/

#Travel #Cruise #Career #Maritime #Cruise #ships #CruiseIndustry #Seabourn #CruiseLine #Bangkok #FireTeam

Fire!….Fire!

Down the memory line. The picture is from a fire drill we performed with the ship's 3 fire teams, and all the support teams. It also included a trip to Bangkok Port Fire brigade's training facilities, where we could have "live training" which included smoke inside a building, and putting out real fire.

http://khunkai.org/2024/05/22/fire-fire/

#Travel #Cruise #Career #Maritime #Cruise #ships #CruiseIndustry #Seabourn #CruiseLine #Bangkok #FireTeam

Wait—Why Does the Navy Wants to Kill Ships That Are Only 9 Years Old?

Paywalled: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a60247133/navy-wants-to-kill-9-year-old-ships/

Archived: http://archive.today/GbTqF

#technology #tech #military #militarytech #usmilitary #navy #usnavy #navalvessels #ships #sailingships

#Wärtsilä, will close factory in Italy, they will pay the penalties it owes more or less 30~35 million Euros, now considering that they are engines for #ships #container #tank, it is better for them to pay that, instead of continuing in #Italy, with a couple of #engines have already returned to profit.

#Coastguard response times could quadruple under new plans

Controversial new proposal from #Bristow’s a private, profit motivated company Tories contracted to #privatize the service

Coastguard will have 60 min to launch after call is made

Currently they have 15 min during day, 45 min at night

This will risk lives

https://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/2023/10/06/coastguard-response-times-could-quadruple-under-new-plans

#ToryScum #CutsKill #Rescue #Shetland #Maritime #UK #greed #ToryDictatorship #Privatization #SearcjRescue #OilRigs #Ships #CruiseShips #PeopleNotProfits

Redemption in Leith: the thread about HMS Cossack

The neat, well kept war graves at Seafield Cemetery include 5 men from the destroyer HMS Cossack, who lost their lives in an accident at sea on November 7th 1939, when their ship collided with the Leith steamer Borthwick off the Isle of May.

The protagonists in this accident were the Cossack, one of the Navy’s big, new “Tribal class” destroyers: two and a half thousand tons of guns and torpedoes which could cut through the sea at 36 knots (over 40mph).

The other was the George Gibson & Co. steamer Borthwick, a ship built and owned in Leith which plied the North Sea on the Antwerp and Rotterdam route. She was much smaller than the big warship’,; over 100 feet shorter, about 1/4 her displacement and barely capable of double digit speeds on her single steam engine which had an output 1/300th of that of Cossack.

It was a dark winter night on the Firth of Forth and ships were showing only the bare minimum of navigation lights. The Borthwick and Cossack were on a parallel course, heading east off the Isle of May, with the destroyer overtaking the little steamer when, for reasons of his own, Captain Daniel De Pass of the Cossack turned across the path of Borthwick. De Pass had a bit of a reputation for poor seamanship, having done something like this before on pre-war exercises. The outcome was inevitable, the bows of the Borthwick cutting into the side of Cossack, right into the seamen’s mess where the men were just sitting down to dinner. Three men died where they sat. Able Seaman Heatherley and Ordinary Seaman Clarke were pulled into the cold, dark North Sea as the water rushed in to their compartment, never to be seen again. Three more men were seriously injured (Ordinary Seaman Clifford Harmer would be invalided out of the Navy with a hand injury) and those in the mess below were trapped for an hour, up to their necks in water. Their ship limped back to Leith for extensive repairs, the men boarded in the Seamen’s Mission. In an interview in 2005, a survivor – Trevor Tipping – pointed out the steel plate of the ship was only 3/8 inch thick and “folded back, like a sardine tin” when the collision happened.

The repairs – by Leith shipyard Henry Robb – took almost 2 months and cost £11,250 (£504k in 2023). Captain De Pass faced a Board of Inquiry, which put him 75% at fault. He was court martialled, relieved of his command and posted away elsewhere before taking retirement. His replacement was the dashing yet thoroughly competent Captain Philip Vian.

The men of Cossack, cooling their heels in Leith while their ship was repaired, raised a subscription to fund a memorial stoner to their lost shipmates out of their own pockets. It was erected in Seafield cemetery, and is situated by the Cossack war graves.

The Borthwick was patched up and soon back on the dangerous Leith to Holland route. She was sunk 4 months later – on March 9th 1940 – by the German submarine U-14 off the River Scheldt, on her way home from Rotterdam to Leith. All 21 on board survived and were picked up. The newspapers celebrated on 11th March when news reached home that the men of the Borthwick had all been landed safely in Flushing.

Cossack did not leave Leith until 10th January, but was back 3 days later for more repairs after an embarrassing – but fortunately minor – collision with the cable laying ship Royal Scot in Leith Roads. She left again, returning to the 4th Destroyer Flotilla with Captain Vian now installed in command. But she wouldn’t be gone long and would return with the month. This time should would be an international hero, the victor of the daring “Altmark Incident“, a swashbuckling tale that can always do with retelling.

On the face of it, Altmark was a humble German merchant ship. In reality, she was a supply tanker for the Kriegsmarine – the German Navy – and had on board almost 300 British and Allied prisoners, merchant seamen whose ships had been sunk by the “pocket battleship” commerce raider Admiral Graf Spee in the South Atlantic.

The Graf Spee had been scuttled just off Montevideo after the Royal Navy had cornered her into a fight in the Battle of the River Plate on December 17th – while Cossack was laid up in a Leith drydock undergoing repairs. Before the battle she had transferred most of her prisoners to her supply ship, which was heading back to Germany. Conditions on board caused the British press to call her a “hell ship” and a “floating concentration camp“.

Captain Dau of the Altmark intended to sneak back home by hugging the coasts of the (then) neutral Greenland, Iceland and Norway. He had almost made it when, on Feb. 15th, reconnaissance aircraft out of RAF Leuchars spotted her in Norwegian waters off Bergen. The British destroyers HMS Ivanhoe and Intrepid from Vian’s squadron made to board her but the Altmark sought refuge in the safety of Jøssingfjord. The Royal Navy could only look on as the German ship was escorted into the fjord by the Norwegian Navy, who politely but firmly affirmed their neutrality and turned the British ships around.

Captain Vian, as commander of the squadron, made contact with the ancient Norwegian gunboat Kjell but was asshured that the Norwegian had searched the Altmark, that all was in order and it was a simple German merchant ship and not an armed, Kriegsmarine prison ship. Vian knew this was rubbish, but had no option but to retreat a respectful distance and to signal the Admiralty for orders.

Further reconnaissance flights by the Royal Air Force confirmed that the Altmark was safely holed up right at the end of Jøssingfjord. Meanwhile, Vian’s signal found its way to the desk of the First Lord of the Admiralty, a man who had a reputation for sticking his oar in to operational matters and trying to direct operations from Whitehall. You might be familiar with his name, it was Winston Churchill.

Churchill sent Vian a signal telling him that if the Altmark wasn’t escorted to Bergen for inspection under a joint Anglo-Norwegian guard, he was to board her and free the prisoners, that he had permission to use lethal force in order to do so and that he was to politely but firmly make sure the Royal Norwegian Navy butted out of matters. This was a blatant violation of Norwegian neutrality of course, but there was not a lot the little old gunboat Kjell could do to stop the Cossack beyond yell at her – Vian had permission to fire on her if they fired first, but to stop when they stopped.

And so Vian was set on a course of action and turned his ship around, entering the mouth of Jøssingfjord at 2200 hours on February 16th 1940. He once more went on board the Kjell, this time to give her Captain the ultimatum to either escort the Altmark to Bergen with him, or step aside. When he declined, Vian invited him aboard the Cossack for a grandstand view of what was about to follow, but again he declined. On board the Altmark, Captain Dau saw the threatening shape of the destroyer looming down the Fjord towards him. At first he made to ram her, but instead ended up running his ship aground instead. He next tried to dazzle the Cossack with his searchlight, but the British ship was brought skillfully alongside and in true Nelsonian fashion, a party of 2 officers and 30 men leapt across the gap and boarded the German ship. Legend has it that 4 cutlasses, kept on board for ceremonial purposes, were carried by the boarding party. If true, it would be the last boarding action in which such a weapon was known to be used in anger.

There was a brief skirmish on board but the German crew were soon overpowered. Just as things were almost over however, a German sailor fired at and injured a British sailor, and for his trouble 9 of his shipmates were shot and wounded in the return fire; 4 died and a further 4 were fatally wounded. Having taken the Altmark, the boarders now combed the ship looking for the captives they knew were held somewhere within. One sailor called “Any Englishmen in there?” into a dark hold and on hearing a cheer replied the immortal words “The Navy’s here! Come up out of it!“

Less than two hours after she first entered the fjord, Vian’s ship was on her way out again with 299 freed prisoners on board (including one, an Indian seaman, suffering from Leprosy). She plotted a course for Leith and set off for home at top speed. The Cossack had last entered Leith with a cloud hanging over her reputation, but on her return on February 17th she did so triumphantly. The press cameras were assembled and waiting to welcome her back and to make the most out of this propaganda opportunity.

Ambulances were ready and waiting to take the injured away to hospital while the newsreel cameras rolled.

It was a rare bit of good news so early in the war, so reporting restrictions were not observed. The Scotsman carried a full page spread of photos. Many of those pictured coming ashore had lost all their possessions, some had been prisoners for almost 6 months and their families had no word of what had become of them. For weeks the papers were full of stories of reunions and heroes welcomes.

The Dundee Courier and Advertiser printed a picture of some 1940s medical care, with a nurse at Leith Hospital lighting a recuperative cigarette for Third Officer Leslie Ross of the ship Huntsman. 250 of the his companions were sent to the Eastern General Hospital in Leith for attention, with officials from the City and the Shipwrecked Mariner’s Society on hand to sort out replacement clothing, papers, money, cigarettes etc. and arrange lodging and travel. The sailor who had been suffering from Leprosy was taken to the Infectious Diseases Hospital (the “City Hospital”).

In Stornoway, the Daily Record interviewed the 75 year old Elizabeth Mackenzie of Newton Street, who had not heard from her merchant seaman son – Donald Morrison – for over a year. She was making a public appeal for his whereabouts, he had last written to her over a year ago and was last known to be on the SS Newton Beech: that ship had been sunk by the Graf Spee on 5th October 1939. “I have been very worried because I am going blind, and I am living here with a brother who is over 80” she told the reporter. “I haven’t many friends, but the Lord is my friend, and that is enough.” The happy news about the safety of her son was soon brought to her by Donald Macleod, another Leodsach sailor who had been with him on the Altmark. “It is good news my boy is safe” she told the Record. Donald Murdo Macleod of Tolsta Chaolais had been on the SS Tairoa which had been intercepted by the Graf Spee in the middle of the South Atlantic on December 2nd 1939. Tairoa had been the penultimate victim of the German raider, and had managed to transmit a distress signal that eventually allowed the the Royal Navy to catch up with her assailant.

Donald Morrison however seemed reluctant to return home and instead went to Hull, telling Macleod to let his mother know he “might go home later“. Instead he went back to sea. It seems the whole experience may have left an indelible mark on him and changed his character. He forfeited bail of £1 in Buckhaven on a charge of drunkeness in February 1941. He was soon in trouble again for going absent from his ship. In May 1941 he was hauled before the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth at the Police Court there, again for deserting a ship. Morrison could offer no explanation for being 31 hours overdue and potentially making his ship miss its convoy, beyond “I just had a good time, that is all“. The Master had dismissed him but told the court he was of good character and had been through “unpleasant experiences” and would gladly take him back again. It turned out Morrison had another ship sunk from underneath him recently and had once again lost all his papers and possessions. The Lord Mayor fined him £5 (half a month’s wages) and allowed him to return to his ship on account of his value to the war effort. He won’t have been the only merchant sailor in the War in the Atlantic to have an experience such as this, and in retrospect we can understand his reluctance to return to his ship and potential death and to want to have one more night of fun on earth…

Back in Leith, the Fife Free Press reported that the Altmark Incident was commemorated with the gift of £500 to the Leith Hospital by an anonymous benefactor on the condition that a bed be dedicated to HMS Cossack for rescuing the prisoners. For his “outstanding ability, determination and resource” and “for daring, leadership and masterly handling of his ship“, Captain Vian received the Distinguished Service Order medal and was promoted off of Cossack in July 1941. He would go on to have a glittering wartime career, and would retire in 1952 as Admiral of the Fleet. Cossack had an eventful 18 months after the Altmark, taking part in the 2nd Battle of Narvik and the hunt for the German Battleship Bismarck

The ship’s luck would soon run out however and she was torpedoed and sunk in October 1941 by the German submarine U-563, west of Gibraltar. In November 1941, the Edinburgh Evening News reported that three local men were missing, presumed killed, from her:

• Petty Officer Alexander Burton Colthart, 22, 20 India Place
• Petty Officer Douglas Maurice Gammack, 32 Parsons Green Terrace
• Assistant Cook Robert “Sonny” O’Hara, 23, 205 Crewe Road North

Her cat, Oskar, survived this sinking: legend has it that he had been the ship’s cat on the Bismarck and was plucked from the Atlantic by Cossack after her sinking. His name was said to have been derived from the code letter for “O” (with a German spelling) which was used to mean “man overboard“. Further legend has it that after surviving the loss of his second home he went on to serve on HMS Ark Royal and survived her sinking also. The whole thing was probably just a sailor’s yarn but Unsinkable Sam has garnered a cult following on the internet: you will find Facebook pages, pop history articles, Youtube videos and even computer game cameos in his memory.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

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WATCH: Up the Thames - tanker Stena Imperial arriving, Monday 22 May 2023
Quite an unusual tanker - Oil and chemical tanker Stena Imperial on her way up the River Thames towards Nustar's No2 Jetty at Greys, on the North bank of the River.
#ships #tanker #StenaImperial #Tilbury #RiverThames
https://youtu.be/2gvT3BgHx7g

The thread about a charity shop book that lead to the story of Captain William Thomson Dawson and the loss of the Leith tanker “Peder Bogen”

This thread was originally written and published in April 2023.

I was recently fortunate to acquire this book on the history of the Trinity House in Leith at my favourite charity book shop (St. Columba’s in Canonmills, go visit them!), for a very reasonable price.

It is signed on the inside cover, not by the author as I first thought, but by a “Captain Dawson OBE, the Master of Trinity House”.

The award of the OBE piqued my interest enough to look up our Captain Dawson, and it did not take long to find him: William Thomson Dawson. This is why his signature reads “W. Thomson“. Captain Dawson was a local man, born in Leith in 1910, the son of Margaret Alexander and James Dawson – a merchant navy officer. He was named after his grandfather, a Leith shipmaster. Our Captain Dawson was master of the Leith tanker SS Peder Bogen, a tanker owned by Leith’s Christian Salvesen shipping line. This steam-powered ship was 480 feet long, 62 feet wide and drew 37 feet (146 x 18.9 x 11.2m) with a gross tonnage (a measure of the carrying capacity of a merchant ship) of some 9,700 tons.

The Peder Bogen had been built in the Dutch city of Dordrecht in 1925 for the Norwegian whaling company Johan Rasmussen, being sold to the Salvesen’s whaling subsidiary The South Georgia Company in 1933, along with the base of Stromness on that island. She was a supply ship supporting the Salvesen’s whaling operations and fleet at South Georgia, carrying fuel and goods south and whale oil north, with the seasons.

When war broke out, the Peder Bogen found itself called up for convoy duty, bringing precious fuel oil east across the Atlantic, for which purposes she was given a token armament for self defence. She had made a number of such passages during the first years of the war until on 19th March 1942 she left Port of Spain in Trinidad, heading for Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she would join an eastbound convoy across the Atlantic. On board she had 11,000 tons of fuel oil for the Admiralty 52 crew (including Dawson) and a single passenger, the radio operator of the French tanker SS Melpomene, which had been sunk a few weeks previously en route from Belfast to Baton Rouge.

The journey north proceeded quietly for 4 days, until on the 23rd March she was hit without warning by two torpedoes from the Italian submarine Morosino, about 700 miles northeast of Puerto Rico and 745 miles southeast of Bermuda, in the position 24° 25′ 48″N by 57° 26′ 24″W.

The ship was holed, and with water pouring into her tanks and machinery spaces and the prospect of the 11,000 tons of oil (not to mention the ships own 2,000 tons of fuel) catching fire, Dawson assembled his crew on deck. He ordered the crew to take to the lifeboats, but asked for volunteers to stay aboard and form a skeleton crew to see if there was a chance of saving the tanker and its precious cargo. He and five others remained on the Peder Bogen, relit the boilers, raised steam and began pumping the water out. They fought a losing battle, and when there was 16 feet of water in the engine room had to abandon the fight and join the lifeboats too. The two little boats then retreated a safe distance to await rescue. For the second time in 3 weeks, the unlucky radio operator of the Melpomene found himself abandoning a torpedoed tanker.

Three hours later, the Peder Bogen had still neither sunk nor caught fire, so once again Dawson and his volunteers made the brave decision to board her and try to save her. The Morosini however had been stalking them, and as they made to do this she surfaced just a mile distant and opened fire with her two 4″ deck guns. The Italian’s gunfire was inaccurate, and it took them 40 rounds to score 5 hits, enough to set the tanker on fire and seal her fate.

The crew were all safe however, and spent a rather unhappy night watching the remains of their ship and its cargo on fire. The next day the two lifeboats set a course for the Virgin islands before becoming separated. They were well equipped for their journey, with food, water and survival gear, and the weather was favourable, so their chances were good. After 4 days rowing against the winds, Dawson’s boat was sighted by the “Clyde-built” Spanish ship Gobeo, which took all aboard. The Spaniards were sympathetic to the plight of the British merchant mariners and treated them well. They landed them in Lisbon, Portugal, 3 weeks later. The men of the other boat, carrying the remains of the Peder Bogen’s crew under First Officer Duncan were picked up the following day after becoming separated. The Argentinian ship Rio Gallegos took them to New York, where they landed 4 days later on March 31st.

On April 14th 1942, The Scotsman reported the happy news to Leith that all onboard the ship had been saved. A table at the bottom of this page lists the names, home towns and ranks and roles of all of the men, as reported by the paper.Captain Dawson was awarded the OBE in 1943 for his part, having “showed splendid courage, resource and leadership and made determined efforts to save his ship in circumstances of great difficulty and danger “. Three of the engineering officers were awarded the MBE and two Firemen recieved the BEM.

Dawson was made Master of Trinity House in 1964, a position he held until 1977. His medals, cap and ephemera were sold at auction in December 2022.

The Morosini was lost at sea on August 8th 1942 with all hands, to causes unknown. In a curious twist to the tale, Captain Dawson’s father, Captain James Dawson, was almost certainly the Captain James Dawson of Leith who was master of the steamer Fingal when she was sunk by a torpedo or mine in the North Sea in March 1915. Six of the crew lost their lives that day. James Dawson, father to the 5 year old William, did not abandon his ship until it slipped under the water but survived.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:

These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

København: the thread about the mysterious disappearance of an enigmatic, Leith-built sailing ship

This beautiful ship is the København. She plied the world’s oceans training young men and boys to become sailors, moving cargoes from port to port until one day, some seven years after leaving her builders in Leith, she disappeared and was never seen or heard from ever again. Her fate remains a mystery to this day.

Despite appearances, the København was a creation of the 20th century; a five-masted Danish sailing barque and one of the largest sailing vessels ever built. Her primary duty was the training of officer cadets for the merchant marine. There is a tradition in a number of European countries, continued to this day, of carrying out such maritime education on purpose-built sailing vessels. To help pay her running costs she also served as a general cargo ship, long after steam had displaced sail as the primary motive power at sea. The early history of this ship is slightly confusing. She was part of an order for the Leith yard of Ramage and Ferguson by A/S Det Ostasiatiske Kompagni (the East Asiatic Company) of Copenhagen in 1913 for three large sailing barques with auxiliary motor power. This particular København, yard number 242, was to have have four masts but war intervened before she could be completed. After lying incomplete for 2 years her hull was purchased by the British Admiralty in 1916 and quickly completed as an oil storage hulk, named Black Dragon and towed to Gibraltar. Sold in 1922 to the Shell oil company, she remained in service there until 1960.

After the war Det Ostasiatiske Kompagni ordered a replacement ship of the same name from Ramage and Ferguson. This new København – yard number 256 – would have not four but five masts, displaced 3,960 tons gross, was 130m long (426½ feet), 15m wide (49⅓ feet) and had a draught of 8.2m (27 feet). Those masts were nearly 58 metres tall (190 feet) and could spread 5,200 square metres (56,000 square feet) of American cotton sails. For times when the wind was lacking or for manoeuvring in harbour she had a 4-cylinder, 650hp diesel engine specially imported from Denmark which could propel her at 6 knots. She could carry 5,200 deadweight tons of cargo or 8,100 cubic metres (288,500 cubic feet) of grain. On account of her size and towering masts she gathered much local attention; taking a walk to observe progress became the done thing to do about the burgh. She was launched – mastless – on March 24th 1921, watched by a large crowd that had assembled to see her huge white hull slide into the dock basin.

The Great Dane, as the British press came to call her, was the largest sailing vessel ever built in the United Kingdom (excluding Brunel’s sail-assisted steamship Great Eastern. Two other Clyde-built ships were marginally longer, but København had a greater displacement.) She was the last of only seven 5-masted barques that have ever been built and ranks in the top 20 largest sailing ships – by length and displacement – ever built.

She was fitted with a generator to power electric lighting throughout and a wireless (radio) set with a 400 mile range. Her regular complement was 26 officers and men along with somewhere between 45 and 60 cadets, aged between 14 and 20. In addition to her master, her crew included 4 mates, a doctor, 2 engineers, 3 cooks, 2 boatswains, a carpenter, a sailmaker and a wireless operator. At the the rear – the “poop” – of the ship, was her main saloon, captain’s and officers quarters, staterooms, wireless room and infirmary. The rest of the crew and the cadets were accommodated in a deckhouse amidships. At her figurehead she had a sculpture of the 12th century Danish warrior bishop and founding father of the nation, Absalon.

She left Leith for her trials in the Firth of Forth on September 28th 1921 under the command of Commander Niels Juel-Brockdorff of the Royal Danish Navy. Again large crowds assembled to watch the spectacle; it took four tugs to tow her out from the shipyard stern first before turning her around so that she could begin to move under her own power.

The København was brought carefully down the harbour, and the spectators had an opportunity of seeing to great advantage the graceful lines of the ship, its fine figurehead, and other decorative effects. Flags were fluttering gaily from the mastheads, and altogether an exceedingly pretty picture was presented as it passed down between the piers, its size contrasting strikingly with that of the attendant tugs.

Report on the departure in The Scotsman, 29th September 1921

After trials she headed straight to sea and on to a welcome in her home port of Copenhagen before embarking on a circumnavigation of the globe during which time she sailed 38,326 miles, not returning home until 7th November the following year. The ship was now gone from Edinburgh and Leith, but not forgotten. For the next few months one of the most popular shows at the Synod Hall on Castle Terrace starred the København as a feature in Poole’s Myriorama; a panoramic picture and special effect show.

In October 1925 she came close to catastrophe when she caught fire in the English Channel en route for Melbourne from Danzig with a cargo of timber. The fire started in the cabins at the rear of the ship, destroying much of her fine wooden fittings, but she was able to to put safely into Plymouth. After repairs she was able to carry her load to Australia without further ado. In 1927, en route from Liverpool to Chile via the Panama Canal, she lost a propeller blade on the Pacific coast of South America and had to put into Calloa in Peru to repair.

On September 21st 1928, the ship departed the Danish port of Nørresundby under the command of Captain Hans Anderson carrying a shipload of chalk and cement for Argentina. It would prove to be her final departure from home. Arriving safely in Buenos Aires on November 17th 1928, she then waited in that port for 4 weeks for an onward cargo for Australia. None was forthcoming and so the captain decided to leave empty for Melbourne, where he could load with wheat, and departed on December 14th. Depending on the source there were either 60 or 70 souls aboard, including 45 cadets, on a trip that was expected to take around 45 days. Eight days later she passed the Norwegian steamer William Blumer some 900 miles to the west of the islands of Tristan da Cunha and the two ships exchanged signals, København indicated that all was well and the cadets were preparing to celebrate Christmas as they passed south of the Cape of Good Hope. This proved to be the last time she was ever seen or heard from ever again.

However there was no immediate cause for concern. Captain Anderson had a reputation for taking a “minimalist” approach to using his radio and sailing journeys could easily take far longer than scheduled if the winds were unfavourable. Thus when København did not arrive in Melbourne on schedule nobody raised any alarm. By February 1929, the East Asiatic Company was sufficiently concerned to begin making enquiries with Lloyd’s of London for any information concerning their now long overdue vessel, but it was not until early April 1929 that they finally raised the alarm. The British Admiralty were approached for assistance and the search and rescue operation which now followed has been called “the longest, farthest reaching and most costly in the history of maritime service“. The Admiralty spread the word amongst British shipping and arranged for the Liverpool firm of Alfred Holt and Company to diverted their steamer Deucalion from Cape Town to make a search of potential landfall in southern latitudes on which the missing Dane could either have become bound or wrecked upon. These were the remote Price Edward Islands, the Crozet Islands and Kerguellen. The Admiralty also lent an experienced navigator, a high-powered wireless set and two operators to man it. The East Asiatic Company dispatched their own motor vessel, Mexico, to make her own search.

In May, news was received from the searching steamer Halesius out of Tristan da Cunha that an English preacher on that island, Philip Lindsay, claimed that he and others on the island had sighted, on January 21st, a five masted sailing ship with a white band round its hull approaching the islands. This apparition came from the south and her first two masts were seen to be broken. It then disappeared from their view towards a part of the island that was inaccessible. Objects were later found washed up on the shore but they could not conclusively be proved to have come from København. Lindsay told The Times:

The sea was rough for our boats and we could do nothing but watch her gradually crawl past and run inside the reefs to the west of the island. She was certainly in distress. She was using only one small jib [sail], and her stern was very low in the water. I estimated that she was within a quarter mile of the shore when we last saw her.

Philip Lindsay, eyewitness

The Halesius made a search of the rocky and unpopulated Gough Island to the south of Tristan, but found nothing and so carried on her way. The master of Halesius put his ship into Montevideo on June 22nd and caused a minor sensation when he was quoted by the press as having found the ship’s wreckage. He had, however, made no such claim and it was a reporting error that had mixed up facts. On the same day it was announced that the Australian steamer Junee, in Sydney, and the Norwegian motor ship Lars Risdahl, in Cape Town, had both been chartered by the East Asiatic Company to carry on the search in the Southern Ocean. They were also diverting the Mexico to Tristan to make a thorough investigation of her own, just in case.

The intensive search continued for the next two and a half months. The Mexico returned to Cape Town in the middle of July and her master spoke to the London Daily News. He told the reporter that it was his belief that the ship had washed up on the lonely desert coast of southwestern Africa and that he was refuelling before heading off on that particular search course. Every coastline and grid square was combed before the company reluctantly called off the operation on September 9th 1929, some nine months after the København had last been seen. She was officially declared missing by Lloyd’s of London on January 1st 1930. But as hope dwindled, interest in the disappearance was if anything even more widespread with the passing of time and lack of evidence.

Various theories for her imagined loss were advanced. Had she collided with ice floes and been abandoned by her crew? But ice was unlikely to have been encountered if she had passed Tristan da Cunha, so had she become lost and icebound in the Southern Ocean? Some said that the observers on Tristan were mistaken; they had not seen the København at all. No, the much more rational explanation was that they had seen the renowned South Atlantic ghost ship, the Phanton Barque. Did the København capsize in a sudden squall under her immense spread of canvas due to the lack of a heavy cargo in her hold to provide a low centre-of-gravity? This would certainly have given no time for lifeboats to be launched. Others said the ship had simply been swallowed by the ocean, it was well known amongst mariners who had sailed in the Southern Seas just how the mountainous seas and roaring winds could do such a thing. Yet others thought she would still be afloat, drifting aimlessly in the oceans, “a plaything of wind and current, a toy of unmerciful Neptune“, just waiting to be discovered.

Public interest inevitably began to wane but in April 1934 a Captain Soderlund, of the Finnish-flagged grain ship Lawhill which had just arrived in Adelaide, told newspapers that he had sighted wreckage from the København floating in the Great Australian Bight but had failed to retrieve it. Then in September 1934 the New York Times reported that a message in a bottle that had been picked up by a whaling ship on the Bonvel Islands. The message reputed that the ship had been blown into the Antarctic and the crew and boys put ashore on the ice, to watch their ship be driven by the winds to her destruction. It quickly transpired that the “diary” entries found in the bottle were copied out of a Spanish novel by a Danish journalist who passed them off as genuine.

We know our boys are dead, but it is terrible not to know how and why and where the tragedy happened. Perhaps, too, there are some who cherish a faint hope against their better judgement that some day they will come back

A statement from the parents of the lost cadets, reported in the Daily Herald, October 4th 1934

On 11th December 1934 the Belfast Telegraph reported that a Norwegian yacht, the Ho Ho, and her four man crew had arrived in Montevideo after a year long voyage across the Atlantic to search up and down the coast of South America for any signs of the København. Only three days earlier it had been announced that Ramage & Ferguson had gone into voluntary liquidation after years of financial suffering in first the post-war shipbuilding recession and then the Great Depression. One of the last ships completed by them had been the Mercator, a three-masted sail training ship for the Belgian government.

Denmark still has a national sailing training ship, the Georg Stage. Somewhat appropriately, this 1935-built ship visited Leith Docks in April 2022 and tied up alongside Ocean Terminal: a shopping centre built on the site of the Ramage & Ferguson yard.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:

These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.