Today we remember a tragic day in US history: September 11, 2001, when terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon in Washington DC. A third hijacked plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, commandeered by heroic passengers, who took the plan down rather than let it complete its terrible mission, which was to hit the US Capitol Building.

In the midst of terrible chaos and destruction, an amazing rescue mission unfolded in NY Harbor: Boatlift, organized by the Coast Guard.

They called all available boats in the waters of metropolitan NY and New Jersey to help evacuate people stranded after the towers fell. What resulted was a supreme act of spontaneous mariner heroism, as boat after boat converged on the southern end of Manhattan, to help evacuate hundreds of thousands of survivors from the island.

In the midst of tragedy, our mariners showed us the best we can be.

Link to the film Boatlift: https://youtu.be/MDOrzF7B2Kg?si=Wa5CQ4oJMw_baJDX

Image: USACE NY, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

The post Boatlift: a heroic maritime response to 9/11 appeared first on The Ship Report.

The Pacific Collector, a US military missile defense tracking ship, will head outbound from Portland Wednesday around 9 am, passing Astoria around 3. She’s one of a pair of ships with a similar mission: to gather data about missile defense testing. She’s unusual looking in that she has large radar arrays on deck that look like huge golf balls.

The post One of our local ships, the Pacific Collector, passes by on Wednesday appeared first on The Ship Report.

Sixteen sailboats left Les Sables D’Olonne, France, over the weekend to compete in a unique race called the Golden Globe.

Participants sail solo in boats equipped only with technology available when the race was first run in 1968. That means no GPS, no satellite connectivity, no cell or sat phones. Sextant and compass to navigate, radio for communication, and a willingness to spend 8 months or more alone at sea. They’ll sail to the bottom of the world using the “Clipper Route” and if all goes well, pass south of all the fearsome capes of the world, including infamous Cape Horn. Then they’ll said up the Atlantic and end the race in France where they started.

As in 2022, only one entrant is a woman. Last time, Kirsten Neuschafer of South Africa won the race, becoming only the second woman to enter and the first ever to win. This year, Norwegian Helga Marie (Mara) Løvenskiold Kveseth is now the third.

The post The Golden Globe Race begins, with sailors departing from France to sail around the world alone appeared first on The Ship Report.

While I’ve talked about the need to understand and work with current on the river, it seems that some vessels go out there any old time and do well. Let’s talk today about why that’s the case. It has to do with vessel design, physics, friction and horsepower.

The post Another look at river current – outboard motors, friction, horsepower and physics appeared first on The Ship Report.

We’re having our first fall storm of the season today, and that brings the potential for interruptions to ship traffic as sea height increase. Even if that’s not what happens today, most assuredly sometime soon it will.

The post As our first storm of the season arrives, we enter the season for possible river bar restrictions appeared first on The Ship Report.

It’s September 1st and that means the end of meteorological summer and the beginning of meteorological fall. A slightly different designation than standard fall later in the month, it’s used by weather scientists to keep track of weather patterns. And right on time, our weather is obliging with wind and rain, and cooling temperatures.

The post Today is the first day of meteorological fall appeared first on The Ship Report.

Another kind of ship we see fairly often here on the river is the research vessel. Its cargo is live people: scientists whose mission is the study the oceanographic environment. As it turns out, the Columbia River is an ideal option for ships who are in our region of the Pacific and need to make landfall for various routine reasons.

The post A look at research vessels appeared first on The Ship Report.

We’ll talk about a recent blog post from UW meteorologist Cliff Mass, talking about the cooling trend we are entering in our weather, as fall makes its presence known. It will be cool on the coast and cooler inland.

The post Cooling trend in our weather as fall approaches appeared first on The Ship Report.

Today we’ll hear the second of a two-part interview on ship lights from the Ship Report archives, from an interview I did years ago with Columbia River Bar Pilot Captain Robert Johnson.

Light colors and placement are not random, and their patterns hold great meaning for other vessels that may see them at night.

Today we’ll also learn about the vital role lights play when a helicopter is at sea at night, dropping off or picking up a pilot in the dark.

The post The lights you see at night on ships: They hold great meaning, especially for other vessels, and even aircraft, Part 2 appeared first on The Ship Report.

Today we’ll hear the first of a two-part interview on ship lights from the Ship Report archives, from an interview I did years ago with Columbia River Bar Pilot Captain Robert Johnson.

Light colors and placement are not random, and their patterns hold great meaning for other vessels that may see them at night.

There are running lights, which give other vessels important information about a vessel’s location and heading, and work lights, which allow crews to work safely at night on deck and allow the ship to be clearly seen at anchor.

The post The lights you see at night on ships: They hold great meaning, especially for other vessels, Part 1 appeared first on The Ship Report.