GLAD I LIVE IN METROPARKCENTRALIS

I read this with some amusement. It appears that the Russians have developed an autonomous undersea vehicle capable of delivering a 100 megaton warhead anywhere on the littoral within a range of 6200 miles of its launch point. As you can imagine, that doesn't sound so good for places on the coastline like, for instance, California, Pearl Harbor, Washington DC or Norfolk. If you thought the anti-missile hysteria kicked up in Hawaii last week by the fake news of a missile detection was a hoot, imagine how they're going to under react to the news that the Russians have done something as impossibly sneaky as building a submarine to carry nuclear weapons to our coastline. Who ever heard of such a thing?!

On the other hand, the nuclear bomb in a shipping container still seems like the most likely and much less risky scheme for delivering nukes to any port city in the world and if you saw the travails the mighty US Navy has getting its autonomous undersea vehicles to do anything more complex than resurface nearby after mission complete, you can only imagine how a Russian vehicle navigating 6000 miles underwater will fare as it seeks to target an enemy coastline. There are drawbacks to living on an ocean coast.

I wonder if the Russians paint their undersea terror vehicles yellow like we do

AROUND THE WORLD IN 42 DAYS

It's hard to imagine going that fast that long sailing alone around the world.

Aerial view of the Maxi Trimaran MACIF with french skipper Francois Gabart

We recently sailed from New York City to Southampton and it took us a full 7 days at an average SOA of 22 knots to cross the Atlantic and the Atlantic tis but a puddle compared to the Indian and Pacific Oceans. That's roughly how fast MACIF sailed every hour of the voyage for 42 days.

Typical route for a racing circumnavigation of the world

I once sailed with another person from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, just over a thousand miles and I was wiped out by the 5th day. On the other hand our Kettenberg had oil lit running lights, a chip log, a 100 year old navigation chart of the area and an old copy of Charlie's Charts. That was the sum total of our navigation equipment. There was no auto-helmsman or any of the scary new-fangled stuff aboard. We were the equivalent of Joshua Slocum but without so many sharp tacks. It was mostly downwind all the way. (there are a couple of puns in there that the discriminating history minded sailors will pick up on)

Since there are very few operational navigation aids on the Baja coast, we figured we were safest about 100-200 miles offshore and out there we could hail passing commerical ships and ask them if they knew where they were and if they would share that information with us. They were all most obliging. On the other hand, all we had to do to find Mexico again was turn to port and keep our eyes open.

I look forward to reading more about the voyage when Francois Gabart writes it up and publishes it. I might have to dust off my French.

SHARK SCREAMS

Stolen ruthlessly from the bayou dude's place because it's just that funny and I've always said fishing is dangerous.

STUPID STUPID STUPID

The Chief of Naval Operations confesses that his sailors are too incompetent to get out of the way of other ships and he has ordered all the ships we have left to turn on their installed AIS. Our ships will now have the equivalent of a man ringing the bell non-stop, shooting rockets into the air every 2 minutes and another man on the fo'c'stle shouting, "Here we Are!" That way merchant ships stand a chance of seeing us in time to maneuver to avoid colliding with us. Thanks Boss!

AIS stands for Automatic Identification System and it is a clever system in worldwide use as mandated by the International Maritime Organization to prevent collisions at sea. The navy has had it installed for over 10 years but left it switched in the "No Transmit" mode. Our sailors could see the positions and course, speed and track of all ships with AIS but we were being coy about just where we were or what we were up to. Security you know.

The CNO is being a little disingenuous when he says there's no operational need to keep us off the grid since the ship that can see you already knows where you are. He's either disingenuous, lying or a fool. You can take your pick. He says that there's no operational need to keep our locations off the grid but that's not the story they're saying at the courts-martial that have been sending navy officers to jail for the last 6 years for releasing ship movement data to Fat Leonard.

With AIS everyone knows where our ships are and where they are headed and it's like constantly updating Moscow or Beijing in real time where you are and what you're up to. You can see for yourself what AIS means for tracking ships. Go to the link and you can watch maritime movements in real time. Click on a ship icon to see what you get and this is just the freeware version. The paid version includes everything.

Admiral Richardson continued:

“That’s been an immediate action. There is this Automatic Identification System, AIS. We had, I think, a distorted perception of operational security that we kept that system secure – off – on our warships. One of the immediate actions following these incidents is that, particularly in heavily trafficked areas, we’re just going to turn it on.”

“In heavily trafficked areas like off Japan?”, asked Senator King. 

“Right. You can look outside and see the ship, so, it’s not an operational security standpoint,” said Admiral Richardson.

I think I'm just going to have say that Admiral Richardson is about as clueless as they come. What a pity, he was shaping up so well.

FADING INTO HISTORY

The East German State recognized their doom when I was born in Nurnberg, Germany. Their feeble attempts to save themselves availed them not. No wall could save them from me.

Sunday marked the anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall, erected in 1961 by East Germany’s Communist government to prevent its captive citizenry from fleeing to the West. In 1989 Germans tore down the wall and then the regime. Germany was reunified in 1990 and in the years since its people have not forgotten the horrors of totalitarianism.

If you cock your head just right and look a tiny bit to the right of the light, you can see me and my older sister staring out at you. My parents were in Germany then because our nation and our leaders had committed to defending the West and as a sign of our commitment we had stationed troops all through Germany, prepared to stop the next European invasion. It worked pretty well after I was born and by the time I left the service, the Cold War was over, the USSR was humbled and broken up and things were looking pretty rosey right up until the East Germans elected Angela Merkel and decided that on top of their enormous burden of Turkish-never-Germans they should add a few million ISIS-never=Germans to the mix.

So, we won the Cold War and Germany lost the real war. Isn't that just like Germany?

THE END OF THE SWIFT

I see in my latest update from gCaptain that the SWIFT was completely destroyed by Yemen rebels in the Bab al Mandeb. I spent a lot of time there back in 1984 and I have never seen such heavily armed islands or patrol boats.

UPDATE: Video of the attack



One of the little peeves I enjoyed with my long service with the navy was the incredible naivety of the office clerks that run the Navy. The bean counters convinced them a long time ago that logistic ships didn't require any weaponry whatsoever and that, in fact, weapons just got in the way and cost money that needed to be saved so that sailors could attend LGBTQ training seminars in Norfolk or Washington, DC. The ships that had weapons went into the shipyard to have them removed.

HSV2 SWIFT, Look Ma! No guns!

Oh, and for you bean counters at NAVSEA who thought speed = life? I guess the Swift just wasn't fast enough and of course, it's as fast or faster than the Littoral Combat Ships.

Interestingly to me, one of Jerry Pournelle's sons was the XO of Swift when it was providing relief supplies to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

UNION OF SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

Almost half of all voting Americans will vote slavery every single time if given the choice. It's a testament to the shear awfulness of our Teachers Unions that they have indoctrinated generation after generation into voting the rich peasants into hell.

On the gripping  hand, they're some pretty heavily armed peasants and workers. Not like Bernie and Hillary's good buddies in Ukraine or Russia or Lithuania or Cuba or Vietnam or Africa or Central America or Mexico or ... Those rich plutocrats earned their fate.

CHANGED THE WORLD

As surely as Vasco da Gama or PQ-17 changed the history of the world, this lone ship made history when she took the first cargo of crude American fracked oil overseas to a foreign refinery on the last day of 2015.

The “Theo T” tanker left Corpus Christi Thursday afternoon with the first known crude oil cargo sold internationally since Congress lifted the 40-year-old ban on crude exports earlier this month. 

San Antonio-based NuStar Energy loaded the oil cargo on New Year’s Eve at its dock at the Port of Christi. While NuStar handled the loading, Houston-based ConocoPhillips sold the crude oil from the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas to Switzerland-based Vitol, an international trading company that will market the oil globally. 

The Bahamas-flagged Theo T tanker set sail shortly after 3 p.m. Thursday, according to NuStar. The vessel arrived Tuesday in Corpus Christi and is operated by Greece-based Ionia Management. The companies are not yet revealing the tanker’s destination.

To discover whole new worlds right here at home on Earth

AMAZON TIME

Obviously an Amazon day lasts much longer than a calendar day.

STATE SPONSORED TERRRORISM FALLOUT

From gCaptain an item about a Russian warship transiting the Bosphorus with due concern for totally unexpected, out-of-the-blue, terrorist attacks launched from Turkish shores. Yep, it looks like the ship's company stood-to while transiting the narrow seas where any loony with a boat could pull a USS COLE on them.

Funny how that works... Act like a terrorist or a rogue state and get treated like one.

BLUE ORIGINS

Color me impressed. As I read about McCain's response to United Launch Alliance's refusal to bid on putting defense satellites into orbit because they can't get an exemption from the requirement to use 'made in America' rocket engines, I suspect the opportunity Bezos saw in putting together his launch team years ago is about to pay off.

It's funny the article made no mention at all about the imbecility of putting U.S. Military Space Operations at risk every time we launch a satellite into space using a a defective Russian rocket engine. You'd think there'd be some thought put into actually surrendering all of our access to space and giving sole custody of orbit to Russia. Well, you would unless you were a complete imbecile.

Even if the Russian government does not cut off the supply to ULA of imported RD-180 engines, the US Congress, with emerging support from the Air Force, has come around to a view that it would not be advantageous to the US government to start up a US production line to produce the RD-180.

THE LONG SHIPS PASSING

It is a book about fire. Wooden ships can burn to the waterline and sink in 12 minutes. I used to write that in my night orders. There was a record of ships exactly like ours that burned to the waterline and sank in 12 minutes. I wanted my men to be alive to the danger. Fires that killed started in the engine rooms.

This book is a little older than me (lots older). It talks about fire claiming ships in the Great Lakes like Mud Island talks about the burnings, explosions and loss of paddle wheel steamers on the Mississippi River.

Like the great but little known books on things navigational, this one is authentic. I will quote:

Steamboat commerce to Chicago was inaugurated in the summer of 1832, when with the outbreak of Black Hawk's War the United States Army chartered four vessels to transport troops and supplies from Buffalo to Fort Dearborn. That proved to be a sorry inauguration, though a flood tide of commerce quickly followed it. 

Two of those four transports never reached their destination. When the Henry Clay came up Lake Erie to Detroit with 370 soldiers, she brought a terrifying malady with them. Behind her in Buffalo cholera had broken out and was sweeping the town. Before they reached Detroit a number of the troops had been taken violently ill and when one of them died the vessel was ordered away from the public wharf. Shunned as a pest ship with her sick list growing, the Henry Clay proceeded up the St. Clair River to Fort Gratiot, just above the town of Port Huron. There the sick were carried ashore, and the terrified men not yet stricken fled the ship. They scattered through the fields and woods and some lay down in the streets and on the shore and died. A hundred and fifty of them made their way back to Detroit where they were taken in by Andrew Mack, proprietor of of the Mansion House. In a short time two hundred Detroit citizens were stricken with the disease.  

Another troop ship, the Sheldon Thompson, sailed past Detroit but put into Mackinac Island for fuel wood. While the steamer fueled several stricken soldiers were taken ashore. They died soon after the vessel had resumed her course. Two fur traders who left Mackinac the next day fell ill before they had traveled twenty miles. They struggled on, not knowing the nature of their malady, until their bodies were fired with fever and their shaking hands turned purple before their eyes. They died with the wilderness around them. But the disease did not spread in that latitude with its sparse settlement.

Meanwhile the Sheldon Thompson arrived outside the Chicago River (then undredged and fordable at its mouth?. She anchored there with the doom spreading through her cabins. Sixteen of her troops were already dead and buried in Lake Michigan. During the next five days eighty-eight more bodies slipped into the water. When word reached a fleet of schooners anchored along the shore they made sail frantically and scattered like gulls over the lake. Within a few weeks cholera broke out in St Louis and New Orleans. 

So the great epidemic of the 1830's passed through America's waterways. It had begun in central India, and was carried, by way of Tehran, to Moscow. In the spring of 1831 it took thousands of lives in Warsaw and that autumn it ravaged Hamburg. A trading vessel carried it to England in October. In June of 1832 a British ship arrived in the St. Lawrence with a list of 145 immigrants, of whom forty-two had died of cholera during the passage. In the next four months it spread from Buffalo up the the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi. Disease traveled the trade routes of the New World. 

During the summer the dread of plague lingered over the little town of Chicago. The Indians heard of the scourge and sought the immunity that came from the powerful 'English milk' that gurgled out of oaken barrels. A Potawatomi chief appeared at the Agency house, observing in his own tongue that he was a good man, a very good man and a loyal friend of the the Long Knives. Could he not then have a dram of whisky? The agent replied that he never gave whisky to good men; good men never asked for whisky or liked to drink it. Before he had finished that brief homily the Indian spoke in English.
"Me dam rascal."

I like and prefer old history. I stopped reading history books written after the passing of Charles Oman. I can't stand revisionists. Go to primary sources, secondary sources and eschew made up fictional history.

PRICELESS

Reading the weird whacky news so you can too!

I found wonderful story about an arms bust and thought the power of stupid runs deep in some people.

Authorities intercepted a massive shipment of tens of thousands of firecrackers, as well as knives, Tasers and other weapons Thursday that police say was en route to rioters in East Jerusalem.

Intelligence information led police and customs officials to the shipping container in Afula, which had been marked as containing Christmas lights, police said.

It strains credulity that they could think that wouldn't flag a shipment heading to a land of very few celebrants of Christmas. They might as well have marked the manifest, "rockets and bombs."

WANT A FREE RIDE IN A HELICOPTER?

There may be endless ways to cadge a free ride in a helicopter but no helicopter ride is ever free. I think the USCG could be forgiven for letting this guy run to the north pole via the Gulf Stream. He's too stupid for the rest of us to tolerate. Besides, he probably caught some exotic disease while running to Bermuda.

ANGEL ISLAND QUARANTINE STATION

Those interested in the history of keeping infectious diseases out of the country will enjoy this.

I used to sail to Angel Island from Emeryville or from the Navy's marina at Treasure Island. It was a fascinating place and provided a wonderful opportunity to take a shaded walk all around the island from Ayala Cove to the Immigration Station, the Nike Battery and the various Civil War batteries. I heard, after I left the Bay Area, that the good people there decided to cut down all the trees because they were non-native Eucalyptus trees.

I had thought to include a video since several are on offer at ourtube but they don't discuss the Quarantine issue and refer solely to Angel Island's role as the Ellis Island of the West.

VIKING CRUISES

We watched Masterpiece Theater last night and saw a number of ads for Viking River Cruises. While it looks like fun I'm sure they've left out the part that made it so much fun for actual vikings.

Viking Shortish-Long-Ship Going Roving 

Little mention given to the opportunity to debark for a little looting and pillaging. The ads were all about cultural stuff no sane man would be interested in. I mean somebody has to pay for the gas burned by that outboard.

JUST SHOOT HIM

From the local police blotter after we got back and learned that our neighbors had all been robbed.

A clerk at the BP station on Larchmere Blvd. reported that a Black male, approximately six foot one, wearing a black hoodie and black pants entered the store with a handgun.The suspect proceeded to take $125 in cash and $280 in lottery tickets from the business and $272 in cash from a customer inside of the store. The suspect then fled the scene. The investigation is ongoing.

It's a fashion statement that should be augmented by a hint of plumbum in the head. I keep seeing cities passing local ordinances banning saggy pants but I've never heard of a single city or town that thought banning mugger costumes was an appropriate way to spend time at city council meetings. I wonder why it never seems to come up.

Neither condition is really a fashion statement so much as it is a shoutout that screams to the world that yes, yes you are in fact too damned stupid to pull your pants up over your knees and that you're a criminal suspect looking for the next scene of the crime. I've never understood the narrow philosophy that insists that it's no crime to dress like a mugger on the one hand and yet passionately hate being treated like a criminal simply because one looks like a criminal on the other hand.

I'm no fashion maven or clothes horse myself. 30 years in Southern California and a lifetime before that racing sailboats left me addicted to wearing shorts, sandals, ball caps, sunglasses and T-shirts. With sandals. 30 years of wearing a uniform always meant changing when I got home. That used to mean a hot tub on the back patio but the definition always included shorts, t-shirt and sunglasses.

There is one guy in the picture who managed to wear a hoodie. Guess which one started a towering bonfire one night right off the coast of Iraq. Go on, guess. He is standing right next to the admiral. When I was choosing my team for this op, the CSO said no girls. After reflecting on it for a microsecond, I saw his point.

HOPELESS

The damned things were everywhere. You couldn't go for a walk without tripping over one.

SS SULTANA DISASTER

The worst maritime disaster in the United States happened 149 years ago today when the steamboat SS Sultana with over 2000 souls embarked: exploded, burned and sank in the Mississippi River about 8 miles north of Memphis Tennessee. The boat's passengers included over 2000 Union Army soldiers who had just been paroled from Confederate Prisoner of War Camps in Andersonville and Cahawba. It is estimated that 1700 of these emaciated survivors perished this day when the ship's boilers exploded and sent the burning hulk of the ship drifting down the flooding river.

There is a Kickstarter Campaign active NOW to make a movie about the disaster.

An unrelated documentary about the loss of Sultana

I found this interesting and had forgotten the Sultana until I was researching the Ohio Regiments in the Civil War two weeks ago and found that many of the final musters showed that the soldiers had perished with the Sultana after being captured by the Confederacy. It is hard to believe how they sank out of history with barely a ripple.

THE FALL OF THE WHITE STAR SHIP TITANIC

Lost at Sea this night in 1912