The print run of our company history arrived at the office last week. It looks great and has been a fun and interesting project. Historian Rick Geffken did a dive into the company’s early history and unearthed lots of interesting early details, too much to publish in the book. We also did not want to… Read more »
Well, it’s done. Time for a long vacation with chaise lounges and drinks with umbrellas. SL7Expo now has its logo. In my life, I’ve been through at least eight logo designs for various ventures. Every time, I’m reminded: logo design and organization name selection is hard work. First, a new venture needs a name. The… Read more »
This year is the 150th anniversary of the founding of Martin & Ottaway. We are in the middle of writing a company history, and we thought that towards the end of the book a picture of our present staff would be appropriate. On September 8, we almost succeeded in getting everybody in the same place… Read more »
With Martin & Ottaway celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, we are bonding with other local players in the same age group. One player is just two years older than Martin & Ottaway and continues to be as relevant today as it was back in the 1873. In its quiet and persistent way, The… Read more »
Doing is learning, and I learned when I had the pleasure of doing some shore side support for the Apollonia effort. Apollonia continues to move cargo by sail between Albany and the Port of New Jersey/New York and points in between. Occasionally Apollonia loads coffee cargo at Carteret, New Jersey. Carteret is a very interesting… Read more »
Maritime transportation takes advantage of huge economies of scale, but it was not always that way. Even quite recently there were many maritime ventures in the United States that operated on quite a small scale and in certain places in the world maritime transportation still takes place on very small scales down to the canoe… Read more »
The 29-day voyage of the “Grain de Sail” from Saint Malo, France to New York, New York, completed on December 16, 2020, was not publicized in the New York Times, USA Today, or any other big-name tabloids. Its cargo of about 14,000 bottles of wine has yet to hit the menus of New York restaurants… Read more »
Education in maritime is in a class by itself for too many reasons to count. Bottom line; maritime education works, and people are starting to take notice. The strength of maritime education lies in integration. Basically it allows students to engage in multiple learning experiences simultaneously. Instead of one hour of language, one hour of… Read more »
It may have become evident that I am of the opinion that the maritime community is a tower of strength for the spirit of cooperation, jointness and just getting the job done. I will provide yet another example of this, but first let me set the stage. This year is the 350th anniversary of the… Read more »
Occasionally we draw attention to ships that are historically significant. Sometimes it seems like we are simply whistling into a storm. Ship preservation costs money and undoubtedly it is a difficult discussion to decide which vessels are worthy of preservation and which should be, at best, turned, into artificial reefs, but, overall, our country is… Read more »
On the way to a paddle wheeler passenger vessel project at Cape Girardeau, I passed Vicksburg and decided to stay the night. The next morning I took a quick drive through the Vicksburg battle field and came upon the USS Cairo, the remains of a Civil War era ironclad river gunboat that is now beautifully… Read more »
My wife, Anne, has two Aunt Pats. That becomes confusing, and many years ago I dubbed one of them Crazy Aunt Pat. Not because she is crazy, but simply because she is a smart, bold person who is afraid of nothing and I needed a way to distinguish her from the other who is equally… Read more »
A recent bit in the news announced that the “Exxon Valdez” in its present incarnation as the “Oriental Nicety” is bound for the scrap yard. It is easy to think of the “Exxon Valdez” as some villainous symbol in the drama of the oil spill in Alaska, but, as Paul Harvey used to say, then… Read more »