That’s me in the yellow foul weather gear. Twenty years ago I was standing on this beach. I was working as a Salvage Naval Architect for SMIT, and we had just connected the tow wire to the tug offshore. It was a crazy project that I think of very fondly. Undoubtedly it was the… Read more »
Point Pleasant Beach is a few miles south along the New Jersey shore from our office, which is where, on February 12, 1900, the County of Edinburgh ran aground. The vessel had very little damage, but then, as now, the stranding quickly became a tourist attraction. Merritt-Chapman refloated her on February 25, 1900 and she was repaired and… Read more »
When I wrote the blog on SWATHs I decided to see if I could locate my Virginia Tech research partner, Mark Tesh. With LinkedIn this was not all that difficult. He enjoyed hearing about the Monoform all these years ago, and remembered having taken photos back in 1981. In those days cameras and video tape actually did exist, but it… Read more »
Except for the passenger ship terminal above 42nd street, commercial ship operations in Manhattan have pretty much come to an end. One of the last commercial shipping terminals to be built on Manhattan was Marine and Aviation Pier 40. It was built in 1962 at a cost of $18 million expressly for the use of… Read more »
For this week’s Throwback Thursday, check out the Martin & Ottaway engineering staff circa 1992. Four of these ten guys are still around – can you identify them?
Of all the shipping companies that I have had any contact with National Bulk Carriers and its Owner Daniel Ludwig is probably more deeply submerged in lore than any other company. Every time I meet somebody who has worked for NBC I am regaled with yet another story of clever derring do led by Daniel… Read more »
Cold weather actually makes us busier. Cold weather makes people seek shelter so they pay less attention and cold weather makes equipment operate and fail in unusual fashion. It has been cold out (we almost had iceboat conditions on the river) so there is no time to ruminate any further. Instead I will post a few… Read more »
Harry Ottaway, past President of Martin & Ottaway, getting his balance on the SS SEA WITCH in drydock (stern section), August 2, 1979. The SS SEA WITCH was a container ship which lost steering control while leaving New York harbor and collided with the fully loaded tanker SS ESSO BRUSSELS on the night of May… Read more »
Watch a cool video produced in the 1940’s by the US Navy on the salvage of the SS Normandie (USS Lafayette) here. Frank A. Martin of Martin & Ottaway valued this vessel for the US government before the fire/capsize.
USNS “Maumee” Bethlehem Steel, Key Highway Encounter with ice floe Antarctica, March 1976
In 1954, my great-grandfather, Hendrik Fokko van Hemmen, was Chief Engineer on the M/V Prins Frederik Hendrik of the Oranje Lijn, and my grandfather, Henk van Hemmen, was deck engineer on the Dutch flagship, the SS Nieuw Amsterdam. On November 1, my grandfather was asked to make a repair to the steam whistle valve which… Read more »
Our office has a real dungeon where we keep our unused art, our extra gear, our historical records and our completed files. Inevitably we need to clean out the dungeon when we no longer have space for the completed files and that means we literally get rid of dumpster loads of reports, depositions, shipping documents,… Read more »
A photo of the damaged SS Florida as a result of its collision with the SS Republic in 1909 hangs in our office. On the back is an article from an unknown source (I’m betting that one of our consultants decided to look up the story one day). The story reads as follows: “Due to… Read more »
Today’s Throwback Thursday is one of the most famous shipboard fires, and is especially well-known in our area because the vessel was beached for several months in Asbury Park, New Jersey, not far from our current headquarters. While the SS Morro Castle disaster of 1934 tragically killed 137 passengers, it directly resulted in numerous shipboard fire… Read more »
Since 1764, Lloyd’s Register has published annually what is basically the definitive list of ocean-going vessels in the world. Our office – and many other maritime offices worldwide – use these “registers” regularly, since they contain valuable, authoritative information on ship size, carrying capacity, age, builder, and equipment, to name a few. We keep our old… Read more »