Nautical Oddities

[Therapy]

Did they decide this was less painfull than continuing with the world as it now is?

[Jamme]

Does this classify as a “nautical” oddity? There seems to be something wrong with the flags (unless the ship foils faster than the wind…)

[GordMay]

MARITIME FAILURES, CAUGHT ON CAMERA:

➥ https://youtu.be/899TnJgDN_I

➥ https://youtu.be/LAX8W7d6JpI

➥ https://youtu.be/sHyRD6ej8fE

[GordMay]

In 2013, a captain ran his cargo ship, MV “Danio”, aground, while sailing from Perth, in Scotland, to Antwerp, in Belgium, crashing into the Farne Islands, off the Northumberland coast. The disaster, which sparked fears for the wildlife at the island’s nature reserve, allegedly occurred because the captain plotted a straight line and “forgot” England was in the way, using an unapproved electronic chart plotter.
➥ https://metro.co.uk/2013/09/02/ship-...coast-3945746/

[CaptTom]

Capt Dudek – who has since been sacked – told the BBC his first mate was probably asleep at the time of the crash and failed to see a lighthouse.

So, basically, nobody on watch. Seems this is the real root of the problem, plotting an incorrect course was just a contributing factor. Unfortunately I think this is not all that unusual, be it large freighters, fishermen or single-handing sailors.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

So, basically, nobody on watch. Seems this is the real root of the problem, plotting an incorrect course was just a contributing factor. Unfortunately I think this is not all that unusual, be it large freighters, fishermen or single-handing sailors.

Even in the most seemingly straightforward incidents, seldom, if ever, is there only a single cause.

The root cause is the core issue. It’s the highest-level cause, that sets in motion the entire cause-and-effect reaction, that ultimately leads to an accident/incident; and that, if eliminated, would have either prevented the occurrence, or reduced its severity or frequency.

Contributing factors are not root causes. A contributing factor is a condition that influences the effect, by increasing its likelihood, accelerating the effect in time, affecting severity of the consequences, etc.
Eliminating a contributing factor(s) won't eliminate the effect.

[ChrisJHC]

Originally Posted by GordMay

In 2013, a captain ran his cargo ship, MV “Danio”, aground, while sailing from Perth, in Scotland, to Antwerp, in Belgium, crashing into the Farne Islands, off the Northumberland coast. The disaster, which sparked fears for the wildlife at the island’s nature reserve, allegedly occurred because the captain plotted a straight line and “forgot” England was in the way, using an unapproved electronic chart plotter.
➥ https://metro.co.uk/2013/09/02/ship-...coast-3945746/

Could happen more often as countries stop printing paper charts!

[nigel1]

The journalist who wrote the article should really have waited until the Marine Accident Investigation report was published.

The route was on the unofficial electronic charts and on paper charts, with a course laid to pass 2 miles to the East of the Farne Islands (Sailing directions recommend passing at least 3 miles to the East of the islands)
It is unlikely that the paper chart was used for plotting positions, two positions were plotted but thought to have been put on the chart after the grounding, and there were discrepancies between the way points on the paper chart and the electronic charts.
The underlying cause of the grounding was the usual insufficient manning levels on the ship,with only two watch keepers, the skipper and the mate, working 6 hrs on, 6 hours off, in addition to other duties and for the mate, he had been up most of the previous day supervising the loading of the timber cargo.


https://www.gov.uk/maib-reports/grou...slands-england

[GordMay]

New Island Emerges off Iwo Jima

An undersea volcano erupted off Japan three weeks ago, providing a rare view of the birth of a tiny* new island, but experts say it may not last very long.
The unnamed undersea volcano, located about 1 kilometer (half a mile) off the southern coast of Iwo Jima, which Japan calls Ioto, started its latest series of eruptions on Oct. 21.
Of about 1,500 active volcanos, in the world, 111 are in Japan, which sits on the so-called Pacific “ring of fire”.

* A satellite image, acquired by Sentinel-2, on November 2, shows the island is approximately 230 m (754 feet) long and 200 m (656 feet) wide:

More ➥ https://watchers.news/2023/11/04/new...a-chain-japan/

And ➥ https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=284120

Video ➥ https://twitter.com/i/status/1721258744091136442



New island off the coast of Iwo Jima. Image credit: Japan Maritime Self Defence Force. Acquired on November 1, 2023

[GordMay]

Sea Lion vs. Octopus:

Lindsay Bryant captured a surprising video of a sea lion taking on an octopus, off the coast of Nanaimo, B.C.
➥ http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2284740675657

In 2010, National Geographic captured video which showed an Australian sea lion dragging a large octopus to the surface so she can breathe while slowly eating it bite by bite.
➥ https://youtu.be/yrv4-EFBa5w

And in 2018 footage of a New Zealand fur seal smacking a kayaker with an octopus went viral, though Colleen Reichmuth, who heads up the University of California Santa Cruz's Pinniped Lab, told NPR it is normal for the animals to smack larger prey around in order to consume them and it likely had nothing to do with the boat being nearby.
➥ https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...er-in-the-face

[CaptTom]

Thanks Gord! I've been reading a lot about how brilliant octopuses are. Good to know us mammals are holding our own.

[GordMay]

Mating dance of sea fireflies is 'the coolest fireworks show that you've ever seen'
More about ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens...ance-1.7046972

Video ➥ http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2288637507761

Scientific Report:

“Collective synchrony of mating signals modulated by ecological cues and social signals in bioluminescent sea fireflies” ~ by Nicholai M. Hensley et al
➥ https://royalsocietypublishing.org/d...rspb.2023.2311

[GordMay]

Here’s a glacier as you’ve never seen it before, its usual white and blue hues [below] replaced by a psychedelic rainbow.
This trippy view of the Malaspina glacier (AKA: Sít’ Tlein, or ‘big glacier’ in Tlingit), on the southeastern coast of Alaska, was taken by Nasa’s OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2), on Landsat 9, on October 27.
By capturing the image in infrared, water and icy features are a glorious array of reds, oranges and yellows. Vegetation is green, and grey old rock is transformed into blue.

[GordMay]

12-billion-year-old body of water [vapour] discovered floating in space
Two teams [1 & 2] of astronomers, led by scientists at Caltech, have discovered the largest reservoir of water, ever detected in the universe.
It's in a quasar, 30 billion trillion miles [12 billion light-years] away.
The mass of water vapour is at least 140 trillion times more, than all of the water, in the Earth's oceans, combined.

[1] “The Water Vapor Spectrum of APM 08279+5255: X-Ray Heating and Infrared Pumping over Hundreds of Parsecs” ~ by C.M. Bradford, et al
➥ https://arxiv.org/abs/1106.4301

[2] “Discovery of Water Vapor in the High-Redshift Quasar APM 08279+5255 at Z=3.91" ~ by D. C. Lis, et al
➥ https://arxiv.org/abs/1106.4784

[GordMay]

Transient Luminous Phenomenon

Transient Luminous Events [TLEs] are huge, and brief, optical and electrical phenomena, occurring over thunderstorms, in the upper regions of the Earth’s atmosphere, after high energetic lightning activity.
They are also known as upper atmospheric lightning, and the most common TLEs include:
Sprites 1, are flashes of red, sometimes in the shape of jellyfish
Halos 2,
Elves 3, are ring-like glows
Blue Jets 4,
Gigantic Jets 5.
Trolls 6, are purple jets
Ghosts 7 are green lights that, on rare occasions, emerge above the sprites.

[1] Sprites are large, but, weak luminous flashes, that appear directly above an active thunderstorm system, and are coincident with powerful positive cloud-to-ground lightning strokes.
Their spatial structures range from small single or multiple vertically elongated spots, to bright groupings, which extend from above the cloud tops, to altitudes up to almost 60 miles [95 km].
Sprites are predominantly red, and they usually last no more than a few milliseconds.
The brightest region lies in the altitude range 40 to 45 miles [65-75 km], above which there is often a faint red glow, or wispy structure, that extends to about 55 miles [90 km].
Below the bright red region, blue, tendril-like filamentary structures, often extend downward, to as low as 20 miles [30 km].
Some events are loosely packed, and may extend across horizontal distances of 30 miles [50 km], or more.
Their shapes can be variously described as resembling jellyfish, carrots, or columns.
Because of their low surface brightness, they have only been imaged at night. However, if ones eyes are sufficiently dark-adapted, one can actually detect them, without any visual aid.
The first images of a sprite were accidently obtained in 1989, although anecdotal reports of "rocket-like" and other optical emissions above thunderstorms go back more than a century.
Early research reports for these events referred to them by a variety of names, including "upward lightning," "upward discharges," "cloud-to-stratosphere discharges," and "cloud-to-ionosphere discharges." Now, they are simply referred to as sprites, a whimsical term that evokes a sense of their fleeting nature, while at the same time remaining nonjudgemental about physical processes that have yet to be determined.

[2] Sprite Halos were mistaken as elves until 1999. They are diffuse disk shaped glows, that, apparently, precede sprites, and propagate downward, from about 50 miles to 40 miles [85 to 70 km] altitude, and last about a millisecond.

[3] Elves are rapidly expanding (up to 300 miles across) disk-shaped regions of luminosity, lasting less than a thousandth of a second, which occur high above energetic cloud-to-ground lightning of positive or negative polarity. Elves most likely result when an energetic electromagnetic pulse (EMP) propagates into the ionosphere. Though they can be accompanied by sprites, the causative mechanism is of an entirely different nature. Predicted to exist in 1991and discovered with a low-light video camera aboard the Space Shuttle in 1992, elves got their name as an acronym for Emission of Light and Very Low Frequency perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources.

Sprites, elves, trolls, jets, ghosts, and more transient luminous events
➥ https://youtu.be/tGPQ5kzJ9Tg