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Saturday, February 24, 2024

Saturday Is Old Radio Day: "The Monitor and the Merrimac" from You Are There (1948)




The battle that forever changed naval warfare.

An account of the Battle of Hampton Roads begins here:

At ten minutes before ten, on the morning of the 30th of January, 1862, an iron floating battery, designed for the Government of the United States by John Ericsson, and named, at his suggestion, the Monitor, was launched at Green Point, Long Island, and at three p.m., on the 25th of February, formally taken possession of by the Navy Department, and put in commission at the Navy Yard, New York.

On Thursday, the 6th of March, this novel float, concerning whose fate many gloomy predictions had been hazarded, left the Lower Bay in tow of the steamer Seth Low, and, with a fair wind and smooth sea, steered for Hampton Roads. . . .

Update -Had some early coding issues which now seem to be fixed.

Sunday, February 04, 2024

Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea Has Not Gone Away

It's been too long since I last reported on the work of the ICC-IMB Piracy Reporting Centre which produces the "Live Piracy Map" and maintains a database of attacks which culminates in their Annual Piracy Report. Here's a summary for 2023:


So far in 2024:


2024 West Africa and Indian Ocean:


2024 Southeast Asia:



For reference 2023 and 2022:



The patterns are nearly the same as those that preceded the explosion of piracy off Somalia. The reasons remain the same - pirates/sea robbers attack where the ships are.

The Piracy Reporting Centre is to be commended in their effort to keep the issues involving attacks on shipping and merchant mariners in the public eye.