Category: Maritime History

Navigation Aid, buoy, in the fog. Photo by Andrew Marek/Shutterstock

Navigation Markers Targeted for Removal by U.S. Coast Guard — Here’s How to Weigh In

5/7/2025 - Coast Guard proposing the removal of 350+ navigation aids (NY to Maine). Public comment deadline: June 13, 2025 By US Harbors The U.S. Coast Guard has proposed eliminating more than 350 navigational aids—buoys, daymarks, and lights—along the Northeast coast, from New York to Eastport, Maine. These changes are part of… SEE MORE

The Canoe in the Forest

1/28/2025 - By Joshua Hunt. An unfinished boat hidden on a remote island in Alaska illuminates a missing chapter in the history of traditional Haida and Tlingit canoe building. When I first see the canoe, in May, it takes a moment to distinguish the long, shapely slab of cedar from the patch… SEE MORE

Dragger Susan Rose Raised One Year After Sinking

12/16/2024 - By nationalfisherman.com. The Rhode Island steel trawler Susan Rose was raised from the sea floor this week a year after sinking off Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., removed as a hazard to navigation. After the 2023 grounding, the fishing boat’s crew of four safely got off onto the beach, dropping down from the… SEE MORE

Buyboat is a Labor of Love

12/8/2024 - By Larry Chowning. Several years ago, while attending the Sultana Downrigging Festival in Chestertown, Md., Jim Drake and his wife Brooke were introduced to Chesapeake Bay buyboats. Brooke fell in love with the boats and Jim set out to build her one. Since 2015 National Fisherman has followed Jim Drake’s efforts in… SEE MORE

Century-Old Halibut Schooners Restored in Port Townsend

10/22/2024 - By Michael Crowley. The boatyard many fishermen who ply the waters of the Pacific Northwest or Alaska in wooden boats choose for maintenance and repairs is Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-Op in Port Townsend, Wash. At the yard this September, several wooden halibut schooners had been hauled out awaiting work this fall. Among them… SEE MORE

Why Choose the Hard Life of Commercial Fishing?

9/26/2024 - By Carli Stewart. Why would anyone who has a choice want to fish for a living, given the cold, wet, uncertainty, danger, muck, dependence on weather for make or break, and general ass-busting hardship? For a skipper of any sized boat, add the government regulations, ruinous cost of fuel and… SEE MORE

Leading the Way to Hybrid Diesel Electric Propulsion

9/23/2024 - By Paul Molyneaux. In 2021, the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA) initially received funding from the Energy Transitions Initiative Partnerships Project for modeling and analysis of alternative propulsion systems. Based on that work, the original plan—developed in conjunction with the National Research Energy Laboratory—was to put a Transfluid clutch, electric… SEE MORE

Image Credits: World History Encyclopedia.

Scandinavia’s Missing Bronze-Age Boatyards

8/26/2024 - By Richard Kemeny. Archaeologists argue that ancient Scandinavian boat-building infrastructure has been hiding in plain sight. Long before their Viking successors wielded naval prowess to conquer distant lands, boats were at the heart of life in Scandinavia. Tens of thousands of depictions of prehistoric ships have been discovered adorning rocks… SEE MORE

Pirate Jean Lafitte’s Grave

7/17/2024 - By Scarheel. Visit the secret grave of a legendary privateer who faked his own death. FROM 1810 TO 1823, JEAN Lafitte and his brother Pierre were among the most notorious and successful privateers in the Americas. Like many great pirates, Jean Lafitte’s exact origins are shrouded in mystery, but he is… SEE MORE

Ships during revolutionary war. Painting by William Elliott, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Celebrating Marine History: Privateers in the American Revolution

7/1/2024 - By John Frayler for the Salem Maritime National Historic Site. A Means to an End When the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain, the infant nation was in no position to defy British rule of the seas. Britain’s navy in 1776 was the world’s most powerful. States individually… SEE MORE

American Revolution

Category: Maritime History

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