Tag: history

Concrete Ships Hiding in Plain Sight: The Forgotten Breakwaters of America’s Harbors

Maritime History

9/11/2026 - By Jordan Hanssen, best4boats. There's a good chance a concrete ship is lurking in your local harbor — and you've never noticed. Built during both World Wars when steel was scarce, concrete vessels served as tankers, barges, and cargo carriers before finding a remarkably durable second life as breakwaters in… SEE MORE

Cyclothone or "Bristlemouth" fish illustration

The Ocean’s Most Abundant Fish Evolved in Extreme Heat — and That May Be Good News

5/31/2026 - By Daniel Hentz, whoi.edu. The most numerous fish in the ocean isn't one most boaters or anglers will ever see. Bristlemouths — tiny, deep-dwelling fish of the genus Cyclothone — number in the quadrillions and play a major role in the ocean's biological carbon pump, helping move CO₂ from the… SEE MORE

The United States Fish Commission Steamer Albatross as shown on page 259 of the Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission for 1896. NOAA Central Library

How Fisheries Steamer Albatross Lit Up the Night Sea

3/19/2026 - By noaa.gov, noaa.gov. For centuries, the belief that a large seabird called an albatross brought good luck to sailors has lived on in seafaring mythology. The sailors and researchers of the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries must have thought the steamer Albatross was lucky to have named it after the bird.… SEE MORE

Image Credits: What the collision that spawned Earth's Moon may have looked like. Collisions between Earth and rocky debris in the early solar system would have kept the surface molten and surface temperatures blistering. Image courtesy NASA.

What’s the Hottest Earth’s Ever Been?

3/12/2025 - By Michon Scott and Rebecca Lindsey. Our 4.54-billion-year-old planet probably experienced its hottest temperatures in its earliest days, when it was still colliding with other rocky debris (planetesimals) careening around the solar system. The heat of these collisions would have kept Earth molten, with top-of-the-atmosphere temperatures upward of 3,600° Fahrenheit.… 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

Image Credits: A gorgonian coral (Muricea pendula). (Image credit: UNC National Undersea Research Center)

From Threat to Threatened: A Brief History of Coral Reef Research

1/21/2025 - By noaa.gov. Alexander Dallas Bache was the second Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey. He was dedicated to charting our coastlines and improving the safety and effectiveness of marine navigation. In 1851, seeing coral reefs as a threat to the safety of ships traveling our coasts, he commissioned controversial American… SEE MORE

Image Credits: Postcard of the U.S. Weather Bureau Building at Charles City, Iowa. c. 1900. Note the Weather Forecast Flag system flags flown on the flag pole mounted on the roof. They appear to be the blue flag with a black pennant above, indicating a forecast of higher temperatures and rain. (Image credit: Courtesy of Steve Doty, NOAA NCDC (ret.))

Hoist a Flag for Cold waves and Other Weather Conditions

1/7/2025 - By noaa.gov. Nowadays, we have radio, TV and the internet to tell us when a cold front or other weather is headed our way. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, signal flags were used to alert U.S. citizens to weather conditions. The origin of weather signal flags Weather… SEE MORE

October 11, 2024 Fishing Back When: Crab Landings Down, First Time in History

10/28/2024 - By Carli Stewart. For the first time since the birth of the industry, Alaska King crab landings declined in 1967 to 135 million pounds, down 24 million pounds from the 1966 landings. The hardest hit area was Kodiak, where landings decreased by 26% in the course of the year, a… 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