Chat

[Michael]

[Morgan]

I am one of those Americans of Irish heritage. My Great- great grandparents came to the US in the mid- 1850's, mid-potato famine, 100 years +/- before I was born.
I must be lucky, I have found numerous 4-leaf clovers as a kid. Luck comes when a child finds playing in the grass and clover entertaining- and then remembers where the plant is the next time you want to find one.
The drinking part is an issue. It seems to have been a plague among many. Great uncles did not need a Saint's day to do some drowning in beer, with or without a clover.
I have an English colleague who spoke of the "troubles" in Ireland. His sister had been hurt by bomb fragments. Through him I saw a point of view not usually seen here, including the fact that he saw it in real time. I never told him what religion I am.
Thanks for the thoughts to ponder, Stuart.

[pommystuart]

For our newbies.
Whilst we do not read weather we see figures which can come from them.
Here is weather maps 101.

https://media.bom.gov.au/social/blog/23 ... ather-map/

[Randi]

Great find, Stuart!
Thanks for posting!

[Randi]

GOES East Observes the Vernal Equinox As the Seasons Shift

[pommystuart]

I am amazed that the earth stood still for the duration of that video.

[Randi]

"This animation was created by taking one GeoColor image a day for a year from GOES East, captured at 11:50 UTC each day, and stringing them together.

From their position 22,236 miles above the equator, the GOES satellites orbit at the same rate Earth rotates, so they can keep constant watch over the same region."

[studentforever]

Part of the East coast gradually being lost to the North Sea. Spurn Point is gradually being lost, you can no longer drive to the lighthouse except in an all terrain military vehicle and this flourishing medieval port was in that general vicinity. No doubt climate change will accelerate the process.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-68626384

[Randi]

[pommystuart]

Wow that ship sure made a mess of the bridge (and probably those unfortunate to be on it)

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-27/ ... c_news_web

[Randi]

Good thing that the crew did what they could to warn people...

[Randi]

I am sure everyone here knows better than to look at the eclipse directly, but I thought I would share this article anyway...
Eclipses Injured Their Eyes, and the World Never Looked the Same

[Maikel]

Polar vortex is 'spinning backwards' above Arctic after major reversal event


The polar vortex is a key driver of the polar jet stream (seen here).
(Image credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)

Earlier this month, a sudden atmospheric warming event caused the Arctic's polar vortex to reverse its trajectory.
The swirling ring of cold air is now spinning in the wrong direction, which has triggered a record-breaking "ozone spike" and could impact global weather patterns.

Whole article:
https://www.livescience.com/planet-eart ... rsal-event

[Michael]

My son sent me this six minute video, which shows the track of the ship which struck the bridge in Baltimore. The marine track is coordinated with the live cam of the bridge. It's a bit more sophisticated than my vessel plots! At the very end you can see two vehicles just made it off the part of the bridge that collapsed. They were so very lucky this happened at 1 A.M. and not 1 P.M.

[Randi]

I was reading an article in the NY Times on the collision

Steering a cargo ship beneath a bridge isn’t easy even when the engine is running. The captain can’t slow down too much because the ship needs a certain amount of speed to be steerable.

That reminded me of a recently seen comment about steerage way in one of our logs.

Clearly it is not a new problem:
STEERAGE-WAY. When a vessel has sufficient motion in the water to admit of the helm being effective.
From The Sailor's Word-Book - published in 1867

[Michael]

My sister found about 1,700 slides my dad took in the 1960s. I just scanned these two days ago, and I was thinking about the difficulties in navigating a ship under a bridge. Imagine trying to move this and then install it onto the piers for the new railway bridge. May, 1968.



This is the old railway bridge, that will be replaced by the new one. You can see the concrete piers that will take the new span. This was done at low tide when the tidal current is at a minimum. The water really moves through the Second Narrows as the tide moves either in or out of Burrard Inlet.

[pommystuart]

We have one of those Vortex's downunder but I cannot seem to get the animated image to show without clicking on the link.
Cannot find one for the current date.

https://media.sciencephoto.com/image/k0 ... mation.mp4

[Michael]

[pommystuart]

I wonder if this has anything to do with the Polar vortex reversal.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/202 ... c_news_web

[espross]

I was reading an article in the NY Times on the collision

Steering a cargo ship beneath a bridge isn’t easy even when the engine is running. The captain can’t slow down too much because the ship needs a certain amount of speed to be steerable.

That reminded me of a recently seen comment about steerage way in one of our logs.

Clearly it is not a new problem:
STEERAGE-WAY. When a vessel has sufficient motion in the water to admit of the helm being effective.
From The Sailor's Word-Book - published in 1867

While we’re on the subject of semantics, under maritime law this encounter is an allision rather than a collision, as it involved a moving ship and a stationary one.

From Webster’s,

al·li·sion noun

Definition of ALLISION

1 obs : the action of dashing against or striking upon
2 : the running of one ship upon another ship that is stationary —distinguished from collision

Origin of ALLISION

LL allision-, allisio, fr. L allisus (past part. of allidere to strike against, fr. ad- + -lidere, fr. laedere to hurt) + -ion-, -io -ion — more at lesion

Generally the object struck (in this case the bridge) is not found to be at fault, but occasionally ship owners can prove in court that the object was at least partly at fault by impeding navigation. That is unlikely to come up in this case, but the liabilities for the shipowner’s insurers are enormous so you never know—

https://gcaptain.com/maritime-word-of-the-day-allision/