Sep
01
2008
Flettner spray ship © J. MacNeill 2006
Like the old ghost ships of bygone days, British engineers and scientists are proposing a vast fleet of unmanned ships that might help reduce the impacts of man-made global warming.
They conjure up a haunting image of mechanical climate canaries.
According to the authors of the report, the ships will be powered by an early twentieth-century technology that uses tall, rotating cylinders instead of sails. When the wind blows across the rotors, the ship moves ahead and sucks water into turbines, which then spray seawater into the air. All this done silently as they cruise on courses set by scientists from far away Continue Reading »
Aug
16
2008
When I first came to Canada back in 1970, I moved to a small island on the BC coast. There was no running water, electricity, or telephone on Rendezvous Island. Fortunately CBC Radio came in lound and clear, and it was our only connection with the outside world except by boat.
To keep from going crazy, I become a volunteer weather observer and had one of those white boxes (Royal Canadian Mounted Police were not included). Inside was a max/min thermometer, sunlight recorder, and a rain gauge.
That was 35 years ago, when “climate change” simply meant oddball weather.
Continue Reading »
Aug
15
2008
Schooner "greens" wine transport
Wine sellers look to wind
A gimmick or legitimate effort to reduce greenhouse gases? An article in the Irish Barkeeper website reports that several wine sellers have commissioned a 100 year-old schooner to deliver fine wines to Ireland from France to reduce the carbon footprint of the shipments.
“The wine was transported to Ireland aboard the 108 year-old Kathleen & May schooner to reduce the carbon footprint of the wine – each bottle will save 4.9oz of CO2 emissions… ” Continue Reading »
Aug
09
2008
SolMate in fog bank
Every sailor knows that the relationship between weather and the world’s oceans is complex. Oceans modify weather which modifies oceans.
But sailors are often fixated on what weather does to the surface of the ocean, where the rubber hits the road, so to speak. But with the mediascape in turmoil over climate change, cruisers are becoming more aware of what’s happening beneath the waves as the air above is altered by human impacts. Continue Reading »
