Here’s the news from the boys and girls at Justice, below.
Patched up and riding high – the last time we saw the Cosco Busan back in 2007. Will it ever come back? She’s called the MSC Venezia these days, currently working in the Canaries.
Oh well, she’s not the first Hyundai to leak oil into San Francsico Bay, and she won’t be the last.
The full release, after the jump
Thusly. Click to expand:
Empty tanker Polar Alaska heads out back up to I’ll-give-you-just-one-guess as full container ships arrive from East Asia.
Just another day in the busy 415.
Remember back in the day, back when Bay Areans could espy the straight-outta-Redwood-City $200-million Sea Shadow stealth ship bobbing about in San Francisco Bay? Check this video from down Fun Diego way over at Telstar Logistics to see this baby in action.
Say it aloud: Super-Secret Sea Shadow Stealth Ship, Super-Secret Sea Shadow Stealth Ship, Super-Secret Sea Shadow Stealth Ship! This project was so secret that it didn’t make the Bay Area newspapers, excepting for 1999 when this boat was identified as an airplane three times by the San Francisco Examiner.*
This is what she looked like, coming out in the daytime when she was no longer so very supr sekrt:
Guess what, the U.S. Navy wants to give her away for free! The problem is that there are no takers as of yet, so the ex Sea Shadow just sits around in the mothballed Ghost Fleet of the East Bay. Check out these recent photos from Amy Heiden. Pretty boss, huh?
Now the first time the Navy tried to give away this historic boat, in 2006, they had all sorts of rules. Then they tried again in 2009 with more flexible rules. But the problem is that you can’t just take the Shadow, you also have to take the Hughes Mining Barge (HMB-1), a floating drydock boat that was developed as part of Project Jennifer. (That was the semi-successful, top-secret effort mounted by the Central Intelligence Agency to salvage the remains of the Soviet submarine K-129 from the ocean floor.)
Here’s a shot of them together, ignore the two conventional warships in the background:
But wait, there’s more. Here’s how the Sea Shadow is laid out on the inside:
The bridge of Grant Imahara’s future evil lair. (Boy, talk about a glass cockpit, huh?)
And here’s how she looks from the outside:
You want. Why don’t you start up a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and take these things off of the Navy’s hands? Otherwise an important piece of Bay Area military history (and film history what with it inspiring the bad guys’ floating lair in Tomorrow Never Dies) is a gonna get scrapped.
Here’s what came next, after the Shadow got mothballed – it’s the all-aluminum Sea Fighter, as seen back in 2006:
The point being is that the aging Sea Shadow is the ur-ship, the JetFire of the stealth boat world. Won’t you save her?
O.K., first things first. Check out the owner’s manuals and start writing your business plan. (And, oh yes, while you’re at it, scrape up some cash. Lots and lots and lots o’ cash.)
Happy sailing!
The Navy’s announcement, after the jump.
*From 1999: “The combined Navy-Marine exercise included overflights of the Bay Area by the Sea Shadow, the Navy equivalent of the stealth bomber.” No, this thing can’t fly, it just floats. Veteran SF Chronicle writer Henry K. Lee got that right but others did not. Nevertheless, SFGate.com, San Francisco’s online newspaper, remains an invaluable resource.
Yesterday’s news about the massive USNS Mercy Hospital Ship sitting at Pier 70 just off of Potrero Hill involved people around town wondering when and if the biggest hospital ship in the world was going to head out to Haiti tout de suite with a quickness to help her overworked sister ship USNS Comfort.
Today’s news, per Ms. Seal [srsly] of the Military Sealift Command’s Public Affairs Unit in Washington, D.C., is that the Navy is “weighing its options” on what to do next. Which means that the Mercy be staying in San Francisco getting fixed up for a little longer anyway.
As she looked yesterday at San Francisco’s Pier 70:
The original schedule had the Mercy’s routine maintenance work getting done by March 2, 2010, but what will actually happen is up in the air.
Look for this big white former oil tanker the next time you’re in the area – you can’t miss it.
Photographer Eric Risberg must have still had the sleepers in his eyes this AM when he captured the new Cunard cruise ship Queen Victoria making her debut in San Francisco. Here’s how she looked going under the Golden Gate Bridge and past Alcatraz.
Look for her at the Pier 35 Cruise Ship Terminal (you know, the one that’s the most expensive to operate on the entire west coast, and that includes Canada, eh?)
How would you like to kill 107 days traveling the world? It would only cost $25k (and up):
Another dreary morn in San Francisco, via stevenseaweed
But here’s how she’ll look in sunny Lahaina, Maui:
And then, after Hawaii, she’ll be off to Cindy, Australia.
Bon Voyage, MSQV!
[UPDATE: And San Francisco’s Mayor was there – read what he had to say about Pier 27 after the jump.
Get up to speed about the USNS Mercy Hospital Ship right here over at Telstar Logistics. Right now, this ship is sitting around in San Francisco as part of a $10,000,000 routine refit from BAE Sytems that got started a week ago.
The Mercy’s sister ship USNS Comfort is in Haitian waters currently with a crew of 1200(!) performing operations, delivering babies, the works.
So, will the Mercy head on out soon?
A massive former oil tanker:
As she looks this dreary afternoon at San Francisco’s Pier 70:
Some are calling for the Mercy to ship out to Haiti right now:
“Yes, I know about the tyranny of distance from San Diego to Port-au-Prince. According to distances.com, it would be a 5,281 mile voyage taking some 11 days.
Yes, I know the MERCY is presently at a shipyard in San Francisco through the beginning of March.
Yes, I know that it is manpower intensive. Call-up reservists and guardsmen. You know how to reach me. (I would make a great blogger/social media guru aboard MERCY).
Have Project Hope recruit more volunteers! Recruit personnel from across the inter-agency. Get our coalition partners involved. Hire contractors.
Yes, I know it would require a backfill in the Pacific.
Yes, I know it is expensive. Hold another tele-a-thon.
Yes, it would require lots of supplies.”
People around town are looking into this, so we’ll find out soon enough.
Leaving you with a scene from the Comfort from last week:
100119-N-4995K-187 ATLANTIC OCEAN (Jan. 19, 2010) Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Adam Buzzeo prepares medical equipment during the assessment of a six-year-old Haitian boy brought aboard the Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20). The boy, who was Comfort’s first patient as part of Operation Unified Response, suffered an injury to his bladder and a hip fracture during an earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan 12. The boy is in the intensive care unit aboard Comfort in stable condition. Comfort is supporting Operation Unified Response, a joint operation providing humanitarian assistance to Haiti. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Chelsea Kennedy/Released)
Well there’s a whole lot I don’t know about this incident involving a purported cocaine smuggler killed on January 19th, 2010 somewhere in the “Eastern Pacific Ocean.” But, apparently, this smuggler and his boat weren’t too far away from Guatemala City because that’s where he ended up dying after the Coast Guard shot at his engine with a massive rifle mounted on a helicopter.
Feel free to read the account below – it was just released from the 11th District HQ in Alameda, They’re looking into the theory that the purported smuggler died due to “engine fragment or shrapnel injuries.”
Did this shooting get any coverage in Guatemala? No se. Did this shooting get much coverage in any English language publication? Not that I can see. Do the Coasties have video of all this? Oh yes, I’m sure. Does the Coast Guard even know this guy’s name? Maybe not, they haven’t released it, anyway.
Here’s your 21st century Coast Guard – a machine gun for warning shots…
…and when you ignore that, a massive rifle to take out your engine block, presumably a Barrett M82 .50 cal.
I don’t have a photo of one of those helicopter-mounted rifles, but how would you like .50 caliber rifle bullets like these sailing by your head from a chopper one at time?
Click to see the ammo - it’s the most powerful commonly available cartridge not considered a destructive device under the National Firearms Act. So don’t be surprised when the unarmored engine block of your “go-fast” boat blows up after you pretend not to hear all the warnings you’ve just been given:
Last year, the Alameda-based “maritime security cutter” USCGC Bertholf (WMSL-750), which is like a destroyer, basically, bigger and badder than anything else the Coast Guard has ever had in warm waters, was on a maritime security mission in the same area. So I suppose this is how the smallest branch of the military is spending part of its time these days, just hanging out near Central America looking for drug boats and submarines. It’s like Miami Vice, West Coast or something.
And that’s it.
Maybe the Coasties will issue a more-detailed report sometime.
Read all about it, after the jump
Here we go, straight out of the shipyards of Trieste, Italy, it’s Cunard’s Motor Ship Queen Victoria! Well, guess what – she’s coming to San Francisco on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010, so plan accordingly.
This is going to be the biggest thing to hit town since the Queen Mary 2 back in ought-seven.
But don’t call the QV an ocean liner, oh no, she’s just a cruise ship owing to her lack of freeboard, among other things. Oh well.
See?
Click to expand
Check it:
Queen Victoria Makes Her U.S. Maiden Call to Port of San Francisco Jan. 27, 2010
Cunard Line’s youngest ship, Queen Victoria, will make her maiden call to San Francisco on Jan. 27, 2010, marking her only U.S. inaugural call in the next year.
Queen Victoria will stop in San Francisco as part of the first segment of her third world voyage. Expected to pass under the Golden Gate Bridge at approximately 6 a.m., she will dock at Pier 35 at 6:30 a.m. before departing at 6 p.m. for Hawaii. Designed in the grand Cunard tradition, the 2,000-passenger Queen Victoriais the second largest Cunarder ever built, weighing in at 90,000 gross tons and measuring 964.5 feet from stem to stern – more than 110 feet longer than San Francisco’s tallest building, the Transamerica Pyramid.
Thousands of spectators lined the shores of San Francisco Bay in 2007 when Cunard’s flagship, Queen Mary 2, made her first call in San Francisco. Best viewing locations include the Golden Gate Bridge – vista points on both north and south sides of the span; Fort Mason; Crissy Field and the Fisherman’s Wharf area. For information visit www.cunard.com.
The news of the day from the Associated Press: “Coast Guard scoops up oil in San Francisco Bay“
Except that the smallest branch of the United States military doesn’t actually scoop up spilled oil in San Francisco Bay - there’s a whole industry dedicated to doing that. And if you listen to the Coast Guard, they’ll tell you that, ad nauseum. Oh well.
The Coasties are handling this spill better than that one from the Cosco Busan. Hurray! That’s good practice for The Big Oil Spill in our future:
The Pacific Responder and the Ocean Liberty, along with smaller vessels, are out there right now, between San Francisco and the tip of Alameda Island that’s, oddly enough, also part of the City of San Francisco.
Anyway, the USCG don’t scoop up oil.
And keep up the good work, 11th District. Just try to resist the urge to lie to us for no reason, and you’ll do fine.
Carry on…
Check out this humongous cruise ship in drydock on the right side of San Francisco at Pier 70. (You know, right near the place where Mayor Gavin Newsom rented out San Francisco’s sovereignty and got snookered by the Chinese government simultaneously during the 2008 Olympic torch run fiasco.) This ship is big - like Cosco Busan big. But why did the people at Princess Cruise Lines choose San Francisco as a place to do a refit? Why not, baby? We rock! (It’s nice to know that San Francisco is still competitive in a few industries anyway.)
It’s the Sun-class Sea Princess, soon to be equipped with an adults-only [no, not that kind of adults-only] Sanctuary, an “oasis of tranquility” where you can escape from those pesky little anklebiters.
Love, exiting and new - come aboard, we’re expecting you! Click to expand:
Can you see the big black screen? It’s for movies under the stars, just like we have in Dolores Park.
And here are the twin screws:
And here’s a thruster hole (or whatever they call it) – all the better for maneuvering around at ports of call.
BAE Systems will have this princess back on her feet and heading down south, Panama way, in no time.
Check out all the deets here.
And of course, the PCL people are Twittering all about it.
And look at all the recent drydock photos here on Flickr.
And the Facebook, always with the FB.
And look who christened the Sea Princess, back in the day – Zara Phillips, a real princess, or princess-to-be, or something. Her grandmother is the Queen of England anyway.
Bon Voyage, Sea Princess!
