THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER

When it comes to boats, the work and the expense never ends. Especially when the boat is more than a century old and needs a whopping bottom job.

A busy afternoon aboard the Texas tall ship Elissa out of her home port of Galveston.

Nice to see the 16-year-old sailor attempting to solo circumnavigate the planet is alive and at least semi-well, considering the dismasting of her boat in the rough Southern Indian Ocean. Presume she will be rescued soon by the Aussies.
If she can blog, we can presume she won’t under too much stress waiting. But it would [...]

It probably won’t last at this height of slightly more than 681 feet above mean sea level, not if La Nina kicks in and we get another dry, scorching summer. But it’s certainly an improvement over last summer’s view of this then-dry upper end of Cypress Creek Arm.

Anytime’s the right time for another good snap of the Tall Ship Elissa.

As he did for the Abercrombie in Little Ship, Big War, Lt. Cmdr Edward Stafford tells the compelling day-to-day detail of life aboard an even smaller warship.
SC 692 was about as small as they came in World War II, other than PT boats. Like the PTs, the subchasers also were made of wood. Meaning, among [...]

Great fun watching the live stream (archived video, actually) of the 90-foot-long trimaran races off Valencia, Spain. Giant boats with crews scurrying about like ants, as they fly down the course on one leeward hull or the other, even in light air. The USA team, BMW Oracle Racing, won the first race against a Swiss [...]

Sunk on purpose by Navy Skyhawks in 1968, she lies somewhere on the bottom of the Pacific off Baja, CA. But while she lived, as related in Little Ship Big War, The Saga of DE343, she was a microcosm of World War II and its civilian and professional sailors.
Even down to her irascible captain who [...]

Deck view of an LSMR, from this hobbyist’s page. New stuff to me, these special ships carrying rockets to support troop landings, encountered in Little Ship Big War, The Saga of DE343, by Edward Peary Stafford.
Good book it is, with much day-to-day detail of life aboard a destroyer escort in the last months of World [...]

It’s been a while since I finished this good one, and I’m not sure why I didn’t write a review at the time. The mental pictures of little destroyer escorts plunging through big seas to take on Japanese cruisers in order to protect American escort carriers linger yet. It was in the last days of [...]