Content tagged with “shipping” under “The Interesting List”

“ It gets so cold in Siberia, that you can repair a ship’s hull by letting it freeze in a river, then cutting out the ice around it. ”

“ In 1954, a Japanese finishing boat accidentally wandered into an active U.S. nuclear test. One crew member died in the immediate aftermath, and the rest suffered health problems, mostly dying young. ”

“ The US Navy owns an entire forest to source a rare wood to repair the historic USS Constitution. ”

“ An examination of the motives and economics behind the wealthy and their super-yachts. ”

“ It turns out that one of the most practical ways to transport a jet engine is to simply bolt it under the wing of another plane. ”

“ Climate change has opened year-round shipping lanes along Russia’s northern coast. This will dramatically affect both Russia’s and the world’s economy and geopolitical balance. ”

“ A photo gallery and description of how the mothballed USS Kitty Hawk gets from Washington state to a salvage yard on the Texas coast. ”

“ A decade ago, a radiation source was detected inside a shipping container. No one knew what to do about it. ”

“ A lake town in Wisconsin is the only place mail carriers deliver mail from a boat that never stops moving. ”

“ Limited range makes jet packs impractical for most uses, but they come in handy for boarding ships, as demonstrated in this training exercise. ”

“ A freighter was abandoned at the mouth of the Suez in 2017. Due to a legal quirk, a single sailor is stuck onboard and cannot return home. ”

“ In 2015, shipping rates were so low that it was cheaper to move your belongings around the world on a container ship than store them in a local facility. ”

“ Back in 2017, an incident in the Black Sea, and a bunch of Pokemon Go players, revealed that Russia can spoof GPS coordinates. ”

“ A company in Rwanda delivers blood and medical supplies by drone. They can parachute a package of blood 50 miles away in 30 minutes, ordered via text message. ”

“ There’s a sunken WWII ship in shallow water off the coast of England. It contains over 6,000 tons of explosives. If it detonated, a tsunami would travel down the Thames. ”

“ To remove a sunken cargo ship, the salvage crew cut it into pieces with a massive cutting chain. ”

“ A fascinating forensic analysis and re-enactment of the Beirut explosion video that demonstrates how and why it was so destructive. ”

“ There is a public Google Map on which someone has placed thousands of markers of shipwrecks visible in satellite view. ”

“ With COVID having devastated the cruise industry, many companies are selling older ships off for scrap, thus clogging up ‘ship-breaking’ yards. ”

“ While they’re a very trendy subject, shipping containers actually make terrible construction materials, and using them will probably result in more effort and energy than just building normally. ”

“ There are several sunken Russian nuclear submarines – some with leaky reactors – in the Arctic Ocean that the country is going to attempt to raise and bring home. ”

“ Satellite and photo analysis shows the ship that brought the explosive chemicals to Beirut sank, just across the harbor, where it still lies. ”

“ A photo gallery of a San Diego shipyard as it builds a pair of massive freighters designed to bring freight to and from Hawaii. ”

“ Lots of air cargo is carried in the holds of passenger flights, so it’s a problem when passengers stop flying. Here’s an analysis of how the industry has adapted. ”

“ A detailed description of how naval torpedoes actually work. ”

“ When you buy stuff and return it, the retailer often just throws it away instead of repackaging it and reselling it. ”

“ A heavy lift ship lifts another ship which is almost as big as it is. ”

“ War once closed the Suez Canal for eight years. Unfortunately, there were about a dozen ships transiting the canal when this happened. ”

“ In 1983, an inexperienced pilot in British Harrier couldn’t locate the aircraft carrier he was supposed to land on, and had to set down on a Spanish cargo ship before he ran out of fuel. ”

“ A good explainer on the business aspects of the Panama Canal, in particular its competition of the Suez and using trains to bring Asian goods across the country from west coast ports. ”

“ One of my favorite books is ‘Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea’ which is the story of the USS Central America and its treasure, recovered by a genius named Tommy Thompson. Sadly, the years since the recovery have not been kind to Thompson, and this is the rest of the story. ”