Category Archives: High Seas

Forecasts have warned of thunderstorms and lightning moving across the central belt.

The Met office has issued a yellow alert for heavy, slow-moving downpours, which are likely to hit Glasgow and Edinburgh today.

The thick band of rain is predicted to move across the country between 1pm and 8pm, and stretch as far south as Newcastle.

It brings the risk of lightning strikes affecting power lines, heavy spray on the roads and possible localised flooding.

A second warning for rough seas and high waves for the North West of Scotland has also been issued.

As well as thunder, rain and lightning, thereis also the chance the storms could bring hail, and people are being advised to take care on the roads.

The Met Office warning said: Where flooding or lightning strikes occur, there is a chance of delays and some cancellations to train and bus services

Spray and sudden flooding could lead to difficult driving conditions and some road closure.

There is a slight chance that power cuts could occur and other services to some homes and businesses could be lost.

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Scotland's weather: Thunder and lightning warning issues by the Met Office | HeraldScotland - HeraldScotland

Projects aim to bring salmon population back from crisis point.

New funding of 500,000 will support the development of wild salmon conservation measures.

The money will be used for two projects, the National Adult Sampling Plan which provides crucial data on wild salmon stock and the development of a standardised fisheries management plan template which can be used by all the fisheries management areas in Scotland.

Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon will announce the funding as part of a speech to international delegates and Scottish stakeholders at the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation (NASCO) annual meeting this evening.

It follows the publication of the Scottish Governments Wild Salmon Strategy which aims to bring the wild salmon population in Scotland back from crisis point.

An implementation plan for the strategy will be introduced by the end of the year.

Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon said: I am looking forward to addressing NASCO delegates conference and highlighting the significant work that is being done in Scotland to reverse the decline in wild salmon stocks.

In addition to the measures we will take in Scotland, we are committed to supporting and pushing forward collective action in the international arena, so the young salmon leaving our rivers survive the many challenges they face on the high seas to return to their home river to spawn the next generation.

Recently published salmon fishery statistics continue to confirm the downward trend in the numbers of wild salmon returning to Scottish rivers and we must now reinvigorate our collective efforts to ensure a positive future for the species.

Although the pattern of decline is repeated across the salmons North Atlantic range, with climate change a significant factor, there remains much that we can do in our rivers, lochs and coastal waters to seek to build resilience and transform the fortunes of this iconic fish.

Only by acting together, at home and overseas, and applying our collective resource, knowledge and expertise can we hope to change the fortunes of this iconic and vital species.

Scotland is a stronghold for salmon, which start their lives in streams and rivers, migrate to the high seas to grow and return home to spawn, connecting diverse habitats over a vast area.

Salmon are affected by a wide range of pressures, some at sea, but many others acting within the Scottish freshwater and coastal environments. A key contributory factor appears to be climate change.

Background

Salmon live in fresh water for 1-4 years before undertaking a long migration north to their feeding grounds in the North Atlantic. After 1-3 years at sea, adults often return to the river in which they were hatched to spawn and begin the next generation.

Details on the funded projects:

National Adult Sampling Programme

Development of Fisheries Management Plans

200,000 (including 100,000 from Crown Estate Scotland) to develop a standardised fisheries management plan template which can be used by all the fisheries management areas in Scotland. The plans will allow data to be collected on: environmental characteristics of the area; the status of the fish populations salmon and sea trout; the pressures facing wild salmon in the area; current actions and future management options to protect and restore the fish and fisheries. Fisheries Management Scotland and its members will be involved in the development of the fisheries management plan template and technological solutions required. Funding will be provided to all fisheries boards and trusts.

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Funding to support salmon recovery - gov.scot - Scotland.gov.uk

From a naval command centre perched on the coast of Ecuador's Galapagos Islands, Capt. Isiais Bodero Mala surveyed incoming satellite feeds tracking fishing vessels circling one of the world's most biodiverse places.

Mala was previously a submarine commander, so conservation monitoring wasn't initially a first-choice assignment for the long-serving mariner.

But with hundreds of fishing boats routinely stalking around the world-famous marine protected area for endangered hammerhead sharks, giant squids and other species, his work here is increasingly vital. Ecuador and other Latin American countries have tasked their security forces with cracking down on the fleets poaching from their waters.

Standing in front of large computer screens with other sailors in crisp white uniforms, Mala recounted a story from a fellow submarine commander who was using sonar to listen to a "massive school of fish" from his battle station while tracking a flotilla of Chinese ships.

"After the fishing fleet had passed, there was complete silence the fish had disappeared," Mala said in an interview.

About one in five fish consumed globally is either caught illegally without proper reporting or regulations to protect the sustainability of fish populations, according to a British study. It's an enterprise worth up to $50 billion USannually, depriving some of the world's poorest coastal communities of crucial nutrition and income, exacerbating declining stocks and threatening endangered species.

June 5 is the United Nations' International Day for the Fight against Illegal, Unreported and UnregulatedFishing (IUU), and officials say the problem is only getting worse globally.

As co-ordinated fishing fleets increasingly prowl the world's oceans often entering the waters of small developing nations governments and conservationists are increasingly turning to space-based technology to push back against the industrial-scale theft of marine resources.

In Ecuador, the government has enlisted help from Canadian tech companies and Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to tackle the problem.

"There has been a big change on the technology front in recent years," said Sean Wheeler, DFO's chief of international programs. "Before, we were missing the ability to see the whole state of play."

With tens of thousands of industrial fishing boats operating across the world's oceans, pinpointing illicit operators is like searching for a "needle in a haystack," said Mark Carmichael, a senior executive with the Brampton, Ont.-based space technology firm MDA.

Under a $7-million project financed by Ottawa, the company, which is behind the Canadarm on the International Space Station, is providing satellite tracking, remote sensing and the ability to synthesize large amounts of data to Ecuador's navy.

Linking feeds from powerful satellites, including MDA'sRadarsat-2, with vessel ownership data and records of past offences can help security forces zero in on ships carrying out illicit activities, DFO's Wheeler said.

Other organizations, including the Google-backed tracking group Global Fishing Watch, provide Ecuador with artificial intelligence interpreting boat movements, including fishing operations in prohibited areas.

These different pieces of information are uploaded onto a map in one of Ecuador's naval operation centres, allowing security forces to better pick their battles for intercepting suspicious ships.

It's logistically impossible to inspect every ship on the high seas, Wheeler said, so "space-based [satellites] allow countries to better organize the limited resources we all have."

Environmental crimes, including illegal fishing, are the world's third-most lucrative illicit enterprise, according to the global police organization Interpol, just behind drugs and counterfeit goods and ahead of human trafficking.

The prevalence of these crimes has been increasing "drastically" at five per cent annually,Interpol reported, with "huge profits to be made and risk factors relatively low in terms of penalty."

An estimated 11 to 26 million tonnes of fish are illegally captured and unreported annually, according to estimates from an Imperial College London study cited by the United Nations. The tide, however, could be starting to turn.

"There is increasing global momentum to address crimes in the fisheries sector," said Lejda Toci, an officer with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). "There are some very good initiatives countries have amongst themselves from satellite imagery, mapping the vessels, tracking the vessels and databases of suspicious vessels."

All large commercial ships are supposed to use a tracking tool called an Automatic Identification System (AIS), which reveals locations and voyage information to avoid collisions.

Ships engaged in illegal fishing, however, often shut off their AIS, particularly when they enter a sensitive area like the Galapagos Marine Reserve, said Capt. Mala. A Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) also broadcasts a ship's identity, location and speed, but it only sends out a signal every couple of hours and it, too, can be turned off.

Monitoring AIS or VMS movements is often the first tool used by navies to combat illegal fishing. But when vessels turn off their locators and "go dark," more advanced tech tools need to be unsheathed.

"The only way to find the dark vessels is to do surveillance from space," Carmichael said. To make that happen, MDA is working with Ecuador to pursue other signals.

When boats shut off their trackers before sailing into protected areas, some mariners still need to stay in touch with the outside world via satellite phones. Additionally, ships usually keep their onboard radar functioning to avoid collisions. Boat engines also unintentionally emit electromagnetic waves constituting a specific signature.

Some of these signals can be followed by MDA with radio frequency sensing, a military technology now available for civilian use, Carmichael said. MDA satellites can pinpoint radio waves emitted by satellite phones or onboard navigation systems, even if a ship's other location information has been hidden or corrupted.

Another tool, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), picks up radar wave reflections from boats at sea even if their other tracking tools are off, creating an image that is then relayed to authorities. SAR is especially useful for visualizing boats in remote locations or during periods of bad weather when other technologies, such as Very High Resolution satellite imagery, are less effective.

First developed for submarine warfare, Passive Acoustic Systems monitor underwater listening devices to identify a ship's location and the type of fishing gear it's using based on the sound it makes while sailing.

Data from all of these complex systems is combinedwith the help of advanced algorithms, Carmichael said, and provided to Ecuador's naval operations centres. With location information projected on computer screens, intelligence operatives can then dispatch their forces more efficiently.

"We get information from the operations centre. Then we are sent out," said Jorge Lopez, commander of Ecuador's machine-gun-equipped offshore patrol vessel Isla Isabela.

The patrol ship has special image recognition software that can identify endangered sharks his team might find onboard a fishing boat just by their fins.

As a result of this kind of data, Lopez said his forces were able to intervene against nine semi-industrial boats harvesting from waters reserved for small fishermen last year. Caught illegally harvesting, some of those fishermen are still in jail, he added.

According to a recently passed law, fishing vessels operating in Ecuador's waters are supposed to be outfitted with AIS. But the law has yet to be fully implemented. For now, only industrial fishing ships, and artisanal fishing boats allowed to operate within the Galapagos marine reserve, are equipped and monitored, fishermen and officials said.

The rise of AIS and other satellite tracking tech hasn't been met with universal support.

Some small-scale fishermen welcome the new technology as a tool to protect law-abiding harvesters around the Galapagos. It also allows relatives to know their kin are safe at sea.

"The AIS is an excellent idea," said 70-year-old Alberto Granja, a longtime Galapagos resident and retired fisheries worker. The problem, he said, is that buying the gear costs $1,200 US and many of the trackers donated to local fishermen by conservation groups now need to be replaced.

To other fishermen, the technology is little more than red tape one more piece of kit poor workers have to maintain on their boats and a symptom of government overreach.

"There are huge Chinese fleets out there," he said. "There is no control of big boats outside the reserve The Chinese have the technology to detect where the fish are, but we don't."

Chinese fishing incursions into the Galapagos's exclusive economic zone have not been a regular occurrence since a flotilla of more than 300 boats besieged the area in 2020, drawing a public rebuke from Ecuador's government, as well as naval action and international headlines.

Since then, the fleet seems to have kept away from the Galapagos, focusing instead on other parts of South America.

Ecuadorian officials have met with Beijing's representatives on the issue, Capt. Mala said. China's embassy in Ecuador did not respond to requests for comment.

With few enforceable rules on what boats can take from the high seas, there is not much that can be done about the fleet's activities today, conservationists said.

China is still not part of the Port State Measures Agreement, a key UN treaty enabling port inspections crucial to reducing the laundering of illegally caught fish.

While Chinese vessels are thought to be the worst offenders when it comes to large-scale illegal practices including the 2017 actions of the vessel Fu Yuan Yu Leung, caught with some 7,000 sharks aboard, many of them endangered species ships from Ecuador and nearby nations certainly aren't innocent.

Between 2018 and 2020, more than 135 unauthorized Ecuadorian industrial fishing boats were caught operating inside the marine protected area, according to data from the Galapagos National Park.

To try and build a united front for conservation, Ecuador has partnered with neighbours Colombia, Costa Rica and Panama to link several marine protected areas, including the Galapagos, creating an uninterrupted corridor for sharks, turtles, whales and other sea life spanning 500,000 square kilometres. Presidents of the four nations announced plans for the Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Corridor (CMAR) during the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, last November.

In January 2022, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso signed a declaration expanding the Galapagos Marine Reserve by 60,000 square kilometres, an area larger than Nova Scotia, bringing the Galapagos marine protected area to 198,000 square kilometres.

Tracking boats at sea is just one part of the equation, said analysts. Navies, especially in cash-strapped countries across the Global South, have limited resources to chase down and board vessels inside their own exclusive economic zones.

Rather than following boats, some tech experts are turning their attention to tracking the fish itself. At some point, illegally caught fish will be sold to consumers, and naming and shaming repeat offenders at the retail level can be a powerful tool.

This, however, is harder than tracking ships. The mixing up of fish from different boats and even fishing areas through the transfer of catch at sea, a process known as transshipment, means tracing the origins of the marine life sold in different products is challenging.

Many seafood traders also mislabel fish shipments, to avoid taxes, regulations or simply increase profits, conservationists said. Moreover, it is not known how much of the illegally caught fish ends up in mixed products, such as fish meal and pet food, for which the origins are often even more difficult to ascertain.

"It's really hard to have traceability for fish and seafood with transshipment," said Nancy De Lemos from the monitoring group Global Fishing Watch. "It's hard to identify which fish comes from a legitimate activity and which does not."

Her organizationis trying to address that by tracking transshipments to identify which vessel was shifting the catch and where the mothership eventually docks. But even if a large ship thought to be engaged in illicit transshipments on the high seas is tracked to port, that information alone often isn't enough to bring criminals to justice.

"It's a sector that's complex and global in nature," said the UNODC's Lejda Toci. Bad actors can use loopholes in national legislation or register in a secretive jurisdiction regardless of where they fish, she added. "These are all aspects that make it particularly susceptible to transnational organized crime and corruption."

More than one third of global fish stocks are being overexploited, according to UN data, and the impacts of illegal fishing are getting worse.

Working at a stall in an open-air Galapagos market, 52-year-old fishmonger Marisa Felipe Suarez is one of the millions of people hurt by the mechanized pilferingof the world's oceans.

Wearing a blue cap and a big smile, she's married to a fisherman and regularly sails the Galapagos's waters herself with a licence for a small catch.

"This is a maritime reserve of international value," she said of the islands, which have enough diversity of life to have inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

"There should be help to stop [illegal fishing] from navies all over the world. These big fishing boats come from afar, take everything and then bring the fish back to their countries."

The travel and reporting for this story were funded by a grant from the Global Reporting Centre and Social Sciences Humanities and Research Council.

Read more from the original source:

To fight illegal fishing in the Galapagos, Ecuador turns to Canadian satellite and sensing technology - CBC News

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Americans have a "hole" lotta love for the donut.

Credit Maine mariner Captain Hanson Crockett Gregory for that. The then-future high-seas hero, in a moment of deliciously divine inspiration as a teenage galley boy, turned a poorly cooked blob of sailors sustenance into the iconic, ring-shaped and deep-fried delicacy we know and love today.

His innovation changed the way people in the U.S., and now much of the world, eat breakfast.

Captain Gregory "was bold and brave and bright," enthused Texas author Pat Miller,who first heard of the culinary innovator amid a boat tour of Boston Harbor.

MEET THE AMERICAN WHO HONORS THE MEMORY OF 200,000 FALLEN WAR HEROES

She chronicled the adventurous life of Gregory (1832-1921) in her 2016 childrens book, "The Hole Story of the Doughnut" (Harper Collins).

U.S. consumers eat more than 10 billion donuts per year, according to the Simmons National Consumer Survey while an incredible 96% of Americans say they enjoy donuts.

Maine sea captain Hanson Gregory inspired a beloved American culinary icon when he invented donut as a teenage galley boy aboard the Ivanhoe on June 22, 1847. (The Crockett Collection at the Camden (Maine) Public Library)

But Gregorys long-lasting contribution to American culinary culture has gone largely unrecognized, save for the epithet upon his humble gravestone in a small, isolated sailors cemetery in Quincy, Mass., overlooking Boston Harbor, where he lived out his final years.

It reads simply: "Capt. Hanson Gregory. Recognized by the National Bakers Assn as the inventor of the doughnut."

Donut lovers celebrate National Donut Day on the first Friday of June June 3, 2022, this year in honor of the Salvation Army members who fed the deep-fried rings of dough to American soldiers in Europe during World War I.

The culinary world should celebrate another milestone later this month as well. The donut turns 175 years old on June 22.

The sea captain is buried in a sailors' cemetery in Quincy, Mass., overlooking Boston Harbor; this gravestone notes his culinary contribution to America. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)

That was the day, in 1847, that teenage sailor Gregory thought of an innovative solution to a problem plaguing the hungry crew of the sailing ship Ivanhoe.

Dough that was deep-fried in cauldrons of lard had been served to sailors on the seas for centuries. Dutch cooks made a notable version called oily cakes.

"When [the cakes] were fried, they were completely fried through. The idea caught on."

Washington Irving grew to become America's first celebrity writer chronicling the life of Dutch settlers in the Hudson River Valley. He's believed to be the first to use the phrase "dough-nuts" to describe the Dutch treat in his 1809 treatise, "A History of New York."

They were not the donuts as we know today.

It was "just a big blob of dough," Miller told Fox News Digital. "The center would remain greasy and partially cooked."

They were so dense, doughy and uncooked that "sailors called them sinkers," she said.

Gregory, just 15 at the time, was struck by an idea to lighten the sinker. He took the lid off a water-tight tin can that was used to store pepper in the ship galley.

"He used it like a cookie cutter. He cut out the center of the oily cakes," she said, while displaying a 19th-century tin spice can, with its sharp-edged lid.

NATIONAL DONUT DAY 2022: WHERE TO FIND FREE DONUT DEALS

"Then, when [the cakes] were fried, they were completely fried through. The idea caught on. It spread around the world because sailors told sailors."

She wrote in her book, "Ships' cooks now served holey cakes" instead of oily cakes.

Hansons mom introduced the innovation to landlubbers, selling them at a friends general store in their native midcoast Maine, Miller said.

"The first holes ever seen by mortal eyes!" Captain Hanson Gregory

"Well, sir, those donuts were the finest ever tasted," an elderly Captain Gregory told The Patriot Ledger of Quincy, Mass., in a 1916 interview, as in his golden years he gained recognition for his invention of years earlier.

Texas author Pat Miller wrote the 2016 children's book, "The Hole Story of The Doughnut," chronicling the life of Captain Hanson Gregory, with illustrations by Vincent X. Kirsch. (HarperCollins Publishers)

"No more indigestion no more sinkers just well-done, fried-through doughnuts."

He proclaimed they were "the first holes ever seen by mortal eyes!"

The influence of the donut on American culture had only just begun.

Boston-area entrepreneur William Rosenberg opened the first Dunkin Donuts in 1950 in Quincy less than a mile as the crow flies from the sailors cemetery where Captain Gregory has laid at rest since 1921.

The proximity of the original donut maker's burial place, and the birth of the nation's largest and most famous donut chain, appears to be nothing more than a quirky coincidence.

The first Dunkin' Donuts, founded in Quincy, Mass., in 1950, remains a roadside attraction today that draws visitors from as far away as Saudi Arabia, said franchisee Victor Carvalho. (Dunkin')

The Carvalho family now owns the original Dunkin location still in the same spot as it was in 1950, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

It's something of a tourist attraction, drawing donut lovers from as far away as Saudi Arabia, franchisee Victor Carvalho told Fox News Digital.

"We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Gregory," the family said.

"We feel a sense of pride and responsibility," he said, charged as they are with the ownership of an American culinary landmark. Yet even the Carvalho family, he said, only recently became aware that Gregory was buried a short distance away, across a narrow finger of Boston Harbor called Town River.

Scott Logan is charged with the care of Gregory's grave as the head of the City of Quincy's cemeteries department.

A variety of donuts are shown close up. Dunkin today has 12,600 donut shops in 40 countries, including 8.500 in the U.S. alone.

He grew up playing football, baseball and softball behind Snug Harbor School, just feet from the donut maker's burial place. Yet he only became aware of the donut pioneer in his role as cemetery caretaker.

"Everyone in Quincy knows about Dunkin' Donuts," Logan said. "Nobody knows the guy who invented the donut is buried right here. Nobody ever asks about him."

MEET THE AMERICAN WHO INVENTED LIGHT BEER

The Rosenberg family who founded Dunkin' apparently recognized Gregory's influence in later years. They reportedly paid to have the captains current gravestone erected in 1982, with a ceremony featuring local schoolchildren, after his original burial marker went missing.

Donuts and more donuts including some decorated in a patriotic theme.

"We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Gregory," the family told UPI at the time.

Dunkin' today boasts 12,600 donut shops in 40 countries, including 8,500 in the U.S. alone. It sells about 2 billion donuts and Munchkin donut holes worldwide each year, the company told Fox News Digital.

Captain Gregory lived a dramatic life of high-seas adventure well after his teenage epiphany.

Gregory's intrepidity earned him honors from Queen Isabella II of Spain herself.

He delivered supplies, lime most notably, from New England to San Francisco in the wake of the California Gold Rush. The journey took him around the dangerous seas of Cape Horn at the tip of South America.

Along the way, Gregory rescued seven Spanish sailors from drowning aboard a sinking ship. His intrepidity earned him honors from Queen Isabella II of Spain herself.

Author Pat Miller displays the type of 19th-century spice can that helped inspire the invention of the donut in 1847. Sailor Hanson Gregory used the lid of the can to cut holes in the middle of the dough balls before frying them, in order to ensure even cooking throughout. (Fox News Digital)

The captain later named one of his daughters in honor of her majesty, according to Miller.

Gregory died in 1921, without full recognition of his trend-setting creation.

His legacy as the inventor of donuts was elevated, however, during "The Great Doughnut Debate" of 1941 at Hotel Astor in New York City, according to a Smithsonian Magazine report in 1975. The captains relative, Fred E. Crockett, spoke in defense of the family.

"Captain Gregory was the unanimous choice of the judges."

Cape Cod attorney Henry A. Ellis sought to debunk the claim of the Crockett/Gregory family, with a tall tale that the donut can be traced to a scuffle between Pilgrims and Native American people in the 1620s, in which a Wampanoag fired an arrow through an Englishman's ball of dough.

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"The issue was never really in doubt," Smithsonian reported.

"Mr. Crocketts presentation included an array of affidavits, letters and other documents. Captain Gregory was the unanimous choice of the judges."

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The industry cemented Gregorys position in 1948, when the National Bakers Association confirmed Captain Gregory as the inventor of the donut his status as an American innovator literally etched in stone overlooking the ocean on which he spent his life.

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Meet the American who invented the donut - Fox News

Unless you live near a port, you probably dont think much about the tens of thousands of container ships tearing through the seas, hauling some 1.8 billion metric tons of stuff each year. Yet these vessels run on some of the dirtiest fuel there is, spewing more greenhouse gases than airplanes do in the process. The industry is exploring alternative fuels and electrification to solve the problem for next-generation ships, but in the meantime a Y Combinator-backed startup is gearing up to (hopefully) help decarbonize the big boats thatre already in the water.

London-based Seabound is currently prototyping carbon capture equipment that connects to ships smokestacks, using a lime-based approach to cut carbon emissions by as much as 95%, co-founder and CEO Alisha Fredriksson said in a call with TechCrunch. The startups tech works by routing the exhaust into a container thats filled with porous, calcium oxide pebbles, which in turn bind to carbon dioxide to form calcium carbonate, essentially limestone, per Fredriksson.

Though carbon capture has yet to really catch on for ships, Seabound is just one of the companies out to prove the tech can eventually scale. Others, including Japanese shipping firm K Line and Netherlands-based Value Maritime, are developing their own carbon-capture tech for ships, typically utilizing the better-established, solvent-based approach (which is increasingly used in factories). Yet this comparably tried-and-true method demands more space and energy aboard ships, because the process of isolating the CO2 happens on the vessel, according to Fredriksson.

In contrast, Seabound intends to process the CO2 on land, if at all. When the ships return from their journey, the limestone can be sold as is or separated via heat. In the latter case, the calcium oxide would be reused and the carbon sold for use or sequestration, per Fredriksson, who previously helped build maritime fuel startup Liquid Wind. Her co-founder, CTO Roujia Wen, previously worked on AI products at Amazon.

Seabound says it has signed six letters of intent with major shipowners, and it aims to trial the tech aboard ships beginning next year. To get there, the company has secured $4.4 million in a seed round led by Chris Saccas Lowercarbon Capital. Several other firms also chipped in on the deal, including Eastern Pacific Shipping, Emles Venture Partners, Hawktail, Rebel Fund and Soma Capital.

Beyond carbon capture, another Y Combinator-backed startup is setting out to decarbonize existing ships via a novel battery-swapping scheme. New Orleans-based Fleetzero aims to power electrified ships using shipping container-sized battery packs, which could be recharged through a network of charging stations at small ports.

Continued here:

Carbon capture is headed for the high seas - TechCrunch

ByIrina Anghel and Eamon Akil Farhat

May 21, 2022,(Bloomberg) Theres never been a more dreamy way to have your coffee delivered than a sailboat across the Atlantic.

A small number of specialty roasters in Europe are now offering beans that have been sailed rather thanshipped via fossil-fuel burning vessels from South America. While theyre a rare luxury compared with standard bags of supermarket coffee, these wind-blown beans may inspire some imaginative ideas for finding and stamping out carbon emissions fromyour everyday life.

Heres a glimpse of the journey: Roasters buy the beans directly from growers in countries like Colombia before theyre stored in a warehouse and loaded onto a sailboat destined for ports like Le Havre, France or Penzance, England. The crossing typically takessix weeks. The beans are then couriered to specialty roasters before ending up in espressos served in coffee shops or at home.

Youre one step away from the coffee being grown, almost, said Richard Blake, founder of Yallah Coffee, a Cornwall-based roaster who sells beans sailed from Colombia. A 1-kilogram bag of Yallah Coffees Las Brisas beans costs 50 ($62) but boasts a carbon footprint close to zero. As a price comparison, the most expensive coffee beans UK supermarket Tesco Plcsells onlineis a 1-kilogram bag for 13.75 ($17).

Blake said people are happy to pay for a premium product if they feel like there is value in all the steps.

That can be lost with the homogenized mix of beans on a supermarket shelf, he said, whereas if its single origin, and if its on a ship, theres less people in the chain, and that creates more value.

A few years ago, a small group ofenvironmentally focused entrepreneurs, such as Shipped by Sail in the UK, started using pirate-like schooners to prove that goods like coffee could be transported with near-zero emissions even if it took more money and all the risks linked with crossing the Atlantic on hundred-year-old wooden boats for a couple dozen bags of high-end beans.

What started as bravado is now making a bit more business sense. Consumers have become more willing to pay extra for the greener coffeeand roasters are rising to the challenge to provide it to them.

TakeBelco, a sustainable coffee importer based in France serving around 1,000 specialty roasters all over Europe. The company bought 22 tons of Colombian coffee delivered by a schooner earlier this year. Its had such positive feedback from customers that theyrenow planning to import at least halfof their total coffee beans about 4,000 tons by sailboat by 2025. In order to do this, though, theyre going to need a bigger boat.

Belco is relying on shipments from Frances TransOceanic Wind Transport, a sailing freight transport company. To meet growing demands of customers like Belco, TOWT is building a sailing vessel capable of holding 1,100 tons of goods. The first ship is due in June next year and three more should follow by 2026.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Costa Ricas SailCargo Inc. is preparing to sail South American beans north to customers like Serge Picard, the owner of CafWilliam Spartivento, the biggest Canadian-owned roaster for Fair Trade Organic coffee. Caf Williams said it has invested in a new SailCargo veseel that will carry 250 tons of goods when its expected to launch next year.

Years of innovation have given the coffee industry plenty of ways to reduce its carbon footprint on the farm level, from replacing chmical fertilizers with organic wasteto using renewable energy to power equipment. Shipping has remained a weak spot. It might be more efficient to transport coffee beans by sea than air, but todays cargo ship engines are driven by bunker fuel the dregs of th oil refining process. Large sailboats have motors for when theyre needed, but their main source of power is emissions-free wind, which gives them the added benefit of being mostly immune tovolatile oilprices.

To be sure, conventional freighters which hold thousands of tons of goods are much more economic than a ye olde pirate ship, or even a 1,000-ton sailing vessel, for transporting lots of different cargo like coffee. But that isnt stopping some coffee importers and sailboat manufacturers from trying to overthrow the heavy ships command of the high seas.

Maxence Lacroix, co-founder of Belgian specialty roasteryJavry, which acquired its first order of coffee beans via sailboat earlier this year, is keen to see disruption in the shipping industry.

We need to be lots of small actors to be able to change things, because the bigger actors are definitely not going to do it, he said. The change must come from the bottom.

2022Bloomberg L.P.

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Coffee Shipped by Sailboats In Efforts To Disrupt The Heavy Ships' Command Of The High Seas - gCaptain

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Doha: Hot weather conditions during daytime and blowing dust are likely during the weekend as Qatar Meteorology Department (QMD) warns of strong wind and high seas offshore.

Temperatures will also range from 30 degrees Celsius as the lowest and 42 degrees Celsius as the maximum.

The wind will blow at northwesterly direction on Friday at 10-20 KT gusting to 27 KT inshore and will reduce to 5-15 KT at night. Meanwhile, the wind offshore will range from 15-25 KT gusting to 30 KT.

On Saturday, the wind will blow in the same direction at 7-17 KT gusting to 25 KT inshore and 12-22 KT reaching to 28 KT offshore.

QMD also issued a warning regarding high seas as heights will vary from 3-5 ft inshore.

Visibility will mainly range between 4-8 kilometres during the weekend but may vary less than that on Friday.

More here:

QMD warns of strong wind and high sea during the weekend - The Peninsula

Since 2013, the NFLs throwback uniforms have been tainted. A rule that limited teams to a single helmet style hampered some franchises ability to take the field looking like a slice of 1967.

Gone was Pat Patriot and the Broncos full Orange Crush kit. Buccaneer Bruce was kept on the bench instead of sailing the high seas of a Tampa Bay Super Bowl season. The Bills could pay homage to their teams of the 1960s thanks to their white helmet base but couldnt throw it back to the red-helmet days of Marv Levy and four straight AFC championships.

The Packers ugly brown helmets well, OK, that was probably a good idea to scrap those.

Mary Langenfeld-USA TODAY Sports

Fortunately for the world at large, the NFLs throwback uniforms will be restored to their full glory in 2022. The league revised its policy to allow a second helmet to be added to the rotation and paired with any look its team is going for traditional, throwback, or (deep sigh, rubs temples) Color Rush.

We dont officially know which franchises will take advantage of the relaxed helmet rule; teams have until July 31 to file their uniform plan with league headquarters. We do know that list will probably include the New England Patriots thanks to Jalen Mills Instagram:

Several others will join them, because a snappy throwback is social media equivalent of throwing against a prevent defense. Which teams have the most to gain with the cleanest looks? Oh, my friend, I am happy you asked.

Listen, if a digested-food brown helmet is what it takes to bring back the yellow dot ACME Packers uniforms, just get it done.

The path is clear for Dallas to get back to its Thanksgiving throwback tradition. These uniforms are fine.

Philly should have never abandoned the Kelly green.

The Falcons look clean as hell in red. They look clean as hell in black, too, so the throwbacks arent a major improvement and thus rank relatively low on my chart. Say, while youre here, can I interest you in everyones favorite center/uncle Jeff Van Note?

That man played into his 40s and is bleeding from the forehead in roughly half the Getty Image photos where you can see his face. Here he is picketing during the 1987 strike, which took place *after* he retired:

That is a six-time Pro Bowler and not a random trucker bussed in from the nearest Flying J. Get Jeff Van Note to the Hall of Fame immediately.

A truly awful football team (at the time) with a truly awful uniform (at the time). The Bucs creamsicle kits are so tacky they swung back to fashionable.

Tom Brady officially unretired due to his love of the game. Unofficially, he knows that these BRADY 12 jerseys in orange and white are a license to print money.

Seattle has undoubtedly been much better as a franchise since ditching silver as a primary color and reducing the size of its bird of war from enormous to merely prominent. Even so, these are roughly 200 percent better than their day-glo Color Rush catastrophes.

Good god.

Red helmets, white uniforms, blue numbers. Simple and perfect. Call them your Jim Kelly special and sell a million Josh Allen jerseys to Bills Mafia.

Soft blue and orange are peanut butter and chocolate here.Bring back enormous shoulder pads for running backs while were at it.

If you have a powder blue uniform, you should be wearing a powder blue uniform. The Los Angeles Chargers figured this out and were rewarded with Justin Herbert for their faith.

Read more here:

10 best NFL throwback uniforms eligible to return in 2022 - For The Win

WASHINGTON The congregation at the Maritime Day Mass in Washington May 21 prayed for safe harbor in heaven for mariners and other seafarers who died in the last year and for the protection of our brothers and sisters currently plying the waters aboard vessels delivering goods to the world.

Bishop Brendan J. Cahill of Victoria, Texas, the main celebrant and homilist for the Mass, said the church entrusts the care of all seafarers to Mary under one of her earliest titles Star of the Sea.

She provides a light in a storm for all and sets a course through these times to reach our safe haven in heaven a safe harbor home, he said in his homily, urging the faithful to always look to her for guidance and a source of joy.

The Mass was celebrated in the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington in observance of the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Mariners and People of the Sea.

It was sponsored by the Stella Maris National Office of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Stella Maris is the Catholic Churchs ministry to seafarers around the world. Its network of chaplains and volunteers offers spiritual care and various services to seafarers, fishers, port personnel and their families.

Bishop Cahill is the episcopal promoter for Stella Maris in the United States.

Concelebrating the Mass was Father Paul Hartmann, USCCB associate general secretary. A Milwaukee archdiocesan priest, he was appointed to the post in February and joined the USCCB staff in mid-May.

Deacon Paul Rosenblum, a regional coordinator for Stella Maris and port chaplain in the Diocese of Charleston, S.C., assisted at the Mass.

In his homily, Bishop Cahill described St. Pauls time at sea and how he depended on seafarers and their hard work as he journeyed to the ends of the earth to proclaim the good news. The apostle also was shipwrecked during a dangerous journey on his way to Rome. He and his companions washed up on the Mediterranean island of Malta.

Paul had received a message from God that although their ship would perish, the group would survive, and just as they found safe harbor, Bishop Cahill said, Jesus Christ takes us to the safe harbor of eternal life. All of us are invited to safe harbor home and we pray for others that they will have safe harbor home with Jesus Christ.

As Mass came to a close, Sister Joanna Okereke, national director of the USCCBs Stella Maris ministry, thanked the congregation for coming to the Maritime Day Mass, which is an annual liturgy but this year was the first in the last couple of years it was celebrated in person due to the pandemic.

A Sister of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus, she is assistant director for Pastoral Care of Migrants, Refugees and Travelers in the USCCBs Secretariat of Cultural Diversity.

Noting that 90 percent of all world trade depends on merchant seafaring, Sister Okereke said the presence of the faithful at the Mass and their prayers mean a lot to the people who do this important work.

In addition, more than 1.25 million seafarers work on board cruise ships, and 41 million people make their living from fishing.

Formerly called the Apostleship of the Sea, Stella Maris started in Scotland more than 100 years ago.

Around the world, this Catholic apostolate assists seafarers in meeting their basic needs. Stella Maris centers around the world arrange for visits of clergy and others in ministry to seafarers when they are in port.

Many of these centers have an onsite chapel for prayer services and Mass for crew members. The centers also provide workers with a shuttle to take them to local shopping centers, give them phone cards and/or the use of a free phone, computers and the internet.

They also have a lounge where crew members can watch television, read newspapers or magazines, play card games or simply relax.

The mission of Stella Maris remains today as clear as a sailing ships mast silhouetted against the rising sun: to reach out to seafarers, fishers, their families, all who work or travel on the high seas and port personnel, says a brochure posted about the ministry on the USCCBs website, usccb.org.

In every major country, a bishop serves as the Stella Maris episcopal promoter, overseeing the work of the national director.

In the U.S., the Stella Maris ministry has a presence in 53 maritime ports in 48 archdioceses and dioceses in 26 states. There are more than 100 chaplains and pastoral teams made up of priests, religious deacons and lay ministers.

Link:

Mary, Star of the Sea, protects mariners and is guide for all, bishop says - Arlington Catholic Herald

One of the fallacies, I believe, of modern thinking is that if one does everything they are supposed to do, then everything will turn out fine and life will be and become a journey of smooth sailing.

It is almost an assumption, a foregone conclusion: If I live a good moral life, keeping my nose clean, my checkbook in order, and work hard at the details, then things will turn out right, my kids will grow up to be fine adults, and all will be wonderful.

There almost seems to be an idealism that says if we live right and do good for our fellow man, then we should be exempt from the difficulties that seem to plague everyone else. We live our lives comparing ourselves to others, and often we come away saying, Well, I did pretty well this time around.

Difficulties come to somebody else. Someone else gets sick with COVID-19 or cancer. Someone else has the rebellious children. Someone else has the financial dilemmas. The bad things always happen to someone else.

Whats more? They probably deserved it. They did not live their life as God-honoring and faithful as you did, and therefore God is just getting even with them.

No matter what our situation in life may be, whenever we go through trials or difficult circumstances, our tendency is to dwell on the circumstances so much that we lose sight of the eternal.

How many times have you struggled with the thoughts that life should be smooth sailing, that life is a bowl of cherries, and that life should be a sweet-smelling aroma as in a garden of roses?

Reading Erma Bombecks famous book, If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? or listening to that once-popular old song, I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden (Or almost any other country-western song, for that matter!) should cause each of us to wonder if our view of life as a rose garden or a bowl of cherries is somewhat erroneous.

As I read the Scriptures, I am impressed that such pictures (as a rose garden, or a bowl of cherries), pleasant though they may be, are not the artwork of the Bible. In fact, the Bible throughout pictures the journey of life as a rough, pot-hole-filled road with difficulties, trials, and hardships throughout.

Peter in his first letter writes: Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you (1 Peter 4:11). He is saying to us that we should not look at difficulties as unusual, but as the norm for life.

If you think about the Bible stories you know, isnt that the case. There was always something that was going wrong, whether it be eating fruit from the wrong tree (Adam & Eve) or getting mad and killing someone you should not have (Cain & Abel) or dealing with a worldwide natural disaster (Noah), or being confronted with a personal moral dilemma (Abraham, in sacrificing Isaac). On and on we could travel through the pages of the Old Testament and everywhere we turn we find hardship and difficulty such as these.

But even in the New Testament, we see the same sorts of things. The disciples were getting into jams continually it seems, and they could not find their own way out of the dilemmas in which they found themselves.

One of my favorites of the Gospel stories is the account of Jesus leaving the disciples and going up to the mountain to pray. He sent them in a fishing boat to go over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.

While He was praying a storm came up on the lake, and the disciples were again confounded, because they could not control the boat, and they could not keep the water out. They look up and see Jesus walking on the water towards them, and they get afraid. They think it is a ghost. He is appearing to them outside of their known sphere of reference for Him.

So they simply mock Him as a ghost. Peter even suggests that this ghost if He is really Jesus as he claims He is, will invite him (Peter) to walk towards Him on the water.

No one was more surprised than Peter to hear Jesus reply: Come! And no one was more intimidated into trying this than Peter. I mean, after all, he had to save face before these other guys who didnt make such a bold request of the ghost!

When he stepped out onto the water, I believe there was no one more afraid to let go of the boat than Peter, but when he realized he was walking, now that was exciting for all! But then he sank, and it was Jesus who had to come get him. (Check out Matthew 14:22-33).

This passage has reshaped my whole view of suffering.

First, Life is a journey of storms, moving from one storm to another. There might be respite from time to time, but storms are the norm of life not the exception. If you think about it, every mountain peak is surrounded by valleys.

Second, Jesus will come to us during the storms if we will look for Him. He does not want us to drown in the high seas of life.

Third, if we keep our eyes on Jesus we will not sink. Peter only began to sink when he started looking at the stormy sea instead of the steady Savior.

Our task then is to keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus, and He will see us through whatever storms we face, no matter how intense they get, no matter how afraid we may be.

If we keep our eyes on Him, He will see us through every storm we face.

God bless

Chuck Tabor is a regular columnist for the News Journal and a former pastor in the area. He may be reached at [emailprotected] .

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Eyes on the savior, not the storm - Wilmington News Journal, OH