The Most Recent Ship Report Podcast:

The autumnal equinox happens Saturday

Today we'll talk about what the autumnal equinox really is and why it affects everything so much on our planet. Kind of a refresher of what we learned in school, but we probably haven't thought about it much lately. So we'll talk about equinoxes, seasons, and - what's an equator, and where is it exactly?  

Archive Podcasts:

The Pacific Tracker: an odd looking ship with an unusual mission

Sep 08, 2023

Today we’ll focus on one of our hometown vessels, ones that are based here but are still very unusual-looking no matter how many times you see them. Today we have the Pacific Tracker on our ship schedule – she’s based in Portland and goes out into the ocean regularly. Her job is to track missiles for the US military.

The Seafarers Happiness Index for Q2 2023

Sep 01, 2023

Today, we’ll take a look at an international survey conducted every quarter of each year since 2015. It’s called the Seafarers Happiness Index, conducted by the London-based Mission to Seafarers organization.

It’s a report that compiles and analyzes survey responses from employees working at sea around the world. The report for the second quarter of 2023 is out, and it’s not particularly good news. Seafarer job satisfaction is down, continuing a trend seen last quarter as well. Industry-wide, ongoing pandemic-related problems remain, and workers are sometimes hard pressed to get paid, or have to pay extra for necessities on board like drinking water.

These workers are vital to our global economy. We’ll look at the survey results.

A look at a proposal for floating offshore windfarms in Oregon, and a new floating wind farm in Norway

Aug 29, 2023

This month, a new floating windfarm in the North Sea off Norway was offcially dedicated, after having been in successful production in the North Sea since the fall of 2022. We’ll also take a look at proposed floating wind farms off the Oregon coast.

There is a 60-day comment period underway for the Oregon project. Here’s a link to the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management page about Oregon projects. There’s info on this page and a link to file a comment about the project:

https://www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/state-activities/Oregon

Solo kayaker logs almost 7,000 miles in round trip journey

Aug 25, 2023

Today we’ll talk about the amazing solo kayaking journey of 65-year old Canadian Mark Ervin Furhmann, who just completed a 268-day voyage alone. He departed last year from Nova Scotia, paddled north to the St Lawrence River, made his way to the Great Lakes and down the MIssissippi and adjoining rivers until he arrived in the Gulf of Mexico. From there he journeyed to Florida and up the East Coast back to Nova Scotia. He made the trip to raise funds for two charities, and to spread a message of goodwill and societal  healing.

Fukushima nuclear plant begins 30-year plan of water releases into the ocean off Japan

Aug 24, 2023

The headlines are stress-inducing – based on what we know about Fukushima – the site of the destroyed nuclear plant after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that created a disaster in that country.

In the 12 years since, radioactive water has been building up around the plant, used to keep the damaged reactor cool. Now the company that owns it has a plan to release 1.3 million metric tons of that water into the ocean over the next 30 years. (Note: A metric ton, also written as tonne, is equal to about 2200 lbs, a bit larger than a US ton which is 2,000 lbs.)

The company says the water’s been filtered to remove the worst contaminants. Critics are skeptical.

We’ll take a look at what this means and the reaction of nearby countries, as a decades-long experiment begins.

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