The Most Recent Ship Report Podcast:

The Columbia River: a salt water wedge estuary

Today we continue our series about the Columbia River. Today's topic: the fact that our lower river is called a "salt water wedge estuary." We'll talk about what that means, and why marine pilots consider it one of the river's many quirks that they need to take into account with regard to ships.

Archive Podcasts:

A look at the bows of ships: the very important front end of things

Today, a look at a very specific and important design feature on ships: the bow, the very front end of things. Why do they look the way they do? And why do some ships look different than others?

Image: a ship with a plumb bow in the Astoria Anchorage. Credit: Joanne Rideout 2025.

The river can be deceiving unless you look carefully

I was walking along the riverside in Astoria yesterday and it sure looked calm out there on the water. Upon closer inspection, there was a actually max ebb tide happening, and the water in the channel was rushing toward the sea. No wind though, and not much surface turbulence.

A reminder that the river can be deceving to the inexperienced: don’t ever forget that the mighty Columbia River is never a placid lake, no matter how many pretty reflections you can see in parts of the river’s surface.

Solo racer Pip Hare’s amazing adventure

Today we’ll talk about the incredible journey of solo racing sailor Pip Hare. She was competing in the round the world Vendee Globe race in mid December, when her boat was severely damaged and lost its mast.

Instead of calling for rescue or abandoning the boat, Hare used broken parts and a small sail to create a small makeshift rig, and slowly sailed 700 miles to Melbourne, Australia.

A review of anchorages, and the kinds of ships that use them most on the Columbia

Today, I thought we could do an overview of anchorages on the river.  We see ships in anchorages up and down the river corridor. Why do ships stop there? What happens on board ships in the anchorage? Can ships just anchor anywhere? Why do some this anchor and others don’t?

We’ll talk about all this and more in today’s show.

USNS Washington Chambers enters the river today

An unusual vessel arrives in the river today: The USNS Washington Chambers. She’s a cargo ship that is a member of the Navy’s Military Sealift Command fleet, and she’s headed for the shipyard at Swan Island. She’s been involved in some unique military exercises at sea recently – we’ll talk about that too.

And a correction to Tuesday’s podcast about the disabled ship that was towed to Rainier after losing power downriver from the Astoria Megler Bridge: that incident happened on Christmas Eve, and the ship was towed upriver on Christmas Day. Apologies for the error; I’ve corrected the podcast.

Something to cheer about in the depths of winter: the days are getting longer

Today we’ll talk about a happy fact: the days are getting longer! Since we passed the winter solstice in December, we’ve been adding a little daylight daily in small increments. Soon it will add up to wonderfully longer days, and eventually summer once again.

 

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