Professional Mariner – August/September 2025 – Page 2

A sextant is more than a conversation piece

Imagine this: You are crew aboard a ship, midocean, and the passage is going well. Seas and conditions are favorable and all aboard are attentive, but relaxed. Then the crew on watch gives a shout. Something about the GPS receivers sending out a new position that is nowhere near where you know you have been. You go to the bridge,…

Mariner Exam Modernization Act aims to streamline credentialing process. Should celestial navigation still be a part of the exam?

In May, legislation was introduced into the House of Representatives that aims to simplify the credentialing process for merchant mariners. The act has been well received among maritime advocacy groups. For years, the onerous, costly, and often baffling MMC process has fueled lengthy rants on online maritime forums. Several working mariners have also told Professional Mariner they’d prefer tests that…

Legalities aside, SS United States still on track to be reefed

Despite a lawsuit and a petition drive seeking to prevent the reefing of SS United States off the Florida Panhandle, preparations for sinking the historic vessel are continuing in an Alabama shipyard. After a 12-day, 1,800-mile tow from its longtime berth in Philadelphia, SS United States arrived on March 2 at a shipyard in Mobile to prepare the world’s fastest…

Young mariners captain an old ferry line in New Orleans

I just missed the Algiers Ferry, but I knew it would loop back across the Mississippi River in exactly one half hour. Sitting just outside New Orleans’ historic French Quarter, the Canal Street Ferry Terminal was quiet this particular Saturday morning in November 2024 amid clear, stunning weather. I watched the 105-by-25-foot, 150-passenger aluminum catamaran RTA 1 cross the brown Mississippi. Built by Metal Shark Boats (located…

Tow vessel grounds in Mississippi River after pilot leaves helm to urinate

An unattended pilothouse likely led to the July 2023 grounding of the tow vessel City of Louisville on the Upper Mississippi River near Thebes, Ill., the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded in a recent report. The 138-foot-long, steel-hulled City of Louisville sustained an estimated $2 million in damages, but none of its eight crew was injured in the July…

Towboat engine failure leads to engine-room fire

A catastrophic engine failure, which caused the venting and ignition of hot atomized lube oil, caused $3 million in damage to a towing vessel on the Tennessee River. Johnny M was pushing four barges near Grand Rivers, Ky., on Jan. 30, 2024, when a fire broke out at about 0330 local time. The six crewmembers aboard were unable to extinguish…

Sudden severe weather sinks tugboat towing barge off Galveston

The weather forecast initially called for a chance of thunderstorms on May 13, 2024, as the 67-foot Baylor J. Tregre was en route from Louisiana with a barge in tow toward an oil and gas lease in the Gulf of Mexico. At around 1530, when the tow was about 60 miles from its destination and amid 3-to-4-foot seas and 10-15-knot southerly winds, a squall appeared to the…

Rudder malfunction cited in bulk carrier striking of navigational aid

A bulk carrier struck a concrete navigational aid in late March 2024 while transiting the St. Marys River. The 730-foot-long vessel, American Mariner, was about 25 miles south of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., when a steering system failure hobbled the ship, according to an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The steel-hulled, U.S.-flagged ship began taking on water,…

Reflections on a Life at Sea

As my career of over 50 years at sea, most of it as a captain, is nearing an end, I’ve been reflecting on what my time spent on the oceans has meant to me — both the benefit and cost. My career in the maritime industry was never boring; at times it was outright frightful and deeply stressful. But I…

Letters to the editor

I am a master mariner with an unlimited master’s license for steam and motor vessels and a 500-ton master of auxiliary sailing vessels with many years at sea. Your magazine is a valuable source of information for the maritime industry. However, it seems that there is greater use of incorrect terminology appearing. In the December 2024 issue, there are three articles that use helm as a verb. This is incorrect. A person doesn’t helm a vessel. They steer, pilot or conn a vessel. Saying a person…