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From Paul Fraser Collectibles 

Featuring the Kristin Johnson Collection, there are some excellent posters and photographs on offer.

Swann Auction Galleries' sale of Ocean Liner & Transportation Memorabilia begins tomorrow, Thursday Febuary 3rd.

Featuring the Kristin Johnson Collection the auction is highlighted by collectibles from the opening voyages of the Normandie French line.

Firstly, there is an official certificate given to maiden voyage passengers, this particular copy given to Marcel Olivier, Gouverneur Général of the French Line, after the blue riband winning westward crossing to New York in a magnificent mat and frame.

This is truly a choice piece of "Normandie" memorabilia and estimated at $5,000-7,500.

Secondly, there is a Paquebot "Normandie" Compagnie Generale Transatlantique which is a superb company-issued photo album containing 37 wonderful photos by Byron.

Containing four full portraits of the ship in New York, two views of the engine room, one view of the wireless room, one view of the hospital, one view of the bakery, one view of the kennel, and the remaining are interior views of public rooms and accommodations in first, cabin, and tourist classes, including three photos of the deluxe suites "Deauville" and "Rouen."

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By Jonathan Bell - Royal Gazette

Bermudian students investigate a previously-unexplored shipwreck in a new film on the Island’s underwater heritage.

‘Reefs, Wrecks and Renegades’ follows middle school students on the Bermuda Sloop Foundation’s Spirit of Bermuda, as they study a wreck near Nonsuch Island in Castle Harbour.

As well as the Foundation, the project involved the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, the Custodian of Wrecks from Conservation Services, National Museum of Bermuda and 500 Middle School 3 students.

Produced by LookBermuda, the film will be distributed to all of the schools involved, and can be seen each day this week at 7.30pm on LookTV Cable Channel 1.

By Adrian Higgins - Washington Post

It has been more than 2,000 years since a Roman merchant ship foundered off the west coast of the Italian peninsula and almost 40 years since the wreck was discovered. Now, the DNA trapped in medicines found aboard the ship is yielding secrets of health care in the ancient world.

Samples from two tablets analyzed at the Smithsonian's Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics reveal a dried concoction of about a dozen medicinal herbs, including celery, alfalfa and wild onion, bound together with clay and zinc.

The tablets may have been used externally to treat skin conditions or dissolved in water or wine and taken for intestinal ailments such as dysentery, speculates Alain Touwaide, historian of sciences in the Department of Botany at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

The DNA tests confirm that medicines written about in ancient texts were actually used, said Touwaide, who with his wife and research partner, Emanuela Appetiti, obtained the tablets from the Italian Department of Antiquities in 2004.

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By Kevin Higgins - Gander Beacon

The sea has always had a certain fascination, pulling those with an interest of finding out what lurks beneath its surface into its watery depths for an opportunity to see once-in-a-lifetime sea creatures, natural earthy formations, and man-made treasures that found their untimely, final resting place.

However, the sea has many other valuable treasures, both monetary and historically, that those travelling under its surface many never see or touch — and some are closer than one could imagine.

Rex Gibbons, who was the MHA St. John’s West from 1989-1997, found this out firsthand at the beginning of 2011, when he returned to his hometown of Lumsden to spend New Year’s with family and friends.

“I have a real interest in anything historical, so when I went out for the New Year’s weekend, my (second) cousin Andy Gibbons told me I had to go up to the (Lumsden North) beach and see something,” said Mr. Gibbons, who has a summer cottage in Lumsden, lives in St. John’s, and spends wintertime in Sun City Centre, Florida.

What the cousins saw were the wooden remains of two large boats uncovered by a strong windstorm on Dec. 24 that pulled, according to Mr. Gibbons, approximately 200 feet of sand away from the beach and back into the sea.

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By Andy Bloxham - Telegraph

The Yarmouth Navigator, a former Navy minesweeper and patrol boat, was being moved to a new mooring after a campaign to save it which lasted several years.

Rescuers were searching for one missing person after three people were saved from the waters of Plymouth Sound shortly after 6.30pm.

A major search and rescue operation was launched, with officers from Devon and Cornwall Police, crews from Brixham Coastguard, a search and rescue helicopter and RNLI lifeboats involved.

The vessel is understood to have been in the process of relocation from its former mooring in Noss Marina, on the Dart, to Plymouth.

The Yarmouth Navigator was one of around 5,000 ships that participated in the Normandy landings in June 1944 and it is listed by the National Historic Ships Committee on its register of vital ships. Unlike listed buildings, there is no official protection for ships.

From Sun Journal

Nautical archaeologist Warren Riess and conservator Molly Carlson will kick off the Maine State Museum's annual series of talks and programs on Wednesday, Feb. 9.

The “Highlights at the Maine State Museum” presentation is free of charge and will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the museum in the State House Complex off State Street.

Riess will begin the presentation, “The Incredible Story of the 1710 Wreck of the Nottingham Galley and the Recovery and Conservation of its Artifacts,” with his research about the shipwreck and experience diving at the wreck site off Boon Island near York’s Cape Neddick.

During that time, Riess and his crew retrieved nine of the Nottingham Galley’s cannons. Carlson will then pick up the story to tell about the Nottingham Galley artifacts that came to her conservation lab. There, she worked on the challenging project to conserve the ship’s cannon-firing supplies, including wadding and a powder bag that remarkably had survived underwater for nearly 300 years.

Riess and Carlson’s presentation will also cover the more grisly aspects of the Nottingham Galley’s story. The 15-man crew survived the wreck but the ship and supplies were lost. Marooned on tiny Boon Island for 24 days during the thick of winter and faced with starvation, cold and extreme privation, the survivors cannibalized one of their fellow crew members who had died of exposure.

The museum is currently exhibiting one cannon, along with wadding, a powder bag, tampion, cannonball, grenade, and wooden fuse from the Nottingham Galley. The exhibit will be available for viewing at the conclusion of the evening’s presentation.

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Photo Roger Harris

By Jeff Hampton - The Virginian-Pilot

After enduring some 400 years buried beneath the Corolla surf, the oldest shipwreck yet found in North Carolina sits on concrete drying and cracking in the Outer Banks elements.

Experts are scrambling to figure out how best to save it: Submerge it in regular baths, soak it for years in a substance also used in antifreeze, coat it in sugar water, saturate it with an expensive silicone oil or freeze-dry it. Or maybe some combination.

“I’m not going to get a second chance on this,” said Joe Schwarzer, director of the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum and the state’s maritime museums. “I’ve got to do it right the first time. If we fail, I’d like to know it was an informed failure.”

Advice is coming from several sources, including scientists working on remains of the Queen Anne’s Revenge that Blackbeard commanded and the Civil War-era warship Monitor.

Experts at East Carolina University are investigating the wreck in Corolla to determine what ship it was and how best to preserve it.

Eric Nordgren, a conservator with the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, plans to learn more about protecting ancient waterlogged wood while on a trip to England.

“It takes a lot of time and resources to preserve a shipwreck,” Nordgren said, adding that funding is limited.

It may be that the 12-ton remains of the shipwreck might be better off outside, sitting on a concrete apron just outside the museum’s back door, Schwarzer said.

Schwarzer said he is using one short, thick beam to see which is better: indoor or outdoor storage. So far, the beam inside a climate-controlled room also shows signs of deterioration, he said.

By Jim Abbott - sun-sentinel

In 1668, Jamaican-based pirate Robert Searle captured a Spanish ship and sailed into St. Augustine for a raid that inspired the Spanish to build the massive fort that now sits across the street from the museum.

Inside the relatively compact but attractive attraction, there's more than a nod to that history.

In the Rogue's Tavern, visitors can gander at the stories of a dozen famous pirates in one of eight electronic books stationed at a heavy wooden table in the center of the room. On the walls, glass cases contain artifacts, including a display on Drake's raid.

History can be dry, but the museum dresses it up with some style.

"Are you tired of spoiled meat and weevil-infested hard tack?" inquires one of the tavern signs.

And the gross-out factor in these tales can be high:

Captain Kidd, for instance, was unlucky until the end, strung up twice at his execution because the noose snapped under his weight. Thomas Tew, the Rhode Island Pirate, was killed by a cannonball to the gut that disemboweled him. In another room, Blackbeard's disembodied head tells his story.

As another sign points out: "Piracy was a very dangerous calling."

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