Farewell to Monique, the round the world sailing hen
Well, here’s a touching and enchanting story but with a sad end. News has reached my desk that Monique, the sailing hen, which famously accompanied French solo skipper Guirec Soudée on a five-year around the world voyage, has died. Breton sailor Soudée adopted Monique while on a stopover in the Canary Islands aboard his 38ft steel yacht, Yvinec, on his first solo circumnavigation in 2015.
It seems they forged a lasting friendship which endured over the years as they sailed together to all parts of the world clocking up thousands of miles and became celebrities in Soudée’s native France.
Let Soudée have the last word. He said, “Without Monique I would have gone mad during our 130 days of over-wintering in Greenland, including days of polar night. I had the good idea to only take only rice for me and wasn’t able to fish. But you kept on laying eggs every day. You knew our lives depended on your eggs.”
Princess Empress did not have correct paperwork to sail
When I first read about this incident, (which is still in the news and evolving as work continues to contain the incident), involving a ship that had sunk with approaching one million litres of industrial fuel onboard, I was concerned. But now, some weeks after the event, it transpires that the Philippines inter-island oil products carrier, Princess Empress, was not in possession of the correct paperwork it needed in order to be allowed to sail, according to reports. So that means it was sailing illegally.
The Philippines flagged vessel sank with 900,000 litres of industrial fuel oil onboard off the island of Mindoro. I am informed that it has sparked the biggest environmental crisis seen in the Philippines for many years. Worryingly, the oil is now spreading across the centre of the archipelago, with the booms ineffective against oil coming out of the ship at a depth of 400 metres.
Yet another environmental disaster unfolding before our eyes and this one it appears caused by a vessel that was not compliant with regulations to allow it to sail. When will unscrupulous operators finally come to their senses and take their responsibilities seriously for the good of others?
Historian Dan Snow leads an appeal to recover the head of a rare small tooth sand tiger shark
Despite the best efforts of a member of the public, Alisha Openshaw, who tried to help the ailing shark, it sadly died sometime later in the day. After it was found dead and washed up on Lepe beach in Hampshire, Dan Snow (the historian who lives nearby), was asked to secure and examine the rare creature for scientists. “I saw on Twitter that this shark had washed up on my local beach, and I posted something funny about it,” says Snow (the ‘funny’ content was a reference to Jaws). “Then I suddenly got all these messages coming in from my scientist friends saying this is incredibly unusual. They told me: ‘You’ve got to try and secure it for science, it’s really special’.” However, before he arrived, the head, tail and fin had been cut off and taken. If you should know of the whereabouts of the shark’s head, or indeed if you are responsible for cutting it off in the first place, please be sure to let me know.
Symphony of the Seas claims new record for the largest number of Souls to cross the Atlantic
One of the largest cruise ships in the world, Royal Caribbean International’s Symphony of the Seas, is claiming a modern-day passenger ship record with reports it carried the most people on a trans-Atlantic crossing in peace time. During World War II, the liners were converted to troopships, with the Queen Mary claiming the all-time record in July 1943 carrying a total of 16,683 troops and crew. The ship departed Miami on March 9, and as she reached Malaga, Spain on 19 March, her captain informed passengers of the record. During his announcement, he said the cruise ship had a total of 7,604 individuals aboard. This included 5,350 passengers with an additional 2,224 crewmembers.
I have often thought about going on a cruise, but I have to say with that number of people onboard, it is not for me. Nearly 8,000 people on one ship, well that’s the size of a small town in the UK and sometimes that can feel overcrowded for me! But each to their own of course.
Cost estimates for repairs to HMS Prince of Wales rocket
I am troubled by this story as many others will be too. I think what really concerns me is why so frequently this sort of situation arises and it seems to be on the increase. At a time when there are huge pressures with rising prices for everyday commodities, let alone to repair a new ship, this is little short of reckless. And no-one seems to investigate to understand how this situation happened, or if they do, the findings are not made public for all to see. It is not acceptable and is going to be a massive drain on the public purse at the taxpayers’ expense. It is gross incompetence on an industrial scale!
Once again, the UK’s plagued aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, is the focus of a new controversy after The Times newspaper published a report contending that the problem with the shafts were known before the Royal Navy took delivery of the vessel. The delayed aircraft carrier remains in dry dock in Scotland and the Ministry of Defence has launched an investigation into the issues.
According to the report in The Times, the repair costs for the carrier have skyrocketed to an estimated £20 million from an original estimate of just £3 million. After entering the dry dock at Rosyth, Scotland in October 2022, an inspection identified potential similar issues with the port shaft as found with the starboard shaft. Reports then surfaced in the media that the Royal Navy had decided to overhaul the second shaft at the same time as a precaution and that the carrier’s return to service was then being delayed as they awaited the arrival of parts. Let’s hope the world crisis does not deepen until we have our aircraft carrier back!
What a fiasco.
Until next time.
Mike Schwarz
