A big thank you to our outgoing officers: Anuj Chopra –Hon. Chair; Robert Hanraads –Hon. Secretary and Andre Le Goubin –Hon. Treasurer for an excellent job in running our branch during the last year. Well done gentlemen! Merchant Navy Day… I’ sure you all read Capt. Richard Dixon’ e-mail, reminding us that August 31st was celebrated as Merchant Navy Day in the UK. This of course is to honor the contribution of the British Merchant Seamen during the Second World War and subsequent actions. Here are some facts (from Wikipedia) regarding the role of the British Merchant Service: During the First and Second World Wars, the Merchant Service suffered heavy losses from German U-boat attacks. A policy of unrestricted warfare meant that merchant seamen were also at risk of attack from enemy ships. The tonnage lost to U-boats during the First World War was around 7,759,090 tons, and around 14,661 merchant seamen lost their lives. In honor of the sacrifice made by merchant seamen during the First World War, King George V granted the title "Merchant Navy" to the service. The Prince of Wales was made the Master of the Merchant Navy. In the Second World War, German U-boats sank nearly 14.7 million tons of allied shipping, which amounts to 2,828 ships (around two thirds of the total allied tonnage lost). The United Kingdom alone suffered the loss of 11.7 million tons, which is 54% of the total Merchant Navy fleet at the outbreak of the Second World War. 30,000 merchant seamen were killed aboard convoy vessels during the war, but along with the Royal Navy, the convoys successfully imported enough supplies to allow an Allied victory. In honor of the sacrifices made during the two World Wars, the Merchant Navy lays wreaths of remembrance alongside the armed forces during the annual Remembrance Day service on 11 November. Following many years of lobbying to bring about official recognition of the sacrifices made by merchant seaman in two world wars and since, Merchant Navy Day became an official day of remembrance on 3 September 2000. The United States Merchant Marine provided the greatest sealift in history between the production army at home and the fighting forces scattered around the globe in World War II. The prewar total of 55,000 experienced mariners was increased to over 215,000 through U.S. Maritime Service training programs. Merchant ships faced danger from submarines, mines, armed raiders and destroyers, aircraft, "kamikaze," and the elements. About 8,300 mariners were killed at sea, 12,000 wounded of whom at least 1,100 died from their wounds, and 663 men and women were taken prisoner. (Total killed estimated 9,300.) Some were blown to death, some incinerated, some drowned, some froze, and some starved. 66 died in prison camps or aboard Japanese ships while being transported to other camps. 31 ships vanished without a trace to a watery grave. 1 in 26 mariners serving aboard merchant ships in World WW II died in the line of duty, suffering a greater percentage of war-related deaths than all other U.S. services. Casualties were kept secret during the War to keep information about their success from the enemy and to attract and keep mariners at sea.Newspapers carried essentially the same story each week: "Two medium-sized Allied ships sunk in the Atlantic." In reality, the average for 1942 was 33 Allied ships sunk each week. The following was extracted from an e-mail from Capt. Tom Hudson: On Sunday evening, August 31 at a concert held at the Naval Station Newport, the Navy Band Northeast, under the direction of LT Carl Gerhard (USN), included the song "Heave Ho" during its medley of anthems of each US military service. The following narrative was read as an introduction to the song: Ladies and Gentlemen: Tonight, as we traditionally do, we will perform the anthems of the five branches of our United States Armed Services - the Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy. However, tonight we will add the anthem of another, yet often forgotten, group of heroic men without whom the United States could not have fought, let alone won, World War II. Those heroes were, and are, the men of the United States Merchant Marine. They were civilian mariners and they sailed the thousands of merchant ships that moved hundreds of thousands of our troops and millions of tons of our war material across the North Atlantic to the war in Europe and across the Pacific to the war against Japan. Their ships were essentially unarmed and relied upon lightly protected convoys to complete those essential voyages. German and Japanese submarines and aircraft took a heavy toll. Compared to the total number of merchant mariners that manned those ships, the US Merchant Marine suffered a higher percentage casualty rate than any of the US Armed Services! The second highest rate was that of the US Marine Corps. So tonight, in honor of those gallant men who manned those ships and those who continue to man our merchant ships today we include the US Merchant Marine anthem titled.... "HEAVE HO!" If you are or have been a member of a particular branch of service please stand while the anthem of your particular branch(es) of service is / are played. Bob Sleiertin '52 was the local Kings Pointer who got the ball rolling with LT. Gerhard. Bob gave him a quick history lesson and provided the inspiration to include "Heave Ho" in the program. The Alumni Foundation thanks Bob for his efforts. It is obvious that it was worthwhile.I have personally called Bob and LT Gerhard to thank them. LT Gerhard told me that the band was very excited about playing the song and he hopes to include it in future concerts. One person's effort can go a long way to spread the word. James F. Tobin '77Chief Operating OfficerUSMMA Alumni Foundation, Inc. Babson Center; Kings Point, NY 11024 Piracy in the Baltic Sea? The Plot Thickens… Russia admits mystery ship may have had suspect cargo by Alexander Osipovich Alexander Osipovich –Wed Aug 26, 5:09 am ET MOSCOW (AFP) –Top Russian officials admitted Wednesday that a cargo ship hijacked under murky circumstances in the Baltic Sea may have been carrying a suspicious cargo, after initially playing down such reports.Speculation has been raging that the Arctic Sea -- a ship that was seized by pirates near Sweden last month and vanished for weeks before being recaptured by the Russian navy -- may have held weapons or even nuclear materials. The Maltese-flagged ship with a crew of 15 Russian sailors was officially heading to Algeria with a cargo of timber. But Moscow's top investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, cast doubt on that in a newspaper interview."We do not rule out the possibility that the Arctic Sea transported something other than wood," Bastrykin told the official government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta. "This is why we detained the crew, as we must figure out if any one of them was involved in those events," added Bastrykin, who heads the investigative committee of Russian prosecutors. The detention of 11 Arctic Sea sailors by Russian authorities and media reports that they have not been allowed to communicate with their families have fuelled speculation of a cover-up.Bastrykin pledged that "in a week and a half, we will give complete information" about the incident.Separately, the head of the Russian military said that Moscow did not know if the ship was carrying any cargo other than wood. "We do not know what it is carrying, we only know there is wood and whatever else it is carrying must be clarified by the investigation," Nikolai Makarov, chief of Russia's general staff, told reporters during a visit to Mongolia.Makarov added that it was unclear why the alleged hijackers had bothered to seize the ship in an elaborate operation in one of Europe's busiest shipping lanes.The motive of the hijacking is simply not very clear," he said. Two Russians, four Estonians and two Latvians are now jailed in Moscow on suspicion of hijacking the Arctic Sea, after being arrested when the Russian military recaptured the vessel off the Cape Verde islands.Russian officials have said that a preliminary search of the ship after it was recaptured found nothing suspicious, but have vowed a more thorough search when it reaches the Russian port of Novorossiisk.Authorities in Finland, which the ship departed from on July 23, have said it was not carrying any radioactive cargo. Shape and size of the Earth Contributed by Don Dykstra WARNING! Members of the Flat Earth Society may want to skip the following tale.Regardless of what popes, pundits and potentates have been pontificating for centuries, by now it is pretty much established that the Earth is a sphere. In our days on the bridge -on a clear day- we all remember first seeing the superstructure of a ship appearing on the horizon and then when it got closer, the rest would emerge. This is a pretty good clue that the earth is round. If the earth was flat we would see the full ship (the above water part) right away; even at a great distance. This idea of the world being a sphere is not new. A couple of centuries BC there was a scientist by the name of Eratosthenes, who lived from 276 to 194 BC, according to Wikipedia. He was director of the great library of Alexandria in Egypt and had heard stories that in Southern Egypt at certain days of the year -when the sun was at its highest point in the sky- temple columns had no shadows. Others noted that at the same date and time sunlight shone all the way to the bottom of nearby water wells. This occurred twice a year; a few weeks before the summer solstice and a couple of weeks thereafter, but it never occurred in Alexandria. At first Eratosthenes thought this was a great mystery, but with only a stick and some common sense he figured it out. Eratosthenes was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician who lived from 276-194 BC. At the same date and time that the "no-shadow" and "sun-at-bottom-of-well" phenomenon was observed at a particular oasis in Southern Egypt, he measured the angle between a vertical stick in Alexandria and its shadow cast by the midday sun. Let's say the angle was 7o or about 1/50th of a circle.For astronomers this is the same as if you have the sun at 900 (zenith) in the oasis and at 830 in Alexandria. Now draw imaginary lines from the sun at 900 to the center of the Earth and the same for the sun at 830. Looking from the center of the Earth, the angle between the lines where they cut the Earth’ surface is 70.According to legend, Mr. Eratosthenes then had servants pace off the distance between Alexandria and the above-mentioned oasis. (Others say distances between Egyptian cities were fairly well known from caravan travels). Let's say the distance was a million paces, or about 2.6 million feet, or about 800 km. If an angle of 7o represents 800 km, the full 3600 is about 50 times that much or 40,000 km. This is very close to the actual circumference of the Earth. Not only had Eratosthenes figured out that the Earth is a sphere, but he also calculated its circumference. The incredible thing is that for the next 1,600 years people believed that the earth was flat and that the sun was traveling around the Earth. By stating that the Earth was not the center of the universe, but traveled around the sun, the holy rollers of the Church had you burned at the stake or had your head chopped off. It is believed that Columbus had knowledge of Mr. Eratosthenes’findings, although most of his crew feared that they would drop from the flat earth once they passed the Azores. Captain Columbus must have had incredible leadership skills to convince his crew to push on. Of course let’ not forget our Viking friends. They didn’ care whether the earth was round, flat, triangular, a pyramid or a cube. They just set sail and traveled from one N. Atlantic Island to the next till they landed in Labrador, Canada. They had set up a colony in Iceland, but found it to be a rather wretched place. To attract settlers for their newly discovered lands they named the next big island: Greenland. Even back then there were already good spin doctors. Some 30 years ago, I regularly had lunch with two good friends; one a Spaniard, the other a Norwegian. After a couple of beers, talk always turned to who had discovered America. The Norwegian would say: “we did!”The Spaniard would say: “perhaps, but you guys were too stupid to write it down!”Now that Michael Palin of Monty Python fame has been elected President of the ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, perhaps he can settle this dispute. No doubt it will involve a Department of Silly Ocean Explorers. The Future of Energy Contributed by Derek McCann. The main sources of primary energy in large, industrialized countries are fossil fuels, such as Coal, Oil and Gas. Renewable energy sources, including hydro, wind, solar, biomass and geothermal, together only supply about 7 percent of the energy consumed in the United States. In ‘usiness as usual’projections by both U.S. and international agencies, roughly the same proportions of fossil and renewable energy sources are projected to be utilized worldwide up to the year 2030. However, many consider this to be unacceptable for three reasons. 1) The negative economic impacts of excessive reliance on imported fossil fuels; 2) The negative energy security implications of reliance on imported fossil fuels often from countries that do not have the best interests of the U.S. at heart; and 3) the greenhouse gases released by burning those fuels.The following fact from Gibson Consulting web page:
http://www.gravmag.com/consumption.shtm Where do you stand as a US gasoline consumer? For 2008 (Jan-Sept) the USA consumed an average of 8,980,000 barrels of gasoline every day. (Note that we are ignoring diesel, jet fuel, home heating oil, asphalt, plastics, and all the other uses of oil.) With a population of 306,000,000, this works out to 0.029 barrels per day for every human in the US, on average. 0.029 x 42 gallons per barrel = 1.22 gallons of gasoline, every day, for every person. That's 446 gallons of gasoline per year for each person.Oil: the most recent figure (2008) for U.S. daily consumption of crude oil was just under 15,000,000 bbls. Our net dependence on imported petroleum products for that year was 57%. But oil is gradually becoming the energy source of the past. We’l still need crude oil for the foreseeable future, especially in the production of its by-products, but its use in lighting and heating our homes and powering our transportation will see a decline. One of the alternatives that will replace it is gas. Gas is not a new technology like wind power or solar power, but is tried and tested. It is also a lot more efficient than the “lack”hydrocarbons, and more environmentally friendly. According to the EIA, annual growth in natural gas usage will average 2% from 2005 to 2030, compared to 1.2% for oil, and 2.6% for coal. By 2030, natural gas will account for 24% of total worldwide energy use. The growth estimates for oil and coal may be on the optimistic side, for we may well have reached a tipping point in rejecting greenhouse gas producing energy sources. It will take many years to convert to completely non-polluting energy production, but in the interim gas will fill the gap. Unfortunately domestic gas production is reaching its limits in North America and Western Europe, so it would appear that our imports will see a switch from oil to Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), which is the most efficient way of transporting the product from reserves that are often located a long distance from the end user.The industry is putting a lot of money into LNG production and distribution. Capital expenditure on LNG facilities for 2008 –2012 is expected to total over $106 billion, a growth of 141% relative to the 2003 –20071. Three new terminals have been built in the Gulf of Mexico for the reception of this product, and one of the lightering companies has already carried out a lightering operation on LNG tankers. In addition to gas there is an increasing usage of wind power, and to some extent solar power. As they say, “Peak oil may occur within 15 years. Peak sun will take a bit longer.”More on this in the next newsletter. Contributions Many thanks to those who regularly contribute articles to the newsletter. Members’ contributions or suggestions for material are most welcome. Please contact the editor at
derek.mccann@yahoo.com …Really, we need your input.
