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Posts tagged as “Capt. Bob Cerullo”

Lyle’s Life Saving Gun

Running aground was one of the major causes of shipwrecks in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Entering New York Harbor, for example, required a sailing vessel to make a long funnel-like approach. According to Dr. Dennis Noble, writing in his book A LEGACY: THE UNITED…

S.S. United States

New York harbor was teaming with tugs, barges, ferries, sightseeing boats, and the added excitement of the arrival of the SS United States. We were traveling south, headed for Brooklyn on our way home from a boating vacation on Lake Champlain. Moran tugs were getting…

Panama Canal

When the topic of the Panama Canal comes up, the last name mentioned is probably Balboa. Yet in 1513, Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the isthmus of Panama and discovered it to be only a narrow strip of land between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.…

Super Yacht Show

A New York Boat Show ticket at the Javits Center costs $20. It is always a wonderful show. However, if your taste goes to the larger luxury yachts, you might want to take a quick flight to Port Hercule, Monaco, for the Monaco Yacht Show…

Pirate Terror of South China Seas

If asked who the most successful pirate was, most people would say Black Beard. While Black Beard achieved great fame and fortune, Ching Shih is the name of the most successful pirate in history. What is even more incredible is that Ching Shih was a…

Pontoon Boat

In all my years of boating, I never had too much to do with pontoon boats. There was one vacation several years ago on a lake in Virginia where we rented a pontoon boat. So, when a close friend of mine showed me a pontoon…

The Nemi Ships

Humble men who made their living fishing the waters of a tiny lake in the Albion Hills near Rome had been telling tales of sunken ships lurking at the bottom of the lake for centuries. Lake Nemi is only .6 square miles and has no…

Zarvona, the French Lady

The passengers boarding the SS St Nicholas that warm evening at the Baltimore Wharf were relatively happy considering there was a civil war raging between the North and the South. Amidst the hustle and bustle of boarding some sixty passengers, there emerged an elegantly dressed…