Vessel

If the Black Eyed Susan were a race horse, it would be a sprinter. It makes one strong move, then fades quickly. The strong move occurs this weekend when the cocktail will be in demand at Pamlico Race Track, during both the running of the Black Eyed Susan Stakes on Friday and the Preakness Stakes on Saturday. Over these two days, about 25,000 servings of the libation, poured into commemorative glasses, will be sold at $8 apiece, track officials say. But as soon as Preakness weekend ends, so does the does the local thirst for the Susan.

A 100-foot tugboat sank off Pier 3 in Locust Point on Saturday night. The tugboat Kaleen McAllister sank before 10 p.m., Mike Reagoso, the vice president of Mid-Atlantic operations for McAllister Towing, said Sunday. No one was injured in the incident, Reagoso said. Everyone had left the boat by the time it sank, said Petty Officer David Marin, a Coast Guard spokesman operating out of Baltimore's Curtis Bay yards. "It is too early to determine what the extent of the damage may be, but the submersion of the tug is not expected to interfere with any harbor operations or any port operations," Reagoso said in a statement.

Seadog Ventures, a sightseeing cruise line in Baltimore's harbor, is adding a second high-speed vessel for the coming tourist season. Beginning in April, the Seadog VI will join the Seadog III in providing 50-minute tours from Baltimore's Inner Harbor out to the Key Bridge and back. Having a second vessel in Baltimore will enable the company, Chicago-based Entertainment Cruises, to offer more frequent departures, according to Daniel Leaman, general manager of Entertainment Cruises in Baltimore.

The U.S. Coast Guard suspended a search of the Chesapeake Bay on Thursday for a vessel that sent out a distress call Wednesday evening. Coast Guard and local officials roamed 180 square miles over a 12-hour period, focusing on two places in the Bay where the call originated, in the mouth of the Choptank River and between Deale Beach and North Beach, Petty Officer Jason Stanley, a search and rescue controller working the case, said in a statement....

For months in the spring and summer of 1814, Commodore Joshua Barney and his ragtag flotilla of gunboats had harassed the mighty British navy on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. But outnumbered and outgunned, Barney and his miniature fleet were bottled up in the Patuxent River with no escape and enemy forces approaching. So following orders from Washington, Barney's men scuttled the estimated 17 vessels — including his flagship, the USS Scorpion — near a place known as Pig Point.

AAI Corp. of Hunt Valley has developed an unmanned surface vessel that can send devices deep into the ocean to detect mines and other threats. The company, a division of Textron Inc., hopes the U.S. Navy will choose the technology to be deployed on its littoral combat ships. The company behind the Shadow spy plane used to pick up counterintelligence over the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan is taking its technology to the seas. AAI Corp. of Hunt Valley has developed an unmanned surface vessel that can send devices deep into the ocean to detect mines and other threats.

A 100-foot tugboat sank off Pier 3 in Locust Point on Saturday night. The tugboat Kaleen McAllister sank before 10 p.m., Mike Reagoso, the vice president of Mid-Atlantic operations for McAllister Towing, said Sunday. No one was injured in the incident, Reagoso said. Everyone had left the boat by the time it sank, said Petty Officer David Marin, a Coast Guard spokesman operating out of Baltimore's Curtis Bay yards. "It is too early to determine what the extent of the damage may be, but the submersion of the tug is not expected to interfere with any harbor operations or any port operations," Reagoso said in a statement.

The last voyage of the Nikolai Pogodin, a Russian freighter plagued by debt and barnacles, ended in the hopeless hour before dawn on the beach at Plot No. 20.The lights of the Pogodin glimmered out in the bay, seeming for a long time not to be moving - but the ship was charging out of the dark night straight toward the beach at Alang. As it came closer, the outline of the hull became visible, set off by the white foam at the bow. Beaching a ship is a ticklish business. The current runs strong.

The work of surveying and charting the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay, begun in 1807, shifts to a new vessel Wednesday with the arrival of the R/V Bay Hydro II at Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The $2.1 million, aluminum-hulled catamaran will be dedicated at an 11 a.m. ceremony near the Harborplace amphitheater. The craft replaces the 21-year-old single-hulled S/V Bay Hydrographer. To be based at Solomons, the new boat is more than twice as fast as its predecessor, giving it quicker access to Baltimore Harbor, where it is needed most, said Howard P. Danley, chief of navigation services for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Q: While a missionary in Peru years ago, I was given a pottery vessel that I was told was a "huaca" (ceremonial cup) used by the Incas. Is it really an authentic and valuable Inca relic?A: Your blackware vessel appears to be authentic; however, it probably was made by Chimu Indians between the 12th and 15th centuries, not by the Incas. The Chimu Indians lived along Peru's northern coast and had a highly developed, distinct culture until their conquest by the Incas, hence the grouping of these wares with Inca artifacts.

The sales pitch to 46 uniformed men was simple: Welcome to Baltimore. Next time, bring a tall ship. City and state officials and the nautical community have begun a marketing drive aimed at filling the Inner Harbor with majestic sailing vessels and gray-hulled warships for the War of 1812 commemoration finale, Sept. 6-14, 2014. On Wednesday, they pitched military attaches from 40 countries, including Canada, Mexico, Turkey and Sri Lanka. Navies begin planning their sea exercises and courtesy calls about a year in advance, and there's a lot of jockeying among East Coast seaports to secure the biggest and best ships for summer events.

The Coast Guard suspended its search Thursday for two men missing in waters about 15 miles off the coast of Assateague Island after their fishing boat sank a day earlier. The broken-down fishing vessel was battling 20-foot waves and 50 mph wind gusts in the Atlantic Ocean when a wave knocked North Carolina fisherman Patrick Small off the deck. From the water, Small saw another wave strike the boat, shearing off the pilot house with two other men inside, he told rescuers. The men, Walter Tate, 80, and his nephew, Stephen Tate, 60, of New Bern, N.C., were deemed lost at sea after a search at first light Thursday found nothing but debris, including the floating front half of the vessel, Coast Guard officials said.

Maryland's boating industry suffered badly in the economic downturn and has yet to fully recover, so it's no surprise that many in the boat business are once again looking for help from Annapolis. Unfortunately, the latest proposal - to cap the vessel excise tax at $10,000 - could do more harm than good. That's not just some knock against millionaires and their yachts - although they would be the primary beneficiaries of such a tax policy. Since the excise tax is set at 5 percent, that means only boats worth more than $200,000 would be affected.

Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr. is facing five charges in connection with an August boat crash that sent him and six other people — including four children — to the hospital. Investigators said Dwyer's blood-alcohol level was three times above the legal threshold for being under the influence when his powerboat, The Legislator, collided with another vessel on a Pasadena waterway Aug. 22. Dwyer, 54, was charged Thursday by Maryland Natural Resources Police with operating a vessel while under the influence of alcohol, reckless operation of a vessel, negligent operation of a vessel, failing to register his boat and a rules-of-the-road violation.

The eve of the next General Assembly session will arrive before authorities complete an investigation into Del. Don Dwyer, who admitted he was drunk while piloting a speed boat in a collision that seriously injured six people this past summer. Authorities said Tuesday that witness interviews and toxicology screens are still incomplete as investigators probe the two-vessel crash that sent four children, Dwyer and another adult to the hospital after an Aug. 22 accident on the Magothy River.

Rick Carrion has never met Lin and Larry Pardey, but the retired high school science teacher from Cecil County and the couple who met in California and have spent the past six decades not staying put share a special passion for sailing in general and wooden boats in particular. Carrion, who retired in 2005 after teaching earth science and environmental science at Elkton High for 30 years, and the Pardeys will be among the wooden boat aficianados to descend on Annapolis Sept. 22-24 for the third annual Classic Wooden Boat Rendezvous and Race on the Severn River.

We stood between a sentinel of Inuit guides armed with rifles on Akpatok Island, an uninhabited outcropping of 700-foot-high cliffs, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. We arrived here at the edge of the Canadian boreal forest a few hundred miles below the North Pole aboard a small vessel operated by Cruise North Expeditions, an Inuit-owned cruise line. The lure: to experience the grandeur of nature in this desolate, frozen land near the top of the world. On Akpatok, the guides' eyes fixed on the horizon, watching beds of lingering snow for itinerant polar bears.

DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia -- An Iraqi merchant ship ignored more than 40 warning shots blasted across its bow by a U.S. destroyer yesterday in an act of defiance that raises the prospect of a new confrontation at sea.A tense standoff in the Persian Gulf continued into the night as the Iraqi vessel continued toward the Yemeni port of Aden after its captain made clear to the Navy destroyer O'Brien that he did not intend to return to Iraq, military officials said.The...

A witness told 911 operators the boat piloted by an admittedly drunk Del. Donald H. Dwyer was "flying [at] what seemed like full throttle" before colliding with another vessel, seriously injuring seven people, including four children. On 911 recordings released Tuesday and in interviews, neighbors who helped with the subsequent rescue described a bloody scene, screaming children, people tossed into the air and a boat ripped by the impact with Dwyer's motorboat, The Legislator. No one has been faulted in the Wednesday evening accident on the Magothy River that sent Dwyer, the pilot of the other boat and the children to the hospital.

Over the years, we have often disagreed with Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr. on numerous matters of law and social justice. But it gives us no satisfaction to learn of the Anne Arundel Republican's involvement in a horrific boating accident Wednesday on the Magothy River. The accident caused serious injury to six people, including Mr. Dwyer, another adult and four children. Mr. Dwyer had been drinking and operating one of the vessels, the "Baja," a 26-foot runabout that collided with an 18.5-foot Bayliner and sank near Cornfield Creek.