Vessel

The future of the port of Baltimore eased through the morning haze Wednesday, limboed under the Bay Bridge with room to spare, ducked under the Key Bridge and arrived dockside at Seagirt Marine Terminal just in time for dinner. Fourteen stories tall and already emblazoned with Maryland's colors, four cranes capable of handling the world's largest cargo ships looked almost ready to go to work. "This is a big day for us. We're on schedule and under budget," said Mark Montgomery, president of Ports America Chesapeake as he watched the Zhen Hua 13 ease into Berth 4 at Seagirt.

It sure doesn't look like the other vessels docked in Annapolis. The Bounty, a wooden movie-star ship with its tallest mast at 115 feet, is in town for a long weekend of tours that ends Sunday. The visit, like the Star-Spangled Sailabration in Baltimore this weekend, commemorates the War of 1812. The original Bounty's storied mutiny occurred in 1789, and both the war and mutiny hark back to the era when sailing ships ruled the seas. This ship was built for the 1962 movie "Mutiny on the Bounty," starring Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian, leader of the historical mutiny in Tahiti against Capt.

It took 200 years, but the oft-forgotten War of 1812 got some attention Wednesday. A flotilla of more than 40 ships representing a dozen nations glided under the Key Bridge and into Baltimore Harbor to launch the commemoration of the conflict that gave the United States its anthem and expelled the British military from American soil once and for all. With the arrival of tall ships and warships at the Inner Harbor, Fells Point and North Locust...

The Baltimore Sun's front page on July 22, 1959, carried the news accompanied by a six-column photo: The world's first nuclear-powered cargo ship had been launched at Camden, N.J. The christening of the $47 million N/S Savannah was bigger than news about legislation to extend the GI Bill of Rights, bigger than a Cape Canaveral rocket launch, bigger, even, than a federal court ruling to allow the steamy novel "Lady Chatterley's Lover" to be...

About two weeks from now, a cargo ship 21/2 football fields long will squeeze under the Key Bridge and deliver the future of the port of Baltimore. On its deck are four massive cranes built in China that state officials and the maritime industry hope will turn the already bustling Seagirt Marine Terminal into a conduit for mountains of goods delivered by the world's largest ships. Baltimore will join Norfolk, Va., as the only East Coast ports with 50-foot-deep berths and cranes able to accommodate vessels up to 1,200 feet long, which will begin using a widened Panama Canal in 2014.

They departed the northwest coast of France two months ago — 26 crew members each aboard two historic French Navy schooners headed to North America. With relatively calm seas, a chef well-versed in French cuisine and plenty of technological updates to the World War II-era ships, the boats made an easy voyage to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. On Sunday, the public got the chance to tour them. The schooners made the journey as part of the bicentennial of the War of 1812. The Etoile, or Star, and the Belle Poule, or Beautiful Chicken, left Brest, France, on March 8. The boats stopped in the Caribbean and Florida, participated in a tall ships race in Savannah, Ga., and docked on Friday in Annapolis.

With guns bristling, police officers in full tactical gear sweep across the vast deck of a cargo ship and creep up the stairs to the bridge. Their mission: Take the vessel back from armed intruders. Twice a month, the Natural Resources Police Tactical Response Team practices its craft. Tuesday morning's exercise was aboard the USNS Gilliland, a 956-foot vessel operated by the Navy Military Sealift Command and tied up at the Clinton Street Marine Terminal. "Basically it's a high-rise lying on its side, but it's a lot more complicated," said Sgt. Mel Adam, the squad leader, of the vessel.

The shipbuilding future of Maryland is 90 feet long and smells of Spanish cedar and fresh paint. Tied to the dock, with tradesmen swarming on deck and below, the Hunting Creek bobs gently on the Wicomico River. Within weeks, the tugboat with the gleaming white superstructure, distinctive green stripe and black "V" for Vane Brothers Co. on its smokestacks will be delivered to Baltimore to begin its working career. The Hunting Creek and its five identical sister vessels, each worth more than $5 million, are the first ocean-going tugs built in Maryland in nearly a half-century.

The book "Guardians of the Capes" asserts that "most of the marine casualties on the bay have been minor in nature. " But 33 years ago, the bay was the scene of a spectacular tragedy. On Oct. 20, 1978, the collier M/V Santa Cruz II, loaded with 19,500 tons of coal, was steaming southbound on the Chesapeake Bay when it collided with a northbound Coast Guard cutter, the Cuyahoga. The collision happened 3.5 miles from Smith Point, at the mouth of the Potomac River, near the Maryland-Virginia border.

Whenever David R. Owen answered the phone, it was always with a crisp and enthusiastic "Bridge," no doubt a holdover from his World War II days when he was an executive officer and navigator serving aboard the destroyer USS Ordronaux. Owen, who died last week, was my Riderwood neighbor for years, and I'd often go to his Thornton Road home for an evening of exquisite vintage port, Stilton and plenty of sea tales — and he had them to tell. Owen had a great capacity for friendship and was a charming and engaging storyteller.