Whitbread: How did the Mor Bihan sailboat take on the giants of the round-the-world race?

 

They built their sailboat themselves and set out to compete in the Whitbread, the toughest round-the-world race.

The true story of the Mor Bihan, mythic racing sailboat of 14,81 m designed par the team of architects Joubert-Nivelt when daring was worth more than money.

 

 

On August 29, 1981, the Glandos (the team’s nickname) would be on the starting line in Portsmouth. Joining them were three professional sailors—Philippe Poupon, Halvard Mabire, and Jean-François le Menec—who came to lend their experience.

When they rounded Cape Horn and won the third leg, Eugène Riguidel was at the helm and claimed one of his greatest victories alongside them.

Finishing seventh in this massive 50,000-kilometer race, the Mor Bihan would never have been able to make it to the starting line without the help of the entire population of the department, who rallied to support this challenge.

Inside the eye of hurricane Polo

Unbelievable footage from NOAA’s Hurricane Hunters inside the eye of Hurricane Polo.

Simply incredible. pic.twitter.com/Inb1Njb5HS

— Nahel Belgherze (@WxNB_) September 24, 2026

Hurricane Polo is looking extraordinary tonight. Sheesh. pic.twitter.com/SgD5dSAyHu

— Dakota Smith (@weatherdak) September 24, 2026

Hurricane Polo has re-intensified into a CATEGORY 5 monster for the 3RD time, joining Hurricane Ioke (2006) as the only Pacific Hurricanes on record to have three separate CAT 5 peaks.

 

Links :

• Tropics Earth : HAFS model for Polo
• Sqall clouds

Greenland’s oil dispute is testing Arctic sovereignty

 

Photo: DeLaine Mayer

From ArcticToday by DeLaine Mayer

In July, an excavator and 15 shipping containers arrived at the Nerlerit Inaat port in eastern Greenland.
According to Danwatch, the shipment is the first wave of equipment for Greenland Energy’s planned exploration campaign in Jameson Land.
The company has said another 300 containers and a drilling rig are scheduled to arrive in September.
Greenland’s Ministry of Business and Mineral Resources, however, says the project does not yet have the approvals required to begin drilling.

What began as a permitting dispute is evolving into an early test of how the U.S. is pursuing its expanding strategic interests in Greenland, placing the project at the complicated intersection of energy policy, Arctic strategy, and Greenlandic sovereignty.

 

Greenland Energy’s Exploration Campaign

In 2021, Greenland announced that it would stop issuing new oil and gas exploration licenses, but said that existing licenses would remain in force under their original terms.
One of those licenses is now held by Greenland Energy, a U.S.-listed exploration company pursuing two exploratory wells in Jameson Land.

This spring, Greenland Energy raised approximately $70 million in a public offering.
The company has since contracted an Arctic drilling rig, secured integrated well planning and logistics services from Halliburton, and begun mobilizing equipment for its two-well exploration campaign.
The company estimates that its license area contains as much as 13 billion barrels of gross unrisked prospective resources.
The same filings make clear that these are not reserves, and that no modern exploration well has yet demonstrated that Jameson Land contains commercially recoverable oil.

Greenland Energy’s drilling schedule targets its first exploration wells for the fourth quaerter of 2026 through the first quarter of 2027.
Greenland’s Ministry of Business and Mineral Resources, however, claims the license holder did not have approvals for the July equipment mobilization, putting its Q3 activities at odds with the local approvals process.
It’s worth noting that large energy projects rarely progress in a straight line.
Financing, procurement, logistics and permitting often proceed on separate timelines.
Drilling contracts can be negotiated before exploratory campaigns begin, and it’s not uncommon for equipment to be ordered before regulatory reviews conclude.

Alternative:

The challenge is that in Greenland, decisions that would ordinarily be viewed as technical regulatory questions are now being interpreted through a much broader strategic lens, given the Trump Administration’s declaration of interest and prospective ownership of the Danish autonomous territory.
That political posture places additional pressure on institutions designed to evaluate exploration projects on legal, environmental, and commercial grounds.

Greenland’s Energy Resources and Global Energy Geopolitics

Louisiana Governor and Special Envoy to Greenland Jeff Landry recently stated that Greenland “could be exporting 2 million barrels of oil a day.
Think about what kind of pressure that would relieve in the Strait of Hormuz.” At that level of production, Greenland would rank among the world’s larger oil exporters, producing the equivalent of roughly 15 percent of current U.S.
crude oil and about 2 percent of global supply.
No public development plan supports production at that scale, however.

Landry’s comments have come alongside the administration’s broader posture toward Greenland.
President Trump has repeatedly raised the prospect of U.S.
control of the island, while Landry’s appointment as special envoy was itself met with opposition from Greenland’s government, due to American annexation threats.
Greenland Energy executives themselves have indirect ties to President Trump and the administration, including Carol Craig, whose defense firm is involved in the planned Golden Dome system (itself argued as part of the rationale for U.S.
control of Greenland), and Kenneth Griffen, who holds a 9.3% stake in the company and donated $1 million dollars to the 2025 inaugural committee.

Against that backdrop, an American envoy publicly presenting Greenland’s prospective oil resources as a solution to U.S.
energy security carries significance beyond ordinary commercial advocacy.

 

 

A fjord in East Greenland.
Photo: Rune Kongsro

The administration is publicly treating Greenland’s prospective petroleum resources as an American strategic asset even though Greenland has not authorized their development, turning ordinary commercial momentum into political pressure on Greenland’s regulatory process.
That approach may advance near-term U.S.
energy interests, but undermines the institutional sovereignty on which a durable U.S.-Greenland relationship depends.

Resource Geopolitics in the High North

The Greenland case illustrates a broader shift in Arctic competition.
Commercial activity, infrastructure, and regulatory institutions are increasingly becoming arenas of strategic competition alongside more traditional military and diplomatic tools.

Russia, for instance, has expanded its military posture across the Arctic while strengthening its control over the Northern Sea Route (which was available for energy shipping to Asia earlier this season due to faster melting ice).
And Russia’s cooperation with China has grown since the invasion of Ukraine to include energy projects, shipping, and coast guard exercises.

While Putin stated Greenland’s ownership was of no concern to Russia, Trump’s “Greenland ownership” rhetoric has deepened the tension between the U.S. and its European allies, a chasm which Putin can capitalize on.

China, meanwhile, declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in 2018 and has pursued a Polar Silk Road linking resource development, infrastructure, and emerging northern shipping routes.
Beijing’s direct economic footprint in Greenland remains limited, as the Minister of Business noted a preference for Western partnerships, but Chinese companies have previously sought stakes in Greenlandic mining projects and bids for strategically sensitive infrastructure.
The Kvanefjeld project is one example: Chinese rare earth company, Shenghe Resources, is the second-largest shareholder in the Australian company behind the project, an investment some in Washington have seen as a “backdoor for Chinese encroachment in the Arctic.”

Greenland sits inside this competition because geography and resources overlap.
Its location anchors missile warning and surveillance systems across the North Atlantic, while its deposits of rare earths (ranked 8th in the world for reserves) and other critical minerals have attracted attention as the U.S. and its allies seek alternatives to Chinese-dominated supply chains.

Yet Greenland’s experience with critical minerals also demonstrates the distance between geological potential and strategic supply.
Despite substantial resource deposits, commercial development has been limited by infrastructure constraints, high costs, and Greenland’s own regulatory decisions.
The Kvanefjeld project, for instance, has seen its own exploration and development phases halted, as Greenlandic authorities denied an extension of its exploration license under the current legislative framework.

Kvanefjeld highlights the fact that Greenlandic regulatory decisions have consequences for foreign capital, and that Greenlandic sovereignty is intertwined with resource management.
Greenland’s own Arctic Strategy report on foreign, security, and defense policy is aptly titled “Nothing about us without us.”

There is no evidence that Greenland Energy is acting at Washington’s directive.
Nor is such coordination necessary for a commercial project to acquire strategic significance.
American officials citing a private company’s prospective resources as evidence of Greenland’s importance to U.S. energy security has already blurred the line between commercial advocacy and national security.

Commercial momentum may appear advantageous for Washington: a U.S.-linked project could expand Western access to Arctic resources while limiting opportunities for competitors.
For Greenland, however, the same momentum may narrow the political space in which regulators operate.
Its decision to delay or reject development risks being geopolitically interpreted as hindering U.S. strategic interests.
Meanwhile, Russian and Chinese activity gives Washington good reason to favor Western investment.

Sovereignty as Strategy

Congress, concurrently, has been redefining U.S. Arctic policy.

In June, Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Jeanne Shaheen introduced a bipartisan resolution “reaffirming congressional engagement with Arctic allies”, including the importance of Indigenous peoples’ inclusion in Arctic governance and decision-making.
The resolution highlights Arctic security, infrastructure, telecommunications, scientific research, Indigenous engagement, and cooperation with allies as core U.S. priorities.

Following the resolution, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee advanced S.4708, the Arctic Security and Diplomacy Act.

The Trump administration has good reason to support Western investment in Greenland.
But its approach could work against that goal.
Tying individual resource projects to U.S. strategic interests gives Greenlanders another reason to view resource development through the lens of American pressure, leveraging its own institutions to push against American investment.

Petroleum development is only one component of a much larger regional agenda, in this light.
American interests in Greenland long predate the current exploration campaign.

Greenland’s geography is central to Arctic defense, North Atlantic security, and telecommunications infrastructure.
Pituffik Space Base has been in use since 1943, under a Danish-American defense agreement, today supporting U.S. missile warning and space operations.

Defense, space operations, telecommunications, critical minerals, and scientific research all overlap in Greenland.
Those interests do not depend on whether Jameson Land ultimately becomes a producing oil field, yet much of the public discussion has become dominated by the progress of this single exploration project.

Congress should reinforce Greenlandic self-determination and regulatory sovereignty as explicit components of U.S. Arctic policy.
That may run counter to the administration’s current approach, but further alienating Greenland and European allies carries its own strategic cost: a more divided West leaves greater room for Russia to consolidate the Northern Sea Route as an energy corridor and for China to expand its Arctic economic presence.

France & misc. (SHOM) layer update in the GeoGarage platform

 

188 charts updates & 1 new chart added

see GeoGarage news 

Ovit grounding: ECDIS incompetence and inexperienced crew in vital positions

Credit: UK MAIB

From Safety4Sea

 
Complying with the ISM Code is at least a prerequisite for a safe navigation.

As part of its series on ISM Code-related accidents, SAFETY4SEA focuses on the grounding of the Maltese-registered tanker ‘Ovit’ in the Dover Strait, off UK, in September 2013, that serves as a great example of how minimum ISM breaches can lead to undesired events.

Accident details: At a glance

• Type of accident: Grounding
• Vessel(s) involved: Ovit (chemical tanker)
• Date: 18 September 2013
• Place: Dover Strait, UK
• Fatalities: No
• Pollution: No

The incident

In the early morning hours of 18 September 2013, the Maltese-registered tanker ‘Ovit’ was transiting the Dover Strait, while on passage from Rotterdam, Netherlands, to Brindisi, Italy, carrying vegetable oil.

The intended route through the Dover Strait was prepared using the ship’s ECDIS.

At 0230, the chief officer arrived on the bridge and took over from the second officer as the officer of the watch (OOW).

The deck cadet, who was the assigned lookout, joined him.

Ovit was following an autopilot controlled heading of 206° at a speed of between 12 and 13 knots.

The OOW selected the scale on the ECDIS display that closely aligned with the 12 nm range scale set on the adjacent radar display.

He then sat in the port bridge chair where he had a direct view of both displays.

At about 0300, the heading on the autopilot was adjusted to 225°.

As Ovit approached the Varne Bank, the deck cadet, who was standing on the starboard side of the bridge and using binoculars, became aware of flashing white lights ahead.

He did not identify the lights or report the sighting to the OOW.

At 0417, Ovit passed close by the Varne Light Float. From 0432 the ship’s speed slowly reduced until the vessel stopped when it grounded on the Varne Bank at 0434.

The ship remained aground for just under 3 hours.

 

There were no injuries and damage to the vessel was superficial.

There was no pollution.

Ovit refloated on the rising tide and subsequently berthed in Dover.

Probable causes

The UK MAIB investigation underlined that:

The passage was planned by an inexperienced and unsupervised junior officer.

The plan was not checked by the master before departure or by the officer of the watch at the start of his watch.
The ship’s position was monitored solely against the intended track shown on the ECDIS.

Navigational marks on the Varne bank were seen but not acted upon.

 

Maris 900 ECDSIS s57 input page

The scale of the chart shown on the ECDIS was inappropriate.

The operator defined settings applied to the system were unsuitable and the system’s audible alarm did not work.
The officer of the watch’s situational awareness was so poor that it took him 19 minutes to realise that Ovit had grounded and a further 14 minutes to report the accident to Dover Coastguard.
Although training in the use of the ECDIS fitted to the vessel had been provided, the master and deck officers were unable to use the system effectively.
A Channel Navigation Information Service (CNIS) procedure, which should have alerted Ovit’s officer of the watch as the tanker approached the Varne Bank, was not followed because the procedure had not been formalized and an unqualified and unsupervised CNIS operator was distracted.
The passage through the Dover Strait was treated in exactly the same way as a passage in open water.

ISM breaches

Key ISM-related factors that contributed to the accident included:

The passage plan was prepared by an inexperienced and unsupervised junior officer.
The passage plan was not properly checked.
The deck officers were unable to safely navigate using the vessel’s ECDIS.
Master and deck officers did not implement the ship manager’s policies for safe navigation and bridge watchkeeping.
The serious shortcomings with the navigation onboard had not been identified during the vessel’s recent audits and inspections.
The SMS bridge procedures provided onboard Ovit by Ayder Tankers Ltd were comprehensive and included extensive guidance on the conduct of navigation using ECDIS.

Lessons learned

This incident is a clear example of ECDIS incompetence by deck officers.

The official investigation established that the ECDIS training undertaken by the ship’s master and deck officers had not equipped the crew with the level of knowledge necessary to operate the system effectively.

To address this, the owner company took action to ensure that ECDIS training is effectively implemented onboard and moved to computer-based training for the familiarisation of deck officers in type-specific ECDIS.

Meanwhile, it was highlighted that the master and deck officers did not implement the ship manager’s policies for safe navigation and bridge watchkeeping.

The route was not properly checked, inappropriate depth and cross track error settings were used, and the scale of ENC in use was unsuitable for the area.

Leadership issues were also raised.

‘The onboard management of Ovit was dysfunctional and the master provided insufficient leadership for a safety culture to be developed and instilled on his bridge,’ 
…the report reads.

On the aftermath, the owner directed all vessels to conduct a master-led risk assessment for navigation in the Dover Strait.

Additionally, the investigation focused on the fact that the serious shortcomings with the navigation onboard Ovit had not been identified during the vessel’s recent audits and inspections.

This was addressed with the establishment of a third-party company for provision of navigational audits of ships.

Links :

• MAIB report
• MarineLog : MAIB reports on ECDIS assisted grounding 

A comprehensive guide to marine sextant – principles, usage, and maintenance

The sextant is a valuable instrument used to determine the angle between the horizon and a celestial body like the Sun, Moon or Star. It is used in celestial navigation to find out the latitude and longitude.

From MarineInsight by  Shilavadra Bhattacharjee

 

Sextant derives its name from the Latin word’ sextus; or ‘one-sixth’, as the sextant’s arc spans 60° or one-sixth of a circle.

Octans with 45° arcs were initially used to determine the latitude.

However, Sextants were developed with wider arcs to calculate longitude from lunar observations.

They replaced octants by the latter half of the 18th century.

It consists of an arc of a circle marked in degrees. It also has a movable radial arm pivoted at the circle’s centre.

There is a telescope mounted to the framework, which is lined with the horizon.

A mirror is placed on the radial arm.

It is moved or adjusted until the celestial body is reflected into a half-silvered mirror in line with the telescope and appears to coincide with the horizon through the telescope.

The angular distance of the celestial body or star above the horizon is read from the graduated arc of the sextant.

Mainly used at sea, the tool is so named because its arc is one-sixth of a circle – 60 degrees.

It adheres to the principle of double reflection hence it can measure angles up to 120 degrees. Practically speaking, the arc of the sextant is a little over 60 degrees, and therefore the total angle measurable is about 130 degrees.

Sextant is an essential tool for celestial navigation and is also used by mariners to measure the angle between the horizon and a visible object (or two objects at sea).

Hold the sextant vertically and point it in the direction of the celestial body.

See the horizon through an unsilvered part of the horizon mirror.

Continue to move or adjust the index arm until the image of the star/sun, which has been reflected by the index mirror and then by the silvered portion of the horizon mirror, seems to rest on the horizon.

The altitude of the celestial body can be determined by reading from the scale on the arc of the sextant’s frame.

The sextant is used to measure the following:

• Vertical Sextant Angle (VSA)
• Horizontal Sextant Angle (HSA)
• Altitudes

Brief History Of Sextant

A ship’s altitude above the horizon was related directly to the ship’s latitude. Mariners began to invent tools for measuring these factors to aid in navigation.

One of the simplest was the kamal used by Arab navigators from the 6th century onwards.

A 2-inch long rectangle board was used.

A string with evenly spaced knots was attached to it. This arrangement was called a kamal.

The navigator held the string using his teeth and moved this board farther from his body, aligning its bottom edge with the horizon and the top with the object, generally the Polaris or the north star.

The number of knots between the mouth and the board gave an idea of the relative height.

Although kamal was quite useful, it was not precise enough and, by the 13th century, gave way to the astrolabe and the mariner’s Quadrant.

The Quadrant was popular with Portuguese explorers that travelled south along the African coast to search for a route to the Orient.

When the seafarers reached close to the equator heading south, Polaris disappeared below the horizon. Hence, in the southern seas, mariners used another way to find their latitude.

Per instructions from Prince Henry of Portugal, by 1480, Portuguese astronomers had found a way to determine the latitude using the position of the Sun when it moved north and south of the equator with changing seasons, what we now refer to as its declination.

To put it simply, the navigator could calculate the Altura or altitude and latitude by using his Quadrant to take the altitude of the Sun when it came to its highest altitude at local noon and then make a correction for the position of the sun north or south of the equator per the date.

Columbus used it extensively on his voyages to the New World.

He marked off the latitudes of places he visited, such as Lisbon, Serra Leoa, Cabo Verde and other places he might have landed.

Also, it was common for navigators during those times to record the altitude of the Polaris in degrees at ports where they wished to return again.

Hence, lists of alturas of many ports were published to guide the seafarers up and down the coasts of Africa and Europe.

Principle of the Sextant

 

When a ray of light is reflected by a plane mirror, the angle of the incident ray is equal to the angle of the reflected ray; when the incident ray, reflected ray and the normal lie on the same plane
When a ray of light suffers two successive reflections in the same plane by two plane mirrors, the angle between the incident ray and the reflected ray is twice the angle between the mirrors
 

Different Parts Of A Sextant

A sextant is shaped in the form of a sector (60 degrees or 1/6th of a circle).

It is the reason the navigational instrument is called a Sextant (the Latin word for 1/6th is Sextans).

The sector-shaped part is called the frame.

A horizontal mirror is attached to the frame, along with the index mirror, shade glasses (sunshades), telescope, graduated scale and a micrometre drum gauge.

How Does A Sextant Work And How To Use It?

Watch this video to understand how to use a sextant.

Navigation Sextant – Readings ON and OFF the arc

The normal graduations of the arc, to the left of zero, extending from 0 to 130 degrees, are referred to as ON the arc.

To the right of 0 degrees, the graduations extend for a few degrees and are referred to as OFF the arc. When reading OFF the arc, graduations of the micrometer should be read in the reverse direction (59 as 1′, 55 as 1′ and so on).

Errors of the Sextant

The errors can be classified as

1. Adjustable Errors (adjustable onboard), and 
2. Non-adjustable Errors (not adjustable onboard)

Adjustable Sextant Errors

• The Perpendicularity error : This is caused when the index glass is not perpendicular to the plane of the instrument. To check for this, clamp the index bar about the middle of the arc, and holding the sextant horizontally, with the arc away from you, look obliquely into the index mirror till the arc of the sextant and its reflection on the index mirror is simultaneous. If in alignment, the error does not exist. If not, turn the adjustment screw at the back of the index glass until they are aligned. 

• Side Error: This is caused by the horizon glass not being perpendicular to the plane of the instrument. Clamp the index bar at 0 degrees 0.0′. Hold the sextant vertically and look at the heavenly body. Turn the micrometre one way and then the other while looking at the body. The reflected image of the body will move above and below the direct image and should pass exactly over it. If the reflected image passes to the left or right of the direct image, a side error exists. This error can be removed by turning the second adjustment screw (the top screw behind the horizon glass) until the true and reflected horizons appear in the same line.

• Index Error: This is caused if the index mirror and the horizon glass are not exactly parallel to each other when the index is set at 0 degrees 0.0′. Basically, this is the difference between the optical zero of the sextant and its graduated zero, termed OFF the arc if the optical zero lies to the right of the graduated zero and termed ON the arc if the optical zero lies to the left of the graduated zero. There are three methods of obtaining the index error of a sextant:

A) By observing the horizon: 

Clamp the index at 0 deg 0.0′ and, holding the sextant vertical, look at the horizon.

The reflected image and the direct image should appear in a perfect line.

If not, turn the micrometer until they coincide exactly.

The reading of the micrometre, ON or OFF the arc, gives the IE

B) By observing the star or planet: Clamp the index at 0 deg 0.0′ and holding the sextant vertical, look at the star/planet. The reflected and direct image must coincide. If not, turn the micrometer till they do. The reading of the micrometre, ON or OFF the arc, gives the IE

C) By observing the Sun:

Set the index at about 32′ ON the arc. Hold the sextant vertically and look at the Sun, using shades.

The reflected image of the Sun would appear below the direct image.

Turn the micrometer until their closer limbs just touch.

Note reading ON the arc.
Set the index at about 32′ OFF the arc and look at the Sun.

The reflected image of the Sun would appear above the direct image.

Turn the micrometer until their closer limbs just touch.

Note reading OFF the arc.
The name of IE is the name of the reading having a higher numerical value.

The error of Collimation: 

This is due to the axis of the telescope not being parallel to the plane of the instrument.

The telescope is attached to the sextant in such a manner that it cannot tilt.

These modern sextants are, therefore, not provided with any collimating screws

Non-Adjustable Errors Of Sextant

 

• Graduation Error: Due to the inaccurate graduation of the main scale on the arc or of the micrometre/vernier
• Centring Error: Caused if the pivot of the index bar is not situated at the geometric centre of the arc. This can be caused due to a manufacturing defect or due to careless handling.
• Shade Error: The shades should be so mounted that their glass surfaces are normal to the rays of light passing through them. If not, the distortion would result. The greater number of shades used, the greater the chances of distortion.
• Optical Errors: Caused by prismatic errors of the mirrors or aberrations in the telescope lens
• Wear on the rack and worm: This causes a backlash, leading to inconsistent errors. Wearing down of the worm can be due to lack of lubrication, the presence of dust particles, careless handling.

Dip

This is the angle at the observer between the plane of the observer’s sensible horizon and the direction of his visible horizon.

A dip occurs because the observer is not at sea level.

The value of the dip increases as the height of the eye of the observer increases.

The values of dip are given on the cover page of the nautical almanac and in nautical tables (Nories) as a function of the height of the eye.

Pointers on the use of a sextant

1. Always check the errors before use
2. Focus the telescope while looking at the horizon and make a mark on the circumference of the stem
3. During use, hold the sextant steady. For this, stand with feet slightly apart for balance with hands holding the sextant steady
4. While observing the altitude of a celestial body, remember to swing the sextant to the other side; the body will appear to move along the arc. Measure the altitude at the lowest point on this arc
5. Stand as close as practicable to the centerline of the ship
6. Use appropriate dark shades while observing the Sun
7. If a backlash error exists, remember to rotate the micrometer in one direction only
8. Altitudes of stars and planets should be taken during twilight
9. Nighttime sextant observations should be avoided as far as practicable. The strong moonlight gives the illusion of a good horizon which is most probably false
10. While observing the HSA, set the index at zero, look at the object on the right through the telescope, gradually swing the index around and finish while facing the object on the left
11. When measuring VSA, look at the top of the object, set the index at zero and look at the top of the object. VSA = height of the object in meters          1852 X Tan VSA

Care and maintenance of a sextant

1. Do not put too much stress on the index bar when grasping a sextant
2. Never touch the arc. It will smear it. These aren’t oleophobic per se
3. Ensure that the worm and rack are clean
4. Coat worm and rack with Vaseline when not using it for too long
5. Mirrors, lenses and shades should be wiped clean with a soft cloth
6. After each use, gently wipe the index mirror, horizon glass
7. Put it in the box when not using it
8. Do not bump the sextant anywhere
9. Avoid exposure to sunlight
10. Keep sextant stowed away from direct sunlight, dampness, heaters or blowers

The sextant is an expensive, precision instrument which should be handled with utmost care.

Reference: Principles of Navigation by Capt. Joseph & Capt. Rewari, The Marine Sextant by Capt. H. Subramaniam

From Yanbu to Sohar: Tracking Saudi Arabia’s alternative oil routes

 

(Al Jazeera)

From AlJazeera by Hanna Duggal

The world’s second-largest crude exporter is rerouting crude via dark shipments and ship-to-ship transfers off Oman.

Saudi Arabia’s oil exports took another blow last week when drone attacks knocked out part of the country’s East-West pipeline, halting oil flow and removing 4-5 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil from global supply.

It is unclear how long repairs will take, although The Associated Press estimates three to five weeks, citing two regional officials.

The 1,200km (746-mile) pipeline connects the kingdom’s main oil-producing fields in the east of the country with Yanbu port on the Red Sea coast in the west, allowing Saudi crude to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, which has largely remained closed since the United States-Israel war on Iran began on February 28.

As the world’s second-largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia’s ability to keep crude flowing has significant consequences for global energy markets.

Al Jazeera asked experts what alternatives remain, how the disruption could affect buyers worldwide, and what it means for the kingdom’s revenues.

 

 

(Al Jazeera)

Exports down more than 70 percent

Total Saudi crude loadings, which topped 7.5 million bpd in January and February, had fallen to about 2.3 million bpd in August and roughly 2.1 million bpd in the first half of September – a drop of more than 70 percent.

Analysts caution the real loadings figure may run somewhat higher, since shuttle tankers crossing Hormuz with tracking switched off aren’t always captured in vessel data.

How can Saudi Arabia export its oil?

Saudi exports are built around two coastal passages – the Gulf in the east, where crude moves out through the Strait of Hormuz, and the Red Sea in the west, where it can travel either north through the Suez Canal and Sumed Pipeline, or south through the Bab al-Mandeb strait.
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Route one: The Strait of Hormuz

Before the crisis, most Saudi crude left on ships through the Strait of Hormuz, the 39km (24-mile) shipping choke point connecting the Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, and the open sea beyond.

Saudi Arabia was exporting about 7-8 million bpd of oil, with most seaborne volumes loading at the terminals of Ras Tanura and Ras al-Ju’aymah, and the former averaging about 5.4 million bpd in 2025.

The route is the most direct and economical way to reach Asia, which buys the bulk of Saudi crude exports.

 

Dark ships and ship-to-ship transfers

With the western pipeline route closed and the Red Sea’s southern route hostile, Saudi Arabia has little choice but to push exports back through the Gulf – despite the restrictions, higher costs, and physical risk of attack that come with transiting Hormuz, experts say.
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“With the East-West pipeline offline, Saudi’s options are limited.

The first is shipping more crude from its Gulf terminals through the Strait of Hormuz, including ship-to-ship transfers outside the strait, such as off Sohar in Oman,” according to Rishi Rajanala, research specialist in Oil Americas at LSEG Data & Analytics.

 

 

A satellite image of side-by-side ships at sea, off the coast of Sohar, Oman, on June 9, 2026

[Airbus DS/Handout via Reuters]

“Gulf producers have already been moving part of their exports this way, but volumes depend on tanker availability, insurance and freight costs, and remain well below pre-war levels.

“The second is drawing on crude already stored on the west coast and at Egypt’s Ain Sukhna and Sidi Kerir terminals, which can continue to supply Europe through the Sumed Pipeline, but only for as long as stored volumes last. The third is a phased restart of the pipeline itself, depending on the extent of the damage.”

Richard Matthews, director of consultancy and research at Gibson Shipbrokers, a London-based shipping services company, said transiting back through Hormuz will “further fuel higher freight costs for Middle East exports and create additional inefficiencies”, adding, “we do not know how long Yanbu loadings will be suspended for, but it doesn’t look to be a quick fix.”

One way to reduce that risk is for tankers to go “dark” by switching off their AIS transponders – used in maritime navigation to identify and track vessels – as they transit Omani coastal waters. 

“They will transit with transponders off and likely coordinate with the US Navy but still face the risk of attack as everyone else does,” Matthews said.

If the outage extends beyond a few weeks, the balance shifts further: Stored volumes would run down, and any crude that cannot move through the Gulf would have to be stored or left unproduced, adding pressure to production levels already well below pre-war volumes in August.

Rahul Choudhary, vice president of Upstream Research at Rystad Energy, an independent energy research company, said Hormuz-route exports increased in September to more than two million bpd in the first two weeks, roughly one million bpd above August.

“We expect Strait of Hormuz exports to rise further in the second half of the month, already evident in Aramco offering additional loadings to Asian refiners out of Sohar.

Saudi Arabia can lean further on dark tanker activity in the coming days to offset Yanbu losses,” he added.

Route two: The East-West pipeline to Yanbu

Most of Saudi Arabia’s crude is produced in the east, and Aramco’s East-West pipeline links the Ghawar and Abqaiq processing facilities there to Yanbu port on the opposite side of the country.

It was built in 1981, during the Iran-Iraq war, precisely to reduce reliance on the Strait of Hormuz in a crisis of the kind Saudi Arabia and other Gulf exporters are now facing.

It runs at a maximum capacity of about 7 million bpd.

Crude shipped from Yanbu has two ways to travel onward through the Red Sea – south via Bab al-Mandeb or north via Suez.

South, via Bab al-Mandeb

Shipments heading south to Asia must pass through the Bab al-Mandeb strait – the second-best route after Hormuz.

But Iran-backed Houthi forces launched a rapid military offensive in September, seizing the Yemeni port of Mocha, the coastal town of Dhubab, and Mayyun Island, and now control the strait.

They have also declared a maritime embargo on Saudi Arabia, prohibiting vessels from loading or discharging cargo at Saudi ports.

 

(Al Jazeera)

North, via the Suez Canal

With the southern exit blocked, tankers wishing to reach Asia must instead travel north.

Oil tankers can pass through the Suez Canal directly, or discharge their cargo at Egypt’s Ain Sokhna terminal on the Red Sea into the Sumed pipeline, which carries it overland across Egypt to a Mediterranean port near Alexandria, where it is reloaded onto tankers bound for Europe.

Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) are too large to transit the canal at full draft – the maximum safe depth when fully loaded – so they instead partially discharge at Ain Sokhna and reload the remaining volume at the Mediterranean terminal before continuing.

According to HSBC Global Investment Research, Aramco had planned a similar “shuttling” operation before Yanbu was suspended, using smaller Suezmax tankers to move crude between Yanbu and Ain Sokhna.

 

 

A composite satellite image shows a trail of smoke rising, as Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on July 25, 2026 that they carried out operations against Saudi Aramco facilities in Jizan and Yanbu [European Union/Copernicus Sentinel-2/Handout via Reuters]

From there, reaching Asian buyers means sailing west through the Strait of Gibraltar and around the Cape of Good Hope – a journey of about 13,140 nautical miles (equivalent to about 24,335km) that dwarfs the roughly 3,370 nautical miles (6,241km), 10-day journey via Hormuz, adding almost a month to the voyage and making shipping far more expensive while tying up tankers for longer.

But some experts expect the East-West pipeline to resume operations sooner, offering hope that Saudi oil exports could return to more sustainable levels.

Choudhary said: “We expect the pipeline to restart within a couple of weeks at a reduced 40-60 percent capacity, flowing around 2.5-3 million bpd.

With Saudi likely to prioritise refinery runs, only about 0.5-1 million bpd would be left for export, meaning Yanbu crude exports fall by 2.5-3 million bpd even after a partial restart.

“Part of that gap can be covered by higher Hormuz liftings and increased dark-fleet activity, bringing the net impact on Saudi crude exports down to roughly 1.5-2 million bpd.”

Why trucking is not a viable option

One option conspicuously absent from Saudi planning is trucking – and the maths explains why. The kingdom typically exports 5-7 million bpd.

Replacing even a single day’s volume by road would require roughly 25,000 to 35,000 fully loaded tanker trucks, each carrying about 200 barrels.

Lined up bumper-to-bumper, that convoy would stretch nearly 500km (310 miles) – roughly the distance from Riyadh to the nearest coast.

A single VLCC, by comparison, carries about 2 million barrels in one voyage, and the pipeline itself moves millions of barrels daily with minimal manpower – which is why, even with its main export arteries compromised, Saudi Arabia’s fallback plan runs through ships, not roads.

The impact on global markets

Oil prices have so far been cushioned by stockpiles and releases from strategic reserves, with Brent crude trading at about $70-$90 a barrel in recent months.

But the longer regional disruptions continue, the more we may see prices rise, with Brent crude currently trading above $105 a barrel.

“The market is pricing a significant loss of supply, with the length of the outage as the main uncertainty. Saudi authorities have not given a timeline for the repair, and estimates reported so far range from a few days to eight weeks for a full recovery,” Rajanala, the research specialist at LSEG, said.

What does this mean for buyers of Saudi oil?

Saudi Arabia was, until recently, the world’s largest oil exporter.

Its main buyers are Asian and European refiners, including China, which bought 22 percent of Saudi Arabia’s oil, followed by South Korea (14 percent), Japan (13 percent), India (10 percent) and the US (5 percent).

Those buyers are already feeling the shutdown.

Cargoes scheduled for European refiners are being cancelled, forcing many companies to look elsewhere for their oil, including turning to the US, North Sea and West Africa.

“Some European refiners with cancelled Saudi cargoes are already sourcing crude from the North Sea and seeking cargoes from the Americas and Central Asia, while Asian buyers are being offered alternative loadings from the Gulf,” Rajanala said.

“The missing barrels are also higher sulphur crude. Saudi grades such as Arab Light and Arab Medium are difficult to replace, like-for-like, because the alternatives available from the US, Kazakhstan and much of the North Sea are generally lower in sulphur content. That puts particular pressure on refiners configured for Middle East crude, many of them in Asia, which takes the largest share of Saudi exports.”

What does this mean for Saudi Arabia’s revenues?

Despite higher oil prices benefitting Saudi Arabia, they are being offset by an inability to physically export at normal volumes.

The government depends heavily on dividends, royalties and taxes from Aramco, with its crude and petroleum products sales accounting for more than half of government revenues, generating 606.5 billion riyals ($162bn) for state coffers in 2025.

Sustained disruption would cut deep into public finances.

UBS Research now forecasts the 2026 budget deficit reaching 5 percent of gross domestic product against an original target of 3.3 percent.

Louis Vincent-Gave, from Gavekal Research, an independent research firm, noted that “the bombing of Yanbu, combined with the bombing of the East-West pipeline, and the Houthi takeover of the Bab el-Mandab sea passage, suddenly places large question marks on the ability of Saudi oil to keep flowing through the Red Sea to the rest of the world. And if Saudi Arabia cannot keep pumping oil to the rest of the world, the Saudi government could end up selling assets – US treasuries? Stakes in private equity funds? Artificial intelligence investments? – to pay its immediate bills.”

 

Links :

• Dryad : Saudi Arabia’s East–West Pipeline Is Restarting. When Will Yanbu Be a Reliable Export Route? 

Is traffic through Hormuz really back to normal?

photograph: getty images

From The Economist

America would like the world to think so as oil prices top $100 again

Listen to donald trump and normality reigns in the world’s most contested waterway.
America and Iran may be firing again, but “Hormuz Oil Volumes are back,” declared the president on September 3rd.
He claims that 18m barrels a day (b/d) now pass through the strait—just shy of the pre-war average of 20m.
J.D. Vance, his vice-president, says Iran’s control of Hormuz is “effectively gone”.
“A big lie,” counters Mohsen Rezaei, Iran’s top security official.
He puts daily crossings at seven or eight ships, far below the 30-40 that Mr Trump’s camp claims.
Ship-trackers are sceptical, too: Kpler, a data firm, has traffic below 5m b/d in the week to August 30th.
Even the Joint Maritime Information Centre, linked to America’s navy, cannot square its count of nearly 30 daily passages with the single digits independent trackers typically report.

Neither side has much incentive to show its workings, points out Shahin Iraninejad of gssi, a sovereign-risk advisory firm.
America wants voters to believe the millions of dollars it splashes daily on escorting tankers in the Gulf are paying off; Iran wants to look in control of the strait, even as more oil slips through.
But reality matters.
The more Gulf exports are throttled, the deeper importers must dip into stocks or bid up oil elsewhere; Brent crude is back above $100 a barrel for the first time since July.
So who is closer to the truth?

 

chart: the economist

The truth is murky because most tankers now cross with transponders off, to avoid becoming targets.
Some broadcast signals, but pervasive radio jamming blurs the picture.
Others tamper with their own radios to fake their location.
Most transits also happen at night, out of satellites’ view.
Complicating matters, Gulf barrels often change hands before reaching the high seas: a handful of firms—Gulf state-owned shipowners, Sinokor of South Korea and Greek owners such as Dynacom—carry most of the traffic, shuttling oil through the strait before clandestinely transferring cargo outside it.

So tanker-counters infer transits retroactively, tracking loadings and discharges and watching for vessels that vanish from the Gulf only to resurface outside it, explains Pamela Munger of Vortexa, another ship-tracker.
Passages are often confirmed with a lag, so initial numbers are best read as a floor, revised up as more transits surface.
Kpler recently raised its estimate for the week to August 10th to 7.2m b/d, up from an initial calculation of 4.7m.

 

 

Assuming similar undercounting throughout August, Kpler’s eventual reading at the turn of the month may near the 9m b/d seven-day average that Chris Wright, America’s energy secretary, cited on September 6th.
Part of the gap lies in definitions: what counts as oil (crude only or products too); where the counting line sits (the strait or the Gulf of Oman); and when a barrel is dated (at loading, at crossing or on reappearance).
Commercial trackers like Kpler and Vortexa are clear about their methodology; officials are not, and probably favour generous definitions.

That still doesn’t explain Mr Trump’s 18m b/d.
Perhaps he cherry-picked an exceptional day: since March, counting every possible oil product, Vortexa has recorded only two days above 16m.
Or maybe he mixed in exports that now bypass the strait entirely.
Since February Saudi Arabia has pushed more crude through its East-West pipeline, lifting exports from its Red Sea ports by 1m-3m b/d; the United Arab Emirates has rerouted around 1m b/d through a pipeline to Fujairah.
Add a little more from Oman, over a favourable window, and bypass routes may amount to 5m b/d.

Either way, the figure is not helpful.
Shipping flows are bumpy, so weekly averages say more than daily tallies.
The latest tit-for-tat, plus Iranian threats against tankers shuttling crude through the strait, has curbed transits drastically in recent days, notes John Ollett of Argus Media, a price-reporting agency.
On September 8th Kpler counted just eight transits, down from 23 a week before.
Attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on ships and Saudi targets have also slowed Red Sea shipments.

That points to a sober reality for Mr Trump: past Hormuz traffic does not predict future performance because progress can reverse quickly.
No amount of American spin has brought insurance rates for crossing Hormuz below 10%of a ship’s value (they averaged 0.25% before the war).
Even if mines have been cleared from parts of the strait, as Mr Trump claims, they can drift in from elsewhere, and Iran can lay new ones.
Its forces also retain ample capacity to strike tankers.

Oil markets are already showing signs of stress.
North Sea Dated, a near-term crude benchmark, is approaching $110 a barrel, up from $70 in June.
Diesel has burst through $190 a barrel in America and Europe, nearly double its price in February.
Mr Trump can fight a data war all he likes.
What matters is how many importers receive the barrels they ordered. 

CENTCOM forces destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers, Sept.
8, after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted a U.S.
Navy warship with ballistic missiles twice over the past two days.
The U.S.
warship successfully evaded the attempted Iranian attacks and… pic.twitter.com/Gi8a2tloN1

— U.S.
Central Command (@CENTCOM) September 8, 2026

 Links :

• Euro-Times : Container traffic through Hormuz collapses 94% as oil tankers return
• Reuters : Hormuz traffic below 10-day average, LNG vessels reappear outside strait 

Conor Maguire rides 60-foot monster wave at Mullaghmore Head

 Watch Conor Maguire surfing a 60-foot monster wave at Mullaghmore Head in County Sligo, Ireland. It is probably the biggest wave ever surfed in Irish waters.

Conor Maguire rehearsed this monster 1,000 times in his head
Conor Maguire released Barry Mottershead’s tow rope above what he later described as a 40-foot drop. One wrong line at Mullaghmore, he said, could have dragged him underwater towards the cliff.
The calm was trained.

 

For days, Conor pictured every step.
As the horizon turned black, Barry looked back and saw him with his eyes closed, breathing.
I’m amazed by how little Conor does once his line is set.
He stays low and avoids any needless movement that might waste speed or unsettle the board.
(That quiet is the loudest part of this ride.)
Mullaghmore is a reef slab.
Deep water meets shallow rock, the face rises sharply and a thick lip throws forward.
Nazaré’s canyon can build even taller peaks over shifting sand, but often with a broader face.
Here, the prize is a tight barrel with almost no room to adjust.
Huge respect for that whole team.
Serious big-wave surfing is never a solo stunt.
Could you stay that still beneath this much water?

Regent Viceroy Seaglider first flight

The Seaglider era has begun! This morning in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, the Viceroy Seaglider prototype, crewed by two captains, flew a distance of 1,956 ft (596 m) at a height of 33 ft (10m) above the water for 30 seconds.

‘World’s first’ crewed flying boat completes maiden flight: Regent Craft's Seaglider, a 12-passenger electric vessel that floats, hydrofoils, then flies just above the water using ground effect, carried two people for a 30-second test flight over Narragansett Bay.

Regent is pitching it as a new mode of coastal transport, with proposed routes already planned between cities like New York, Boston, Miami, and nearby destinations.

Keeping an eye on orcas : Portuguese Navy launches official warning map

Photo: gettyimages

From Yacht by Ursula Meer

 

An orca and a boat: once an awe-inspiring sight, now a frightening one.

To help sailors on the Iberian Peninsula plan their routes, the Portuguese Navy has therefore now published a map showing sightings and attacks. 

A new official Orca map produced by the Portuguese Navy is designed to help sailors plan their routes. It brings together sightings and attacks along the Portuguese coast.

However, when looking at the figures in particular, it remains true that the maps provide a valuable overview of the situation, not a comprehensive set of statistics

On 8 September 2026, the Instituto Hidrográfico, the Portuguese Navy’s Hydrographic Institute, launched an online platform for orca sightings.

The Official Orca Portal displays reported sightings and interactions on maps, highlights nautical warnings and accepts new sighting or attack reports via an online form.

Anyone who registers can also receive notifications by email.

 

 

For sailors, this is more than just another map.

For the first time, a Portuguese authority is bringing all this information together in an official service. However, it does not replace your own route planning, nor does it replace ongoing warnings or radio contact whilst at sea. 

What the new chart offers, where its limitations lie and how it fits into the existing information landscape.

The eighth sunken boat

​On 23 July 2026, the sailing yacht "Idem" sank off Estaca de Bares.

The orcas had damaged the rudder so badly that water poured in and the boat was beyond saving.

The two sailors on board were rescued by a nearby motorboat – unharmed, but without their boat.

It is the latest in a series of eight documented total losses since 2022.

Incidents such as this one demonstrate why reliable real-time information is no mere academic exercise for sailors in Orca Alley.

This makes it all the more significant that the Instituto Hidrográfico, the Portuguese Navy’s Hydrographic Institute, launched a platform for orca incidents on 8 September 2026.

The official Orca portal displays reported sightings and interactions on maps, provides links to nautical warnings and accepts new reports of sightings or attacks via an online form.

Anyone who registers can also receive email notifications.

For sailors, this is more than just another chart.

For the first time, a Portuguese authority has brought all this information together in an official publication.

However, it does not replace your own route planning, nor does it replace ongoing warnings or radio contact whilst at sea.

What's happening right now

​Anyone scrolling through the Facebook pages of the relevant orca groups these days will quickly get a sense of the scale of the problem.

Between 1 August and 7 September alone, attacks were reported: twice off Huelva, once off Tarifa, near Setúbal, off Laxe, Vigo, Cabo de São Vicente and Penedo da Saudade.

In between, there have been repeated sightings – and reports of crews who escaped unharmed.

One of these reports comes from sailor Elin Power.

In the ‘Orca Attack Reports’ group, she wrote about an attack that lasted around 10 to 20 minutes and involved more than ten strikes against the boat.

She said she had followed the standard procedures: engine off, steering released, pots banged against steel parts.

Then the orcas abruptly swam off.

Her conclusion: “I think we had a lucky day.”

The rudder was intact, and no water had got in.

A nearby motorboat skipper had stayed close by – that gesture alone had given her a sense of security.

At the same time, sailors repeatedly report harmless or even no sightings of orcas at all.

This shows that an encounter is possible, but not inevitable.

Official map and private initiative

​Anyone wishing to sail safely through this dangerous area should avoid any encounter in the first place. That is why various organisations have been collecting data for years on the orcas and their routes along the Iberian Peninsula – some for scientific purposes, others to protect sailors.

One of the most important private providers in this regard in recent years has been Rui Alves with his website orcas.pt.

His website collects reports from a large network of sailors, observation boats and other contacts, and publishes the latest events, including the location, time and classification as a sighting or incident.

In response to a query from YACHT, Alves explains how he goes about his work: every report is checked individually.

He interviews skippers in person, compares reports from crews who were in the area on the same day, and requests photographs. 

Identifiable orcas are matched to individual animals using photographs in order to understand their movement patterns. 

“This allows me to verify 80 to 90 per cent of cases,” he says.

But Alves takes it a step further: every day, he posts movement forecasts for well-known orca pods on Facebook.

These are based on the last reported position, combined with an assumed average speed of two to three knots.

This makes it possible to estimate when a group might pass a particular stretch of coastline – not real-time tracking, but a concrete planning guide.

These alerts are also sent to his Telegram community, which now comprises more than 3,000 sailors.

The Instituto Hidrográfico explains that its mapping module also displays events that extend beyond orcaiberica.org and reported to orcas.pt. 

Orcaiberica.org is run by the Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica (GTOA), a Spanish network of scientists which has been collecting data since the incidents began and publishes monthly interaction maps.

Rui Alves describes the collaboration in more detail in response to a query from YACHT: According to him, he regularly sends the Instituto Hidrográfico – albeit with a slight delay – all sightings and interactions collected on orcas.pt. 

The institute presents this data and supplements it with its own reports. 

“The Institute uses my data as a basis and also supplements it with its own reports,” writes Alves.

This means that the official map is not a completely separate second data source.

It is a consolidated representation of official warnings, reports from orcas.pt, information from orcaiberica.org and other data.

The Instituto Hidrográfico expressly points out that an event may appear multiple times due to the consolidation of external sources.

Time discrepancies are also possible, as Alves, according to his own statement, does not transmit his data without delay.

In terms of interpretation, this means that the map provides a broad, useful overview for route planning, but is not a finalised set of overall statistics covering all incidents.

​Not a real-time image in the strict sense

The Navy refers to updated, georeferenced information.

This is useful for route planning – but it is not a real-time picture in the technical sense.

Time can elapse between observation, reporting, plausibility checks and publication.

Furthermore, not all encounters are reported.

Then there is the question of terminology.

A sighting initially only indicates that orcas have been observed.

An interaction or attack describes contact with a boat.

Damage to the rudder, loss of manoeuvrability and a distress situation are yet further categories. Anyone looking at a map must therefore always check what the respective point actually documents.

This distinction is also important because the causes of the behaviour have not yet been conclusively established. Experts debate whether it is play, exploration, learnt behaviour or other explanations

A recently published scientific review also emphasises, that the well-known approaches explain various aspects of the phenomenon, but do not provide a definitive answer.

​In recent years, several organisations have established themselves around Orca Alley off the Iberian coast, collecting, analysing and disseminating sightings and incidents.

They adopt different approaches, collect different data – and do not always cooperate with one another.

An overview:

• ​orcas.pt (Rui Alves, Portugal) The most comprehensive private platform featuring a real-time map, daily movement forecasts and a Telegram community of over 3,000 sailors.

Every report is checked individually: Alves interviews skippers in person, compares reports from the same area and requests photos.

The data is regularly passed on to the Instituto Hidrográfico.

Reports can be submitted via orcas.pt/orcasreport or directly via Telegram.

• Hydrographic Institute (Portuguese Navy, since 8 September 2026) The new official portal brings together data from three sources: reports from the national maritime warning system ANAV, entries from orcaiberica.org and data from orcas.pt. It is therefore not an independent data collection effort, but rather a consolidated presentation – with the explicit note that duplicates may occur. Useful as an official overview of the Portuguese coastline, supplemented by an email alert service and a dedicated reporting form.

• Cruising Association (CA, United Kingdom) The CA operates its own Orca information and reporting portal at theca.org.uk/orcas in four languages – English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.

The Orca project group is led by Paul Lingard.

The CA collects not only reports of attacks but also of uneventful encounters – a methodologically important distinction that makes comparisons possible in the first place. The data collected is shared with marine biologists and behavioural researchers.

The reports form the basis of an ‘Interaction Comments Library’, which categorises and evaluates various defence strategies.

In addition, the CA publishes historical comparative statistics by year, month and coastal section.

• Atlantic Orca Working Group / GTOA (Spain)

The GTOA publishes monthly interaction charts providing a geographical overview of Orca activities – including a traffic-light system for the individual sea areas.

The charts are an important basis for route planning, but are not considered to be complete, according to the organisation’s own assessment.

The GT Orca AIS app, which provides real-time data, is available as a supplementary resource.

Has 2026 been a particularly strong year so far?

The recent spate of reports suggests as much, but there is no definitive answer.

The most comprehensive publicly available comparison table of all orca incidents is provided by another organisation: the British Cruising Association.

It analyses the monthly reports from the Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica.

These record a total of 54 interactions for the period from 1 January to 13 July 2026.

During the same period, there were 58 in 2025 and 83 in 2024.

On this basis, therefore, there is no question of this being an exceptionally high year.

However, this limitation is already stated in the source itself.

According to its own explanation, the historical CA analysis is the most comprehensive overview available; however, the underlying GTOA maps are not considered to be 100 per cent complete.

The figure 54 is therefore not an exact total of all encounters.

It is a comparative figure derived from a specific reporting chain.

At the same time, the latest reports suggest that it is too early to give the all-clear.

The map and chart now published by the Navy show August 2026 to be particularly dangerous.

With ten attacks and nine sightings, it is one of the busiest months recorded on the map since the earliest period shown, from July 2022.

It is thought that three different orca groups may currently be active at the same time.

This indicates a lively late-summer period, but does not allow for a reliable extrapolation to the whole season.

Links :

• Book recommendation : Yacht accidents Jan-Erik Kruse categorises typical risks on sailing yachts based on analysed accident reports. When sailing through an orca-inhabited area, it is particularly helpful to consider preparation and the ability to take appropriate action: the book covers distress signals, AIS and radar, as well as risk management and the loss of the rudder and keel. It is no substitute for up-to-date local sailing information, but it does sharpen the focus on what the crew and skipper should clarify before a serious incident occurs.

The deepest dive ever made in American Waters

From World Atlas 
 

On May 7, 2019, Victor Vescovo and marine scientist Alan Jamieson descended into Sirena Deep aboard the submersible Limiting Factor.

The dive reached 10,714 meters, or 35,151 feet, inside the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone associated with Guam.
Vescovo piloted the vehicle and Jamieson served as chief scientist.
They spent 176 minutes on the seafloor, filming, surveying, and collecting material.
Federal Mariana Trench management documents identify Sirena Deep as the deepest feature in the U.S.-associated Trench Unit.
The site sits far beyond Guam's 12-nautical-mile territorial sea.
For a science paper, the precise description is "deepest documented crewed dive within the U.S.
Exclusive Economic Zone." 

DOWN IN THE DEEPEST TRENCH Strange discoveries from the Mariana Trench

 

Sirena Deep Reached 35,151 Feet 

 

Illustration of the Mariana Trench, home to Sirena Deep, in the western Pacific.

The Five Deeps Expedition reached Sirena Deep during its Mariana Trench campaign in May 2019.
Expedition records give the May 7 descent a depth of 10,714 meters, with an uncertainty of about 10 meters.
The submersible carried Vescovo and Jamieson to the trench floor, where they remained for 176 minutes.
Their work began after a descent lasting several hours through the western Pacific water column.

The crew recorded video, examined rock exposures, searched for biological activity, and recovered samples.
Federal monument records later repeated the 35,151-foot depth and documented the first crewed descent to the site.
One recovered specimen was described as mantle-derived rock collected from the western slope of the Mariana Trench.
Expedition accounts also record geological and biological observations made during the bottom period.
The May 7 dive was the fifth Mariana mission conducted by Limiting Factor during that campaign.

Sirena Deep Sits Inside The U.S. EEZ 

 

 

The shoreline of Guam, the U.S. territory whose Exclusive Economic Zone contains Sirena Deep.

Sirena Deep lies south of Guam near 12 degrees north latitude and 144 degrees east longitude.
NOAA places it within the Mariana Trench Monument's Trench Unit, which follows U.S.
maritime boundaries around Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
An Exclusive Economic Zone can extend up to 200 nautical miles from a coastal baseline.
The United States exercises defined resource rights and jurisdiction within that zone.
Guam's territorial sea extends 12 nautical miles from its baseline.
Sirena Deep lies well offshore, inside the EEZ linked to Guam.
Federal management maps place the trench unit within those limits and identify Sirena Deep as its deepest feature.
The phrase "American waters" can cover several legal maritime zones.
In this case, "within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone" identifies the jurisdiction precisely.

Limiting Factor Was Engineered For 11,000 Meters 

 

 

The bathyscaphe Trieste, an earlier crewed submersible built for extreme ocean depths.

Limiting Factor is a two-person Triton 36000/2 submersible rated to 11,000 meters.
Its pressure hull is a titanium-alloy sphere with walls 90 millimeters thick.
Triton states that the sphere was machined to 99.933 percent of a true sphere.
The crew sits inside that compact metal pressure vessel during the entire descent.

A spherical hull spreads external pressure around the crew compartment.
The vehicle was pressure-tested to the equivalent of 14,000 meters.
Triton lists its normal endurance at 16 hours and its maximum operating depth at full ocean depth.
The design also uses syntactic foam for buoyancy.

High-definition cameras, wide-angle cameras, exterior lights, navigation equipment, and sampling systems are built into the submersible.
The equipment supported 176 minutes of work on the Sirena Deep floor.
Limiting Factor completed repeated hadal dives during the Five Deeps Expedition, using the same crew sphere across several ocean basins.

HOW FAR DOWN THE WATER GOES The deepest oceanic trenches on Earth

 

Pressure At The Bottom Approaches 108 Megapascals

 

 

A submersible in deep water, where hull design must withstand crushing pressure.

At 10,714 meters, the water column places immense force on a submersible hull.
A basic hydrostatic calculation using seawater density near 1,025 kilograms per cubic meter gives about 108 megapascals.
NOAA commonly describes pressure in the deepest Mariana Trench as roughly a thousand times atmospheric pressure at sea level.
The pressure acts over every exposed part of the vehicle, including viewports, penetrations, joints, and external equipment.

Precise depth estimates use pressure readings alongside water compressibility, temperature, salinity, local gravity, tides, and atmospheric pressure.
Sonar measurements also depend on the speed of sound through seawater.
Small uncertainties in those variables can move a calculated depth by several meters.
The reported Sirena Deep figure carries an uncertainty of about ±10 meters.
Full-ocean-depth expeditions calibrate their instruments carefully because a few meters can alter a published extreme-depth measurement.

Mantle Rock At The Southern Mariana Trench 

 

Diagram of a subduction zone, the tectonic setting that shapes the southern Mariana Trench.

Sirena Deep occupies the southern Mariana subduction system, where the Pacific Plate bends beneath the Mariana region.
The trench floor there is cut by major faults and steep slopes.
NOAA locates Sirena Deep near the meeting point of the trench axis and the East Santa Rosa Bank Fault.
A 2020 Deep-Sea Research Part I study examined rock and imagery collected near 10,677 meters.
Researchers documented ultramafic rock altered by serpentinization, a water-rock reaction involving mantle minerals such as olivine.
Earlier work in the southern Mariana forearc also recovered strongly serpentinized peridotite.
Geologists studying these samples can examine material associated with the upper mantle and deep crustal processes.
During the 2019 crewed descent, Vescovo and Jamieson collected material from the western slope.
Federal management documents later recorded a mantle-derived specimen among the recovered samples.

Microbial Material Has Been Found Near 10,677 Meters 

 

Giant tube worms clustered around a deep-sea hydrothermal vent in the Mariana Trench.

A 2012 lander deployment at Sirena Deep photographed filament-like material on exposed rock and talus near 10,677 meters.
Researchers analyzed the images and samples in a 2020 peer-reviewed study.
The material occurred on rock surfaces in permanent darkness, cold water, and hadal pressure.

The authors interpreted the filaments as a possible microbial mat.
They also documented serpentinized ultramafic rock at the site.
Serpentinization can generate chemical compounds that some microorganisms use as energy sources.
The authors kept the biological identification tentative because direct sampling at this depth remains difficult.

Other Mariana Trench studies have documented hadal amphipods and distinctive microbial communities under similar pressure.
Research on Hirondellea gigas found specialized microbial associations in animals collected within the trench system.
Specimens examined in that work came from the Sirena and Challenger areas of the Mariana Trench.

Challenger Deep Falls In Micronesian Waters 

 

Sonar map of the Challenger Deep with annotated dive history.
Editorial credit: Vlvescovo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Challenger Deep contains the lowest measured seafloor in the Mariana Trench.

A NOAA-affiliated study reported 10,935 meters, with a 95 percent confidence interval of ±6 meters.
The site lies roughly 300 kilometers southwest of Guam.
NOAA research places it within waters of the Federated States of Micronesia.
The United States and Micronesia established a formal maritime boundary in this part of the western Pacific, defining the neighboring maritime zones.

Vescovo descended to Challenger Deep during the Five Deeps Expedition and completed a separate full-ocean-depth mission there.

Sirena Deep sits within the U.S. EEZ associated with Guam.

The reported depth difference between the two sites is about 221 meters.

Their maritime locations place the 10,714-meter Sirena descent in the U.S.-jurisdiction record.

The Puerto Rico Trench Came First 

 

Diagram showing the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean.

Vescovo completed an earlier U.S.-associated hadal dive on December 19, 2018, in the Puerto Rico Trench.

Limiting Factor reached a verified depth of 8,375.1 meters during the first major descent of the Five Deeps Expedition.

The mission was the first crewed visit to the deepest point of the Atlantic Ocean.

U.S.
Geological Survey mapping places major portions of the trench inside the U.S.
Exclusive Economic Zone north of Puerto Rico.

The dive put the new submersible through a complete hadal mission several months before the Mariana campaign.

Limiting Factor later entered deep sites in the Southern, Indian, Pacific, and Arctic oceans during the same expedition.

Sirena Deep reached 10,714 meters in May 2019.

Expedition documents preserve both depths and dates in the mission chronology. 

THE LOWEST POINT ON THE PLANET Inside the Challenger Deep, the deepest place on Earth

 

Links :

• World Atlas : The Parts Of The American Seafloor Nobody Has Mapped