Divers find 'mystery ship' responsible for famous World War I ambush

HMS Stock Force, one of the Royal Navy’s top secret “Q-ships”

From BusinessInsider / TheTelegraph 

Explorers have located the shipwreck of a top-secret First World War “Mystery Ship”, whose captain won the Victoria Cross and later appeared as himself in a silent movie about its sinking.

  >>> geolocalization with the Marine GeoGarage <<<

Position (WGS84) : 50°08.986' N / 3°59.935' W
For years, its final resting place was unknown because official charts had placed it in the wrong location.

The team started to look for the wreck after realizing that the position given for it in official maps and charts was incorrect.
 Wikipedia : List of shipwreck in July 1918 :
"The Q-ship was torpedoed and damaged in the English Channel 25 nautical miles (46 km) west of Start Point, Devon (49°49′N 3°53′W); HMS Stock Force later sank off Bolt Tail in Bigbury Bay"

They spent about four years searching for it, before they discovered the vessel about eight miles from where the charts said it was, at a depth of 200ft and 14 miles from Plymouth.

It was perhaps one of the most hazardous roles of the First World War – acting as bait for German submarines.
But that was exactly the job of HMS Stock Force, one of the Royal Navy’s top secret “Q-ships” or “Mystery Ships” – specially adapted decoy vessels with concealed guns, which lured U-boats to the surface and then engaged them in a deadly duel.
The Stock Force was sunk in just such a clash, in what became one of the war’s most celebrated naval encounters, which led to its captain, Lieutenant Harold Auten, receiving the Victoria Cross, and inspired an early action film.

 ‘Sunk without Trace’
One more victim of the U-boat campaign is taking her final plunge, and in the moment the North Sea will have covered her completely .

The total death rate in the British Mercantile Marine reached higher percentage in relation to personnel than that of the Royal Navy.

More than 90 years later, a team of explorers believe they have found the wreck of the vessel and will present their findings at the International Shipwreck Conference in Plymouth.
Steven Mortimer, 46, a former corporate banker from Bristol, who led the team that found the vessel, said: “Q-ship crews became national heroes after the war and Harold Auten wrote his memoirs, which we were able to use to help us work out that we had the right wreck.
There are many wrecks around our shores, but few with such a fantastic story as the Stock Force.”

 HMS Stock Force shipwreck plan
courtesy of Steven Mortimer (alias numbnuts on SouthWestMafia)

The 160ft ship, a former collier which still had the appearance of a merchant vessel and whose Royal Navy crew were disguised as merchant sailors, was lost off the coast of Devon on July 30, 1918, after being attacked by a submarine which it, in turn, ambushed.
As their vessel slowly sank from the damage caused by a German torpedo, which had also injured a number of sailors, the crew of the Stock Force remained hidden at their posts while the U-boat surfaced to finish them off with shellfire.
To coax the submarine close enough to be within range of its guns, a so-called “panic party” of sailors rowed away from the stricken ship, before turning back towards it.
Taking the bait, the enemy submarine drew closer until the Stock Force’s weapons were revealed and it opened fire.
Three direct hits were made, one blowing off the periscope, another blowing up the conning tower and the third ripping into the hull of the submarine.
Firing continued until the U-boat vanished beneath the surface.
During the action, one sailor on the Stock Force was forced to remain pinned under one of its guns, where he had been stuck since the torpedo hit.
To avoid arousing the suspicion of the approaching Germans, he could not be rescued.
By the time he was freed, he had almost drowned.
In the end, however, it was the British ship that went to the bottom, disappearing under the waves about four and half hours after the torpedo had struck.
Her crew were rescued by trawlers and two torpedo boats.
The submarine managed to limp back to its port.

Is this the Q-ship HMS Stockforce?

Despite the outcome, the clash became a famous event after the war ended.
During the conflict, Q-ships had been top secret and few details were given of the Stock Force’s sinking or the reasons behind the Victoria Cross awarded to its captain.
Once the war ended, though, the legend of the Q-ships, especially that of the Stock Force, grew.

 “Q” Boat Adventures book

The captain published a book, “Q” Boat Adventures, and the incident was made into a silent film, in 1928, called Q-Ships, in which Auten – who later became executive vice-president of the Rank Organisation in New York – appeared as himself.
The film also featured Val Gielgud, the brother of Sir John.

The vessel, which was built in Dundee, was one of around 200 Q-ships used during the First World War.
They are thought to have taken the name from the home port of the earliest versions – Queenstown, now known as Cobh, in the Republic of Ireland.
The phrase lives on in “Q cars” which is the term for unmarked police vehicles.
The ships, which were typically cargo steamers or trawlers, had guns concealed under dummy lifeboats or hidden under fake funnels and awnings.

Today, only one of the boats, historic vessel HMS President, 

which is moored on the Thames, survives afloat.

Some of the ships used paint to hide their cache of weaponry.
The idea was to lure U-boats into attacking these decoy ships, which would unleash their hidden weaponry.
They often carried a cargo of wood to make them harder to sink.

 UB80 (1918)
UB-80 was one of the most successful  U-Boats of WW1 accounting for 20 allied ships during the period 26 Nov. 1917 to 9 Sept.1918

The submarine involved in the Stock Force clash is thought to have been UB80, which was captained by Max Viebeg, although some experts suggested that it might have been a different vessel.
In 1929, the Prince of Wales gave a dinner for Victoria Cross holders in Guildhall, London, and Auten replied to the Prince’s speech on behalf of the Navy.
After the war, Auten, who was born in Leatherhead, Surrey, worked in the film industry in the US.
He moved to Bushkill in Pennsylvania, where he owned a hotel and cinema.
During the Second World War, he returned to naval service, directing convoys across the Atlantic from New York. He died in 1964.

Links :

• Forces War Records : History highlights: on this day 4th feb 1915: Germany declares war zone around British isles

Locata wants to fill holes in GPS location, navigation

In a keynote speech to the 2012 Spatial@Gov Conference in Canberra, Australia, on 21 November, Locata's CEO, Nunzio Gambale,
explains why every nation must now build their own independent backup to GPS.

Also, why the invention of Locata technology is such an important development for the future of all positioning and timing systems world-wide.

From CNET

Its ground-based equivalent of satellite navigation technology is for governments and businesses today, but Locata hopes to bring it to smartphones in two years or so.

It's a common affliction: you're using your smartphone to navigate in a city with a bunch of big buildings and your phone misplaces your location.
Often the problem often is that the GPS location system just doesn't work well where the satellite radio signals can be blocked or reflected.
A company called Locata says it's got an answer.
Locata does what the GPS system does, but it replaces satellites in orbit with radio transmitters on the ground.
The result is location services with high precision, better reliability, and indoor coverage, said Paul Benshoof, global business development manager for the Australian company.
"GPS is like Swiss cheese. It's really good, but it has holes," Benshoof said.
"It doesn't work indoors, where there's interference. It doesn't work in urban canyons, where there's obscuration of satellites by buildings. It doesn't work in dense foliage. We can plug those holes."

In a test in Sydney, Locata devices could pinpoint their location with precision of less than 2 inches. That's a lot better than GPS' 10 to 25 feet, though various augmentation technologies can improve accuracy to inches.
Location-based services are important on the Net today.
Along with navigation services, smartphone location is the basis for explore nearby businesses, find friends, geotag photos, and play games such as Google's Ingress.

But Locata, which has been working on location technology since the early days of consumer GPS services 17 years ago, isn't yet aiming for consumer applications.
It's used for precisely locating drilling equipment at the Newmont Boddington Gold Mine in Australia, and today, Locata announced it's won a contract through which the U.S. Air Force will use Locata to keep track of aircraft at its White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico during operations that jam GPS.
And Locata's technology is hardly ready to be squeezed into a mobile phone.
A receiver today measures about 5 inches by 5 inches by 1 inch and costs about $10,000.
But it'll be smaller and cheaper soon.
Today, Locata uses large, expensive, but adaptable chips called field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to run its algorithms.
But it's planning on partnerships that to build custom chips.
"We're working with a company to shrink that," Benshoof said.
"We envision really within a couple years."

 This Locata receiver made by Leica is far too large and expensive for use in a consumer technologies such as mobile phones,
but Locata plans to shrink the devices by using custom processors in about two years.

(Credit: Locata) 

 

Another constraint: the transmitters aren't cheap to set up, with a price tag of about $200,000.
That means buyers today are entities like governments and the military.
The technology today is useful for keeping airports humming, for keeping mobile phone towers doing their thing, for coordinating the electrical power grid in sync, and for tracking firefighters, police, and other emergency personnel.
And countries that might not want to rely on the United States' geopositioning system also can use it, Benshoof added.
"To launch a global navigation satellite system, you basically need to be a superpower," he said. "What's that say for the 200-some non-superpowers?"
As with GPS, though, Benshoof expects others will adopt the technology once it's available.
"I think that when governments start adopting it as backup to their critical infrastructure, others will be able to catch on," he said.
Locata's transmitters broadcast signals over the 2.4GHz radio channel, an openly available frequency used by Wi-Fi, baby monitors, and other technology.
A surveyor must precisely locate each transmitter, but once that's done, the transmitter broadcasts its location information so a device can use it for locating itself.

Powered by revolutionary Locata technology, Leica Jps is an alternative positioning network to GPS. Able to operate with, or completely independent of the GPS network.

Leica Geosystems have produced the worlds first dual GPS - Locata receiver.

It is fundamentally a new technology.

Leica Jps creates a ground-based positioning network system that provides the same positioning accuracy that GNSS together with RTK corrections would normally provide - but without the signal drop-out.

Locata's technology is designed to supplement GPS, not replace it.
If a device already knows its location but GPS stops working, Locata can take over in an instant. Otherwise -- when popping out of a subway station, for example -- it can take 30 seconds to get a fix on the towers and calculate a location based on differences between the time-code data embedded in each transmitter's signal.

Links :

• NewScientist : New positioning technology could compete with GPS 
• YouTube : Locata, a true story of impossible technology - Nunzio Gambale

Dolphins try to save dying companion

 Everybody's favourite cetacean just got a little more lovable.

For the first time, dolphins have been spotted teaming up to try to rescue an injured group member.

The act does not necessarily mean dolphins are selfless or can empathise with the pain of their kin,
however.
Kyum Park of the Cetacean Research Institute in Ulsan, South Korea, and colleagues were surveying cetaceans in the Sea of Japan in June 2008.

They spent a day following a group of about 400 long-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus capensis).
In the late morning they noticed that about 12 dolphins were swimming very close together.

One female was in difficulties: it was wriggling and tipping from side to side, sometimes turning upside-down. Its pectoral flippers seemed to be paralysed.

From BBC

Common dolphins have been seen gathering to aid a dying companion, trying to support it in the water and help it breathe.

This is the first time that a group of dolphins has been recorded trying to help or save another dying dolphin.
Korean-based scientists witnessed the event in the East Sea off the coast of Ulsan, in South Korea.
Five individual dolphins formed a raft with their bodies in an attempt to keep the stricken dolphin afloat.
Details of the behaviour are reported in the journal Marine Mammal Science.

Healthy cetaceans, the group of animals that includes whales and dolphins, have been seen attempting to provide supportive care to individuals before.
For example, in the mid-20th Century, a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) in captivity was seen lifting her stillborn calf to the surface with her back.
Wild bottlenose dolphins have also been seen supporting dead or stillborn calves near the surface, while some have been recorded stimulating their babies by biting them.
But all previous examples involved just one or two adult dolphins trying to rescue a calf.

Now Kyum J Park of the Cetacean Research Institute in Ulsan, Korea, and colleagues report an incident when up to 10 long-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus capensis) tried to save the life of another adult.
The researchers routinely monitor cetaceans off the South Korean coast.
During one survey, they encountered a group of long-beaked common dolphins containing more that 400 individuals being followed by approximately 500 streaked shearwaters.
Both dolphins and birds were foraging, and the research vessel approached and observed the pod several times.
A small group of dolphins had separated from the pod and were splashing near to the boat.
Closer observation revealed at least 12 individuals swimming very slowly.
Among them, one dolphin was wriggling about, its body leaning over, with its abdomen showing to the surface.
Though it could move and splash its tail, its flippers appeared to be paralysed and it had red marks on its belly.
A number of dolphins circled this group, while those within appeared to be trying to help the stricken dolphin maintain its balance, by pushing it from the side and below.
Then the 10 remaining dolphins took turns to form a raft using their bodies.
Five dolphins at a time lined up horizontally into a raft-like formation, maintaining it while the stricken dolphin moved on top and rode on their backs.
One of the dolphins in the raft even flipped over its body to better support the ailing dolphin above, while another used its beak to try to keep the dying dolphin's head up.
A few minutes later the stricken dolphin appeared to die, its body hanging vertically in the water, with its head above the surface. It wasn't breathing.
Five of its associates continued to interact with the dead dolphin's body, rubbing and touching it, or swimming underneath, releasing bubbles onto it.
They carried on this way despite the dead dolphin's body showing signs of rigor mortis, say the researchers.

Links :

• Gini's Nature News : A wild dolphin needs help... and a diver responds (YouTube : Dolphin entangled with fishing line rescued by divers in Kona Hawaii) / Wild dolphins try to help one of their own
• BBC ; Australia dolphins 'saved' by juvenile's distress call
• YouTube : Whales give dolphins a lift
• TreeHugger : 10 reasons why dolphins are undeniably awesome

The last fishermen

The Last Fishermen from Greenpeace UK 

 77% of UK fishing boats are small scale (under 10 meters in length)

An overhaul of the law that governs fishing in Europe only happens every 10 years, so we need to make sure that this time, it works.
We want a Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) that supports sustainable fishing, ends discards and puts the health of our seas first.
Be a fisherman's friend.

Sea foam forms when dissolved organic matter in the ocean is churned up

Jan. 28 : A stretch of Queensland's Sunshine Coast has been blanketed in sea foam, swept ashore by the remnants of a tropical cyclone that struck Australia last week.

In places, the wall of foam reaches three meters in height and covered entire roads, forcing police to direct traffic in the potentially dangerous situation.

From NOAA

If you scoop up some water from the ocean in a clear glass and look at it closely, you'll see that it's chock full of tiny particles.
Seawater contains dissolved salts, proteins, fats, dead algae, and a bunch of other bits and pieces of organic matter.
If you shake this glass of ocean water vigorously, small bubbles will form on the surface of the liquid.

Sea foam forms in this way — but on a much grander scale — when the ocean is agitated by wind and waves. Each coastal region has differing conditions governing the formation of sea foams.

A strange mix of weather and ocean conditions combined to blanket this coastal town

of New South Wales, Australia, with sea foam last year.

Despite what you may think, it ain't ice.

Photo : Bill Counsell.

courtesy of MadMariner

Algal blooms are one common source of thick sea foams.
When large blooms of algae decay offshore, great amounts of decaying algal matter often wash ashore.
Foam forms as this organic matter is churned up by the surf.

Sea foam comes from the turbulent mixing of storms and flooding.

This mixing of impurities in the ocean like salts, chemicals, pollution, dead plants, decomposed fish, normal seaweed excretions, copepod poo, and just about everything fantastic in the ocean creates bubbles that stick together and form the foam.

Most sea foam is not harmful to humans and is often an indication of a productive ocean ecosystem. But when large harmful algal blooms decay near shore, there are potential for impacts to human health and the environment.
Along Gulf coast beaches during blooms of Karenia brevis, for example, popping sea foam bubbles are one way that algal toxins become airborne.
The resulting aerosol can irritate the eyes of beach goers and poses a health risk for those with asthma or other respiratory conditions.
Scientists studying the cause of a seabird die-offs off California in 2007 and in the Pacific Northwest in 2009 also found a soap-like foam from a decaying Akashiwo sanguinea algae bloom had removed the waterproofing on feathers, making it harder for birds to fly.
This led to the onset of fatal hypothermia in many birds.

Links :

• MarineInsight : What is sea foam and how it is formed