nauticalterminology

The Charles W. Morgan

You may not have ever heard of the Charles W. Morgan. I know I hadn’t before I arrived here in Mystic. But it turns out that the Charles W. Morgan is, as they say, “kind of a big deal.”
December 17, 2008

Mediaswain

Nautical types like to call people "swains." If you have some sort of job, you're probably a swain. Refreshment-swain, office-swain, and the ur-swain, the boatswain. This column is an extension of my duties as program Mediaswain, as it was coined by the
December 1, 2008

The Bayou

Williams-Mystic's third and final field seminar took us to the Gulf Coast of Louisiana to experience the third major body of water that borders our fair continent. The Arctic Ocean is, sadly, not a part of our curriculum (not that I wouldn’t
November 17, 2008

Drop Sites

For the past few mornings, and for the next few (until mid-December, that is) I’ll been engaging in a fairly constant routine—rare in the Williams-Mystic program. The third and final Williams-Mystic field seminar is approaching: Four days on the bayou in Louisiana,
November 3, 2008

Standing By

It may have been brought to the reader's attention that the "Williams-Mystic Program" that purports to be the subject of this column is a Maritime Studies program. I had heard the same, but over the past 11 days, one of them (that,
October 19, 2008

Nautical Terminology: On Display

Working and studying in the historic Mystic Seaport is one of the aspects that the Williams-Mystic program advertises. They mention the many historic buildings, moved here from all over the [...]
September 29, 2008

Ten Days Before the Mast

"...[T]here is such an infinite number of totally new names of new things to learn, that at first it seemed impossible for me to master them all. If you have [...]
September 15, 2008

Nautical Terminology: Arrival

It was only the second night here, after a celestial navigation lecture, that we looked up through the hundred-foot-high riggings of the three-masted C.W. Morgan and pointed out the stars. [...]
September 1, 2008

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