April 2026
Stephen D. (Doc) Regan, Publisher
INLAND WATERWAYS
Gentle on My Mind, written by the great songster John Hartford, owned and operated the JULIA BELLE SWAIN on the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers until he sold it prior to his death, leaving the last paddle wheeler built by the Dubuque Boat and Boiler Works to rusticate in La Crosse, WI where she was purchased by sundry unsuccessful not-for-profit groups hoping to restore her. The Tampa-based Manthey Hospitality acquired the boat and restored her to former glory and is joining with the former SPIRIT OF PEORIA (now renamed CAPITOL) as the NASHVILLE. The JULIA BELLE SWAIN sat tied to the wall in La Crosse and was a sad sight to see, especially when remembering her and Hartford on TV as they steamed up the Great Muddy near my hometown. I loved hearing, playing, and singing the song was deeply saddened to see her in horrid conditions. I am overjoyed to know the old boat survives.
President Trump authorized a funding boost for the Corps of Engineers that includes an historic $3.7 billion for the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. In an unusual exchange during a meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Work Committee between Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island) and Republican Shelly Caputo (W.V.) when the former lambasted the current administration stating that the “bipartisan hearing is our demonstration of hope the nonsense can be stopped.” He was referring to a lengthy list of executive orders on solar wind, a stop order on 5 solar wind projects, (via Energy Emergency despite being overruled in 4 Federal Courts), and failure to define solar and wind electricity as energy.
His GOP counterpart thanked the Democrat for his “drive to elevate our problems with the current regime and to work constructively together.” Such a public remark is virtually unheard of within the halls of the Capitol Building.
The American Cruise Line’s newest ship, AMERICAN ENCORE, is scheduled for launch in May to take 180 tourists on excursions along the Snake and Columbia Rivers in the Pacific Northwest. This vessel will wine and dine guests in fashion with the biggest gym, largest staterooms, and the most personal space of any global cruise liner.
AMERICAN ENCORE
Mike Steenhoek, chairman of the Soy Transportation Coalition, expressed concern about the grain market volatility because of the Trump tariffs and the awaiting for a Supreme Court ruling on their legality. He noted that the problem with China, which purchases more soybeans than anyone else, is not going away. He also discussed the potential merger of Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern that some shippers laud as “fewer hand-offs for trade”; however, others in the business fear the lack of freight competition.
COAST GUARD
Oliva Hooker, a survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, was a diligent worker possessing a keen intellect and a personal dedication to service. She became the first Black woman to join the Coast Guard (SPARS) as a yeoman during WWII achieving the rank of third-class petty officer.
Using her GI BILL assistance, Oliva graduated from Ohio State University, and after working at a women’s correctional facility, she discovered that a goodly portion of the inmates were suffering from learning disabilities, so she enrolled at Teachers College Columbia University to obtain a Master’s degree in psychology and then studied Downs Syndrome children at Rochester University writing her doctoral dissertation on childhood developmental disabilities.
Dr. Hooker received a plethora of honors for her academic work at which she labored until her retirement at age 87. Praised in the U.S. Senate and by President Obama during his graduation address at the Coast Guard Academy. Dr. Hooker lived to be 103.
The Coast Guard named their newest fast response cutter the OLIVA HOOKER in her honor noting her lifelong dedication to public service and civic responsibility. Bollinger Shipyards built the boat.
WATER ENVIRONMENT
Loyola University of Chicago claims that millions of dead fish littered the shores of Lake Michigan including colossal numbers of alewife, a 12-14” silver invasive fish often confused with herring. The die-offs result in an odiferous smell that is thoroughly unpleasant. The lake has seen prodigious growth of Black Sea Quagga Mussels that blanket the bottom destroying plankton and providing growth habitat for algae that has driven whitefish to near extinction. Worse, the university study also found disturbing levels of microplastics in fish as well as forever chemicals.
After 5 years of dangerous drinking water caused by sky-high levels of PFAS forcing the need for bottled water, the citizens can finally utilize tap water thanks to new wells drawing from the Mount Simon Aquifer versus the Mississippi River. The suburb of La Crosse, WI, found itself the recipient of chemical drainage from the La Crosse Regional Airport. The cost of new wells came to $40 million shouldered by the US Department of Agriculture Rural Development grants.
Spring Valley Holsteins was fined $120,000 for a massive manure-spill that killed Brown Trout, white suckers, blacknose dace, longnose dace, and a plethora of other fish species on the Sparta-Elroy Trail tributary of the Kickapoo River. 4,000 gallons of muck poured into the water when a pump motor failed. Several days later another 500 gallons flowed into the scenic waterway. The farm owner admitted that he directed the effluvia toward the stream.
My son lives atop a hill overlooking the former Ford Truck Plant that previously made all Ford pickups. The area was leveled, rebuilt as upscale apartments, condos, boutiques, parks, and ponds but the acre’s surface was also drenched in old paint, forever chemicals, solvents, and debris that remains exposed to erosion into the Mississippi River to say nothing of the residential area surrounding the village within a city. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is recommending an $8.8 million clean-up; but Friends of the Mississippi River demand a $71 million removal of all pollutants funded by the Ford Company. The neighborhood is beautiful, artful, cool, and an economic windfall for St. Paul; however, the longstanding issue of chemical debris remaining in the topsoil is serious.
Minneapolis suburbs and rural areas south of the city note that 71% of the wells have above acceptable levels of arsenic especially where the Minnesota River joins the Mississippi at St. Paul. Arsenic is not native to Minnesota but is found in agricultural chemicals used along the Minnesota River and that “harrowing haul tumbles downstream to the Mississippi.” (Big River, Mar/Apr, 2026).
In an interesting about-face, President Trump agreed with Democrat and Republican Governors surrounding the Great Lakes that Asian Carp are a veritable menace to the health of our inland sea. He has approved sundry measures necessary to prevent them from entering the lakes. He described the carp as “rather violent and destructive.” He further lamented that “This is on top of everything else I am doing.
SAILING
The Jules Verne Trophy is given to the boat that circles the globe in record time, and with one day apart two boats bested the existing record. SODEBO ULTIM 3, a trimaran, made it in a mere 40 days, 10 hours and 45 minutes under the leadership of Thomas Coleville who had been planning for this voyage for 7 years. IDEC SPORT, crewed by an all-female group, became the first all-women circumnavigation in 57 days, 21 hours, 17 minutes.
SODEBO ULTIM 3
IDEC SPORT
The person with the best job in the world must be Zuzana Prochazka who fell in love with sailing while in graduate school at UCLA and dumped the business world to become a sailboat photographer and writer who honed her pen for Bob Bitchin’s LATITUDES AND ATTITUDES before becoming an editor for SAIL magazine. Virtually every boat magazine has an article by her every edition. She is primarily responsible for testing new boats in exotic locales, snapping pictures, and jotting stories about the pros and cons of the featured vessel. The latest version of SAIL featured her perspective on the “10 Things First-Time Charterers Wish the Knew.” And an in-depth analysis of the BALANCE 580 designed by Berman and Du Toit Yacht Design that is a 58-foot catamaran with a 24-foot beam pushed in light airs by twin 57hp Yanmar engines. The poor girl had to put this $3.5 million boat through its paces. Sailors must feel significant sympathy for her travails.
In the same issue, she writes about cruising in the Aeolian Islands ( remembered from the Peloponnesian Wars and the Odyssey by Homer) on a Dufour 530, THE BIG SLEEP, and the joys of being near the volcano on Stromboli. Her description of the geographic beauty, the “unparalleled” food and cocktails would add 10 pounds to any sailor reading her. Again, our deepest sympathy for her rigorous endeavors.
Zuzana Prochazka
GRAY FLEET
The destroyer, USS KIDD( DD-661), named after the Rear Admiral who died aboard the USS ARIZONA at Pearl Harbor, has been a tourist site in Louisiana for several years; but age and salt water made significant repairs necessary so she has spent two years in drydock being aided thanks to the munificent assistance of the Louisiana Legislature. She will soon be towed back to her berthing spot in Baton Rouge. The KIDD has a different look to her because she has been re-painted in the 1944 scheme camouflage 32/10D or dazzle camouflage.
RADM Isaac Kidd, an Ohio native and graduate of the Naval Academy was on the bridge of the ARIZONA as Commander Battleship Division when she exploded on 7 December 1941. His body was never recovered and lies with the 1177 men who died onboard that morning and additional men who were assigned to her that day but died later. His Naval Academy ring was discovered fused to a bulkhead and returned to his widow.
Because the notorious pirate, William Kidd, was famous, the crew of the USS KIDD nicknamed the destroyer “Pirate of the Pacific” and occasionally flew the skull and crossbones. The President authorized the KIDD (DD-661) to have the singular distinction of showing the pirate flag.
USS KIDD in camouflage
The USS GERALD FORD (CVN78) was supposed to support actions against Iran but it has been sent back to her homebase for repairs and maintenance after a laundry room fire that blew smoke into the general berthing area forcing smoke inhalation treatment for 200 sailors. With her mattresses damaged by smoke, USS GERALD FORD received 1000 new ones taken from the future JOHN F. KENNEDY (CVN 79).
RUST FLEET
On 25-March-2026 a minimum of 31 oil tankers sit on the East side of the Horn of Hormuz, while innumerable tankers stuck on the West side; meanwhile, hundreds of tankers are motionless down the west coast of India and around Sri Lanka “awaiting orders”. One could probably swim from ship to ship from the tip of India all the way to the Horn of Hormuz without having a single swim of over 10 miles. What a mess.
ALLISIONS, COLLISIONS, and SINKINGS
ALLISIONS, COLLISIONS, and SINKINGS
The Norwegians have a saying, “Uff Da” that has no particular meaning but implies something significantly formidable. If Iran isn’t using that particular phrase she is bellowing parallel in Farsi. The first three days of the U.S. campaign against Iran, the U.S. managed to sink several Iranian naval vessels including:
IRIS JAMARAN, a frigate sunk in Port Chabahar.
IRIS MAKRAN, tanker sunk in port.
IRIS SAHAND, a frigate sunk in port.
IRIS SHAHID BAGHARI, a drone carrier sunk.
IRIS BAYANDOR, a corvette sunk
IRIS NAGHAD, a corvette sunk
IRIS FATEH, a submarine sunk near Bandar Abbas
IRIS SHAHID SAYYAD SHIRAZI, a frigate sunk.
During the first 6 days of March, the conflict at the Horn of Hormuz testified to the supply problems in the region. SKYLIGHT, a Palau-flagged tanker was sunk by Iranian missiles; STENA IMPERATIVE, an American tanker was sunk by missiles with 2 killed and 4 injured; GOLDEN OAK, a Panamanian bulk-carrier was heavily damaged near the UAE; LIBRE TRADER, also a Panamanian ship received Iranian missiles; SAFEEN PRESTIGE, was seriously damaged by 2 Iranian missiles but her crew was rescued near UAE; and the poor MUSSAFAH 2 from the UAE was attempting to rescue the crew of the SAFEEN PRESTIGE when she was sunk by missiles killing her entire crew. Six days.
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