SHIP STAMP SOCIETY

Interested in Ships and Stamps? The Ship Stamp Society is an international society and publishes it’s journal, Log Book, six time a year.
Other benefits include the availability of a "Packet" for anyone who wants to purchase or sell ship stamps.
Full membership of £17 (UK only) includes receiving Log Book by post, but there is an online membership costing just £12pa.
Full details can be found on our web site at http://www.shipstampsociety.com where you can also join and pay your chosen subscription through Paypal or by cheque.
A free sample of Log Book is available on request.

This stamp designed after a painting made by Herb Kane shows us a canoe from Rurutu, noting I could find on the canoes of Rurutu only what was given by the British missionary Ellis who visited this islands around 1820. Have searched the net for more info, but I think this canoe is now extinct.
The stamp shows a canoe, who has a very high stem and stern. The painting after the stamp was designed is showed http://herbkanehawaii.com/image-catalog ... moorea-c5/
Ellis wrote about this canoe:
One canoe, that brought a chief from Rurutu, upwards of three hundred miles, was very large. It was somewhat in the shape of a crescent, the stern and stem high and pointed, and the sides broad; the depth from the upper edge of the middle to the keel was not less than twelve feet. It was built with thick planks of the Barringtonia, some of which were four feet wide; they were sewn together with twisted or braided coconut husk.
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarl ... d2-d8.html

French Polynesia 1976 30f sg 228, scott?

The stamp issued by French Polynesia in 1976 shows us a “vaka tou’ua” canoe, the stamp is designed after a painting made by Herb Kane, who also designed the four stamps see: http://herbkanehawaii.com/image-catalog ... lands-c40/
The inscription on the painting gives that she is a “va’a tou’ua”.
The word waka or vaka are many time used for canoes on the Pacific Islands, and means canoe.

Aak to Zumbra, a dictionary of the World’s Watercraft, has nothing on the “waka tou’ua” but only for the ‘vaka tou’uá” it gives for the canoe:
The “vaka tou’uá used in the Marquesas Island and Eastern Pacific, is now an extinct double canoe and was used for interisland travel, war, and probably migration.
Dugout hulls of roughly the same length, joined by three stout beams; especially large canoes required butting two logs together; sides raised by washstrakes. Form of ends variously depicted; some projected horizontally at both ends, stern sweeping up to a lofty stylized bird’s head, or both ends curved up to tall end pieces. Some had a platform (hou ua) laid atop the booms; often used by warriors. Sailed and paddled. Single V-shaped mat sail set to a mast stepped forward crossbeam.
Length at least 12m

Source: Aak to Zumbra, a dictionary of the World’s Watercraft
French Polynesia 1976 25f sg 227, scott?

The armed speed-boot showed on this stamp was to honour the “Week of Basij”: Pasdaran Iranians resumed in the course of a maritime action during the conflict between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s. In my eyes it looks more a suicide mission, not any protection for the crew on the boat who did not have any change to survive this raid against a well-armed enemy.

Wikipedia gives on the Basij:
The Basij is a paramilitary volunteer militia founded by the order of the Ayatollah Khomeini in November 1979. The Basij are (at least in theory) subordinate to, and receive their orders from, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. However they have also been described as "a loosely allied group of organizations" including "many groups controlled by local clerics." Currently, the Basij serve as an auxiliary force engaged in activities such as internal security as well as law enforcement auxiliary, the providing of social service, organizing of public religious ceremonies, and as morality police and the suppression of dissident gatherings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_R ... orps#Basij
Iran 1992 40r sg 2727, scott 2546

The yacht depict on this stamp is the Frers designed 50 footer CARAT which was built as the RETALIATION, which was skippered by Dennis Conner to overall victory in the 1982 SORC. RETALIATION was another development of Frers' earlier BLIZZARD, but with slightly less fullness in the stern. At that time was the owner of the yacht F. Parker Heineman from Old Saybrook, Conn. USA.
Where the yacht was built I could not find.

RETALIATION was later sold to Swedish yachtsman Victor Forss. She was re-named CARAT and went on to compete in the 1982 Sardinia Cup. However, despite her impressive performance in that year's SORC, she was disappointing in Sardinia, finishing a lowly 46th, struggling to save her time in the generally light airs against lower rated boats. She showed some of her earlier form, however, in the 1983 SORC when she finished as top boat in Class B, and 22nd overall.
CARAT was also selected for the Swedish team for the 1983 Admiral's Cup, alongside another Frers 51, BLA CARAT, the ex-ACADIA, winner of the 1978 SORC and which had finished second in Class B in the 1983 SORC. The third member of the Swedish team was the Norlin 42, PAPER TIGER. CARAT was one of three 40.0ft IOR "maxi-raters" in the 1983 Admiral's Cup, alongside Ireland's MOONDUSTER, another Frers 51 footer and BLA CARAT.
CARAT had another disappointing regatta, as did the whole of the Swedish team, finishing in 32nd place (with redress points awarded for an incident in the second race). After two average places in the breezier first two races (23/21), CARAT slumped to last place in the wind-less Channel Race, and then bounced back to win the fourth race held in the open waters of Christchurch Bay and in a breeze that was much more suited to the big boats. They were further helped by a wind shift that came through just after they reached the first mark and affected the chasing pack, and a dying breeze that then slowed the smaller boats further. But CARAT then finished 34th in the Fastnet race finale, and, with similarly lacklustre results by BLA CARAT and PAPER TIGER, the Swedish team finished in 14th place, of 15 teams.

CARAT then went on to compete in the 1984 SORC, in Class B against a newer version of RETALIATION. With a slightly higher rating of 40.2ft, CARAT finished sixth in class and 40th overall.
http://rbsailing.blogspot.com/search?q=+CARAT

Not more info or the fate of the yacht, more info welcome.

Grenada 1992 $5 sg 2442, scott 2136

For fifty-one weeks of the year, the islanders of the atolls of Papua New Guinea use their canoe outriggers for fishing and commuting between the islands. For a few days in August they race, skilled sailors battling it out for the honor of their island. The best sailors of the islands take part in canoe races. For example, in 2015, ninety-six canoes took part in six classes in the Ninigoro Island race over five days. . This event could not be missed! Papua New Guinea has released a brand dedicated to canoeing in the province of Manus. For more information about the canoes in the Manus District , see: viewtopic.php? F = 2 & t = 15288.
Papua New Guinea 20. Source: various web-sites.

The 1985 yacht, DIVA G, was designed by Freidrich Judel and Rolf Vrolijk for her owners Peter Westphal-Langloh and Freddy Diekell. The 44 footer, rating 33.6ft IOR, was designed in response to the moves by the RORC to introduce a minimum aggregate rating for teams in the Admiral's Cup from 1985 onwards, and thereby put an end to three boat teams made up of minimum (30.0ft IOR) raters. DIVA G was built by Yachtwerf Wedel in Kevlar and glass on a foam sandwich core. She represented the arrival of a new style of fractionally-rigged yacht, with laminated sails and improved spar technology making rig control a better proposition at this size.

http://rbsailing.blogspot.com/2013/05/d ... jk-44.html

What has happened with the yacht after the Admiral’s Cup I could not find?
You can now find the DIVA G on shore at the entrance of the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven. When she was placed there I could not find.

Grenada 1992 $1 sg 2439, scott 2133.