reef

In one dramatic episode, an American ship, the Philadelphia, was grounded on a reef and captured, but in 1804, the Americans launched a successful mission to rescue her with no casualties.

From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2026

Cleaner fish remove parasites from larger reef fish and receive a meal in return.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 20, 2026

The 39-year-old man died from a critical head injury after he was attacked while spearfishing at Kennedy Shoal, an offshore reef, Queensland police said.

From Barron's ● May 24, 2026

After nearly a year of sailing, the ship struck a reef in heavy storms and foundered on May 21, 1832.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 20, 2026

By the time the little boat had been lifted onto the ship, the reef was jagged above the water.

From "Nim’s Island" by Wendy Orr

To reach those ancient reefs, the team had to cross extensive layers of rock known as turbidites.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 26, 2026

Oceanographers at the state-controlled Chinese Academy of Sciences said the platform was a temporary scientific research facility studying the shoal’s coral reefs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 23, 2026

Wildfires, floods, melting ice caps, heat waves, the bleaching of ocean reefs.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2026

After years of watching China creating land to back its expansive territorial claims Vietnam too is now building up some of the reefs it holds in the South China Sea.

From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026

However, the rocky coasts of Easter, Pitcairn, and the Marquesas, and the steeply dropping ocean bottom and absence of coral reefs around those islands, are much less productive of seafood.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

John Hocevar, its head of ocean campaigns, concedes that in some locations reefed platforms, if non-toxic, may increase marine life.

From Economist ● Jun. 12, 2014

The firm has only reefed 12 of the 60 Gulf of Mexico platforms it has decommissioned.

From Economist ● Jun. 12, 2014

Currently, less than a tenth of America’s old oil and gas platforms are reefed.

From Economist ● Jun. 12, 2014

Under reefed capital sail C. & E. I. bad a good chance to operate at a profit.

From Time Magazine Archive

There was a sailboat with rusty red sails reefed around the booms of the fore and aft masts.

From "Hole in My Life" by Jack Gantos

Part of that action is Patten’s realization that the sailor’s standard storm tactics—including reefing, heaving-to and lying a-hull—will not work in such an intense blow.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 8, 2025

The federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement urges states to issue reefing permits.

From Economist ● Jun. 12, 2014

For now, the evidence suggests that reefing is a rare policy.

From Economist ● Jun. 12, 2014

A day later, their mainsail tore up the leach from the first reef and ripped the reefing pad eyes from the mast.

From Time Magazine Archive

Pole Star was reefing its own sails and slowing, guiding itself with the minimum acceleration so that it could come up beside them and board.

From "Ship Breaker" by Paolo Bacigalupi