The 47th Operation Sail, OpSail 2012 gets underway tomorrow, April 17th and will continue through the 23rd, in the port of New Orleans, LA. It will feature the tall ships Dewaruci from Indonesia, the BAE Guayas from Equador and the … Continue reading
Rick Spilman
Today, on the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic with the loss of 1,514 lives, it would be appropriate for a learned historian at an august university to sit down to ponder the commercialization of history and to consider how our consumer culture … Continue reading
In June of 1912, Joseph Conrad wrote “Some Reflections on the Loss of the Titanic” for the English Review. While best known as a novelist, his comments reflect his years as a ship’s officer in both sail and steam. He finds little … Continue reading
Update: Sad news. As of Sunday Evening, the Coast Guard suspended the search for the four crew missing after the 38′ yacht Slow Speed Chase ran aground in Farallones Race off San Francisco on Saturday. Three or four sailors are … Continue reading
The BBC recently published an article titled “Five Titanic myths spread by films.” The first alleged myth is that the White Star Line never claimed that the Titanic was “unsinkable.” The article asserts: ” The White Star Line never made … Continue reading
What does J.P. Morgan, the American financier, and the passenger ships, RMS Titanic and SS United States have in common? Everyone knows that White Star Line, the owner of the RMS Titanic, was a British Company. Fewer are aware that White … Continue reading
The Beaver, a replica of one of ships that were the center of the Boston Tea Party in the run-up to the American Revolution, was relaunched in January after a major rebuild at the Gloucester Marine Railways. The Beaver and … Continue reading
A menu of the last meal served to first-class passengers on board the Titanic has sold at auction for £76,000. The menu was dated April 14, 1912 and featured several courses, such as eggs Argenteuil, consomme fermier and chicken a la … Continue reading
The South China Sea is home to a myriad of competing claims for territory, fishing, oil and mineral rights by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan. There is currently a stand-off between Chinese ships and the Philippine navy … Continue reading
Two letters from the Titanic are in the news. One is a letter from Dr. John Edward Simpson, who died when the ship sank, He wrote to his mother on April 11, 1912, on notepaper headed RMS Titanic, and had it … Continue reading
Last year, we posted about how the sinking of the Titanic had morphed from a maritime tragedy into a cultural icon. For many, Hollywood movies, particularly the movie made by Jame Cameron, about the sinking of the ship may … Continue reading
So you want to build an unsinkable passenger liner? Well, there is an app for that! OK, not really, but National Geographic has developed a free “Building the Titanic” app for the iPad, which looks at the construction of the ship. Preview … Continue reading
For several years we have been posting about a huge swirling patch of plastic garbage caught in the currents of the Pacific Ocean. The BBC has an interactive graphic which helps to visualize just how how massive this Pacific garbage patch truly … Continue reading
One hundred years ago today, the RMS Titanic sailed from Southampton. She then called at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland to take on more passengers. She then sailed on her maiden voyage proper across the Atlantic towards … Continue reading
After posting about far too many needless tragedies on poorly maintained third world ferry boats which sink and kill their passengers, here is something completely different, though still involving a ferry. Last week, fitting enough on April Fool’s Day, two hundred students from two British universities, … Continue reading
This story is so unlikely that it must be true. When the Collapsible Lifeboat C from the RMS Titanic was picked up by the Carpathia, of the 41 aboard, there were two very different men, though their names, by virtue of alphabetization are adjacent to each other on … Continue reading
In the last days of the age of sail, British sailing ships, limejuicers, as they were known, had reputation as “hungry ships,” of offering poor quality provisions and not much of those. Whether that reputation was or was not wholly justified at the end … Continue reading
The Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency received a distress call Sunday night from the captain of a wooden ship bound for Australia. The ship was taking on water and carrying 120 Afghan refugees. The Afghans were picked up and taken by tanker … Continue reading
Arthur John Priest was a stoker, or fireman, on the RMS Titanic. His job was to shovel coal into the ship’s boilers. He survived the Titanic’s sinking of 1912. He also was aboard the RMS Olympic, the sistership to the Titanic, when she collided with HMS … Continue reading
A very well done documentary from PBS, Saving the Titanic. Watch Full Program on PBS. See more from Saving the Titanic. … Continue reading