Robert John Hopkins was one of the lesser-known heroes on the Titanic. He died in 1943 at the age of 77 and was buried in an unmarked grave in the Holy Name Cemetery, in Jersey City, NJ. Last Saturday, his descendants gathered … Continue reading
Category Archives: History
HMS Caroline, a decommissioned Royal Navy C-class light cruiser, is the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland, and one of only three surviving Royal Navy warships of the First World War. Now in Belfast, she has undergone a many … Continue reading
The news has been full of announcements about the discovery of Captain Cook’s HMS Endeavour by the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) near the harbor at Newport, Rhode, Island. Much of the reporting has been somewhat confused. The Daily Mail, for … Continue reading
This is an updated repost from 2014. Now that it has been announced that Harriet Tubman will replace Andrew Jackon on the US $20 bill, it seems worthwhile to recall the Great Combahee Ferry Raid, which Harriet Tubman helped plan, scouted and … Continue reading
I recently visited the museum ship SS Great Britain, in Bristol, UK. When she was launched in 1843, the iron-hulled luxury passenger steamship SS Great Britain was described as “the greatest experiment since the Creation.” … Continue reading
When I arrived in New York back in the mid-70s, a vast fleet of tugs swarmed across the harbor like so many water beetles. Most kept busy assisting ships in docking. Now there are fewer but larger ships, many with … Continue reading
British archeologists have located the wrecks of two German destroyers, V44 and V82, from World War I in an unlikely location — on the tidal mudflats near Whale Island in the eastern part of Portsmouth Harbour, opposite the Brittany Ferries … Continue reading
Peter Stanford, an icon of maritime historical preservation in the United States, died yesterday at the age of 89. In 1967, Peter and his wife Norma founded the South Street Seaport Museum on New York City’s East River waterfront. Peter Stanford … Continue reading
On March 25th, 1921, the US Navy ocean-going tug, USS Conestoga, with a coal barge in tow, steamed out of Mare Island, California, bound for Tutuila, American Samoa, by way of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The tug, barge and crew disappeared. … Continue reading
The US Navy is currently testing some potentially revolutionary new weapons, including electromagnetic rail guns. This is not the first time that the navy has experimented with new and exotic weapons systems, not all of which have been successful. USS … Continue reading
The wreck of the Esmeralda, a ship from Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama’s second voyage to India in 1502 and 1503, is believed to have been found close to Al Hallaniyah island, near the coast of Oman according to an … Continue reading
I am attending the Weymouth Leviathan, a maritime literary festival, in the lovely, historic port at the mouth of the River Wey in Dorset on the south-western coast of England. It is a fitting locale. Most of the writers attending … Continue reading
The headlines are great. “Iceberg that Sank the Titanic 100,000 years old” and “Titanic iceberg was a 100,000-year-old giant” and “Iceberg that sank the Titanic was 100,000-years-old and of monstrous size” and so and so on. Dozens of headlines and … Continue reading
Last week, the 1895 lumber schooner C.A. Thayer, the last surviving West Coast lumber schooner, returned to her berth at San Francisco Maritime‘s Hyde Street Pier, after having three masts and a bowsprit installed by the Bay Ship and Yacht … Continue reading
What has been referred to as the Second Battle of the River Platte, may be coming to an end. In 2010, we posted about a legal battle over the salvaging of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee which was scuttled … Continue reading
Thirty-three years ago today, on February 12, 1983, the collier SS Marine Electric loaded with 24,800 tons of steam coal, capsized and sank in a storm 30 miles off the coast of Virginia. Thirty-one of the 34 crew members died. While nothing … Continue reading
Originally posted on gCaptain. Reposted with permission. “The Finest Hours” is far from a perfect movie. Nevertheless, it recounts a remarkable story of heroism at sea that is well worth retelling. For anyone who has spent any time around ships, … Continue reading
On February 3, 1943, the troopship SS Dorchester was in a convoy bound for Greenland when it was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat. Of the 904 soldiers and crew aboard, 672 died. Among the dead were four US … Continue reading
In the late 60s and early 70s, hovercraft ferries were the ships of the future. Hovercraft, flying on cushions of air, operated across the English Channel carrying passengers and cars at speeds of 40 to 60 knots. Some imagined that one-day hovercraft … Continue reading
Numbers are fine but sometimes the best way to communicate scale is visually. The image above is what it would have looked like if the largest passenger liner of roughly 100 years ago, RMS Titanic, was followed closely by the … Continue reading