Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of Captain Scott‘s departure from Cardiff on his ill-fated expedition to reach the South Pole. The tall ship Stavros S Niarchos sailed across Cardiff Bay, reenacting the departure of Scott’s ship, the Terra Nova. The Royal Navy’s HMS … Continue reading
Category Archives: History
Zeb Tilton was a legendary schooner captain from Martha’s Vineyard. “Zeb-Schooner Life,” a documentary of his life and times is being screened tonight at 6:30 by the National Maritime Historical Society at the Hendrick Hudson Free Library in Montrose, NY. Commentary will … Continue reading
One hundred and six years ago today, June 15th, 1904, the Paddle Steamer General Slocum caught fire in the East River and burned killing an estimated 1,021 of the 1,342 people on board. The steamer was carrying members of St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church … Continue reading
Late last month, the secret was revealed – when Bob Ballard discovered the Titanic in 1985, he was actually on a secret mission to find two sunken US submarines, the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion, both of which had sunk in the Atlantic in … Continue reading
Yukon protects Klondike shipwreck site Just months after a team of archeologists revealed their discovery of a historic Klondike shipwreck in waters north of Whitehorse, the Yukon government has declared the sunken A.J. Goddard sternwheeler a historic site symbolizing the … Continue reading
The SS Robin, built in 1890, is the last remaining steam coaster in the world. She will soon be moved to a custom built pontoon barge which will support the old ship and serves as space for a floating museum. … Continue reading
Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jacques Cousteau. It is hard to overstate Cousteau’s influence as an inventor, writer, filmmaker, explorer and ecologist. His first book, the Silent World, written with Frédéric Dumas in 1953, was a memoir which … Continue reading
Last Thursday, the mellifluous blast of the SS Normandie‘s steam whistle once gain reverberated across the piers of the South Street Seaport in New York. The blowing of the steam whistle celebrated the anniversary of the arrival of French luxury liner to New York seventy five years … Continue reading
British explorer Robert Falcon Scott was born today in 1868. He died, along with his four companions, on the way back from the South Pole in 1912. They had successfully reached the pole, only to learn that they had been beaten … Continue reading
I’ve just finished reading Julian Stockwin’sInvasion, the tenth of his Kydd series, which features among its cast of characters, Robert Fulton and his Nautilus of 1800. While the Nautilus is often called the first “practical” submarine, it was not the … Continue reading
The English Channel is still the Channel and the 60 or so “little ships” of Dunkirk haven’t gotten any younger. The flotilla of some 60 of the original “little ships” were delayed in their return to Ramsgate after reinacting the crossing to … Continue reading
A trivia question – what was the Space Shuttle Atlantis named after? A. The Greek legend of the sunken continent. B. The TV show – Stargate Atlantis. C. Woods Hole’s first research vessel. I will admit that I surprised to learn that it was C. The … Continue reading
Keith Jessop, the salvage diver who recovered the gold from the HMS Edinburgh, died on May 22, 2010, aged 77. Keith Jessop: salvage diver On May 2, 1942, after three days of attacks by German submarines, destroyers and aircraft in … Continue reading
Extremely disturbing news. The scandal-plagued museum appears to want to get rid of the historic ship Olympia any way that it can. Historic warship’s future may be sunk … Continue reading
This Wednesday the surviving “Little Ships” of the Dunkirk evacuation will rendezvous in Ramsgate to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the famous World War II evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo. Little Ships gather in Ramsgate for 70th anniversary of Dunkirk evacuations … Continue reading