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 Maryland.
BRP Gregorio del Pilar
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 and coast guard vessels at Scarborough Shoal, located between the Macclesfield Bank and Luzon, Philippines in the South China Sea. Sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal, a series of islands and an atoll, is claimed by the Philippines, China and Taiwan.
As reported by the Manila Standard: The current standoff began Sunday when a Navy surveillance plane sighted eight Chinese fishing vessels anchored in a lagoon at Scarborough, the Foreign Affairs Department said. That prompted the military to deploy its largest warship, the Hamilton class cutter BRP Gregorio del Pilar, which was recently acquired from the United States.
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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 mailed from Cohb, Ireland, the last port of call prior to the ship sailing across the North Atlantic. The letter, which was owned by a collector in Long Island, NY will be returning Belfast to be part of a new Titanic exhibition.
A second, somewhat controversial, letter was written by Titanic survivor, Emily Richards, a second class passenger, who claims to have seen Captain Smith a drinking few hours before the collision. The letter written on board the Carpathia, which rescued survivors from the sinking, blames the captain for the sinking:
‘The Captain was down in the saloon drinking and gave charge to some-one else to stare(sic) the ship. ‘It was the Captan(sic) fault. ‘My poor brother George … drowned as far as we know now.’
Captain Smith who went down with the ship, was exonerated by by the British enquiry into the disaster and not all believe Ms. Richard’s account.
Was the captain of the Titanic drunk on the night the ship struck an iceberg? Letter written by survivor claims skipper was in saloon bar before liner sank
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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 be more important than the sinking of the ship itself. Taking the process one step further, the Gothamist recently posted an account of folks tweeting their surprise and shock that Titanic was a real ship and not just a movie (!)
PSA: The Titanic Was Real, Not Just A Movie
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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 the app here: Building Titanic: An Interactive Timeline or download from the App Store: Building Titanic
Now, with the free Building Titanic app, travel back in time and witness Titanic’s construction. You control the assembly of the majestic liner as you explore a dynamic interactive timeline and watch the great ship being built in simulated time-lapse, right before your eyes.
- Over 50 in-depth points-of-interest along a dynamic interactive timeline of her construction.
- More than 100 rare photos detail every aspect of her assembly.
- Incredible archival film shows the laborers who built her in action.
- Special previews of upcoming James Cameron and Bob Ballard Titanic documentaries from the National Geographic Channel.
Thanks to Captain Richard Rodriguez for pointing it out on his Bitter End Blog.
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 is. Type in your zip code to relocate the patch over your location. Thanks to M. Kei for pointing it out.
The Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch – How Big Really?
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 New York, a voyage cut short only four days later.
Titanic setting sail from Southampton
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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, the University of Manchester and the Manchester Metropolitan University, set sail on an early morning trip from Dover to Calais on the P&O cross channel ferry Spirit of France. The students were on their way to a skiing vacation and according to crew members on the ferry, many arrived already intoxicated. Reportedly, students stripped naked, overturned furniture and smashed glasses. A clash broke out in the ferry bar between between students from the rival schools. P&O staff on the ferry moved non-student passengers out of harm’s way to an exclusive lounge, to keep them safe from the rampaging,, drunken and occasionally naked students.
The students may be flying home. P&O has cancelled their return trip tickets and banned them from their ferries.
Drunken students run amok naked on cross-Channel ferry en route to ski resort and are banned from return trip
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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 the list of survivors – Joseph Abraham Hyman, 34, a third class passenger, and Joseph Bruce Ismay, the chairman of the White Star Line, traveling in first class. Despite their difference in social standing, both reportedly help row the lifeboat.
The sinking of the Titanic ruined Ismay. Joseph Hyman did somewhat better. He was traveling to visit his brother in in New Jersey to start a new life. His family stayed behind in England and planned on joining him once he was established. After arriving in America, however, Joseph Hyman decided to return to Britain. (It is said, understandably, that he required a sizable quantity of alcohol before he could bring himself to board another ship.) On his return, he decided to set up a kosher delicatessen like the ones that he had seen in New York. And that is exactly what he did. In 1913 he established J.A.Hyman – Kosher Butcher and Deli in Manchester, England.
Of course, it was never known as J.A.Hyman’s. It was always called by its customers, Titanics.
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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 of the 19th century, a new study now reveals that sailors in the Georgian Navy were well and amply fed for their day. Given that the British Navy had to feed upwards of 140,000 seamen and marines, the Victualing Board seems to have done a remarkably good job.
Georgian-Era British Sailors Lived on Ample Meat and Beer, Study Shows
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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 to a port on the western side of Indonesia’s Java Island. Refugees without legal documents are usually deported home while others may apply for asylum.
Indonesia rescues 120 Australia-bound Afghan migrants from a leaking wooden ship
These refugees were far luckier than those on a ship ship last December which sank killing at least 200 asylum seekers, many from Afghanistan. See our previous post – More than 200 Missing as Asylum Seeker’s Ship Sinks Off Indonesia.
Arthur John Priest
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 Hawke in 1911.
Priest was also aboard the Britannic, the third sistership to the Olympica and the Titanic when she hit a mine and sank in 1916. Priest also survived the World War I losses of the Alcantara and Donegal. He once claimed that he was forced to retire from the sea by these disasters because no one wished to sail with him. Priest died at the age of 48 of pneumonia in Southampton.
Violet Jessop
More famous and longer lived than Priest was Violet Jessop, a nurse who was coincidentally also onboard the RMS Olympic during the collision with HMS Hawk and during the sinkings of both the Titanic and the Britannic. Ms, Jessop died of heart failure at the age of 84. Characters based on Ms. Jessop have appeared in two movies and a play about the sinking of the Titanic.
A very well done documentary from PBS, Saving the Titanic.
Watch Full Program on PBS. See more from Saving the Titanic.
Katherine G Photo: Will Van Dorp
On Friday morning, we posted about the capsize of the “tugboat” Katherine G, off Liberty Island in New York harbor. It turns out that the Katherine G is not tugboat in the conventional sense. Will Van Dorp at the tugster blog calls it a “lift-boat” rather than a tug. It has three distinctive “spuds,” vertical columns that can be dropped to the bottom to stabilize or lift the boat, to provide a stable work platform. It does not appear that the spuds were down when she capsized.
The NewYorkologoy blog comments that the “Katherine G, …has been identified as both a work barge and tugboat.” They go on to say that the Katherine G had been “assisting with the interior renovations at the Statue of Liberty” and that it “capsized as it was preparing to transport a 60-ton construction crane off Liberty Island, according to officials from the Coast Guard and National Park Service.” So it sounds like someone made a serious mistake when loading the crane. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries.
Photo: MNZ
In early October, the container ship MV Rena ran hard aground on the Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga, New Zealand, resulting in an oil spill which the New Zealand Environment minister Nick Smith has referred to as the country’s most serious maritime environmental disaster in history. In March, New Zealand’s Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) determined that the casualty was caused by the captain taking a “short cut” to beat a deadline. The captain and navigating officer have pleaded guilty to mishandling the vessel and tampering with the ship’s documents after the crash. They are likely to be sentenced on May 25. This week Daina Shipping Company, the owner of the ship, has been charged by Maritime New Zealand under section 338 (1B) and 15(B) of the Resource Management Act 1991, which relates to the “discharge of harmful substances from ships” in the coastal marine area. Also last week, the stern of the container ship sank in high seas. The bow of the Rena remains stranded on Astrolabe reef.
Graphic: Harry Campbell
In the mid to late 19th century, American clipper ships set the standard for the world and challenged the maritime supremacy of Great Britain. After World War II, the US merchant marine fleet was the world’s largest, representing about 43 percent of the world’s shipping trade. US ship operators developed containerization and briefly dominated that trade. These days, the the US international shipping industry is largely moribund. A recent article in Reuters identifies one area where the United States is still attractive to ship operators – bankruptcy court. Both US and foreign based ship owners have found it advantageous to file for bankruptcy in the US.
Analysis: Shippers make U.S. the port of call for bankruptcy
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Some excitement in my neighborhood this morning. Three crew from the tug Katherine G were pulled from the water near Liberty Island in new York harbor, after the tug capsized at around 9:45 this morning. The men were rescued by the New York Police Department’s harbor unit and taken to local medical facilities. No serious injuries were reported. Thanks to Cynthia Drew for passing the news along.
Plumes of smoke rise from Ryou-Un Maru under fire from the Cutter Anacapa Photo: Petty Officer Second Class Charly Hengen/AP
We posted recently about the discovery of the 164′ Japanese fishing vessel, Ryou-Un Maru, which had been carried out to sea from the port of Hachinohe, a year ago by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. The ship was found drifting 120 miles off Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada. The ship continued to drift at about one knot toward the North American coast.
The US Coast Guard decided that the drifting ship, with no lights or communications, was a hazard to navigation and dispatched US Coast Guard Cutter Anacapa to sink the ship with cannon fire. As the Coast Guard was readying to fire on the vessel, a Canadian fishing vessel, the 62-foot Bernice C, claimed salvage rights over the ghost ship in international waters.
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Independence Class LCCS
It is never a good sign for a new class of Navy ships when an article about them appears on the front page of the New York Times. The article, Navy Plowing Ahead on New Coastal Ship, Despite Woes by Elisabeth Bumiller, focuses on the construction of the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), which Ms. Bumiller describes as “one of the most tortured shipbuilding programs in Navy history, a decade-long tale of soaring costs, canceled contracts and blown deadlines.” Given the history of Navy shipbuilding, that is saying quite a lot.
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McMurdo Station
In March of 2011, we posted about reporting done by Ron Regan at NewsChannel5 in Cleveland, Ohio, concerning radiation leaks at a nuclear power plant at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. There is concern that these radiation leaks are related to a string of cancers suffered by Navy veterans contracting cancer after serving at the station. (See Nuclear plant leak in Antarctica suspected of causing cancer.)
Two updates on the story – Yesterday, Ron Regan received a Peabody Award for his reporting on the McMurdo radiation leaks and the cancers suffered by veterans of the base. The George Foster Peabody Award is the oldest and most prestigious prize for excellence in electronic media. Our congratulations to Mr. Regan.
As a direct result of Ron Regan’s reporting, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio called for an official investigation by the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense. These hearing confirmed that Navy veterans were unwittingly exposed to leaking radiation at McMurdo Station, Antarctica.
Federal hearings confirm Navy veterans exposed to leaking radiation first revealed by NewsChannel5
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