You Mean the Titanic was Real and Not Just a Movie?

Posted on by April 10, 2012

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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Building the Titanic – There’s an App for That !

Posted on by April 5, 2012

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.

The Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch – How Big Really?

Posted on by April 7, 2012

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?

 

100 Years Ago Today Titanic Set Sail from Southampton

Posted on by April 3, 2012

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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Drunken Naked Students Run Amok on P&O Cross-Channel Ferry Spirit of France

Posted on by April 10, 2012

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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The Kosher Deli Born of a Shipwreck – J.A.Hyman (Titanics) Ltd of Manchester

Posted on by April 9, 2012

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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Georgian-Era British Sailors Lived on Ample Meat and Beer, Study Shows

Posted on by April 9, 2012

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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Indonesia Rescues 129 Afghan Refuguees from Leaking Ship

Posted on by April 9, 2012

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 & Violet Jessop, Titanic’s Unsinkable Survivors

Posted on by January 19, 2022

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.

Titanic’s unsinkable stoker

Update: Capsize of the Katherine G off Liberty Island in New York Harbor

Posted on by April 8, 2012

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.

Update: MV Rena – Owners Charged, Officers Plead Guilty, Stern Sinks

Posted on by April 7, 2012

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.

Analysis: Shippers Make U.S. the Port of Call for Bankruptcy

Posted on by April 7, 2012

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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Three Rescued As Tug Capsizes off Liberty Island, New York Harbor

Posted on by April 6, 2012

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.

Coast Guard Cutter Anacapa Sinks the Ryou-Un Maru, Tsunami Ghost Ship

Posted on by April 6, 2012

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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Littoral Combat Ship Program Plowing Ahead Regardless

Posted on by April 6, 2012

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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Update: McMurdo Radiation Leaks – Peabody Award & Navy Confirms Veteran’s Exposure

Posted on by April 6, 2012

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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Bob Ballard Discusses Titanic on the Colbert Report

Posted on by April 5, 2012

Robert Ballard, the oceanographer who lead the expedition which discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, was interviewed by Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report last night. He discusses how the search for the Titanic was a cover for finding two missing nuclear submarines. (See our previous post from June 2010 – Searching for the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion with the Titanic as Cover.)  He also discusses the problems of underwater tourism damaging the remains of the Titanic, and an idea to paint the sunken ship to preserve it. Yes, painting the Titanic.  An interesting interview, indeed.

Robert Ballard

Reliving the Titanic’s Last Days in Real Time on Twitter or iPad App

Posted on by April 5, 2012

The truly Titanic obsessed do not have to wait for the centennial of the tragic sinking of the so-called “unsinkable” passenger liner.  They now can follow the Titanic via either a Twitter feed or an iPad app which mark down the events of leading up to the sinking in real time!

On Twitter check out TitanicVoyage @ TitanicRealTime.  There is also an iPad app: Titanic: Her Journey selling for £2.99.

America’s Privateer, Lynx and the War of 1812 — More than a Coffee Table Book, a Review by Linda Collison

Posted on by April 5, 2012

We recently posted about an upcoming event at Mystic Seaport Museum honoring the bicentenial of the War of 1812 which features the privateer schooner Lynx.   We also posted about an on-line documentary, the Privateer Lynx.  While we are focussing on on the Lynx, it seems worthwhile to post a review by Linda Collison of a book published by the Lynx Educational Foundation, America’s Privateer, Lynx and the War of 1812 by J. Dennis Robinson.

America’s Privateer tells the story of Lynx, a ship with two lives that sailed in two different centuries. The first Lynx was built in Fells Point, Maryland 1812.  Captured early in the war, the British Admiralty was so impressed by the design that they recorded her lines.  In 2001, Woodson K. Woods, an entrepreneur and lifelong sailor, brought the 1812 Lynx back to life as a modern privateer inspired by the original plans. The first square-topsail, wooden schooner built in Rockport, Maine since 1885, Lynx sails America’s coasts, teaching young people about the craft of sailing a privateer, and of the history of the War of 1812. In  America’s Privateer, J. Dennis Robinson brings the story of the schooners named Lynx to life against the backdrop of the oft forgotten War of 1812.

Linda Collison is the author of the Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventure Series, Star Crossed (soon to be re-released by Fireship Press as Barbados Bound) and Surgeon’s Mate.  She has sailed on the privateer Lynx as well as serving as crew on HMS Endeavour.   Linda’s review of  America’s Privateer, Lynx and the War of 1812 by J. Dennis Robinson, originally published on her blog Sea of Words.  Reposted with permission.

America’s Privateer — more than a coffee table book
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