NPR reports that human remains have likely been recovered from the wreckage of the submersible that imploded during an underwater voyage to view the Titanic, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.
The news came hours after the announcement that debris from the Titan, collected from the seafloor more than 12,000 feet (3,658 meters) below the surface of the North Atlantic, had arrived in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Twisted chunks of the submersible were unloaded at a Canadian Coast Guard pier.
Wendy Rush, the wife of the late Stockton Rush, the co-founder of OceanGate and pilot of the Titan when the submersible imploded, is a great-great-granddaughter of two first-class passengers who died when the Titanic sank in 1912.
Ms. Rush is a great-great-granddaughter of the retailing magnate Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida, two of the wealthiest people aboard the Titanic for its first voyage. Mr. Straus, born in 1845, was a co-owner of Macy’s department store.
Ms. Rush, born Wendy Hollings Weil, married Stockton Rush in 1986, according to a New York Times wedding announcement. Her LinkedIn page says that she has participated in three OceanGate expeditions to the Titanic wreckage in the last two years; that she serves as the company’s communications director; and that she is a longtime board member of the company’s charitable foundation.
The Battle of the River Plate, fought in the South Atlantic in December 1939 was the first naval battle of the Second World War and ended with the scuttling of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. While the battle itself may have ended 84 years ago, the conflict over the fate of the 770-pound bronze eagle, holding a Nazi swastika in its talons, once mounted on the stern of the ship, continues on unabated.
There had been a decades-long three-way legal battle between an Uruguayan businessman who salvaged the eagle, the Uruguayan government, and the government of Germany, which has been concerned that the eagle and swastika will fall into the hands of Nazi sympathizers.
A court ruled last year that it belonged to the Uruguayan state, in whose waters it was found.
For the last several years, we have been posting about orca attacks on yachts and fishing boats in the Strait of Gibraltar and the Iberian peninsula. Pods of orcas have been ramming sailboats and often grabbing their rudders and keels, and have caused significant damage, most often to the boat’s steering. In the last three years, there have been close o 500 such attacks and at least three sailboats have been sunk.
What has prompted the attacks remains a mystery to scientists.
Until recently, the attacks were confined to the coastal waters of Spain and Portugal. Now, the Guardian reports that an orca repeatedly rammed a yacht in the North Sea off Shetland earlier this month.
STS Lord Nelson
The tall ship Lord Nelson is being offered for sale at an online auction by the global advisory and investment firm Gordon Brothers, acting on behalf of Richard Lewis and Sarah O’Toole, the joint administrators of Jubilee Sailing Trust Limited.
Jubilee Sailing Trust was forced into administration in August 2022, after one of the charity’s principal creditors ‘threatened imminent legal proceedings to reclaim their owed credit’, JST says.
The JST has so far operated through its two subsidiaries, Jubilee Sailing Trust Ltd and Jubilee Sailing Trust (Tenacious) Ltd. Tall ship Tenacious remains operational, the charity has stressed.
Pieces of the Titan submersible were found today on the ocean floor, about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic. The debris was ‘consistent with a catastrophic implosion,’ the Coast Guard says. All five onboard the submersible are believed to have died. The Canadian vessel Horizon Arctic deployed a remote-operated vehicle (ROV) that discovered the debris field.
“On behalf of the United States Coast Guard and the entire unified command, I offer my deepest condolences to the families,” Rear Admiral John Mauger said in a news conference on Thursday.
As frantic search and rescue efforts continue to attempt to locate the missing submersible Titan, which went missing on Sunday on an expedition to dive on the wreck of the Titanic, long-standing concerns about the safety of the submersible have resurfaced.
Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, the firm that built and operated the submersible has been a vocal advocate of innovation while at times downplaying the primacy of safety in submersible design.
In an interview last year, Rush said, “‘You know, there’s a limit. At some point safety just is pure waste. I mean if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed.”
Titan submersible. Source: OceanGate Expeditions
The US Coast Guard is racing against time to locate and rescue a submersible with five people onboard that went missing on Sunday morning in the North Atlantic while attempting to dive on the wreck of the Titanic. The area being searched for the 22′ submersible, Titan, is larger than the state of Connecticut, in waters 2 nautical miles deep.
US Coast Guard officials said Tuesday afternoon that the five people inside the submersible were believed to have roughly 40 hours of breathable air left.
Speaking at a news conference in Boston, Capt. Jamie Frederick said that crews were “doing everything possible” as part of a “complex search effort.” But so far, he said, those efforts “have not yielded any results.”
Missing submersible Titan
The US Coast Guard is searching for a submersible carrying five people on a dive on the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland. The submersible Titan, which began its dive towards the Titanic wreck site on Sunday morning, lost contact with the research vessel Polar Prince an hour and 45 minutes into the dive, according to the US Coast Guard.
Sky News is reporting that UK billionaire Hamish Harding is one of five people on board the missing tourist submersible. Two others reported to be on board are French submersible pilot, Paul-Henry Nargeolet, and chief executive and founder of OceanGate Expeditions, Stockton Rush.
OceanGate Expeditions, the operator of the submersible, said in a statement on Monday that it was “mobilizing all options” to rescue those on the underwater vessel.
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USS Cornubia, ex Lady Davis
Happy Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Juneteenth National Independence Day is also the newest Federal holiday. The legislation was signed into law by President Biden in 2020. The holiday commemorates when emancipation arrived in Galveston, Texas by steamship, 158 years ago today. Here is an updated repost.
Although the surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia signaled the end of the nation’s Civil War on April 9, 1865, emancipation did not arrive in Texas until two ex-Confederate steamships sailed into Galveston Harbor two months later.
We recently posted about an overloaded fishing boat carrying migrants that capsized and sank early on Wednesday morning in deep waters about 50 miles (80 km) from the southern Greek coastal town of Pylos. The BBC reports on evidence casting doubt on the Greek coastguard’s account of the migrant shipwreck in which hundreds are feared to have died.
Analysis of the movement of other ships in the area suggests the overcrowded fishing vessel was not moving for at least seven hours before it capsized.
The coastguard still claims that during these hours the boat was on a course to Italy and not in need of rescue. Greek authorities have not yet responded to the BBC’s findings.
Harrison Smith, writing in the Washington Post, describes Roger Payne as “a biologist who put his ear to the ocean and pioneered the study of whale songs.” His recordings of their hypnotic, intricately patterned vocalizations — haunting wails, birdlike chirps, playful squeals, and mournful moos — suggested that the animals had a far richer inner life than previously imagined and helped to galvanize the anti-whaling movement.
Roger Payne died of cancer on June 10 at his home in South Woodstock, Vt. He was 88.
Reuters reports that rescuers scoured the seas off Greece on Thursday following a shipwreck that killed at least 78 migrants, as hopes of survivors dwindled and fears grew that hundreds more, including children, may have drowned inside the crowded vessel’s hold.
Reports suggested between 400 and 750 people had packed the 20 to 30-meter-long fishing boat that capsized and sank early on Wednesday morning in deep waters about 50 miles (80 km) from the southern coastal town of Pylos. Greek authorities said 104 survivors had been brought ashore.
The death toll from an overloaded boat that capsized in a remote part of Nigeria’s north central region has risen to more than 100, police and officials said on Wednesday, in one of the worst such disasters in recent years.
The wooden boat was ferrying people to Kwara state across the Niger River from neighboring Niger state after a wedding party when it capsized on Monday night. Approximately 270 individuals were loaded on the boat, well above its capacity of 100 people.
Kwara state police spokesperson Ajayi Okasanmi told Reuters on Wednesday that 103 people had been confirmed dead.
The SS United States, the largest and fastest transatlantic passenger liner ever built in America, has spent the last 27 years moored at Philadephia’s Pier 82 on the Delaware River. The venerable ship is now threatened with eviction.
Yahoo reports that during the pandemic in 2021, the vessel’s landlords doubled the dockage fees. Now, according to federal legal filings, pier operators would like the ship gone.
