Category Archives: Titanic

Titanic News Stories for 20 Oct 2011

1. Premier Exhibitions, Inc. Acquires Titanic-Themed Exhibition in Orlando (18 Oct 2011,MarketWatch-Press Release)
Premier Exhibitions, Inc. PRXI +0.53% , a leading presenter of museum-quality touring exhibitions around the world, announced today it entered into an agreement to purchase the assets of a Titanic-themed exhibition (Titanic The Experience) in Orlando, Florida. The acquisition of Titanic The Experience enables Premier to immediately begin generating revenue in this established entertainment facility. In addition, the acquisition provides the Company with an existing multi-million dollar exhibition with minimal startup costs and an attractive ongoing cost structure relative to building a new Titanic themed exhibition in Orlando. As a result, the Company is able to enter a prime tourist destination market for a nominal initial investment. “This acquisition provides a great opportunity to expand our semi-permanent installations into one of the preeminent tourist markets in the world,” said Christopher Davino, Premier Exhibitions, Inc. president and chief executive officer. “We look forward to enhancing Titanic The Experience and bringing an engaging exhibition that will not only capture the imagination of visitors but provide Orlando with an additional world-class entertainment destination.”

2. Diagrams From Titanic Inquest To Be Auctioned (19 Oct 2011, The Associated Press)
The two diagrams, which are among more than 370 lots of Titanic memorabilia in next week’s sale, are more modest in scale. One showing deck levels and the placement of lifeboats measures 74 inches (188 centimeters) by 56 inches (142 centimeters). The presale estimate is 40,000-60,000 pounds ($63,000-$95,000). The other — a plan of first-class accommodations, including pictures of some of the cabins — measures 29 inches by 41 inches (74 centimeters by 104 centimeters). The estimated price is 30,000-50,000 pounds ($48,000-$80,000).

3. Lifeboat Believed To Be From Titanic On Display Starting Saturday (19 Oct 2011, Shore News Today)
In December of 2007, Absecon Lighthouse came into possession of a donated Titanic exhibit, which included a Titanic-era original Harland and Wolff Lifeboat, circa 1909, believed to be one of the Titanic lifeboats. The boat matches the description from the official British enquiry of the Titanic disaster.  The Carpathia, the ship that rescued Titanic survivors, brought 13 Titanic lifeboats back to New York.  Although the fate of the boats is unclear, they may have been put back into service aboard other White Star liners.  The boat could potentially be the only lifesaving boat from the Titanic in existence today.

Titanic News Stories for 17 Oct 2011

1. Titanic Exhibit On Display In Greensboro (16 Oct 2011,Spartanburg Herald Journal)
Next April marks 100 years since the Titanic had its tragic rendezvous with an iceberg. The sinking still fixates the imagination, and the subject is drawing travelers to Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition at the Natural Science Center of Greensboro. Titanic runs through Nov. 27. The museum is at 4301 Lawndale Drive. General admission is $21 for adults and $20 for children 3 to 13. For more information, visit www.natsci.org/Titanic.html or call 336-288-3769.

2. Replicas Give Access To Iconic Sites Closer To Home (16 Oct 2011, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review )
Cedar Bay Entertainment in Branson, Mo., has raised not one but two half-scale replicas of the Titanic. The first has drawn 3 million visitors since it opened in Branson in 2006. The second opened last year in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Both are landlocked, but the owners have thought of everything. “What we have done with both of the ships is we created a pool of water with concrete,” spokesman Rick Laney says. “Under the water at the bow of the ship, two jet engines force the water up. It looks like the Titanic is actually moving forward.”

3. First Class Titanic Tie To Tragedy (14 Oct 2011, This Is Hampshire.net)
A Titanic deck plan owned by an elderly couple who were depicted in the hit movie lying in bed together as the ship sank is set to sell for £50,000. The deck plans were only handed out to the 324 first class passengers when they arrived on the liner in Southampton on April 10, 1912. It is believed only three of them exist today, two in private collections and this one now on the open market. It was owned by the Straus’s maid Ellen Bird who survived the disaster in which 1,495 people died.


Belfast Titanic Quarter Update

Belfast is planning a new rapid transit system that will not only handle tourists to the Titanic Quarter but the needs of the city as well.

www.geograph.ie/photo/1862577
www.geograph.ie/photo/1862577

One item on the table is bringing back the bendy-bus. Called an articulated bus in the U.S., it is essentially two buses put together with a flexible middle. This allows it to make turns and get around road hazards more easily. They are tricky to run and London phased them out some years ago due to accidents and general dislike of them. Other cities did it as well in the U.K. and Northern Ireland. They were replaced with conventional and double-decker buses.

With Belfast wanting to have high speed buses arriving every five minutes, the bendy-buses are getting a second look. I have taken such buses in San Francisco. They are used on high density lines (the 30-Stockton) where you need such buses to handle the large numbers of people. On that route, the buses are electric so no worry about diesel fumes wafting around. And that line has to weave its way through Chinatown (where the majority of its passengers are heading for or leaving) where traffic is usually heavy during the day.

Buses, whether they are conventional or electric, are a more flexible alternative than light rail. Light rail is very expensive and limits their use to where the rails are laid. When the tourists arrive in 2012, they will need a system that is easy and convenient to use. Perhaps the bendy-bus will be part of it.

Source:
Belfast Telegraph, The Possible Reintroduction Of New ‘Bendy-Buses’ Could Be Part Of The Plans For A £150M Rapid Transit System For Belfast, 13 October 2011

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Titanic News Stories for 10 Oct 2011

1. A Titanic Story  (8 Oct 2011, Fernie Free Press)
The Deadly Voyage is part of the popular I Am Canada series, which uses events in Canadian history as a backdrop to exciting adventures of daring young men.  The book focuses on 14 year old Jamie Laidlaw, who has no idea that his world is about to turn up-side down, until he finds himself in the icy waters of the north Atlantic watching the “unsinkable” ship go down.

2. Cardboard Boat Regatta Designed To Engage Students, Craig Community (8 Oct 2011, Craig Daily Press )
“It has to have something to do with sinking,” said Hebert, a Moffat County High School junior, looking at the craft made of cardboard and duct tape as it waited on the shore of the pond at Loudy-Simpson Park. Hebert, along with Katlyn and Nicole Sollenberger, also juniors, made the boat for the sixth cardboard boat regatta Friday, an annual competition in which students make boats out of cardboard, duct tape and little else. Finally, Hebert settled on a name: “Titanic II.

3. The Unheard Story Of Amy And The Titanic (8 Oct 2011, Trinidad Guardian)
Amy Pollard was a Guyanese infant who lost her English mother Elizabeth, in Guyana, at the age of one. The year was 1872. Her father William Branch Pollard, was from Demerara, but his ancestors had migrated to, and lived continuously in Barbados from the early 1600’s. William’s father was Barbadian. The Pollards’ ancient origins were Cornwall, England. Amy’s maternal English aunt was Hannah, nee Blackley, the barren wife of the “prince of shipbuilders,” illustrious William Imrie.

4. Titanic Exhibit Opens At Science Centre (8 Oct 2011, St. Albert Gazette)
Nearly a century later, the fascination continues as the Telus World of Science hosts Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, opening Oct. 8 and running until Feb. 2012. The exhibit features nearly 200 artifacts divided into seven galleries. The focus is on telling Titanic’s human stories through genuine artifacts and recreating the ship’s interior of a third-class compartment and boiler room. Visitors to the exhibit receive a replica boarding pass with the name of a real Titanic passenger, the passenger’s class, destination and with whom they travelled. At the end of the exhibit is a memorial board listing all the passengers’ names and whether or not they survived.


Titanic News Stories 1-7 Oct 2011

Due to computer upgrades, I am posting the news articles here.

 
1. PHS Graduate Writes Titanic Book (7 Oct 2011, KC Community News)
Although many books have been written about the Titanic, Paola High School graduate Stephen Hines wanted readers to experience the tragedy as if they were there with his newest book “Titanic: One Newspaper, Seven Days, and the Truth That Shocked the World.” For a year and a half, Hines pored over 208 articles from London’s “Daily Telegraph,” which was from just one week of coverage after the sinking. His aim with the book is to show readers the roller coaster of emotions the sinking brought with it, he said.

2. Titanic Centennial: Salvage And Memories (6 Oct 2011, New York Times)
On Oct. 21 Philip Weiss Auctions in Oceanside, N.Y., will offer the archive of a couple who spent the last days of their honeymoon on the ship. John Pillsbury Snyder, a Minnesota garage owner and grain-mill heir, and his new bride, Nelle, got into the first lifeboat when the crew sounded warnings. Other first-class passengers on the deck had milled around the Snyders, refusing to disembark, convinced that the Titanic just needed minor repairs. The Snyders’ lifeboat left the wreck half-full; the saved lives onboard included a Pomeranian dog. The family papers, with correspondence on Titanic stationery and photos of rescue ships, are estimated to bring $30,000 to $50,000.

3.  Top Flight Recreation Of Titanic Staircase (6 Oct 2011, Belfast Telegraph)
Sean, Francis and Pius Diamond from the family-run Oldtown Joinery in Bellaghy have been working on the RMS Titanic replica staircase for two months. Sean, who runs the firm, told the Belfast Telegraph that the project has been a painstaking process and “the most challenging” the company has undertaken in its 20-year history. Using mostly traditional joinery techniques as would’ve been the case in the making of the original creation, Sean said there are some little differences. “We are subject to building control, so certain things are different. For example, we’ve had to install a brass handrail for health and safety purposes.

4. View Of Titanic Wreckage A Deep Emotional Experience (5 Oct 2011, Edmonton Journal)
Lytle looks like Captain E.J. Smith, the man at the helm of the Titanic when it sank on April 15, 1912. The resemblance landed him a job with RMS Titanic Inc. and in 2000, a seat on one of their expeditions to the ship wreck and its debris field. This week, Lytle is in Edmonton to play Smith at the opening of Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition at Telus World of Science. Starting on Saturday, visitors can see 200 artifacts recovered from the Titanic, from pieces of the ship to passengers’ personal belongings. They’ll also be issued a replica boarding pass at the door, with the name, age and class of an actual passenger. At the end, they can look on the memorial board to see if they were among the 706 who survived or the 1,522 who perished.

5. Titanic Centenary Must Be Exploited (5 Oct 2011, Belfast Telegraph)
The Belfast Tourism Forum believes that government and industry must work together more closely to exploit the potential from the Titanic’s centenary year in 2012.”We cannot under-estimate the importance of both central and local government continuing to work in close partnership with all the relevant agencies and our highly professional colleagues in the tourism industry to deliver the goods, to the benefit of everyone in the city,” said John McGrillen, Director of Development with Belfast City Council and chairman of the group.

6. WB Woman Shares Family’s Titanic Tale  (3 Oct 2011, Citizens Voice)
“My mother told her, ‘My daughter does not lie. I am a survivor,'” Mae said. Mae shared her mother’s gripping account of surviving the nearly century-old tragedy Friday at a “Last Dinner on the Titanic” event at the Stage Coach Inn in Butler Township. More than 30 people attended the gathering, which was organized by a historical entertainment company known as The Passion Projects. Mae took the audience back to the late night hours of April 14, 1912, when an ocean liner billed as “unsinkable” struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage from England to New York.

7. Conn. Site To Mark 100 Years Since Titanic Sinking (3 Oct 2011, Boston Globe)Mystic Aquarium will mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic with an exhibit that will virtually take visitors to the ocean floor. The aquarium, home of Robert Ballard who discovered the wreck of the British ocean liner in 1985, says it will break ground next month on the exhibit. It is scheduled to open next April.

Teaching Titanic

The UK Press Association is reporting that Queen’s University in Belfast will be back to schoolholding a special lecture series on Titanic. It is being offered as part of the open learning program for part time students. The lecture series, The Titanic Story: History and Legacy, will be at the Ulster Folk and Transport museum. Dr Tess Maginess, the open learning coordinator at Queen’s School of Education:

“Our courses usually take place one day or evening every week and are ideal for anyone who wants to pursue a new hobby, learn more about a topic in which they have a particular interest, or advance their personal development. We have many courses running in centres across Northern Ireland.”

Titanic is a major theme for Belfast as it prepares for 2012, when the centenary will be observed. Such classes are being taught in many places because interest is so high. It is heartwarming, for instance, to learn that grade school students study Titanic as part of special projects. Sometimes it has real results like trying to get the statue of Jack Phillips restored and put into a place of honor.

Source: The Press Association (UK), University Offers Titanic Course, 30 Aug 2011

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Titanic Memorial Cruises Bothers The Guardian

Disaster tourism. The Guardian  believes the cruise tours planned next year to commemorate Titanic’s sinking fall into this category. These tours are following Titanic’s route in 1912 to where it all ended in the mid-Atlantic. It is hard to say what offends the newspaper most, the tours themselves or that people are actually paying big dollars. Considering their criticism is included with other odd and strange tours, I am leaning to the second. Today the cruise business is no longer about transporting passengers as in 1912 but essentially floating hotels taking passengers to interesting, even exotic destinations.

I understand why many are upset with such tours. But really is it that different from people who travel to famous battle sites, meet with distinguished lecturers and historians, and then have meals? The only difference I see is that people are aboard a ship where they will likely have Titanic themed events and lectures, movies, meals like those served aboard Titanic, and likely a memorial service for those that perished. Of course being a cruise ship of today it will have the latest safety features, a benefit of the very tragedy they are aboard to commemorate.

Belfast is using Titanic 2012 to show the world the city is worth more than battles between Catholics and Protestants. They are busy making things ready for the many tourists coming to see where Titanic was built. For Belfast the Titanic legacy has been mixed. They did not want to talk about it much believing that it tainted them. Much of Titanic was handmade by craftsman who took pride in their work. Its sinking was a terrible blow to all those who had made the dream come true. Yet they ought not to be ashamed. Titanic was a magnificent ship built by workers in Belfast. Its sinking was a terrible catastrophe but ought not to take away the fine work done to build her.

Critics see the cruises as bad since they commercialize the catastrophe. Except that this has been going on ever since 1912 from books, to movies, to exhibits, and feature movies. You can split hairs as to what was done for the right and wrong reasons, but lots of people have made money from Titanic. James Cameron made buckets of money for himself and the studio by commercializing the catastrophe (albeit with a fictional story) with his movie. The movie was spectacular and probably the most close in depicting how the ship looked ever done on screen. Of course now there is a television miniseries coming next year. What will the critics say-a cynical cashing in on Titanic or the retelling of a well known story?

The memorial cruises are no more and no less that what has gone on before. People are free, unless it has changed, to spend money as they see fit. If they want to take a Titanic Memorial Cruise, get a sense of what it was like in 1912, and get dressed up for it, that is their decision. Many will go to Belfast to connect with Titanic, soak up the sights, and get a taste of Ireland as well.

The Guardian notes many other strange and oddball places for people to stay at:
*A comfortable place that requires you to remove shoes upon entry (barefoot, socks, or slippers only)

*A hotel that imposes a Day of Silence on its guests.

*And the best of all-camping with pigs. Not just staying nearby but actually sleeping with them in the pig houses (fresh straw included) so you really get up close and personal with your future ham, bacon, and sausage while still on the hoof.  Of course those who are religiously averse to pigs (or vegans) ought to stay away.

I wonder what James Herriot would think of that. 🙂

Source:
The Guardian,Would You Go On This Holiday?, 20 Aug 2011


Major Decision: Federal Judge Awards Title To Titanic Artifacts

The long awaited decision of Federal Judge Beach regarding title to Titanic artifacts has been rendered. Judge Beach granted RMS Titanic, Inc. title to fine china, ship fittings, and other artifacts recovered from the ship by the company. The condition is that the artifacts be preserved so the court will have to approve sales.

Sources:

1. The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk Judge Awards Rights To Titanic Artifacts, 16 August 2011

2. Associated Press, Judge: Salvage Firm Has Title To Titanic Artifacts, 15 Aug 2011

 

Winnipeg Titanic Exhibit Leaves With High Numbers

The Titanic Exhibition, twice held over in Winnipeg, has finally left town. But in a good way! According to Winnipeg Free Press , 87,243 attended the exhibit that ran from 11 Feb until last Sunday. Those are impressive numbers indeed. It will be interesting to see the numbers for the next exhibition, Da Vinci: The Genius, which runs from 19 Aug-23 Oct.

A Timely Titanic Reminder

The lessons from Titanic echo to this day but sometimes forgotten by people they are supposed to protect. Take the life vest. This simple floatation device will save lives when the unfortunate happens. And the rule is you have enough for everyone aboard (crew and passengers included). Another rule is not to exceed the recommended passenger capacity to avoid not having enough for everyone. Unfortunately that recently happened on Lake Michigan.

ABC 7 in Chicago reported “A suburban woman says she thought of the movie “Titanic” when the boat she and 21 others were on sank in Lake Michigan. It happened Saturday evening near Burnham Harbor. Deetria Cannon of Lisle says they were headed back to shore when something happened and the boat began taking on water.”

The report indicates there were not enough life vests aboard for everyone and that some could not swim. Fortunately nearby boats came to the rescue and everyone was saved. Chicago police are reported as saying theere were likely too many people on board. No citations were issued but one assumes some legal action will be forthcoming against the boat owner and captain.

In this case, all ended well. But a recent event down in Mexico shows what happens when things go very bad ending up with loss of life. A timely reminder indeed.

Source: ABC7Chicago.com, 22 Rescued From Sinking Boat In Lake Michigan, 1 Aug 2011

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