Tag Archives: RNLI

Titanic

Titanic News: Wilhelm Gustloff disaster,RNLI Needs Funds, Bruce Ismay after Titanic

 

Wilhelm Gustloff in Danzig, September 1939.
Photo: German Federal Archives (Bild 183-H27992 )

Largest Maritime Disaster Neither Lusitania, Nor Titanic
Montana Standard, 2 May 2021

Neither the Lusitania nor the Titanic was the largest maritime disaster, not by a long shot. Yet somehow, their fateful journeys remain a source of intrigue for both researchers and curiosity seekers. The largest loss of lives occurred during World War II in the frigid Baltic Sea. On Jan. 30, 1945, a Soviet submarine sunk Germany’s Wilhelm Gustloff. On board the transport ship were thousands of German civilians. It is estimated that 6,000 to 9,000 people perished.

RNLI Launches Mayday Call For Funds As Rescue Figures Highlight Crew’s Lifesaving Work In Pandemic
Belfast Live, 30 April 2021

Funds are needed to ensure the lifesaving service is able to keep everyone safe and the RNLI is asking people to come down to the Maritime Mile and take part in the wonderful experience and complete their very own mile and donate to help raise those vital funds. RNLI lifeboats in Northern Ireland launched 234 times last year and their volunteer lifeboat crews brought 253 people to safety. Eighty-nine of those launches were carried out in the hours of darkness. The charity’s lifeguards responded to 225 incidents last summer on beaches, helping 285 people and saving the lives of six people.

Titanic-Linked Train Carriages Discovered In Yard
BBC, 30 April 2021

Members of the British Titanic Society think the wooden carriages, found in a yard in South Wales, formed part of a train that carried passengers from London to Southampton on 10 April 1912. Five days later the Southampton-based liner sank in the North Atlantic Ocean. It is hoped the carriages, which are due to be scrapped, can be restored.

J. Bruce Ismay, president of the White Star Line, in 1912
Public Domain(Wikipedia)

After The Titanic Sank, The Ship’s Owner Hid Away In Ireland
Irish Central, 29 April 2021

Ismay fully co-operated with the congressional inquiry, but nothing could stop the jeering on the streets in both the US and the UK. London society would have nothing more to do with him and he resigned from all his company positions, hoping to disappear, as the media continued to label him as the biggest coward in history.

With his wife Julia, Ismay was to find comfort in Costello Lodge, however, and among the local people who looked upon the pair as a solid source of employment, although the locals referred to Ismay in Irish as “Brú síos mé” (‘lower me down’ i.e. into a lifeboat ). He was said by the locals to be a kind, warm-hearted man, even inquiring of the fisherman he’d fish with on a Sunday if they had had time to go to Mass. Casla Lodge was burned down by the IRA in 1922, but the home was rebuilt on an even grander scale. Ismay remained a Connemara resident for 25 years before moving back to England after he was diagnosed with diabetes. He died in London in 1937, aged 74.

How DNA Testing Helped Solve One Of The Titanic’s Lingering Mysteries
Irish Central, 26 April 2021

One of the last great mysteries of the Titanic was solved in 2013 thanks to a DNA test which proved a woman who claimed she was a child survivor of the tragic Titanic sinking was a fraud. Two-year-old Loraine Allison is believed to have been the only child from first or second class who died during the sinking of the Titanic. However, in 1940, Helen Loraine Kramer, now styling herself Loraine Kramer, claimed to be the missing child. She told a radio show that she had been saved at the last moment when her father placed her in a lifeboat with a man whom she had always thought was her father.Kramer launched a legal bid to be considered part of the wealthy Allison family and entitled to part of their fortune. Before her death in 1992, she contended that she was entitled to the vast majority of the Allison family’s wealth in Canada. The dispute led to the founding of The Loraine Allison Identification Project by Tracy Oost, a forensic scientist at Laurentian University, Ontario, and Titanic expert. While Woods declined to participate, Oost obtained DNA samples from Deanne Jennings, Woods’ half-sister, and Sally Kirkelie, the great-niece of Bess Allison, Loraine Allison’s mother. No genetic link was found between descendants from both sides of the dispute. The results proved that Helen Loraine Kramer was not the little girl who was lost on the Titanic.

 

Titanic Memorial Lighthouse,South Street Seaport Museum, New York (2008)
Image: Andy C (Wikipedia)

Effort Continues To Restore New York’s Titanic Memorial Lighthouse To Its Original 1913 Condition
6sqft.com, 26 April 2021

The campaign to landmark and restore the Titanic Memorial Lighthouse, a monument in New York City built in 1913 to honor those who died aboard the Titanic, continues. Designed by Warren and Wetmore, the architecture firm behind Grand Central Terminal, the 60-foot-tall lighthouse originally sat atop the roof of the Seamen’s Church Institute and featured a working time ball that dropped down the pole each day, along with a green light. Preservationists are now raising funds that would help restore the lighthouse, currently located at the entrance to the South Street Seaport, to its original condition.

 


Titanic, Titanic Exhibitions, Titanic Miscellaneous

Titanic Newswrap For 3 Sep 2013

Wallace Hartley's Violin1. Hartley Violin Update: The Hartley Violin will be going on display next in Belfast in the replica second class accommodation suite from 18 Sept – 13 Oct 2013. It is scheduled to be auctioned by Henry Aldridge & Son later in October.
Source: Violin From Titanic To Be Exhibited(2 Sep 2013,Belfast Telegraph)

2. Titanic Exhibition Extended:The Grand Rapids Public Museum has extended again Titanic:The Artifact Exhibition one more week until Saturday, 14 Sep 2013.
Source:Titanic Exhibition At Grand Rapids Public Museum Extended A Second Time(3 Sep 2013,mlive.com)

3. You cannot make this up. According to This is Lincolnshire, RNLI lifeboat volunteers responded to a report three inflatable tender boats were in trouble. The found one of the boats was named Titanic and its occupants were trying to start the engine. After that failed, the group then attempted to tow the boat back to the beach as RNLI volunteers watched.
Source:Skegness RNLI Lifeboat Volunteers Involved In ‘Titanic’ Rescue(3 Sep 2013,This Is Lincolnshire.co.uk)

Titanic, Titanic II, Titanic Miscellaneous

Sunday Titanic Newswrap

1. Titanic II Update: Clive Palmer says he is considering a Tasmanian company, Liferaft Systems Australia, to construct Titanic II’s lifeboats. Clive Palmer said “The exciting thing about his liferaft system is you don’t sell any in Australia, which means it must be good if people overseas are buying it Australians never buy things that are good they only buy things that are bad.”
Source: Tasmania Considered For Titanic II Liferafts(30 Aug 2013,ABC-Australia)

2. Mystery Of Edith Russell’s Musical Pig Solved-After asking the public to identify the unknown tune, it has finally been identified as “La Sorella” by Charles Borel-Clerk and Louis Gallini. However there was some confusion over a South American dance song called “Maxixe,” which some thought was the tune. The song La Sorella is also known as La Matchiche which is pronounced the same as Maxixe.
Source: Titanic Mystery Solved: Song Toy Played As Ship Sank Is Identified(29 Aug 2013,Newsmax)

RNLI Tribute, Punch Cartoon(1892)
Wikipedia

3. Captain John Lowe, grandson of Titanic third officer Harold Lowe, recently attended a special dedication service for the Barmouth Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). Lowe brought his grandfather’s photograph album containing pictures from the 1914 Barmouth Regatta.
Source: Grandson Of Titanic Survivor Attends Service(29 Aug 2013,Cambrian News)$

$Fee required to view full article

Titanic

Not A Prank: Titanic Yacht Sinking!

Here is one for the books. While out shopping the phone rings and the caller tells you his ship is sinking. Oh and it is named Titanic! In the case of Alex Evan, a lifeboat volunteer with Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), it was his friend Mark Corbett. At first Evan thought it was a prank but was convinced it was a real emergency.

Corbett really was on a yacht called Titanic and was calling 4,000 miles away in the Caribbean using a satellite phone to reach him.

According to The Guardian, the yacht was too far from Grenada. listing badly, and short of power. Luckily Corbett remembered the number of his friend in RNLI. Evan took down information about the ship’s position and relayed it on. An hour later a French spotter plane located the yacht and a U.S. Coast Guard cutter arrived later to tow the damaged vessel to port.

Evan tells The Guardian his friend made the right choice to call him. Thanks to his contacts through RNLI, the report was taken seriously. Corbett and his two crewmen all are safe and back in Wales. As for the yacht, was renamed Titanic after its previous owners transferred its old name to a new ship. There is an old sea superstition that renaming a ship makes it unlucky. Unless, as Evan notes, you swim around the ship naked three times telling why the renaming was required (presumably to appease a water god). Yikes! I would rather just toss bottles of rum overboard to appease the spirits than swim around naked in the cold ocean.

Then again angering a sea god can be risky business. Just ask Odysseus. 🙂

Titanic

Titanic Irony: Thieves Break-In To Lifeboat Station After Crew Raises Money At Titanic Musical

Truth is stranger than fiction. And here is example of it. The BBC reports that after a fundraiser at a Titanic musical, the very lifeboat station involved was broken into. The crew of the RNLI Kessock found that the store cupboard had been broken into but neither the boathouse or lifeboat inside were touched.

Kessock helmsman Stan McRae said: “To think that someone would try to break into a Lifeboat station makes you feel just gutted, especially given how the RNLI is funded with voluntary donations from the public.”

So far no one has been arrested for the crime.

(BBC, RNLI Site Break-In After Titanic – The Musical Effort, 26 Mar 2010)