Category Archives: Titanic

April 14 in Titanic History

23:40 (11:40 p.m.) Lookouts Fleet and Lee sight iceberg. Bell rung and call to bridge. Murdoch orders helm hard a-starboard and engines reversed. Starboard side scraped by iceberg for 300 feet puncturing hull in various places. Water fills forward compartments. Thomas Andrews informs Captain Smith near midnight Titanic will stay afloat no more than 2 hours.

Sources: Walter Lord, A Night To Remember & The Night Lives On, Stephen Cameron, Titanic: Belfast’s Own.

11 April in Titanic History

1. 11:30 (11:30 a.m): Titanic arrives in Queenstown. 120 passengers board. Among those who depart is Frances Brown (later Father Brown, SJ) with his camera and photos of life aboard ship.

2. 13:30 (1:30 p.m.). Titanic departs Queenstown bound for New York with 2,206 passengers and crew.

Sources: Walter Lord, A Night To Remember & The Night Lives On, Stephen Cameron, Titanic: Belfast’s Own.

10 April in Titanic History

1. Titanic departs Southampton at 12 noon. While departing, suction from propellors causes New York to break free of moorings. Quick action by tugs and extra speed from Titanic averts collision.

2. 17:30 (5:30 p.m.): Arrival at Cherbourg, France. 274 passengers board including John Jacob Astor. 22 passengers disembark.

3. 20:30 (8:30 p.m.): Departs Cherbourg for Queenstown, ( Cobh), Ireland.

Sources: Walter Lord, A Night To Remember & The Night Lives On, Stephen Cameron, Titanic: Belfast’s Own.

Premier Exhibitions: Titanic Makes Money but Bodies Now RIP

Premier Exhibitions, which owns RMS Titanic Inc., and the touring Titanic exhibition, reported its third quarter fiscal results. According to the press release Titanic and other exhibitions made a “gross profit margin of $1.9 million for the quarter and $10.2 million for the nine months ended November 30, 2010.” However the Bodies portion of the business experienced a loss of $2.3 million in the third quarter. The press release states:

“Having identified the main area of challenge within our business, we have decided to discontinue any further self-operated touring Bodies exhibitions, which will materially lessen our financial exposure. We will reduce our inventory of specimens and cut the fixed license costs by $4 million annually.”

Perhaps a main reason for the Bodies losing money is the ongoing controversy about how those “specimens” are acquired for public display. Some argue that the “specimens” coming from China are former prisoners, dissidents, and others who did not voluntarily will their remains for public display. Now that Premier is discontinuing the exhibition, what will happen to those specimens?

Source: The Street, Premier Exhibitions Reports Fiscal 2011 Third Quarter Results, 11 Jan 2011

Ice Competition At Pigeon Forge

If you like ice sculpting, then an upcoming event at Titanic Museum Attraction in Pigeon Forge is for you. According to the press release, the competition will be on Saturday, Jan. 22 between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. The event has been sanctioned by the National Ice Carving Association and will have professional and amateur ice carvers participating.

Visitors will be invited to come to Titanic’s outdoor staging center and watch professional and amateur sculptors turn 250-pound blocks of ice into frozen works of art. Kids and parents can view sculptures in progress, talk to the artists and learn the secrets of championship ice carving from the most accomplished ice artists in the entire world.
The event is free but if you want to tour the museum a ticket is needed. For tickets and other information got to titanicpigeonforge.com .



Titanic Musings: Titanic Ghosts, A Really Bad Cruise Experience, And A Pastor Who Compares Himself To Captain Smith

Over the years there have been a variety of supernatural claims around Titanic. Some have claimed Titanic was doomed right from the beginning or that an cursed Egyptian mummy was to blame. Haunted relics of Titanic are claimed and even a reproduction of the famous Titanic stairway might be haunted. My criticism of those going out to seek Titanic ghostly voices got some reaction. So far no one has conclusively proved (under scientific conditions) that such recordings are ghosts.

Mostly you get, no pun intended, dead air when you record nothing, You get whatever ambient noise is going on, traffic sounds (if near a street) and animal sounds (if recording outside). Weather plays a factor as well if recording outside. Ghostly voices, such as they are, could be people talking nearby whose sound carries just far enough to be picked up by the recorder. Consider it even more so out in the rarely peaceful North Atlantic. All that noise (waves, wind etc) which you have to filter out if ghostly voices of torment can be heard. Providing of course they are there. I doubt it and most who skeptics who study such things offer more plausible explanations for hearing the occasional word(s) on these recordings without resorting to the supernatural.

A Bad Cruise
Most cruises are pleasurable and offer lots of distraction. Unless of course you recently were aboard the Carnival ship Splendor. A fire disabled its main engines forcing them to use auxiliary power for navigation. That meant no hot water for cooking or bathing, toilets that did not work, dimmed lighting (emergency only) or no lighting, and uncomfortable rooms without air conditioning. Without power much of the food spoiled quickly leaving them with whatever the staff could pull together. The U.S. Navy did render aid with supplies and—gasp!—spam. Actually spam is not that not bad (Hawaiian’s love it) but with little options but eating it cold, not that great either.

According to CBC News the Urban family from Edmonton was aboard. When asked about the fire, Rosalie Urban is quoted as saying:

[I had] thoughts of the Titanic, I’m like, ‘Did we hit an iceberg or something?’ But we were down south, so I didn’t know what was going on.

Fortunately it was not an iceberg but they did have to spend several uncomfortable days at sea being towed to San Diego with cold showers and cold food. It was at least memorable and something years later one can laugh at. Needless to say they are not laughing at Carnival since they had to refund all the passengers fares and give them vouchers for free cruise in the future. Travelers rebooking on Carnival will not want to sail on Splendor again.

Pastor Feels Like Captain Smith

Biloxi’s Church of the Redeemer is relocating after many decades on the beachfront. It withstood two hurricanes and probably seen a lot of history. Now it is relocating to Popp’s Ferry and of course parishioners are sad to see it go. According to WLOX , parishioners have been helping to paint the new place and move items. As they move to abandon the old church, church leader Fr.Dr. Harold Roberts said (in jest):

“I keep telling people, I feel like the captain of the Titanic.”

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