Tag Archives: Titanic

Titanic

Rare Titanic Letter Up For Auction

A letter written aboard Titanic by James Danby before it sailed from Southampton is up for auction on 23 April. Danby went aboard to see his wife’s uncle and employer Adolphe Saalfeld. Saalfeld was going to America to sell essential oils to clients, survived the sinking but his satchel containing the glass vials and other things was left behind. It would not be found until 2000 by the submersible Mir 1. Danby, who had migrated to Britain from Germany, would be interned for the duration of World War I. After the war he relocated to Amsterdam and ran a successful business until the Germans invaded in 1940. Being Jewish made him a target and he was eventually arrested in 1943 and sent to Sobibor. He would be killed along with Rose and her mother Clara. His daughters Margaret and Ellen survived the war and went to Canada. Danby’s grandaughter Petra Burka would represent Canada in the 1964 Winter Olympics and bring home the bronze for figure skating.

Well known Titanic auctioneer Henry Aldridge & Son is holding the auction. The letter is expected to fetch between $14,117 to $21,175.

Source:First Letter Written Onboard The Titanic Up For Sale (Foxnews.com,8 April 2016)

Olympic, Titanic

Video:Construction and Launch of RMS Olympic In 1910

The opening scene of A Night To Remember has Titanic being officially christened. In reality, Harland & Wolff never had such ceremonies for launching ships they constructed. If the ship were important enough, they might invite certain important people to watch its launch. Usually it would be just the workers and those who designed the ship at Harland & Wolff to be in attendance. Here is a video that shows the construction of RMS Olympic and its launch.

Titanic, Titanic Miscellaneous

Belfast Titanic Had Drop In Profits In 2015 Despite Rising Revenues

Titanic Belfast (side view) Image:Prioryman (Wikipedia)
Titanic Belfast (side view)
Image:Prioryman (Wikipedia)

It is usually the case that when you have an increase in revenues and people attending your tourist attraction, you make money. Not so for Titanic Belfast in 2015 reports Belfast Telegraph. The Telegraph reports this is despite the fact that revenues went up by 7% during that year and that it attracted 625,000 visitors. So what caused the drop in revenue? The newspaper reports:

The drop in profit arose chiefly from the firm’s administrative expenses increasing from £6.27m to £7.42m. And the average number of staff employed last year increased from 134 to 153 with staff costs increasing from £2.17m to £2.45m.

So hiring nineteen people cut into expenses pretty seriously. That tells a lot about the cost of labor these days in NI. And probably why visiting the attraction will soon cost more.

Source: Titanic Belfast sees profits drop by a third to £800,000 (Belfast Telegraph, 24 Mar 2016)

Titanic Miscellaneous

Titanic Musings

RMSOlympicSmokeRoom
RMS Olympic Smoke Room (Public Domain)

Not a whole lot to report in terms of Titanic. Been quiet of late. Perhaps all the nonsense about Titanic II being built put a cork in it for a while.  Another Titanic anniversary is coming up so I expect the news to pick soon. Perhaps another bit of Titanic memorabilia will emerge to be auctioned off. Or more likely some more drama about the actors that were in that movie.

Belfast is having its Titanic 10K Road Race on 10 April. The race is in its tenth year and doing quite well. Of course you do not have to run in the race to enjoy it. Fans line up to watch it to see if the any of their favorites will finish first. Then after all the hoopla is done, retire to a favorite place for a pint of the good stuff and a delicious meal.

The worlds largest cruise ship, Harmony of the Seas, is about to embark on its maiden voyage. This ship makes every other cruise ship look like a dinghy in comparison. It is massive, and I mean massive, at 1,187 feet long and with a displacement of 227,000 tonnes. With 18 decks, it is crammed full of places to eat, entertain, and eat some more. A replica of New York’s Central Park with 10,587 plants and 52 trees is included if you miss a city landscape. As you might expect this is not a cheap trip. Plan to spend serious cash to sail on this leviathan.

And not to be outdone, the folks in Dubai who have gone seriously Titanic crazy decided to have an authentic Titanic meal. It will be at a French restaurant called Bord Eau. The dining area will be converted into a Titanic first class cabin on 14 April. Diners will have a 10 course meal similar to what first class diners had on the ship. Those attending are expected to dress up for this event. Do not think of showing up in a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops for this one or you will experience an old fashioned punishment called keel hauling. The cost is Dh406 or in U.S. dollars (at last check) $106.00. No jokes about Jack and Rose please at the table.

Titanic

Vessel That Helped Find Titanic Says Goodbye And Heads To Mexico

R/V Knorr at the WHOI dock in Woods Hole, MA 2012 Public Domain (Wikipedia)
R/V Knorr at the WHOI dock in Woods Hole, MA 2012
Public Domain (Wikipedia)

RV Knorr, made famous by being the Woods Hole vessel that had the researchers that found Titanic aboard, is heading to Mexico. The ship was a mainstay of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution since it was delivered to them in 1970. And logged close to a million miles in its long history with Woods Hole. The ship was officially decommissioned in 2014 and its replacement, the RV Neil Armstrong, will take its place. The ship will now serve in the Mexican Navy though it is unclear what her duties will be.

Source: Ship Used to Find Titanic Headed to Mexican Navy (ABC News from AP,13 Mar 2016)

Titanic

Harland & Wolff Headquarters To Become Titanic Themed Hotel

The Belfast Telegraph is reporting that the former Harland & Wolff Headquarters, adjacent to Titanic Belfast, is going to become a boutique hotel. The four-story, 84 room hotel will be managed by Titanic Quarter Ltd. who claim it be “world’s most authentic Titanic-themed hotel.”

Titanic House (former Harland and Wolff Drawing Offices), Queens Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland, March 2012 Photo:Ardfern(Wikimedia Commons)
Titanic House (former Harland and Wolff Drawing Offices), Queens Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland, March 2012
Photo:Ardfern(Wikimedia Commons)

Titanic Foundation, with the help of a £4.9m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Heritage Enterprise programme, is supporting the restoration of the Drawing Offices. The scheme, which will include three pavilions, will be publicly accessible for tours, events and exhibitions. Both projects are due to open in 2017, creating 100 new jobs.

The announcement has generated mostly positive reports in the Belfast Telegraph and elsewhere. Certainly it will draw people and because of its close proximity to Titanic Belfast will become destination all its own.

Source: Harland & Wolff Headquarters Set To Become ‘World’s Most Authentic Titanic-Themed Hotel’(Belfast Telegraph,9 Mar 2016)

Titanic, Titanic Miscellaneous

Iceberg The Titanic Hit Was 100,000 Years Old

Photograph of iceberg taken by chief steward of Prinz Adalbert on morning of 15 April 1912 near where Titanic sank. At the time he had not learned of the Titanic disaster. Smears of red paint along the base caught his attention. The photo and accompanying statement were sent to Titanic’s lawyers, which hung in their boardroom until the firm dissolved in 2002. Public Domain
Photograph of iceberg taken by chief steward of Prinz Adalbert on morning of 15 April 1912 near where Titanic sank. At the time he had not learned of the Titanic disaster. Smears of red paint along the base caught his attention. The photo and accompanying statement were sent to Titanic’s lawyers, which hung in their boardroom until the firm dissolved in 2002. Public Domain

It has never really crossed my mind to consider how old the iceberg Titanic hit. Possibly as part of an intellectual exercise and a desire to alleviate boredom, scientists at Sheffield University crosschecked data on ocean currents and witness descriptions from 1912. And now they believe it was snow that formed glaciers 100,000 years ago in southwest Greenland that ended up being the infamous iceberg that collided with Titanic in 1912. And it originally was 100ft above the water and possibly 1,700ft long when first formed. By the time it hit Titanic it had shrunk a bit in size but still quite large.

Source(s)
1. Iceberg that sank the Titanic was more than 100,000 years old, only a fraction of its original massive size, scientists discover (New York Daily News,6 Mar 2016)

2. Iceberg that sank the Titanic killing 1,517 people was 100,000-year-old, scientists discover (Daily Mail,6 Mar 2016)

History, Titanic

Did a Book Predict Titanic’s Doom?

Morgan Robertson (date unknown) Public Domain

Now that all the stale news about Titanic II has gone around the globe enough times to make it really old news, another one is getting primed to take its place. The new/old story is about how Titanic’s demise was foretold in the book Futilityby Morgan Robertson. The book was published in 1898 and renamed after the Titanic tragedy as Wreck of the Titan. Many who read the book are struck by the similarities between the fictional Titan and Titanic. Some even go so far as to say Robertson was either clairvoyant or had some other supernatural revelation of what was to happen.

While there are similarities between the fictional Titan and the historical Titanic, there are a lot of things different. Titan was not on its maiden voyage and on its sixth heading back to Britain from New York. There were fewer lifeboats so five hundred could be saved out of the 3,000 passengers aboard. It looked different as well, more like a steam yacht with sails and carried no cargo. The collision was different as well. Titanic impacted with the iceberg on its starboard side causing punctures in the hull. In Robertson’s book, the ship collides with the iceberg head on and rolls up on it. Then it rolled on the side allowing the boilers and engines to pierce through the hull then slipped back into the sea and sank. One could go on but you get the salient point here: that the fictional Titan’s demise was very different from the historical Titanic. Robertson denied he had any supernatural vision and concocted his story using the available data he had on ships of the day.

So when you see news reports that proclaim “book predicted Titanic’s demise 14 years earlier” it is nothing more than puffery by editors trying to fill space (and tv news producers do the same as well). It ought to be noted that Robertson wrote about a surprise Japanese attack on the United States but hardly anyone thinks it predicted the events of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

Sources:

  1. Titanic X-Files
  2. Gardiner, Martin ed. THE WRECK OF THE TITANIC FORETOLD? Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY 1998
  3.  Robertson, Morgan THE WRECK OF THE TITAN OR FUTILITY, Bucaneer Books, Cutchogue, New York 1994 [Originally published 1898]