Category Archives: Titanic

Titanic

SATURDAY TITANIC NEWS: HITCHENS GRAVE HAS A HEADSTONE;EXPLORERS LOOK AT “ASIA TITANIC”

Robert Hichens from Merchant Seaman Records, Circa 1919 or earlier
Public Doman-Wikimedia

New Memorial To Titanic Helmsman Buried In Unmarked Grave (Belfast Telegraph, 19 Dec 2019)

The family of the helmsman of the Titanic, whose final resting place was a mystery for decades, have now marked his grave with a headstone in Aberdeen. Mr Hichens was buried in an unmarked grave with another sailor – Dutch seaman David Lamb – in Trinity Cemetery, meaning for years his family did not know where he had been laid to rest. The memorial was erected in a ceremony attended by three other relatives as well as Titanic enthusiasts. “It’s amazing, it is just fantastic. There were loads of people there.”

Underwater Survey of Asia Titanic Shows Wreck That Took 4,300(GeekWire, 19 Dec 2019)

The scene of the worst peacetime maritime disaster in history — known as “Asia’s Titanic” — has been surveyed by the Research Vessel (R/V) Petrel, the exploration ship owned and operated by the late Paul Allen’s Vulcan Inc. R/V Petrel worked in partnership with the National Museum of the Philippines to examine the site of the M/V Doña Paz and M/T Vector in Tablas Strait in April. The passenger ferry and oil tanker collided on Dec. 20, 1987, killing an estimated 4,386 people. Only 24 people were reported to have survived.

Well you do not see this every day. A cruise ship coming into port got an unexpected squall that caused it to collide with another ship already docked. There were only minor injuries to some passengers but the damage was extensive as the video indicates. It appears the captain did his best to minimize the collision by reversing the engines. Although the damage to both ships did not affect structural integrity, it means significant repairs have to be done to fix the damage on both ships.

Happy Saturday everyone. Here is a nice tune to get you into a festive mood.

https://youtu.be/tnEbRaFaqfg

Titanic

TODAY IS THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

3rd Advent Sunday

What Is Advent?

Advent on the Christian calendar is a season of preparation for the birth of Jesus. It is a season of joy leading up to Christmas Day and also a time of preparation similar to Lent. Prayer, fasting and penance are part of the Advent season. The rules are not as strict as Lent but a time of self-preparation. The color purple is associated with penance. Each Advent Sunday is meant to ready oneself for rejoicing at the birth of Jesus that is to come. The Third Sunday of Advent is the anticipatory celebration and the color rose is used to represent joy.

The Advent wreath

Many homes and churches will have an Advent wreath to symbolize the season, and to mark each Sunday as it happens. The practice began by German Lutherans in the 18th century as a means of teaching Advent to children. The practice began to spread to Catholics and other Christian denominations as well.

Advent wreaths are circular to show that God’s love is infinite and is made with evergreen leaves.  It used to be a family event to gather the leaves and make the wreath. The practice has resurfaced in recent years as many families now do this again. Advent wreaths made of artificial evergreens are available in a wide series of designs. Handmade ones can be made to last many years.

Advent: Dates, Traditions, and History(Infoplease.com)
Catholic Traditions (Catholic Education Resource Center)

https://youtu.be/7AmWu2zLzrU

Titanic

SATURDAY TITANIC NEWS: 20 SHADY FACTS AND LIGHTOLLER WATCH SETS RECORD AT AUCTION

20 Shady Facts About The Titanic II (We Can’t Ignore Anymore)   The Travel (13 Dec 2019)

An interesting look at Titanic II with some clever notations about this so-called replica ship that has yet to be built.

Charles H. Lightoller, second officer of the RMS Titanic.
Circa 1920-1930
Public Domain (from Wikimedia)

Titanic Survivor’s Pocket Watch Sets New World Record At Goldin Auctions  Just Collecting (11 Dec 2019)

According to the folks at Just Collecting, a new record was set with the auction of this watch. “A pocket watch owned by Titanic Second Officer Charles Lightoller has sold at auction in the U.S for more than $170,000, setting a new world record for a Titanic timepiece. The watch sold at Goldin Auctions for $173,500, beating the previous record of $154,000 set in 2008 by the watch belonging to ship’s steward Edmund Stone.” It shows that Titanic still commands a high value for original items such as this. For the seller it is good news. And of course when the taxes come due, the government will get its share as well.

Titanic

Sunday Titanic news:Child’s titanic letter and a gingerbread house you can dine in

Michel, right with his brother, Edmund, taken after sinking to aid in their identification
Public Domain

Child’s Letter Sheds Light On Titanic Sinking – ‘I Didn’t Know I’d Never See Dad Again’ (Daily Star, 6 Dec 2019)

Many extraordinary human stories have emerged from that fateful night, but few are more poignant than a letter written by four-year-old Michel Navratil. Michel was one of two brothers dubbed the “Titanic Orphans” by the press, because he and his two-year-old brother Edmond were the only children rescued without a parent or carer. Michel’s granddaughter Elisabeth has been tracked down by the researchers of a new documentary about the Titanic and she read out for them Michel’s touching account of the iconic liner’s final hours.

Life-size gingerbread house enchants dinner guests at Titanic Hotel Belfast Irelandbeforeyoudie.com (December 2019)

If you’ve ever wondered what it might have been like for Hansel and Gretel to step into the gingerbread house in the Grimm fairy tale, now’s your chance to find out. Magdalena Abakumiec has made—by hand!—an impressive life-size gingerbread house right in Titanic Hotel Belfast, and you can actually dine inside it this winter.

Titanic

CLIVE PALMER’S TITANIC BACK ON TRACK?; RMS TITANIC INC PARTNERS FOR EXHIBITION IN CHERBOURG

Postcard of the Titanic found in a book donated to Books for Amnesty, 103 Gloucester Rd, Bristol UK
Source: Bristol Post
Date: 20/07/2016
Photographer: Michael Lloyd/Freelance
Reporter: Lewis Pennock
Copyright: Local World

Titanic II Project Charters Course For 2022 After Court Ruling (Daily Stock Dish, 24 Nov 2019)

However, three years after the project was announced financial disputes between Palmer and the Chinese shipyard owners CITIC stalled the project indefinitely. This was until a court ruling in September last year by the Supreme Court of West Australia told the shipyard to repay $150m to the project, enough to refloat the titanic building project. There are mixed reports as to whether construction is already underway, with little detail as to location or new project deadlines with 2022 being the latest prediction.

E/M Group and RMS Titanic, Inc. to Partner with La Cité de la Mer in Cherbourg, France (PR Newswire, 12 Nov 2019)

E/M Group and its affiliate, RMS Titanic, Inc., announced today that it will collaborate with La Cité de la Mer in Cherbourg, France on a series of research and exhibition projects regarding Titanic and its passengers. In addition, the partnership will include a specially curated exhibition, highlighting numerous artifacts recovered from the wreck of Titanic that have never been seen before in France. Slated to open in spring of 2020, the exhibition will appear in La Cite de la Mer’s Titanic permanent exhibition.

Historic Ships, Titanic

TITANIC PIGEON FORGE FIREWORKS;HMS CALSHOT TO BE A TITANIC TRIBUTE SHIP?

Titanic Museum Plans Thanksgiving Fireworks Show (WJHL, 18 Nov 2019)

The 2019 holiday season will start off with a colorful bang in Pigeon Forge as the Titanic Museum Attraction hosts its sixth-annual fireworks show. According to a release from the attraction, the show is the largest fireworks display on the Smoky Mountain Parkway. The event is free and will be staged at the entrance of the Titanic Museum. Visitors are encouraged to bring cameras.

Trust Reveals Plan To Turn Former HMS Calshot Into Titanic Tribute Ship (Daily Echo, 18 Nov 2019)

The vessel was launched in 1929 and helped manoeuvre the world’s greatest ocean liners before being renamed HMS Calshot ahead of the D-Day landings on June 6 1944. She transported sections of the famous Mulberry harbours to France and also served as a “non-assault HQ ship”. But the former Red Funnel vessel is slowly deteriorating and needs to moved ashore. A trust spokesman said: “The Visit Southampton website says ‘Southampton is widely recognised as the cruise capital of Europe and welcomes more than two million passengers to the city each year’. “These passengers often have family or friends who would welcome the opportunity of visiting Calshot – The Titanic Tribute Ship.

Titanic

LIGHTHOLLER WATCH TO BE AUCTIONED OFF

Charles H. Lightoller, second officer of the RMS Titanic.
Circa 1920-1930
Public Domain (from Wikimedia)

Charles Lightoller’s Titanic Watch For Sale At Goldin Auctions (Just Collecting News, 19 Nov 2019)

The watch owned by Charles Lightoller, the Second Officer who miraculously survived the sinking of the Titanic, is up for sale at Goldin Auctions. The Swiss silver pocket watch bears the name “Charles H Lightoller” and his rank “2nd Officer” engraved on the reverse of its rusted case. The watch hands behind the cracked face are frozen in time at 2:20 – believed to be the exact moment Lightoller plunged into the icy waters of the Atlantic as the Titanic sank beneath him. Minimum bid for the watch is $5,000. The auction ends on 7 Dec.

Titanic

Titanic news for veterans day

Titanic Wreck Bow
Image: Public Domain (NOAA-http://www.gc.noaa.gov/images/gcil/ATT00561.jpg)

Unsinkable Metal Could Lead to Unsinkable Ships. Now Where Have We Heard That Before? (Popular Mechanics, 7 Nov 2019)

The material, which the researchers etched with designs at the nanoscale that allow it to trap air bubbles, could theoretically lead to a truly unsinkable ship or a perfect life preserver, according to Chunlei Guo, a professor of optics and physics at the University of Rochester who coauthored a paper on the new metal in the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. The research was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. Army Research Office, and the National Science Foundation.

Metro Atlanta Woman Owns Collection She Says Belonged To Couple Who Died On Titanic (WSB-TV Atlanta, 6 Nov 2019)

Laub’s collection includes three small women’s handbags, a pair of spectacles and a lady’s makeup compact. “When I’m handling it, the purses and such, I feel like I’m almost there,” Laub said. “There’s a little ‘window.’ And you open it up and it has the most beautiful red lipstick I’ve ever seen in my life still in there.” Laub received the items from the great-granddaughter of the Straus family’s personal assistant. The assistant often traveled with the couple and Laub believes she was supposed to take the items to them.

The funerary mask of Tutankhamun
Roland Unger (via Wikimedia Commons)

How King Tut Exhibitions Became a Multimillion Dollar Industry (Artsy.net, 30 Oct 2019)

An ongoing show, which started at the California Science Center in 2018, moved on to Paris’s Grande Halle de La Villette in Paris, where it broke attendance records for a French art show—the previous record-holder was also a King Tut exhibition—and sold around 1.3 million tickets. The show will open at London’s Saatchi Gallery in November; the Australian Museum in Sydney will be its final stop. The general public’s embrace of the Boy Pharaoh shows no signs of relenting, but issues of ownership and repatriation surrounding Tut-related objects still rage.

The Daughter Of A Titanic Survivor Buried In Lannon Shares Her Mom’s Story For The Village’s 90th Anniversary (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 28 Oct 2019)

She calls herself a child of a Titanic survivor. Randall’s mother and grandparents survived the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912. But Randall’s great- aunt and uncle Maria and Vincenz Kink were among the more than 1,500 who died. Randall’s mother, grandparents and great- aunt and uncle ventured to Milwaukee in April 1912 for a better opportunity. They traveled by train from Zurich, crossed the English Channel by boat and then took another train to South Hampton, England, where they boarded the Titanic. “My mother says they were looking for a better life,” said Randall.

10 Mistakes That Sunk Titanic: Crew Were Left Without Binoculars As Iceberg Approached (Belfast Telegraph, 26 Oct 2019)

The documentary reveals that before the Titanic left Southampton Captain Henry Wilde swapped places with Captain Edward Smith of sister ship the RMS Olympic. As a result of this Second Officer David Blair also left the Titanic and it is believed he took a key to a cabin with him which contained the officer’s binoculars. Simon Mills, owner of the HMS Britannic wreck, said officers could have used the binoculars to help spot the iceberg. “The best way of spotting an iceberg was basically using your natural eyesight as wide as possible on the horizon,” he told the documentary.

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