Harland and Wolff, the shipyard that built the Titanic, looks to be sailing to sunnier shores just a few years after it was saved from administration. The Belfast-based firm was named as the preferred bidder for a £120m contract to build a new port for the Falkland Islands yesterday.The two-year project involves installing new floating pontoons to improve facilities at the port, which is based in the Islands’ capital Stanley.
The CEO of the doomed Titanic exploration company whose submarine imploded, killing all five people onboard including him, eerily joked ‘what could go wrong?’ just weeks before the disaster. Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, gave an interview to St John’s Radio, a Canadian radio show just a few weeks before the ill-fated Titan sub imploded during an expedition to the wreck of the Titanic off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, in June 2023. He coolly joked during the interview: ‘What could go wrong?’
Happy Friday everyone! We are now steaming full speed towards March. Winter is still making itself felt where I live (lots of rain recently) to places where snow is still falling. The Spring Equinox is not that far off either, but winter has been known to go on after that astronomical end to winter.
Here is some Titanic and related news you might find interesting.
It is not often one sees a negative review of a Titanic exhibition (mostly complaints about cost and crowds), but this is one of them about a Titanic exhibition near Chicago.
There is plenty to see here, but this exhibition is more of a cabin berth than a stateroom. It will refresh your memory of who’s who in the drama, and it should excite the imagination of younger visitors with an interest in the subject. Hardcore history buffs would do better at their local library. One small but significant complaint — I noticed a grammatical error on an information card inside a case in the first gallery. Then I found another mistake. And others. Apostrophes were misused, “then” was used for “than” — that sort of thing. Apparently, the proofreader went down with the ship.
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Over in Bristol (UK), there is a Titanic exhibition going on though not as big as its predecessors.
A limited exhibition showcasing “never seen before” items salvaged from the Titanic’s wreckage is underway in Bristol. The Titanic Exhibition at Paintworks in Brislington invites visitors to explore Bristol’s connection to the renowned passenger liner, learn about the people that travelled on board and come face to face with items from the wreck site. The display is curated by White Star Heritage, experts in collecting and preserving Titanic and White Star Line ship artefacts, aiming to breathe life into the ship’s story more than 100 years after its sinking in the north Atlantic.
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I have not seen this yet, but judging from all the digital ink being written about it, the creator has certainly gotten a lot of attention. There are actually quite a few Titanic simulations out there (YouTube has a lot of them). From the witness statements, the sinking was more dramatic than has ever been depicted on screen.
The story of the Titanic is known all over the world. The 1996 James Cameron blockbuster movie was hugely successful at the box office, but does it show what really happened when the ship sank? Science Girl’s simulation suggests that the real sinking was much more frightening than we could ever imagine. Cameron, who made the film, said he only got “half right” how the ship sank, even though he had lots of experts to help him.
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This is certainly good news for Harland & Wolff. It has had some very lean years that made it look like it might even be shuttered at one point. They have managed to bounce back and this one famous shipbuilder is getting a contract to refurbish a cruise ship.
The startup recently acquired the 924-passenger MS Braemar from Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines. Renamed Villa Vie Odyssey, Villa Vie has secured a dry dock slot for a multimillion-dollar refurbishment. The Harland & Wolff shipyard has over a century of history and famously built the Titanic eighty years earlier. It undergoes a 10-week refurbishment program. The company announced deals with various contractors for transforming and managing shipboard functions. The ship was last refurbished in 2019.
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Here is an interesting video detailing the sinking of the Lusitania.
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Finally to close out this Friday, retro is becoming cool again. Some creative individuals are going back and making updated opening scenes of television shows done back in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. Using updated special effects and other things, you can make an opening like it would be shown today. Here is one for one of my favorites, the classic Battlestar Galactica.
Due to delays in fitting out, repairs to Olympic and bad weather, Titanic began her sea trials on 2 April 1912. The trials began at 0600 (6 am). There were stokers, greasers and fireman along with crew members aboard. Thomas Andrews and Edward Wilding were aboard representing Harland & Wolff. Harold Sanderson represented IMM. Both Bruce Ismay and Lord Pirrie were ill and could not attend. Francis Carruthers from the Board of Trade was also present to see that the ship was fit to carry passengers. Marconi wireless operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride were also aboard.
The sea trials took 12 hours and tested the ship’s ability to travel at different speeds, turning ability, and ability to stop quickly. Titanic was tested both in the Irish Sea and in Belfast Lough. About 80 miles were covered during the trials. The ship would return to Belfast around 1900 (7 pm.). The surveyor from the Board of Trade signed papers that the ship was seaworthy for the next 12 months.
Titanic would depart an hour later to head to Southampton to take on additional crew, passengers, and supplies.
Sources:
Books
Behe, George TITANIC: SAFETY, SPEED AND SACRIFICE, Transportation Trails, Polo, IL 1997
Eaton John P. & Haas Charles, TITANIC TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY, SECOND EDITION, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, New York, 1995 First American Edition
Lord, Walter, A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, Holt Rinehart and Winston, New York, New York, 1955. Multiple revisions and reprints, notably Illustrated editions (1976,1977,1978 etc)
Lord, Walter, THE NIGHT LIVES ON, Willian Morrow and Company, New York, New York, 1986 (First Edition)
Lynch, Don & Marshall Ken, TITANIC AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY, Madison Press Books, Toronto, Ontario Canada, 1992
Video: Ring goes overboard in Titanic-styled proposal
Sky News Australia, 1 Dec 2022
A man is preparing to propose to his fiancée standing on the tip of a boat. And then when tries to pull out the box with the ring, it goes flying landing into the water, sending him into the water to get it back. He got it, got back in, and proposed soaking wet to his bride-to-be who was laughing and accepted it.
Malcolm Smith, the author of “Mainers on the Titanic,” told NEWS CENTER Maine around 14 people from the Pine Tree State were on the vessel when it struck that fatal iceberg. Half of them survived, he said, most of them women. “It broke down that the females from Maine survived. Men didn’t, generally speaking,” Smith said. Of the Mainers that were on the Titanic, most were from Mount Desert Island. They were families that came to Maine for the summer and could spend half a year in the state. “Employers, neighbors, friends. They were part of our fabric,” Smith said.
The MV Joola sank over 20 years ago but it is still being felt today. It was not reported much in the American or European media. 1,863 people died and only 64 survived.
Apart from being a mere exhibition, it is an emotional journey, unfurling the true stories of the Titanic’s passengers. I have never been so emotional and fascinated while visiting an exhibition in my life. In the depths of history or in terms of Titanic’s historic tragedy, it was a truly remarkable experience.
It was only months ago things were looking rosy for Harland & Wolff with new shipbuilding contracts. According to the article, the main reason to delay many of the projects is to difficulty in obtaining parts. This echoes what is happening in a lot of industries today where parts needed have become difficult to get due to a number of factors related to the pandemic shipping issues that have not been fully restored, the war in the Ukraine, or simply the skyrocketing costs of many needed items. Harland is delaying the contracts, but it is hurting their bottom line. Some are concerned it may make it harder to pay off their debts leading to concern amongst investors.
Part of Team Resolute alongside BMT and Navantia UK, Harland & Wolff was selected as the preferred bidder for the Ministry of Defence’s £1.6bn contract to manufacture three vessels providing munitions, stores and provisions to the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers, destroyers and frigates. Harland & Wolff’s Belfast shipyard will construct all three 216-metre-long vessels, which upon completion, will be the second longest UK military vessels behind the two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
Stonehouse later recalled that he was neither surprised by the conversation itself, nor really by the fact it happened off the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Because in the last four decades, the Marquette resident has learned that the fate of the Fitzgerald can and probably will be discussed anytime and anywhere.
A pocket watch that stopped at the very moment its owner went down with the Titanic has surfaced for sale for a whopping £100,000. Oscar Woody perished along with 1,520 others when the ill-fated ship struck an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic in 1912. Mr Woody served as the postmaster on the Titanic. As the liner started to sink he and four colleagues made a futile attempt to save hundreds of mailbags by carrying them to the upper decks. Andrew Aldridge said: ‘We are getting a considerable amount of interest in this item already.This is probably one of the most iconic and important items of Titanic memorabilia offered for auction in recent years.”
I’m also willing to bet that almost none of you knows that two years later, on May 29, 1914, a similar passenger ship called the Empress of Ireland suffered a similar fate in the St. Lawrence River, in Canada, causing the deaths of nearly 1,000 souls. Why are we so familiar with one tale, while we know next to nothing about the other? Maybe because Titanic was on its maiden voyage, and the Empress had nearly 200 missions to its credit. But I can spend the next several paragraphs trying to rectify the situation.
Within the last 100 years, only 10 cruise ships have sunk, if you include river cruises. Almost 900 people have died in these incidents but around half of those can be attributed to one river cruise ship sinking. Many of the incidents involved no loss of life at all. Arguably the most famous cruise ship sinking in the last 100 years is that of the Costa Concordia. She sank in 2012 and is the only modern major ocean cruise ship serving passengers from around the world to have sunk during a cruise.
(I suspect they will get lots of email on this-MT)
Shipbuilder Harland and Wolff has reported a widened pre-tax loss of £25.5m as expenses swelled during its Covid-19 recovery. It added that it had £20m in future contracted revenue. More recently, outside of the reported period, Harland and Wolff has struck two deals – worth £8.5m and £10m – with waste management company Cory Group and its subsidiary Riverside Energy Park to build barges for transporting waste on the River Thames. Bosses said the company had made an operating loss of £22.3m (up from £9.1m in July 2020). Chief executive John Wood said the company had gone from a “one-project non-revenue generating” company to having “one of the largest” fabrication footprints in the UK.
For example, did you know that there were only two bathtubs on the ship for first class passengers to use, one for men and one for women? And that this was considered a big deal, since most ships didn’t have any bathtubs on board at all? Most of the first-class passengers didn’t even get to have their own private bathrooms, since those were reserved for the wealthiest people on the ship.
[The article does not quite explain that first and second class, they did have their own sinks to wash up . There were showers available but, to conserve water, the use of bathtubs was limited so you had to reserve them in advance. It was considered a luxury to have two bathtubs. Even today cruise ships use showers rather than bathtubs to conserve water. Pity the poor stewards that had to clean the bathtubs after every use or make sure the water tanks were filled in the first- and second-class suites so that people had hot and cold running water in their basins. MT]
The theory of a fire on board had been suggested in the past, but new analysis of rarely seen photographs has prompted researchers to attribute the fire to being the primary cause of the ship’s demise. Irish journalist Senan Molony, who has spent more than 30 years researching the sinking of the Titanic, studied photographs taken by the ship’s chief electrical engineers before it left Belfast shipyard. He identified 30-foot-long black marks along the front right-hand side of the hull which suggest this area was damaged before the iceberg struck the ship’s lining.
Thomas Byles was played by James Lancaster in Titanic, and he only appears in one scene, and it’s a very brief appearance. In it, Byles is seen reciting the Rosary and Revelations 21:4, while many passengers prayed with him and held his hand. Unfortunately, Titanic failed to show Byles’ heroic acts in helping save the lives of many third-class passengers and instead left that to Jack, Tommy, and Fabrizio, who broke their fellow third-class passengers free when they were locked by the ship’s security guards.
On July 13, 1890, the steamer Sea Wing was returning from a carnival-like day at a military encampment when it capsized from a sudden and violent storm. Many of the excursionists made the understandable but fateful decision to retreat to the ship’s passenger cabin for protection. When the ship flipped over, they were trapped inside the upside-down boat and drowned. Ninety eight passengers – nearly half of the people on board – died as they were tossed into or submerged in the churning waters. The sense of tragedy was accentuated by the fact that the day had begun so promisingly: a pleasure cruise down the Mississippi River from Diamond Bluff to a National Guard encampment at Camp Lakeview near Lake City.
Due to delays in fitting out, repairs to Olympic and bad weather, Titanic began her sea trials on 2 April 1912. The trials began at 0600 (6 am). There were stokers, greasers and fireman along with crew members aboard. Thomas Andrews and Edward Wilding were aboard representing Harland & Wolff. Harold Sanderson represented IMM. Both Bruce Ismay and Lord Pirrie were ill and could not attend. Francis Carruthers from the Board of Trade was also present to see that the ship was fit to carry passengers. Marconi wireless operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride were also aboard.
The sea trials took 12 hours and tested the ship’s ability to travel at different speeds, turning ability, and ability to stop quickly. Titanic was tested both in the Irish Sea and in Belfast Lough. About 80 miles were covered during the trials. The ship would return to Belfast around 1900 (7 pm.). The surveyor from the Board of Trade signed papers that the ship was seaworthy for the next 12 months.
Titanic would depart an hour later to head to Southampton to take on additional crew, passengers, and supplies.
Sources:
Books
Behe, George TITANIC: SAFETY, SPEED AND SACRIFICE, Transportation Trails, Polo, IL 1997
Eaton John P. & Haas Charles, TITANIC TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY, SECOND EDITION, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, New York, 1995 First American Edition
Lord, Walter, A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, Holt Rinehart and Winston, New York, New York, 1955. Multiple revisions and reprints, notably Illustrated editions (1976,1977,1978 etc)
Lord, Walter, THE NIGHT LIVES ON, Willian Morrow and Company, New York, New York, 1986 (First Edition)
Lynch, Don & Marshall Ken, TITANIC AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY, Madison Press Books, Toronto, Ontario Canada, 1992
It can be easy to forget that we live on the same island that once produced the largest moving object ever made by man, that generations of Harland & Wolff workers forged Belfast’s reputation as the engineering capital of the world, and that its most famous ship – the Titanic – would go on to inspire the first film to break the billion-dollar mark at the box office. So it’s fitting that the Titanic Hotel and visitor attraction in Belfast was a world-leading tourist destination before they opened their doors, in 2017 and 2012 respectively.
A new expedition to the wreck of the Titanic has been announced for summer 2022, but it comes at a hefty price. Only around 250 people have glimpsed the wreckage since it was discovered on the seabed in 1985, but a small group will make the epic two-mile journey to the site on the ocean floor next year. Oceangate Expeditions, which offers underwater expeditions across the world, has announced its second annual trip to the ship’s final resting place. It will see ‘mission specialists,’ along with researchers, survey the vessel up close from inside the company’s submersible Titan. The group of citizen explorers will travel 12,500ft beneath the North Atlantic Ocean to survey the famous Belfast-built liner that sank in April 1912. The Titanic Expedition is conducted as a series of eight-day missions in May and June but each seat now costs $250,000 – a $125,000 increase on last year.
At the same time, they were the source of inspiration for the story of the movie “Titanic”, and their image, from the movie, where they appear embraced on the bed, waiting for the end of life, has been taken over and reimagined since the film’s release. Along with other notable passengers, such as John Jacob Astor IV and Molly Brown, Isidor and Ida Straus embarked aboard the Titanic on April 10, 1912, bound for New York.
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Interesting Photo of Titanic Quarter from Jason McIntosh
Due to delays in fitting out, repairs to Olympic and bad weather, Titanic began her sea trials on 2 April 1912. The trials began at 0600 (6 am). There were stokers, greasers and fireman along with crew members aboard. Thomas Andrews and Edward Wilding were aboard representing Harland & Wolff. Harold Sanderson represented IMM. Both Bruce Ismay and Lord Pirrie were ill and could not attend. Francis Carruthers from the Board of Trade was also present to see that the ship was fit to carry passengers. Marconi wireless operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride were also aboard.
The sea trials took 12 hours and tested the ship’s ability to travel at different speeds, turning ability, and ability to stop quickly. Titanic was tested both in the Irish Sea and in Belfast Lough. About 80 miles were covered during the trials. The ship would return to Belfast around 1900 (7 p.). The surveyor from the Board of Trade signed papers that the ship was seaworthy for the next 12 months.
Titanic would depart an hour later to head to Southampton to take on additional crew, passengers, and supplies.
Sources:
Books
Behe, George TITANIC: SAFETY, SPEED AND SACRIFICE, Transportation Trails, Polo, IL 1997
Eaton John P. & Haas Charles, TITANIC TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY, SECOND EDITION, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, New York, 1995 First American Edition
Lord, Walter, A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, Holt Rinehart and Winston, New York, New York, 1955. Multiple revisions and reprints, notably Illustrated editions (1976,1977,1978 etc)
Lord, Walter, THE NIGHT LIVES ON, Willian Morrow and Company, New York, New York, 1986 (First Edition)
Lynch, Don & Marshall Ken, TITANIC AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY, Madison Press Books, Toronto, Ontario Canada, 1992
In April 1912 they left the UK on board the Titanic, to start a new life in Jacksonville, Florida, as pecan farmers. They had intended to sail to the USA on the Philadelphia, but were forced to change their plans due to a coal strike. After bidding their farewells to many well-wishers,the family travelled by train to Southampton and boarded the Titanic on 10 April 1912 as third-class passengers (ticket number 2343 which cost £69 and 11 shillings).
The priest was praying on the upper deck when the ship struck an iceberg at 11.40pm. He assisted the women and children on their way to lifeboats, consoling them and twice refusing a place himself. When passengers got excited or anxious he would say: “Be calm, my good people.” Miss Helen Mary Mocklare, a third class passenger, gave an account of what she witnessed. She said: “A few around us became very excited and then it was that the priest again raised his hand and instantly they were calm once more.
Dan shared some of his family’s remarkable links with shipbuilding on this page last Friday – his grandfather, father and five uncles all worked in the yard and his two aunts wedded shipyard men. Dan’s play about the H&W shipyard – The Boat Factory – has received substantial local, national and international acclaim. It was hailed as “a unique story” in Brussels, “the epitome of great storytelling” in New York and in Belfast it had “many in the audience reaching for a hanky.”
It’s one of the most famous ‘scoops’ but also perhaps the saddest in the 150-year history of the Belfast Telegraph… the story the newspaper would never have wanted to cover. For the exclusive that broke the news of the Titanic disaster in April 1912 was too painfully close to home for a city that had proudly built the doomed ocean liner and where virtually everyone knew someone with a link to the construction of the luxury White Star heavyweight.