The Sinking of the RMS Titanic and other ships.

[Adam Went]

Hey Errata,

That's a fantastic story, thanks for sharing it!
That's a pretty damn good guess to get it within such a close distance without any knowledge of the exact co-ordinates at all....
Certainly unfortunate that Dixon wasn't still alive in 1985, he no doubt would have been the victim of a torrent of abuse.

Actually, Jack Grimm, a US multi-millionaire had funded I believe 3 different expeditions to hunt for the Titanic through the early 1980's, all 3 being unsuccessful despite his at one time claiming that they had found a "propeller" at the bottom. Finding the Titanic was all the rage around that time with the invention of technology capable of reaching 2.5 miles under the ocean - it was probably the spark for the often-ridiculed film "Raise The Titanic" around 1980/81.

I seem to remember reading that they eventually found the wreck hidden away in a corner of the original Grimm search area that they didn't cover. Morally, Ballard was definitely the right man to have the honour.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

A Propeller - A "Grimm" problem

I have often wondered, as the propeller Grimm said he found was not from Titanic, but looked like the ones from White Star, is it just possible Grimm might have almost unlocked a true sea mystery - the disappearance in 1893 of the White Star liner Naronic that may have hit an iceberg in that same general vicinity during a snow storm? It is just barely possible. Of course in the aftermath of the real Titanic discovery Grimm's attempts (published in the book entiled BEYOND REACH - that was a really bad guess title) further thought or consideration of the propeller was dropped. Too bad.

About twenty years ago the wreckage of a ship believed to be the steamship Pacific of the Collins line (which vanished in 1856) was found, but there is some controversy about whether it is the Pacific or not.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hey Jeff,

Didn't Robert Ballard come to the conclusion back in the 80's that Grimm's "propeller" was, on closer observation, nothing more than an odd-shaped rock?

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

Hey Jeff,

Didn't Robert Ballard come to the conclusion back in the 80's that Grimm's "propeller" was, on closer observation, nothing more than an odd-shaped rock?

Cheers,
Adam.

You are right Adam but the photo looked like a propeller blade to me.

[Adam Went]

Hi Jeff,

Yes, and to the Grimm search team as well apparently!

No doubt there are propeller blades laying around in the depths of the Atlantic, even some of the officers and engineers on board the Titanic who didn't see the iceberg thought immediately after the collision that the ship had dropped a propeller blade....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

This still leaves us with a problem the subject opened up - that of the myriads of ocean vessels (some liners, some cargo ships, some military vessels, some pleasure craft) that have just disappeaared. It is easy to think of some.

1) Collins liner Parcific (January 1856)
2) Inman liner City of Glasgos (1854)
3) U.S.S. Levant, after paying a call on the city of Honalulu (then capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii (1860)). A part of the ship's spar (I believed) washed up on an island shortly afterwards from a hurricaine.
4) Inman liner City of Boston (1870)
5) British naval training vessel H. M. S. Atalanta (1880)
6) White star liner Naronic (1893)
7) Blue Star liner Waratah (1909)
8) American collier, U. S. S. Cyclops (1918)
9) Danish training vessel - the barque Kobenshavn (1930).
9) Danish ship Hans Hedtoft (1956) - it hit an iceberg somewhere off Greenland.
10) Marine Sulfer Queen (1963)

Sometimes it is easly to recall these ships, even if their fates are uncertain. Sometimes we can guess their fates - Waratah had stability problems and icebergs probably claimed the Naronic and Hans Hedtoft. But for most we can only guess feebly about them. Occasionally something does turn up. The steamer Portland sank in the 1898 storm off the New England Coast that has been named for her ("the "Portland Gale") but there were no survivors although bodies an wreckage did turn up on Cape Cod. Then three or four years back they found the wreck. The ship was trying to turn back to Boston when the ship's superstructure was torn off. It doomed anyone still in the ship and certainly anyone on those top cabins.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hi Jeff,

Very interesting list, thanks for posting that up!
One of the major factors in their mysterious disappearances might also be that the vast majority of them vanished during a time when communication was quite poor between vessels, other vessels and land....generally only bigger passenger ships were equipped with the wireless system and a trained operator after that was invented. The Titanic sinking itself shows this up, with the Californian's sole wireless operator asleep when the Titanic was frantically sending distress signals - another officer picked the headset up but couldn't understand what the message was and didn't bother to wake the wireless operator. Cyril Evans was his name from memory.

There's also the infamous Bermuda Triangle and "disappearances" of boats like the Marie Celeste.....supernatural theories continue to abound....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

Hi Adam,

You are right about the lack of modern wireless being involved in disappearances prior to say 1909 (the year the White Star liner Republic sank in a collision off Nantucket when rammed by the Italiam steamer Florida - Jack Binns became an international hero by sending out the CQD distress signal so that most of the passengers were rescued). But such equiptment were on the Cyclops, the Kobenhavn, the Marine Sulfer Queen and (since you mentioned the Bermuda Triangle) the ill fated Flight 19 out of Florida. It really is a matter of luck.

The boat Mary Celeste was found abandoned. What happened to the crew is the mystery. Conan Doyle, in his first successful story "J. Habbakuk Jephson's Statement" renamed the ship Marie Celeste.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hi Jeff,

Interesting stuff, and yes, there's also of course the famous story with the Titanic sending out CQD first off on the wireless, then Harold Bride saying to Jack Phillips "Try SOS, it's the new signal....might be the only chance you get to use it!". Sadly, very prophetic."

Have you ever seen a Readers Digest special edition book called "Strange Stories, Amazing Facts" ? It's a huge, hard-cover book - fairly old now, I think it was published in about the 70's - and it isn't particularly factually accurate, but it covers a lot of Marie Celeste type events.....worth having a look through if you get the chance.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

And today, on May 7, 1911 the Lusitania was completing a peaceful voyage. Not quite the case four years later.

We tend to forget that some ships and vehicles of ill-fate had long successful careers before the final tragedies:

R.M.S. Lusitania - 1907-1915 (and it even played a role in a famous homicide case - in 1908 Oscar Slater was arrested in New York City after crossing from England on the Lusitania.

Steamship Andrea Doria (1953-1956) - in three years she had built up a reputation as one of the finest ocean liners ever to sail.

Steamship Normandie (1936-1942) - winner of the Atlantic Blue Ribbon, and possibly the most beautiful steamship ever built.

Airship (or zeppelin) Hindenburg (1936-1937) - had been a popular success the previous year, even appearing in the Berlin Olympics of 1936, and (I beieve) traveling to South America once or twice.

It is the suddenness of their final tragedies, off Kinsale, off Nantucket, at the pier in Manhattan, and at Lakehurst, that graft themselves into our memories, especially when photographs or newsreals of the disasters (to Andrea Doria, Normandie, and Hindenburg.

For the sake of the men who created these great machines of travel, let us try to recall them all in happier days.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hi Jeff,

Good list, and while she never actually sunk, worth mentioning the Olympic as well - the sole surviving sister ship out of Titanic, Gigantic/Britannic and herself....and certainly had a couple of close calls as well before eventually being scrapped in the 30's. Wasn't known as "Old Reliable" for nothing!

Later this month will also be the 100th anniversary of the launching of Titanic....

Have you ever read Shan F. Bullock's "A Titanic Hero: Thomas Andrews"? It is a contemporary work, being published in 1913, and is quite brief, but it is an excellent depiction of Andrews' life and career, and includes interviews with those who knew him best. Would absolutely recommend it to anybody with even a passing interest.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

Hi Adam,

I have heard of the book, as it is used in bibliographies of the Titanic. But I never read Andrews' biography. I always have felt that Thomas Andrews final hours of courage were partly based on the sad knowledge that he failed the hundreds of people who were about to die on his great floating machine. He was a perfectionist (that was why he was on that voyage - to note any improvements needed (ironically enough). He probably wished he had made the watertight compartment bulkheads higher. I suspect his unwillingness to save himself was his way of making personal amends to those who were about to die by joining them. Even though he'd never see his family again

Very sad. Truly a decent man.

As for Olympic she was involved (as far as I know) in three disasters. In 1911 she had a well-publicized collision with HMS Hawke in British waters (Hawke was later torpedoed and sunk in the opening stages of World War I). In 1914 Olympic was headed for America when steaming past Lough Swilly off northern Ireland. The passengers and crew watched as the HMS Audacious slowly sank after hitting a mine. No lives were lost here (or in the Hawke collision). Audacious (great name for a dreadnought) was a new ship, and the British kept a curtain of silence down on it's loss - but the news got out anyway. Dozens of Americans took photographs of the sinking (one of the best photographed ship disasters of that time) that were gleefully published in American newspapers (particularly the Hearst papers, as William Randolph Hearst was pro-German at that time). Finally in 1935 (I believer - it was just before she was sent to be scrapped) Olympic rammed and sank the Nantucket Light Ship, killing 20 men or so. That tragedy is not too well recalled these days.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Hi Jeff,

I agree with you about Andrews. In many ways he was probably ahead of his time, and if he had had his way with Titanic's design, there would have been enough lifeboats on board for everybody. The men who worked for him certainly spoke of him very highly - 90 years on, the Ghosts Of The Abyss team discovered a drinking fountain near the engine room for the works - Bill Paxton said something like "Even here one can feel the hand of Thomas Andrews. Even this small kindness would have been greatly appreciated." The fact that one of the last sightings of him was from a steward who asked if he wasn't going to try and save himself, and he simply stared blankly into the distance, lost in thought.

As for Olympic, the collision with the Nantucket Lightship was probably the death knell for the ship - as you say she was scrapped soon afterwards and White Star ceased to exist around that time as well.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

Hi Adamm

I have rarely thought about Olympic, as the tragic fates of her two sisters always put her long career into a kind of quiet success (despite those two collisions), but I have long wondered how travellers on her felt about being on her (or on her opposite number in the Cunard line, Mauretania). In both cases the ships looked like Titanic / Britannic, and Lusitania, and yet did it effect ticket sales? Mauretania had a longer career (from what I recall), but Olympic was "honored" (as would be Normandie) when after the scrapping fixtures were sold to collectors. I seem to recall there is a pub or some restaurant in England that has an "Olympic" room.

Jeff

[Hatchett]

Hello Adam,

Yes, I have a copy of that book. Like you say it is not very factual, alas. But an interesting read all the same. Whet's the whistle, so as to say.

Best wishes.