Movie Review: Death Ship (1980)
It’s October, which means that spooky season is here! I figured it might be fun to review a few ship-based horror movies this month. I’m calling it Horror Movie Monday. First up is a somewhat obscure film starring George Kennedy and Richard Crenna: 1980’s Death Ship. Directed by Alvin Rakoff, the movie was based on…
Contingent Contract: The Pending Sale of the SS United States
Florida’s Okaloosa County approved a contingent contract to purchase the SS United States on October 1, 2024. The famed ship would be “converted into the world’s largest artificial reef,” which is a really fancy way of saying that the ship will be taken out and sunk (yes, I know there’s more to it than that…
A Royal Night Out: The Queen Mary’s 90th Anniversary Party
Last Thursday, September 26, I had the great pleasure of attending some special events aboard the Queen Mary for the 90th anniversary of her launching…namely, the unveiling of a replica of Her Majesty Queen Mary’s personal standard in Main Hall. I learned about the event when my wife and I stayed aboard in August, and…
The Stateliest Ship Now in Being: The 90th Anniversary of the Queen Mary’s Launch
It was a rainy September day in Clydebank, Scotland when Britain’s King George V stepped up to the microphone. Before him was a towering steel mountain: the hull of the brand-new ship. He and his wife, Queen Mary, and the Prince of Wales were there to participate in the launching ceremony of this new Cunard-White…
The Top Five Most Beautiful Modern Cruise Ships
I know it’s popular for ocean liner aficionados to hate on cruise ships. I get it. Cruise ships often don’t have the clean, graceful lines of ocean liners. They have a very different look and feel about them. But I love them both…they’re different kinds of ships for different purposes. Are there some ugly cruise…
A Royal Pain: The HMT Georgic & HMS Dido Incident
I don’t know about you, but I need something a little lighter after writing about some heavy topics lately (the last few weeks have been unusually challenging at work). So, I wracked my brain and remembered an amusing story from the Cunard Line’s Commodore Harry Grattidge. I chuckled as I re-read the passage in his…
The Captain’s Table
Stories from the Golden Age of Ocean Liners to the Cruise Ships of Today
How it all started…
Over a decade ago, I started a blog called The Captain’s Table to tell the stories about the ships and people involved in the Golden Age of ocean liners. I was working as a tour guide aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA at the time and it was a way to help me both deepen my knowledge and explore a topic I’d been passionate about for a long time.
With this overhauled version of the blog, I’ll continue to explore the stories, ships, and people connected to the old ocean liners. But there’ll also be a new emphasis on cruise ships as well: they continue the traditions and history made famous by such ships as Queen Mary, United States, Mauretania, Caronia, and many others. I’ll be nerding out a lot, and I really hope that you enjoy this blog.
Zach Whitlow
Writer, Ship Geek, and Avid Cruiser