Category: Ocean Liners
Book Review: Inside the Britannic by Simon Mills
Britannic—Titanic’s little sister. The third Olympic-class liner, she suffered the same fate as her older sibling and sank near the Greek island of Kea on November 21, 1916. There was a (highly fictionalized) TV movie in 2000, but Britannic has still been largely overshadowed by Titanic in popular culture. But ship nerds (I use that…
Book Review: Finding the Titanic by Dalton Rains
Growing up, I was obsessed with the Titanic. I think most ship enthusiasts are. I remember buying books like Exploring the Titanic and 882 1/2 Amazing Answers to Your Questions About the Titanic at the Scholastic Book Fair or ordering from the Scholastic Book Club and pouring over them for hours. There’s certainly something to…
Blazing Star: The Loss of the Angelina Lauro
Greetings from the US Virgin Islands! My wife and I are on a Caribbean cruise aboard the Norwegian Escape this week, and today we’re in Saint Thomas. We have an excursion booked for Shipwreck Cove, where we’ll snorkel the wreck of the freighter Cartanza Senora (where I hope to get some cool underwater shots). But…
A Visit to the Yarmouth Castle Memorial
Between our cruises on the Margaritaville at Sea Paradise and the Norwegian Escape, my wife and I had a free day to spend in sunny Florida. So we rented a car and headed out to nearby Pompano Beach. It’s there—at the Pompano Beach City Cemetery—that exists a memorial to those who perished in the Yarmouth…
Five Other Passenger Ships That Sank on Their Maiden Voyage
The sinking of the RMS Titanic is arguably the most famous maritime disaster in history. This event has captured the world’s attention for over 110 years, partly because it occurred on the ship’s maiden voyage. What should have been a crowning moment turned into a total catastrophe. It serves as a sobering reminder that the…
Two Tragedies of Modern Memory: Titanic and the American Civil War
Today marks the 160th anniversary of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. This ultimately led to the surrender of other Confederate forces throughout the country and ended the bloody American Civil War. After four years of terrible warfare, between 650,000 and 750,000 soldiers were dead. Practically…
Movie Review: Britannic (2000)
In January 2000, a made-for-TV movie called Britannic aired. Starring Amanda Ryan, Michael Atterton, John Rhys-Davies, and Jacqueline Bisset, the film tells a highly fictionalized account of HMHS Britannic and her last days in November 1916. I remember renting this movie from Blockbuster back in the day and being really excited to watch a film…
A Woman and the Big Ship: Elaine Kaplan and the SS United States
A complex engineering marvel, the SS United States remains the fastest ocean liner ever built. She smashed the Queen Mary’s coveted transatlantic speed record on her 1952 maiden voyage and achieved an astonishing average speed of 36 knots (41 mph; 67 km/h). It was the culmination of a dream long held by the ship’s designer,…
Book Review: Maiden Voyages by Siân Evans
Great transatlantic liners like Mauretania, Lusitania, Aquitania, Olympic, Île de France, Imperator, Rex, Normandie, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth dominated the first half of the 20th century. In the days before commercial jet travel, anyone wanting to travel across the Atlantic to Europe or America had to do so aboard an ocean liner. These ships…
The Unsinkable Suffragists of Titanic’s Lifeboat No. 6
The new White Star liner RMS Titanic departed from Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, on April 11, 1912, with several suffragists aboard. United in a common cause, these women’s rights activists found themselves on the ship’s ill-fated maiden voyage for one reason or another. Titanic famously struck an iceberg at 11:40 pm on April 14 and…