Category: Ships
The Wrecks of November: Gordon Lightfoot’s Shipwreck Songs
The old ship, tried and true, set sail on a routine voyage. Nothing seemed amiss that November day. But no one could have imagined the horror that was to come. The ship went down, and the events leading up to its demise still remain a mystery. The press covered the sinking with its usual zeal….
Forgotten Hero Ship: The Wreck of La Jenelle
The coast of Oxnard, California was stormy on April 13, 1970. Gale-force winds blew about and rocked the nearly 500-foot cruise ship until her starboard anchor began dragging. There was little that the two crew members aboard could do to stop it. Less than 30 minutes later, the ship grounded itself on nearby Silver Strand…
Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition Las Vegas
As I mentioned in my last post, we recently visited Las Vegas for a quick little getaway. We stayed at the Virgin Hotel and planned to spend a lot of time at the pool. However, cool and windy weather forced us to change plans. One of the things we ended up doing was revisiting the…
Haunting Reminders of the Night: Titanic Artifacts and the Paranormal
Earlier this week, my wife and I were in Las Vegas for a quick little vacation. We decided to visit Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition at the Luxor Hotel and Casino. We first went in September 2022, and I’ve been wanting to go back ever since. I’ll write about this recent visit in a future blog…
The Haunting of the QE2
The Queen Mary isn’t the only Cunard ship that’s said to be haunted. It’s said that Queen Elizabeth 2 also has a very healthy amount of ghostly activity. After the ship arrived in Dubai in November 2008, reports of weird activity began emerging. One of the workers aboard QE2 was interviewed by the Daily Mail…
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…