We just recorded episode 28 of Messing About In Ships, our weekly podcast about ships, and during the taping Peter Mello reminded me to follow up on our friend Todd Lappin’s latest internet endeavor as corespondent for BoingBoing TV. Here are the details;
We marvel (!) at the cool old retro-technology that kept this behemoth boat running to and from the beaches of Normandy, and we meet the volunteer caretakers — obsessive nerds just like us, only with white hair! — who keep her ship-shape today. Did you know that shipyards in the San Francisco Bay Area once churned out Liberty Ships like this in 4 days or less, during the heat of the war? Watch and learn, li’l skippers.
If you are interested in having your ship featured on Telstar Logistics, Flickr and possibly BoingBoing please contact your company’s media relations department. Todd is looking to board a working commercial ship (500ft LOA+) for a period of of 4-14 days to experience the life of a Merchant Mariner. If you can arrange such a voyage let us know, gCaptain will help make the trip happen.
The Old Royal Naval College was designed by artist Sir Christopher Wren and built between 1696 and 1751. It started life as the Greenwich Hospital for Seamen, which provided a home for retired and injured sailors.
It became the Royal Naval College in 1873, until the departure of the Royal Navy in 1998, and the hall was regularly used as a dining room. Artist Sir James Thornhill was commissioned by the hospital to paint the hall in 1708, and he completed it in phases up to 1727. Lord Nelson was laid in State here in 1805.
This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd of the net.
With a death toll six times greater than the Titanic, new light has been shed on MS Wilhelm Gustloff, as a result a TV series that aired on Germany’s ZDF Channel last night.
The Independent is reporting:
“There was this sea of adult heads floating all around me, but alongside them there were hundreds of children’s legs half sticking up in the air. Their heads were under water,” Mr Schön, now 82, said. “They all drowned. Nobody realized that a child’s head is heavier than its legs.”
An estimated 9,000 passengers and crew, fleeing East Prussia, perished (5,000 children) as a result of the the sinking of MS Wilhelm Gustloff back in January, 1945. Gustloff was carrying 10,000 refugees packed into every corner of the ship. Struck by three Soviet torpedoes, she took only 70 minutes to sink.
During her life, MS Wilhelm Gustloff saw many incarnations: Cruise ship, Hospital ship, Navy ship, and Rescue ship.
The sinking (from Gustloff website) Sometime before 8PM , the first officer on the S-13 spots lights in the distance. Marinesko promptly makes his way to the conning tower. When the snow clears for a moment he spots in his words “the silhouette of an [enormous] ocean liner, even [with its] lights showing”. Over the next two hours, Marinesko shadows the Wilhelm Gustloff, fine tuning his plan of attack. His crew on board begin to sense that their luck is about to change.
This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd
The Library of Congress has announced a partnership with our favorite Web 2.0 photography site Flickr. They tell us:
The first incarnation of The Commons is a pilot project we’ve created in partnership with The Library of Congress. The Library has an enormous photo catalogue, containing over a million photos. The Library team has chosen about 1,500 photos each from two of their more popular collections to show on Flickr. You can see what the streets of Puerto Rico looked like in the 40s, or what King George wore to the trooping of Colors in 1911.
There are two main aims to The Commons project, starting with the pilot: firstly, to increase exposure to the amazing content currently held in the public collections of civic institutions around the world, and secondly, to facilitate the collection of general knowledge about these collections, with the hope that this information can feed back into the catalogues, making them richer and easier to search.
While this is an exciting application of new technology the site needs your help cataloging the historic photos. The power behind flickr is their use of user submitted tags to organize the site’s enormous collection of user photos. Tags are short one or two word descriptions that let you find the best photos of offshore oil rigs or sunsets at sea.
To effectively sort the historic photographs Flickr and the Library of Congress is asking everyone to pick a few photos from the collection and add tags. Once this has been done the photos of ships should emerge HERE.
For the curious… the above photos are of a Hulett automatic unloader discharging coal at the Pennsylvania Railroad docks in Cleveland, Ohio. The set can be viewed HERE.
Chief Mate Andre van Schoonhovenof the new cruise ship Eurodam gives us the history of classifying anchors. He writes;
Traditionally ships were anchored using large hemp hawsers called cables. In 1836 the use of iron chains had become so common in the English merchant service and their superiority so well recognized, that the underwriters ceased to charge a higher insurance rate for vessels using iron chain. In 1840 side welding of chain was introduced in England, and from that time English chains of 1-7/8 inches and larger have been side welded.
Lloyd’s Register of Shipping augmented its rules in 1846 so that thereafter all chains of classed vessels were tested and stamped on each end to indicate load capacity. In 1853 Lloyd’s rules made it mandatory that, before a vessel could be classed, the test of the chain cable had to be certified, and in 1858 Lloyd’s issued rules regarding the length and size of chain cable. Lloyd’s progressively stiffened their rules regarding methods of manufacture and testing, resulting in the Anchors and Chain Cables Act of 1899, which with only a few amendments is still the basis of present-day testing procedures.
He also provides a timeline of anchor chain developments. Here’s an excerpt;
1808: Wrought-iron cables are first recorded.
1834: Lloyd’s Register rules state the length of cable to be supplied, they call for a reduced length for iron cables compared to hemp cables at a 6:7 ratio.
1846: Rules specify that cable must have been tested and have the test load stamped on it.
1856: The rules state that the length and condition of chain cables were to be ascertained by removal from the locker at each special survey.
1890: Lloyd’s Register rules sets a table of minimum weights for cables.
Andre continues with details on how a Lloyd’s List determined the Eurodam anchor’s size as well as the number of shots of chain needed.
Read the full article HERE or more about ship anchors HERE.
The Old Royal Naval College was designed by artist Sir Christopher Wren and built between 1696 and 1751. It started life as the Greenwich Hospital for Seamen, which provided a home for retired and injured sailors.
This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the 
