shipwrecks
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The Age of Sail
I love this short animation which was nominated for the Oscars and also official selection for the Venice Film Festival. It’s so moving…I’d usually just reblog it as I heard about it from Adventures of the Black Gang tumblr blog (one of few still going) but I don’t post there anymore (if you’re reading this on Tumblr it’s a repost from here).
“Set on the open ocean in 1900, Age of Sail is the story of William Avery (voiced by Ian McShane), an old sailor adrift and alone in the North Atlantic. When Avery reluctantly rescues Lara, who has mysteriously fallen overboard, he finds redemption and hope in his darkest hours. Directed by ACADEMY AWARD-winning filmmaker John Kahrs. Produced with Chromosphere and Evil Eye Pictures.” -
German Gunboat SMS Adler
Overturned on the reef, on the western side of Apia Harbor, Upolu, Samoa, soon after the March 1889 Apia cyclone.
Note her battered hull, well for hoisting propeller, rescue bouy mounted on her stern, and decorative windows painted on her quarters.
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Samoan Hurricane of 15-16 March 1889
Wrecked ships in Apia Harbor, Upolu, Samoa soon after the storm. The view looks northwestward, with the shattered bow of the German gunboat Eber on the beach in the foreground. The stern of USS Trenton is at right, with the sunken USS Vandalia alongside. The German gunboat Adler is on her side in the center distance. Trenton’s starboard quarter gallery has been largely ripped away.
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Titanic
There are quite a few videos on YouTube re: the Titanic – sadly quite a lot referring to that terrible travesty of a movie by James Cameron and quite a few people that scarily can’t tell fact from fiction. Above is a nice one that does indeed include portraits so it’s on track roughly with this blog. I also saw one that had more cross-fades from old pictures to new wreck pictures (hey all you Titanic slideshow video creators, why don’t you do that instead of another boring one of Jack n’ Kate?) and then couldn’t find it again under the deluge – this is the closest to that one:
My fascination for Royal Mail Steamer Titanic and it’s demise comes from the fact it was one of the last gasps of an extremely opulent aristocratic and moneyed world that was pretty much destroyed by WW1 and later events…how I wish I could go back there (and leave before the iceberg hit, of course). We shall not know it’s like again.
By the way one of the songs that I was listening to while I was in the exhibition actually looking at the ship’s bell was strangely prescient – Broken Bells, Sailing to Nowhere:
Oh and spook! the wallpaper I randomly chose for this blog is very close to that which was in the First Class bedrooms – if the mockup at the Artifacts exhibition was correct.
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/) -
Jack Philips, the senior wireless operator of the Titanic…he came from very near where I grew up. I used to hang out at his memorial, interesting how he helped save but also partly caused the disaster by ignoring the ice warnings.
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“When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly forty years at sea, I merely say, uneventful. Of course there have been winter gales, and storms and fog and the like. But in all my experience, I have never been in any accident… or any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort.” – Edward John Smith, Captain of the RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic
