One hundred years ago today, 1,358 members of the Kleindeutschland, the German neighborhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, boarded a chartered ferry named the General Slocum for a picnic excursion to Long Island. A fire broke out in the ship's hold while it cruised up the East River, the captain ran the vessel aground on the rocky shores of North Brother Island amid the swift currents of Hell Gate, and when it was all over 1,021 people (mainly women and children) had perished by drowning or from the fire, and it remained the worst single-day New York City disaster until 9/11.
posted by Vidiot on Jun 15, 2004 - 16 comments

Ship searched for nuclear material after it was diverted from New York harbor, reports MS-NBC. Apparently a Department of Energy Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST) was involved. Initial report states that elevated gamma and neutron emissions were detected.

Aside from this report--which is unconfirmed--how likely is such an attack? How do we deal with thousands of container ships, each holding hundreds of anonymous containers? This kind of attack scares me much more than airplanes dropping out of the sky.
posted by mooncrow on Sep 12, 2002 - 17 comments

The J.W. Westcott II delivers toilet paper, the occasional pizza, and, most importantly, mail to freighters making their way through the Great Lakes. And now it's the only boat in the U.S. to be assigned it's own zip code.
posted by Oriole Adams on Jun 30, 2001 - 6 comments

Dutch Abortion Ship Runs Aground in a figurative sense. It seems that there are issues with Dutch Law about providing their services off the Irish coast. At least the protests were minimal. Is there really a strong need for International Waters businesses? It makes me wonder what else would fly on a barge-based mall; Look out, Simons! It's the Mall of the Atlantic and we sell EVERYTHING!
posted by dwivian on Jun 15, 2001 - 2 comments

No child slaves on board. Of course not. Because if I'm the captain of that ship, or the customer, or the supplier, and every newspaper, TV station and website around the world has been headlining the report of my boat and its embarassing cargo for a week, while I'm still at sea, it's time for some creativity, isn't it? I could have them pick up by another vessel in mid sea. Or, like my forbears in the trade, I could chain them all to something heavy, and toss them overboard. The remaining passengers will know that silence is golden, now, and for years to come. Whatever my decision, I can't complain I didn't have time enough to consider, prepare or execute. The flipside of the information age?
posted by coyroy on Apr 17, 2001 - 1 comment