MetaFilter posts tagged with shipwreck

Whoops

adamvasco — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 06:12:21 -0800

It really isn't safe out there. Click any link and scroll down for up close shipping and aircraft disasters.

"A man who, in order to escape death from hunger, kills another for the purpose of eating his flesh, is guilty of murder"

Kattullus — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:07:06 -0800

Some famous cases of cannibalism at sea: 1816 The Medusa. 1821 The Essex. 1878 The Sallie N. Steelman. [pdf] 1884 The Mignonette [pdf] 1889 The Earnmoor. [pdf] 1988 Bolinao 52 incident. [story starts on page 2] 2008 Vessel not named. As a bonus here's the legal decision in the case of The Queen vs. Dudley and Stephens, who were on The Mignonette.

Davy Jones Locker

tellurian — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:17:41 -0800

The NAVIS project is a multilevel international database for ancient ships of Europe. The database has very detailed information and pictures of ships from the 2nd millenium BC to the 12th century AD (found whilst trying to answer this AskMe). See also NAVIS 2 (ship depictions on objects).

found: keys to davy jones' locker

infini — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:39:36 -0800

Is salvaging sunken treasure a form of piracy or the preservation of history? Does commercial for-profit exploration of historical shipwrecks taint the historical legacy of these naval graveyards? Who owns the treasures lost for so many centuries? Marine archeology is testing its legal limits with one man's work. [previous]

HMS Victory Discovered

tellurian — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:59:54 -0800

World's Mightiest Ship Was Lost Without a Trace in 1744 "In July 1744, she set sail to rescue a Mediterranean convoy blockaded by the French Brest fleet in the River Tagus at Lisbon. After victoriously chasing the French fleet away, she escorted the convoy into the Mediterranean Sea as far as Gibraltar, then set sail to return to her home port in England. During the course of the voyage, her fleet captured a number of valuable prizes, and she was also reported to have taken on board a consignment of 400,000 pounds sterling for Dutch merchants. On her return trip to England, HMS Victory was lost with all hands in a violent storm on October 5, 1744." [pdf] The pdf is also interesting because it has information on how current fishing methods disturb shipwrecks, to wit:

Site 25C lies in an environmental zone that is notorious for trawler disturbance. Trawls equipped with chain mats and 'tickler' chains designed to fluidize the upper layers of sediment and drive flatfish from the seabed into a net weighing about 8,000kg, towed at about 11km per hour, may impact the same area of seabed multiple times each year, destroying 5-65% of the resident fauna and mixing the top 6cm of sediment in a single pass (Duplisea et al., 2001).

April 14, 1912

Dave Faris — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:45:21 -0800

96 years ago today, the RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the northern Atlantic, taking 1,500 souls with her. Now, they're blaming the rivets.

Righting the FAIL boat.

pjern — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:00:57 -0800

The Cougar Ace [previously] became an instant Internet meme when she nearly capsized while shifting ballast near Adak, Alaska. Not enough told is the story of righting her, which required incredible bravery and, sadly, the loss of one human life.

The Land God Made in Anger

serazin — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 15:19:00 -0800

The Skeleton Coast, so called for the whale skeletons that littered its shores when the whaling industry was at its peak, is now well known for the skeletons of shipwrecks. More. And a a bit of description here. Still, the coast is full of life. Each year hundreds of thousands of Fur Seals come ashore. (Video on this site of baby Fur Seal vs. a jackal.) (wp)

The Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay

peeedro — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:12:40 -0800

The Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay. What happens when you have more obsolete steamships than you can burn? You end up with one of the largest shipwreck fleets in the Western Hemisphere. Historian Donald G. Shomette speaks about the shipwrecks, both their history and future, on a recent radio interview. Wonderful pictures and trip reports from kayakers.

Lanier Phillips, survivor

hurdy gurdy girl — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:53:57 -0800

It sounds like a bad Newfie joke: the Newfoundlanders who had never seen a black person before and tried to scrub the colour off his skin. But the story is real: in 1942, Lanier Phillips was the only black survivor of the wreck of the USS Truxton off the coast of Newfoundland. Like the white survivors, he was half-dead and covered in oil when he arrived on shore, and the women nursing the survivors were puzzled when they could not clean the black colour off his skin. What happened next affected Phillips' self-perception and prompted him to push for equal treatment in the US Navy. He went on to become the first African American US SONAR technician, and continues today, at the age of 84, to speak across the US about his experience with the people of St. Lawrence. [previously]

The E.C. Waters, Wreck of the Yellowstone

The Deej — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:06:54 -0800

Wrecked remains are all that's left of the biggest steamship ever to venture onto Lake Yellowstone - a vivid monument to one of Yellowstone Park's most insufferable businessmen. (Park Service Submerged Resources Center Project; Sonar Image.)

"listing"

thirteenkiller — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 22:24:03 -0800

Crew of a disabled ship carrying 4,813 cars from Japan to Vancouver will soon be rescued. The Cougar Ace is stranded near Adak, Alaska, a tiny town and former naval air station in the remote Aleutian Islands, 1,192 miles from Anchorage. Here are pictures of other Aleutian shipwrecks.

Miss Violet Constance Jessop

rogue — Sun, 22 Dec 2002 12:03:23 -0800

The unsinkable ~~Molly Brown~~ Violet Jessop survived three White Star fleet shipwrecks. She was a stewardess onboard the RMS Titanic and RMS Olympic, and a nurses aid on the HMHS Britannic. Violet didn't even know how to swim when her lifeboat was shredded by the Britannic's massive propellers. This amazing woman went on to serve aboard the RMS Olympic after the war and is featured in more than one book.

Sticky Prestige

samelborp — Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:54:35 -0800

Photos and more photos from the Nautile’s firsts dives to the Prestige wreck, a single-hulled tanker that broke in two while it was towed to open sea after the discovery of a breach in its hull.

It has been an ecologic and economic disaster for Galicia, Spanish’ northwest coastal region famous for its seafood. But it also has been a political scandal for the PP (Partido Popular), in the government both in Galicia’s autonomic parliament and in the central government, because of its late response and efforts to hide the catastrophe manipulating the public broadcast system (and the friendly private networks). Too little, too late, Jose Maria Aznar.

While politicians throw shit to each other, a quarter of the 20.5 million gallons of fuel oil already spilled are now spreading through the coastline covering everything with what locals call “chapapote”, a sticky mix of sea water, fuel oil and sand. The Prestige sits now at 3.500 meters of depth, slowly leaking fuel oil to the surface. The Nautile, one of the few mini submarine that has been used to record and take pictures from the Titanic wreck, it’s being hired by the Spanish government to asses the situation (Spanish language link) and try to stop the leakage.

Popular action in the form of a white tide of volunteers has been phenomenal, forcing the government to act and assume responsibilities. But the issue at hand is much larger: will the European Union effectively ban single-hulled tankers? Why the rules that govern the seas permit flag of convenience ships that can elude so easily its responsibility?

See more images (slideshow).

sahrens428 — Tue, 06 Aug 2002 13:41:59 -0800

Silt-Filled Turret of USS Monitor Raised From Atlantic
The silt-packed gun turret of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor was raised Monday from the Atlantic floor, nearly 140 years after the historic warship sank during a New Year's storm.
I hope this is not a repost. For any history lovers, this is fascinating.

lagado — Mon, 04 Dec 2000 03:06:51 -0800

2,000 year old Roman "Titanic" found in the sands 10 yards from the Sicilian shore. The vessel - up to 150ft long and equipped with ancient luxuries including candelabras, a hot tub and religious shrine - is thought to have ferried the Roman super-rich along the Mediterranean coast to various ports en route.

ZachsMind — Thu, 13 Jul 2000 17:34:08 -0800

Funny how the 'Net works... I got an email from Sonrisa Vertical but couldn't read it, so I went to The Babelfish and found out they were asking me to add a song called "El Cazador" that they made to my Internatonal MP3 Station. Cool. Nice song. I like it. But The Babelfish wouldn't tell me what "El Cazador" meant. So I did a search on the 'Net. Ever heard of The Wreck That Changed The World? [more]