Browsing: Maritime History

For lovers of maritime history. The Scuba News brings you details of maritime disasters from around the world.

Submerged North Carolina Webinar Series – World War I: The Great War off North Carolina’s Coast

By NOAA on September 4, 2021 Event News, Maritime History

When World War I began in 1914, the battles happened far from American shores with seemingly no direct danger to the U.S. Although Germany’s Unterseeboot(undersea boat) fleet was prowling the North Atlantic, the people of North Carolina felt they had little to fear, and many believed the U-boats could never travel the distance to their shores. They were wrong. By the end of the war in 1918, three German U-boats had sunk a total of 10 vessels off North Carolina alone. Join Shannon Ricles, Education and Outreach Coordinator for Monitor National Marine Sanctuary to learn about World War I and the…

Model Makers, Tim and Malcom Morrison

By Kathy Dowsett on September 4, 2021 Maritime History

Brothers, Tim and Malcom Morrison are “model makers,” a hobby they began over 25 years ago with commercially available boxed plastic models. They’ve come a long way since then, and now they’re researching and designing ships that used to ply the Great Lakes. Tim worked as a draftsman and has spent many hours researching ships in museums and studying underwater photographs for his models. We love model making – we used to bash plastic kits together when we were kids. I got into making wooden ship models around 25 years ago. Also, Tim is a trained draftsman so his major…

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

A Look Back: SS Bannockburn, AKA “The Flying Dutchman”

By Kathy Dowsett on August 31, 2021 Maritime History

During a storm in November 1902, the propeller-driven bulk freighter Bannockburn went missing with 20 men in Lake Superior. The Bannockburn, often known as the “Flying Dutchman” of the Great Lakes, is said to be a ghost ship that has been sighted on the water several times since its disappearance. The steamer Bannockburn was a steel-hulled freighter registered in Canada that went missing on Lake Superior in inclement weather on November 21, 1902. Around noon on that day, she was spotted by the captain of a passing vessel, the SS Algonquin, but she vanished minutes afterwards. With the exception of…

Books: Sweetwater Sailors

By Kathy Dowsett on August 25, 2021 Maritime History

“Sweetwater Sailors” will take you on a Great Lakes trip. Bob Ojala, a former Coast Guard veteran and naval architect from Wisconsin, USA was inspired by his father to write “Sweetwater Sailors,” a book about Great Lakes sailors who relate their stories and the hard work that comes with working on the water. This entertaining, informative, and accurate book introduces you to Great Lakes Merchant Mariners, both men and women, including the only American woman Captain of a large Great Lakes ore freighter. You’ll get a firsthand look at the jobs they do and what motivates them to stay in…

Titan submersible, from OceanGate Expeditions. Source: OceanGate Expeditions

OceanGate Expeditions Completes Groundbreaking 2021 Titanic Survey Expedition

By The Scuba News Press Team on August 23, 2021 Maritime History

Inaugural year in longitudinal study of the Titanic shipwreck concludes after weeks in the North Atlantic Ocean diving in the 5-crewmember submersible, Titan. OceanGate Expeditions has completed six historic weeks of dives aboard Titan, the world’s only 5-person, 4,000-meter (13,123 feet) submersible. A team of renowned experts, researchers, and citizen scientists returned today to St. John’s Newfoundland with the highest quality photographs and videos of the wreck of the Titanic ever acquired. The images show of parts of the wreck that may never have been captured before. “It took six years to develop, and stress test the world’s most advanced…

Books: The Witch of November

By Kathy Dowsett on August 9, 2021 Maritime History

Wicked Winds and Wrecks. The Witch of November is mentioned in Gordon Lightfoot’s song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”: the storm that sank Edmund Fitzgerald had a pressure of 978 mbar, which is similar to a borderline Category 1/2 hurricane. November’s witch has been known to roam the Great Lakes. She came knocking for Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. Throughout the history of Great Lakes transportation, violent storms have rushed across the Great Lakes in the early days of November, resulting in disastrous results. Wes Oleszewski recounts the stories of those other times the witch has come calling. Filled with…

Le Chameau Shipwreck’s Sunken Treasure

By Kathy Dowsett on August 9, 2021 Maritime History

The Cape Breton Post newspaper dropped a blockbuster tale on its faithful readers on Tuesday, April 5, 1966, with an exhilarating front-page article about sunken treasure discovered off the coast of Louisbourg, Nova Scotia. That sunken riches came from the sunken ship Le Chameau. Built in 1717, the French ship Le Chameau was a wooden sailing ship of the French Navy. She made many excursions to New France (modern-day Canada) transporting passengers and goods. On August 27, 1725, as she was nearing the end of her last journey, a storm pushed her onto some rocks. She sank, leaving no survivors;…

Scuba Diving the Tunstall Shipwreck in Prince Edward Island

By The Scuba News Press Team on August 2, 2021 Maritime History

For anyone interested in some more details about the history of the ship and its sinking, here’s a write-up I (Kelly Campbell) did on the ship a few years ago. The Story of the Tunstall The story of the shipwreck you’re about to descend upon 70 feet below the surface started back over 130 years ago across the Atlantic in the shipyards of Sunderland, England. It was September of 1879 when yard number 99 was completed in the Short Brothers shipping yard, an iron hull ship with the name “Tunstall”. With the official registration number 81461, the 230 foot long,…

Ballad of the Yarmouth Castle

By Kathy Dowsett on July 28, 2021 Maritime History

When you search for Gordon Lightfoot on YouTube, you’ll find a plethora of alternative renditions of his most renowned song, “The Edmund Fitzgerald.” Even those who aren’t interested in shipwrecks are likely familiar with this tune, which is one of Gordon’s most well-known. The Ballad of the Yarmouth Castle albeit less well-known and never issued as a single, tells the story of another shipwreck tragedy, though not in Canadian waters. She was an American steamship whose sinking in a devastating fire in 1965 triggered new maritime safety regulations. The ship was the second of two similar ships built by the…

After 65 Years, the Andrea Doria Foghorn is Heard Again

By The Scuba News Press Team on July 26, 2021 Community News, Maritime History

On 25th July 1956, the 213m Andrea Doria collided with Swedish liner the Stockholm 100 miles off Nantucket. Forty-six of the Andrea Doria’s 1706 passengers died, along with five of the Stockholm’s crew and to commemorate the event, the foghorn from the Andrea Doria was heard again after 65 years. By Unknown author – http://www.naviearmatori.net/ita/foto-127553-1.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50344261 The foghorn, located in 2016 by Joe Mazraani of D/V Tenacious has been fully restored and was heard during a Facebook Live Event on 25th July 2021. By Harry Trask, Boston Evening Traveller. Wikipedia Public Domain Sadly, the Andrea Doria continues to claim lives with at…

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