It was the funniest thing you can imagine, reading that the name of the ill-fated White Star liner Titanic should prove once and for all that lightning can strike twice, when Titanic II, a cabin cruiser owned by Mark Williamson, sank on the maiden voyage!

The thing was that, though the craft was new to him, the16ft boat was actually second-hand, and sported a six-inch square repair patch on the fiber-glass hull, which was obviously not up to much as a seal, because, after a successful fishing outing in Lyme bay, on re-entering the harbor, the patch gave way.

Having only recently purchased and collected the boat, Mark, in his forties, had towed it from home in Birmingham to Lyme Bay in Dorset, on the south coast, to take it out on a maiden voyage. Unfortunately for him, the prophetic name was lived up to, and he was left treading water as the little vessel rapidly began filling up with seawater, and sinking stern first

The local harbor master was obliged to rescue him from the distressed vessel, which did not actually sink completely, as an air-pocket inside the front of the hull prevented it from going down. People on holiday in the place could only look on as Mark tried pumping the water out but had to abandon ship because it was coming in too fast/

The jibes he got about nobody spotting the iceberg were all taken in good spirit, as were the comic comments about going down with the Titanic, which was later towed out of West Bay harbour. The boat had been worth about £1,000, but none of Mark’s efforts were of any use in saving it.

Dozens of tourists witnessed the sinking, Mark desperately holding on to the wheel, and pumping madly as the back of the boat sank. He ended up hanging on to the nose of the stricken craft, as the tide pushed it towards the quay. A rope was thrown to Mark, and the boat tied up, before the harbor master secured it on the slipway.

It is hardly a source of amusement to poor Mark that his new toy had such a short life-span, but then what else could he have expected, when it bore such an unwelcome name? Perhaps he should have thought twice, the first time he caught sight of Titanic II, because the previous owner had certainly seen him coming.

The brig Mary Celeste, was discovered on 4 December, 1872, in mid-Atlantic. She was still under sail and seemed to be heading in the direction of the Straits of Gibraltar. She also appeared to be unmanned and apparently abandoned. The ship that discovered her, the Dei Gratia, was under the command of Captain David Morehouse, an old friend of the Celeste’s skipper, Benjamin Briggs. Indeed, their families had dined together just days before the Mary Celeste set sail.

Benjamin Spooner Briggs

The Mary Celeste had left Staten Island bound for Genoa in Italy on 5 November, ten days before the Dei Gratia. She was carrying a cargo of 1,701 barrels of commercial alcohol valued at $35,000 and was insured for around $46,000. Her Captain, Benjamin Briggs, who was also a part-owner of the vessel, was 37 years of age and had spent most of his working life at sea, he had also held his Master Mariners licence for more than ten years. He was a devoted family man, deeply religious, and rarely drank. He was also a respected seaman who was liked by those who served under him. He had recently had his cabin aboard the ship modified to include his wife Sarah, and their two year old daughter Sophie, who would accompany him on the voyage. The crew for the voyage had been hired just days before the ship was due to sail but all were experienced mariners of good reputation.

Sarah Briggs

The crew of the Dei Gratia could see that there was something not quite right about the Mary Celeste. She seemed to be veering as if out of control, some of her sails appeared holed and torn, and no crew could be observed on board. The Dei Gratia followed her closely for about two hours before Captain Morehouse ordered his First Mate Oliver Deveau, to board her. 

Deveau reported back that there was no sign of life on board, that the ship was thoroughly wet through, and that there was more than three feet of water in the hold. Also, only one of the ships three pumps was working. However, she was still seaworthy and under no threat of sinking. All of the ships papers were missing except for the Captain’s log, the ships clock was not working and the compass was broken. It’s lifeboat was missing and a tow-rope could be seen trailing in the sea from the stern of the ship.  A check of the cargo found that 9 barrels of the alcohol had been opened and were empty. There were indications that life on board had been carrying on as normal and she was flying no distress signal. But whatever happened, she seemed to have been abandoned in a hurry.

The Mary Celeste was towed to Gibraltar where it was inspected by the surveyor of shipping, John Austin. He discovered signs of blood in the Captain’s cabin and a knife and unsheathed cutlass. There was also a deep gash on a railing that appeared to have been made in the recent past, probably by an axe.

So what could have caused the abandonment in such haste of the Mary Celeste? Various theories have been promulgated. Could she have been the victim of piracy? Barbary Pirates were known to be active in the area, though less so in recent years due to the presence of the British Royal Navy. Also, the fact that the cargo had remained virtually untouched and the crews belongings and valuables were still aboard seem to argue against piracy as a reason.

It is possible that the Mary Celeste ran into a storm and began taking on water forcing Captain Briggs to abandon ship. But no storms were reported in the area by other ships at the time, and anyway Briggs was too experienced a Captain to panic, and he would have known full well that he had a greater chance of survival aboard the Mary Celeste than he would in an open boat.

Could she have been hit by a tsunami or a rogue wave that swept everybody overboard? This is possible, rogue waves are not unknown in that region of the Atlantic, but it would have meant that Captain Briggs, his seven crew members, and his wife and child would had to have been on deck at the time. It also does not explain the missing lifeboat or the fact that everything else on deck wasn’t swept away with them.

Might there have been an earthquake at sea (seaquake) that perhaps jarred open the nine barrels of alcohol and dislodged the hot stove on deck provoking burning embers to rise up causing the damage to the sails. Fearing that the Mary Celeste was about to be set ablaze, Briggs ordered its hasty abandonment. But there were no reports of seismic activity in the area.

The Mary Celeste, on the other hand, may have encountered a waterspout. Much like a tornado this would have sucked the water immediately surrounding the Mary Celeste upwards giving the appearance that the ship was sinking. This might explain why when she was discovered by the Dei Gratia she was found to be waterlogged. But again, Briggs was an experienced mariner who would have been aware of such a phenomenon.

Was it all part of an attempted insurance fraud that went disastrously wrong. It was well-known that Briggs was tired of life at sea and had earlier discussed going into business with his brother and tried to purchase a store, until it was deemed that money was too tight. However, he was only a minority shareholder in the Mary Celeste and any profit he would have made on the insurance would have been marginal. 

Could Captain Briggs and his family have been the victims of a mutiny. Is it possible that the crew against the orders of the abstemious Captain have opened the barrels of alcohol and in a drunken orgy of violence murdered them and thrown their bodies overboard. But then why abandon the ship and its valuable cargo and commit themselves to the ocean in an open boat. The crew were also known to have been of good character and Captain Briggs far from a martinet. Also, there were no signs on board that any violent encounter had taken place.

It is also possible that Captain Briggs feared an explosion. He had never carried a cargo as volatile as alcohol before and had expressed his concerns before setting sail. If the barrels of alcohol that were found to be open had caused a build up of vapours in the hold then with his wife and child on board he may have adopted a cautious approach and decided to abandon the ship, at least temporarily. He attached the lifeboat at some distance from the stern of the ship by a tow-rope which then snapped abandoning them at sea where they either starved to death or drowned.

Whatever happened to the crew and passengers of the Mary Celeste we will never know, for no trace of them was ever found. 

We know that the Flyer was firstly discovered by the American Brothers Wilbur And Orville wright built the first powered plane that ever flew.In 1903  their biplane  or double wing plane  managed to take off any stay for a minute in air. It was a short distance.But they proved that it is possible to fly in air.

ON THE WATER:From about 3500 B.C the first boats with sails appear by the egyptians in ancient times.the sails used the power of the wind to travel along in the seas.the sailors used to travel from one place to another by using the position of stars.

ON THE ROAD: the cars was firstly discovered by Karl benz and Gottilieb Daimler in Germany in the1890s.Known  as horseless carriages,the early cars reached upto the speed of 20km/h (12 1/2 mph).These travels has less problems due to no feeding of horses.

ON RAILS: the Steam Engines was firstly discovered by the British engineer George Stephenson was used to carry coals.he Stephen also proved that it could carry the Passsengers as well. he opened the world’s first passenger rain line in 1830.The rail travel had arrived,with the invention of Rocket steam locomotive.

An immense wooden ship flies a sinister skull and crossbones flag while sailing on the open seas, searching for profitable target ships. The pirate ship strikes fear in the hearts of all who see her, and many ships steer clear of them. When people call up an image of a pirate ship, a wooden vessel flying the ominous jolly roger symbol on its flag is the most common. Modern day pirates are vastly different, and usually operate on speedboats. The old fashioned pirate ship is a symbol of romanticism and adventure on the high seas at its finest. 

Pirate ships for sale are exorbitantly precious and rare. Pirate ships for sale are commonly model ships and not full scale, though full scale pirate ships are in the possession of maritime museums around the world. Pirate ships are charming pieces that inspire the onlooker to dream of swashbuckling journeys in search of great treasure. Gifts of model pirate ships are particularly loved by children or those who are young at heart. Many will appreciate these kinds of ships for their outstanding historical accuracy and build. Pirate ships for sale take on a variety of names, ranging from meaningful to simple to already-used names of ships past. 

Pirate ships that one can find for sale have different flag emblems as well, but the skull and crossbones of the jolly roger is the most commonly seen. Three-sailed schooners are the most common variety of boat that most pirates traditionally chose as their vessel, and the sails were usually starched rigorously. Sailboats like schooners are highly valued for speed and agility on the water, and are oftentimes made of wood or metal, with wood being the predominate material on a pirate ship. Schooners in early days were renowned for their reliability and speed, and were used in both navies and renegade fleets. Until the conception of the steam engine, schooners were, without a doubt, occupying the seas in great number. New steam engine powered boats were a lot faster than their schooner counterparts, and soon surpassed the schooner as the favored boat by both pirates and everyday sailors. 

Port towns furthest from large cities were chosen as ports to dock in and get repairs for pirates and their wooden ships, and costs were sometimes too expensive for pirates to cover completely. This made the state of pirate ships usually in some sort of disrepair, and long term damage to the hull or other parts was unmistakable and often the only indicator a ship belonged to pirates if the flag was down. Authenticity remains in the small indents and flaws, and pirate ships for sale are prone to not have a single scratch on them, including model pirate ships and restored pirate ships on display in museums. For many, the iconic crow’s nest on the top mast is the most unique part of a pirate ship. Lookouts used the crow’s nest to keep an eagle eye on any changes on the sea. Pirate ships for sale are well built and full of charm. 

It doesn’t have to be Thanksgiving to give thanks. Instead, we should be grateful everyday we are allowed to be apart of Mother Earth.

1. I’m thankful I saw the sun rise today.

2. I’m thankful I don’t have to scale this manmouth tree to decorate it with lights.

3. I’m thankful for the love of my pets.

4. I’m thankful for the beauty of fall.

5. I’m thankful that soon I’ll witness the softness of fresh fallen snow.

6. I’m thankful I owned a boat and even more thankful I sold the boat.

7. I’m thankful for my family.

8. I’m thankful I still have birthdays.

9. I’m thankful I know how to build things.

10. I’m thankful for lighthouses because they show those who are lost a safe way home.

I’m thankful today….are you?

‘My Carbon Footprint’

by Harry Riley

We are constantly being bombarded with messages from government agencies to reduce our Carbon Footprints and to become much more environmentally aware. Fine! We all understand the importance of preserving the planet. We have to insulate our homes, cut back on waste, use less fuel and in short think before even drawing breath.

Well I grew up in an era where we burned coal. Dirty black smoke belched out from millions of homes and factories. Pollution was everywhere. Control of chemical waste was negligible; rivers and streams were contaminated so that fish and other aquatic life was poisoned. High Street buildings were being erected full of Asbestos and the ordinary man and woman was choking on tobacco smoke every waking hour of the day.

So modern life has changed considerably and we no longer need legs to get from A to B, because we ride everywhere in motorcars, buses boats and planes, the killing smog has all but gone and we burn cleaner fuels.

But still the environmentalists are on our backs insisting we must do more. Every home in the UK has an assortment of waste bins.

‘Wash this can out! Put the brown bottle in one bin, green bottle in another, inspect the packaging and separate plastic from card, do this, do not do that! Put garden waste in another bin; make sure the bins are not too heavy for the disposal men to empty. Be aware you will face severe penalties for infringing the rules. Grow too old to cope and you will be annihilated!’ (That will surely come!)

Is the Community Spirit still there? Are the streets any cleaner? Are the children more respectful to their elders? Is parenting any better? Are there fewer muggings and murders? Do we sleep safer in our beds? Are we any happier?

Well I am pleased to say you can beat the environmentalists and the nanny state politicians at their own game and you can rest assured they will pester you no more; there is only one qualification though. You have to obtain a certificate from the authorities to prove you are legitimately dead!

……………………..       

Image via Wikipedia

Hello, I basically live on a towboat from month to month.  Do I like it?  Well let’s just say I’m not thrilled about it.  It however has its ups and downs like any other job.  I spend 20 days away from my 3 boys and wonderful wife every month.  Then I get off the boat for 10 days. It’s not all peaches and cream living and working on a towboat.  I am a Tankerman level 4 and the money is good, but money isn’t everything.  You can’t put a price on family time. 

A lot of people who work on land tell me that I’m crazy and I really don’t blame them.  Some good parts about being on a towboat are that I don’t fight and argue with my wife as much.  And it has gotten me out of a lot of diaper changes for the last 7 years.  Then I don’t spend a lot of gas money.  The food the boat orders come with the job. 

For the bad parts I’m away from some great and awesome sons.  I can only take them fishing maybe twice while I’m home for 10 days.  Sex with the wife has to be put on hold, one of my favorite parts of course.  And my party life doesn’t exist.  But my bills are paid and my wife and kids eat with a roof over there heads, maybe my life will change one day and I can say goodbye to the boats.  One thing is for sure, once you get a few years into your career it might be the last job you’ll ever have.  Because you can’t afford to just quit and find another profession.  Your finances won’t allow it.

WHAT does it take to shrug off the tyranny of the car? How about getting a boat instead? That was what finally did it for me and nine months ago I started a car-free life – so far I don’t want to go back.

My inner miser grudges handing money over to oil companies, multi nationals and governments and, having been brought up in the coastal village where the high-priest of self sufficiency, John Seymour, learned many of his country skills I have always liked the concept of not being dependent on the system. That’s why a car-free life has real appeal.

On the other hand, since my first Morris 8 Series E rattled around the Suffolk Lanes 40 years ago I have also been in love with the ideal of freedom that you always hope driving a car will bring you, that ability to go wherever you want at the drop of a clutch – and that means I have been a petrol addict most of my life.

Miracles do happen – and for the past nine months I have been virtually car free – and now I don’t want to go back to my addiction.

Over the years that myth of freedom on the road – when experience says the reality is delay, frustration and expense – has resulted in a wide variety of vehicles passing through my hands, among them a glorious Humber Hawk, a rusting Fiat 127, a new Land Rover Discovery V8 and an almost new Jaguar Sovereign and several less memorable ones in between.

And being a village boy it was built into my bones that a car was an essential – initially as a means of escape to the life of the nearest town – a belief reinforced by years of responding to the crises of others as a journalist.

Sometimes life smacks you in the face and insists you re-assess things and for me it was a heart attack at 50, followed by a by-pass operation. Millions go through it, but it brought me up short and we downsized our lives and decided to turn our narrow-boating hobby into a lifestyle.

For the past five years we have enjoyed the freedom of living on our narrowboat on the English canals, able to slip the mooring and head off at a steady three or four miles an hour. It has been the beginning of a withdrawal from several of the addictions of modern life such as TV.

But we had still not shrugged off the tyranny of the car. For some time I ran an ageing Citroen and my wife an even older Fiesta – we hadn’t quite come to terms with the potential of our new lifestyle – but our petrol dependency was to slowly lessen

One of the children needed a car and we realised that we could – probably – cope with just the one. We handed over the Renault Megane and became a one-car couple – an old, N-reg, Volvo 850 estate – ideal for shifting bags of coal and wood for the boat’s stove and for grandchildren – as well as being big and a bit luxurious in an old fashioned way.

If virtue has its own reward so does economy and I was really pleased to have spent just £1,000 on the Volvo and proud of selling the old Citroen Xantia for £400 – giving me a £600 car – in fact, I boasted about it. And it did mean we were moving further and further away from that obsession with personal motor transport, almost without noticing.

Then the opportunity presented itself to spend several months out on the canal system on our boat, as all my work could be done with the aid of a mobile broadband modem attached to the laptop.

We left the Volvo at the marina, finally remembering to declare it off-road with the DVLA a month or so later. Our journey meant we would have to shop on foot and travel by public transport from wherever we moored for the night and over the weeks we travelled around the Midlands, Birmingham, Shropshire and the borders Wales.

After 40 years as a driver, never without a vehicle for more than a few days, could we cope? I even bought a folding bike on e-Bay, in brilliant blue, from an IKEA employee who had been given it by the company as a way of establishing green credentials.

The bike wasn’t used much, one trip down the towpath ending in a puncture as my substantial weight on top and a large rock with a sharp edge beneath proved too much for the tyre.

Instead we have covered more ground on foot than at any previous period of our lives and walking shoes and rucksacks have become the necessary accessories of our lives.

Mostly we shopped in small stores in the villages and towns through which the canal took us and it has been a delight. We shop more often; there is a limit to what you can carry in a rucksack.

Not all small shops are delightful and not every local butcher has a supply of wonderful meat – but enough of them are and do to make it worth finding out. Of course, it costs more to shop like that and we didn’t abandon the supermarkets completely.

Five months later we were back at our Derbyshire marina and rather pleased with ourselves as we have walked further than ever before and enjoyed not having the car.

The freedom means you can stop at a pub for a drink and not worry about the breathalyser, you can see so much more as you walk, as well as hear and smell the world around you, and you are not handing large lumps of money to government and those big businesses on a regular basis.

Were we going to stay car-free?

Not then – our cowardice meant that we put the Volvo back on the road. It was an exercise that cost well over £500 without any fuel, as it needed work done to pass an MOT.

The irony is that, after complaining about train and bus fares, we did it without thinking twice about the costs of car ownership. On top of that £500 there is another £400 for insurance – it would buy a lot of train fares, to say nothing of new walking shoes.

Slowly this penetrated even my brain and last February we e-Bayed the Volvo for £700 before we set off for six months on a trip that would take in London, Oxford and various other delights of the canal system.

The IKEA bike proved to be too short for my long legs and was sold to another boater with a robust Raleigh mountain bike substituted at Fenny Stratford. After an initial blip with a bruised coccyx it has become a regular means of transport.

Having said that, I am eagerly awaiting Christmas, when I hit 60 and the free bus pass makes the economics even more compelling. At present we still walk when once we would have driven and we still like to get trains. One on our doorstep takes us into delightful Buxton in the Peak District in less than half an hour and Manchester city centre is the same journey time the other way.

We constantly measure the fares against the cost of taking the car. Longer journeys can be either dramatically cheaper or more expensive, depending on the whims of the ludicrous train pricing system that day, but they almost always take considerably more time – seven hours to wonderful Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast, rather than three in the car.

Now the car has gone, of course, we can measure our total spend on public transport against what the car would have cost us over a year and the sums may make more sense, they certainly will once we both have our freedom passes and senior rail cards.

1,330 words

Copyright: Peter Underwood 2009

Pictures available

This is my first painting of a Royal Navy warship, The HMS BIRMINGHAM

This painting may seem a little dark on the computer but it is my favorite and is painted on a dark blue paper to which I think works very well,

The HMS BIRMINGHAM

Town-type Light Cruiser: 1936-1970

Motto: “FORWARD”

There has been a total of three navy ships that have bared the name HMS Birmingham, The one in the paintings is that of the second HMS BIRMINGHAM, This was the first ship that I tried to paint as a favour to my Uncle who sailed on her from the days when he was in the Royal Navy,

The second HMS BIRMINGHAM was a 9000 ton cruiser that had a maximum speed of 32 knots with a range of 9000 nautical miles and was completed on the 18th November 1937, After a trial in in home waters she was deployed to China, After the end of the hostilities of WW2 HMS BIRMINGHAM continued to service and from 1952-1953 took part in the United Nations naval operations off the west coast of Korea, She was put on the disposal List and broken up in 1960 at Inverkeithing.

Below is the photo that was used to do both of the paintings

Below is the ships Naval badge,

This is another photo of the HMS BIRMINGHAM taken from another angle

Why not take a look at some of the other paintings of other Royal Navy war ships that I have painted, Please feel free to click on any of the links below,

HMS WOODBRIDGE HAVEN

HMS KENYA

NASA Photos of the Aral sea, from Wikimedia

This inland sea of many lakes was a popular resort destination for family vacations, and recreation. This used to be a sea thriving with fish. There used to be marshes teaming with wildlife along some shores, sandy beaches on others. In fact the Aral Sea, and surrounding area was so teaming with life it was often compared to many places in Africa for terms of biodiversity. When the sea began to die, people, no longer able to make their livelihood on the fisheries, lost their homes, their ways of life, but that wasn’t the worst of it.

The shoreline is now up to 150 kilometers from where it once was in some areas, the depth has dropped by about 17 meters, and climate change has been reported.

Aralsk Harbor, once a common fishing harbor, now littered with dead vessels.  Photo from Wikimedia

To make a sea disappear you simply have to stop giving it water.

Two rivers used to flow into the Aral Sea, the Syr Darya and Amu Darya, bringing with them as much water as the Nile carries. Plans for an intensive agriculture system were about to change all this. The Aral seas road to obscurity began in the 1960’s when water was diverted to irrigate farm land. Cotton production was the name of the game. Millions of liters of water which would normally replenish the sea were being used to grow crops in the surrounding desert regions. Today the two rivers are often so drained they are completely dry by the time they get to the Aral Sea.

Of all the crops grown, grain, melons, and so forth, the largest industry was cotton production. The demand for cotton was high, not only with the area, but for exportation purposes too. It was referred to as “white gold”.

Without new water entering the Aral, it began to shrink, becoming more and more salty every year, eventually fish stocks died, fish were washing ashore in mass numbers, unable to live in the salty conditions. The sea was also becoming a center for concentrated pollution. This Pollution came from several sources, one being weapons testing, but additionally there was fertilizer run off and pesticides.

No more fish and what else?

Any time pollution increases in an area, so too do human health problems. This is particularly the case when the concern is water pollution. It is difficult to determine just how many health problems are due to the pollution in the water, of course such statistics are hard to prove, but it has been seen that mortality rates and rates of health problems have increased in the area since the late 1960’s.

Not just fish and people suffered. Many of the flora and fauna died out. The Bukhara deer which once flourished in the area now number below 500. Certainly some species of wildlife were lost in the area if not altogether.

Moynag Uzbekistan, now 150 kilometers from water, Photo from Wikimeda. 

Can it Reappear?

Actions have been taken to restore some of the damage done, it has been proven that most of the canals and aqueducts are not in good condition and much water is lost before it even reaches the fields, thus more water is taken than is needed. In 2003 a dam was constructed to help retain water in the North part of the sea. You can see from the photos, how little this has done to improve the Aral Sea as a whole.

This photo is from October 2008, from Wikimedia.  It breaks my heart. 

In the grand scheme everyone who buys cotton is contributing to this problem unless they know where it came from, and can be certain it did not come from Uzbekistan, as this is the prime export for the region, and the prime contributor of the problem.

As our population grows, we continue to demand things, we seldom take the time to look at where those things come from. It is time to look.

Other Links of Interest

The Holocene Extinction Event

An Early Mistake in Paleontology

Ghost Nets:  Death in the Ocean

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Cottage Owners Destroying Lakes in Alberta, and Around the World

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