Titanic Re-enacters

Thursday morning after I’d caught the fotos of Patrice McAllister arriving, I headed for work, stopping at the Arthur Kill for a few moments to ingest the morning beauty.  Meanwhile,

in another part of the sixth boro, bowsprite and her assistants caught the re-enacter vessel Balmoral arriving in the North River.  Here’s Huffington Post text/fotos from the Balmoral point of view, with a few details on ticket prices.  That’s the Holland Tunnel vent on the Jersey side extreme right.  Here’s a tribute to the designers and builders, and here’s a great archival shot of the ventilator construction during the decade and a little following the 1912 Titanic trauma.

Justin Zizes caught this foto of Balmoral departing yesterday.  Had Titanic not had its iceberg encounter, its departure would have occurred with very little fanfare.

From Staten Island, John Watson caught this shot of Balmoral‘s departure.   As of this writing, she’s already passing between Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod.  John pointed out Balmoral was previously Norwegian Crown, launched 1988.   It received a significant implant in 2008.   The vessel’s namesake is in Scotland.

The other Titanic cruiser in the harbor this week was Azamara Journey.  And as of this morning Azamara Journey is SE of Cape Cod due south of Greenland.

Thanks to bowsprite, John Watson, and Justin Zizes for these fotos.

To turn from lost vessels celebrated to existing historic ones ignored, here’s an article from the NYTimes about last pleas for a home for Mary Whalen.

Thresher, Scorpion, and Titanic

Like me, you probably feel you’re drowning in reminders these days of a certain large vessel that sank exactly a century ago at 41°27’34″N 50°8’22″W.  Am I the only one who has never seen the 1997 James Cameron movie?  Should I see it?  Otherwise, I like Cameron’s work and exploits.  The April 16, 2012 issue of The New Yorker has this especially good piece by Daniel Mendelsohn.  Click on the foto below to sample the article.

The New Yorker magazine credits the foto below (and above) to “National Museums Northern Ireland/Ulster Folk & Transportation Museum,” but not to its photographer.  Hmm.

Mendelsohn’s piece ends with a reference to Morgan Robertson’s 1898 novella . . . Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan.  That’s uncanny stuff.   1898.

I’m hoping you’re intrigued by the title of this post.  If you haven’t seen the video below (click on the image below to play it),  you’ll learn how Titanic, Thresher, and Scorpion are connected through Robert Ballard.  Sections of the first 10 minutes of the video are “gushy,” but you’ll be glad you stayed with it. An important strand in the second half of the video is Ballard v. RMS Titanic . . . a salvage company.  William J. Broad, science writer,  picks up on that dispute in a NYTimes article here, embedded online in this cover.  Writer me in on the side of Robert Ballard and James P. Delgado.

In searching for ephemera you might not know about this story, I came across Knorr, the Woods Hole vessel Ballard used for his 1985 search for the three vessels in the title.  Here’s another link for Knorr.    A search turns her up less than a hundred miles SE of Montauk, obviously surveying, below.

An automobile in the ill-fated  hold . . . might once have looked like this.   A search on e-ships turned up no vessel called Titanic at work today, but then there is this . . . a yacht named Titanic!  Click here for the wikipedia entry for the 1971 launched Titanic.

Yesterday’s NYTimes ran this Q & A on various historical connections between Titanic and New York.  A future connection lies with a vessel called Balmoral, over the wreck tonight and due in the sixth boro later next week . ..  maybe Thursday.

Two vessels forever connected to the tragedy are the one that responded poorly and the one that saved lives.  Within a decade, both were also on the seabed, victims of U-boat attacks.

For a comparison of Titanic with her two sisters, check out the inimitable bowsprite’s post here . . .  And for a sense of the “titanics in unlikely places,” check Rick’s Old Salt blog.

Postscript:  Thresher, like Squalus, left from here.