Yachting

Yachting  is pleasure cruising or racing a small and light vessel, whether sailing or power-driven.

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FAMOUS YACHTS

One of first ever yachts was the 100 tonne "Mary" which was presented by the Dutch to King Charles II for his own use.

Former New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett, Jr. once owned a 300 ft. yacht, the $635,000 ($17.8 million today) Lysistrata built by William Denny & Son of Dumbarton, Scotland. Among many other luxuries, the yacht included a padded stall for a cow, so he'd always have fresh milk, cream, and butter while he was at sea.

Yachting was French author Jules Verne's favourite relaxation. In 1867, he bought a small yacht, the Saint-Michel, which he successively upgraded with the Saint-Michel II and the Saint-Michel III as his financial situation improved.

The American-made schooner Meteor III was the largest yacht in the world when built for Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi's two-masted steam yacht Elettra served as a floating laboratory fitted with an eight kilowatt transmitter and a loop aerial capable of transmitting wireless signals over a 1,000 miles distance. From 1921, he lived aboard his yacht, cruising in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Elettra

Adolf Hitler's personal yacht, the Aviso Grille, which the Fuehrer hoped to sail to London to take the surrender of Britain in 1940, was crewed by 230 men.

From 1933 until 1977 there was a Presidential Yacht, but it was sold off by Jimmy Carter, and today raccoons live in it.

The royal Yacht Britannia is the former royal yacht of the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, was in service from 1954 until 1997.  It had a displacement of 4000 tons and overall length of 126 metres (413 feet). During her 43-year career, the yacht travelled more than a million nautical miles around the globe.

The World is the largest privately owned residential yacht. The 150-200 residents who live aboard make decisions about the ship's itinerary, finances, and lifestyle and are looked after by a crew of 280. Apartments cost between $2-15 million.

MS The World By VirtualSteve

YACHT RACING

On American waters, races are held for virtually every size and class of sailboat. The most famous international yachting competition is the America's Cup race.

The America's Cup Race originated with an invitation for the Great Exhibition of 1851 by the Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron (RYS), inviting the recently formed New York Yacht Club (NYYC) to enjoy the facilities of the clubhouse of the RYS. A race took place around the Isle of Wight as part of the 1851 Royal Yacht Squadron Regatta. The yacht America beat the Royal Yachting Squadron leading to the trophy being named "America's Cup".

King Edward VII of the United Kingdom was a keen yachtsman. He was on board Sir Thomas Lipton's yacht Shamrock when a sudden squall wrecked the boat during a practice run for the America's Cup in May 1901.

For 132 years, from 1850-1980, and through 25 challenges, the America's Cup had been held by the United States. In 1983 Alan Bond and his team from of Australia defeated Dennis Conner and his team from the United States to capture the America's Cup of yacht racing. It was the first time an American crew had been beaten time since the race series began.

The O-Jolle was a sailing event at the 1936 Summer Olympics program in Firth of Kiel. Germany. The Bronze medal winner was Peter Scott, son of Robert Falcon Scott of South Pole fame.

At the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, six categories existed. They were RS;X (windsurfing), Laser, Finn, 470, 49er and Nacra 17.

Source TodayIfoundout

Wood

Wood is the main substance in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is mainly formed by the xylem vessels which transport substances that plants need to live. Substances that xylem transports include water and minerals obtained through the plant's roots, as xylem runs from the roots to the stems and leaves.

Different trees make different wood (see picture below): 1. Pine 2. Common Beech 3. Sycamore 4. Oak 5. Birch 6. Sugar Maple 7. Microberlinia 8. African Rosewood 9. Okoumé 10. Common Walnut 11. Brazilian Rosewood 12. Ebony.

HISTORY 

People have used wood for thousands of years for many purposes, including as a fuel or as a construction material for making houses. Buildings like the European Neolithic long house were made primarily of wood.

For certain building projects, like Solomon's temple, wood from the cedar of Lebanon was prized above all other woods. This warm, red wood is free of knots and has a fragrance, which is pleasant to humans, but repels insects, It was in every way an ideal wood for large buildings.

Wood has long been used as an artistic medium. It has been used to make sculptures and carvings for millennia.

Prayer Bead with the Adoration of the Magi and the Crucifixion, Gothic boxwood miniature

The phrase "chip off the block" means a person who resembles their parent, especially in character. A chip is the same wood as the block from which it comes. The expression dates back to 270 BC when it appeared in Theocritus' Idylls.

The phrase by hook or crook dates from around the 14th century. It refers to a time when the poor were allowed to gather as much firewood from their lord's land as they could rake up from undergrowth with a hook or pull down from trees with a shepherd's crook. It was first recorded in the Middle English Controversial Tracts of John Wyclif in 1380.

Grinling Gibbons (April 4, 1648 – August 3, 1721) is widely regarded as the finest-ever woodcarver working in England. Most of his work was in lime (tilia) wood, especially decorative Baroque garlands made up of still-life elements at about life size, made to frame mirrors and decorate the walls of churches and palaces. His exquisite cascades of leaves, flowers and fruit adorn Hampton Park Palace, St Paul's Cathedral and countless other stately homes and churches.

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES 

Wood is the hard tissue beneath the bark of many perennial plants. It is composed of water conducting cells, or  secondary xylem, and gains its hardness and strength from deposits of lignin. The secondary xylem is laid down by the vascular cambium which forms a new layer of wood annually, on the outside of the existing wood and visible when a tree is felled as an annual ring.

The central wood in a branch or stem is known as heartwood and is generally darker and harder than the outer wood; it consists only of dead cells. As well as providing structural support, heartwood often contains gums, tannins, or pigments which may impart characteristic color and increased durability. The surrounding sapwood is the functional part of the xylem that conducts water.

Woods are usually divided into softwood (from conifers) and hardwood (from flowering plants). Softwood makes up about 80% of the world's production of lumber.

Although in general softwoods are softer than hardwoods, this is not always the case. The difference between hardwood and softwood has to do with how they reproduce, not the hardness of the wood. Pitch pine, for instance, which is very dense and hard, is a softwood.

Cuipo wood is classified as a hardwood. However, according to the Janka test, the softest wood in the world belongs to the Cuipo tree, which has a rating of just 22 lbf (pounds-force) making it is drastically softer than Balsa wood which has a higher, but still very low rating.

Cuipo Tree

The hardest wood is said to come from the Australian Buloke (pronounced "Bull-oak") tree, with a huge rating of 5060 lbf. (For reference, a commonly worked with type of wood that is generally considered very hard is Hickory, which has a1820 lbf rating).

USES 

Wood has been an important construction material since humans began building shelters and, houses. Carpenters make houses of mostly soft wood such as pine.

Wood has always been used extensively for furniture, such as cabinets, chairs and beds. For many kinds of furniture carpenters use harder wood such as maple or oak.

Nearly all boats were made out of wood until the late 19th century, and wood remains in common use today in boat construction.

Wood has a long history of being used as fuel, which continues to this day, mostly in rural areas of the world. Hardwood is preferred over softwood because it creates less smoke and burns longer.

Wood pulp is wood that has been processed in into a pulpy mass of fibres. Its main use is for making paper, but it's also used to make rayon and other cellulose fibres and plastics. There are two methods of making wood pulp - mechanical and chemical. In the former, debarked logs are ground with water (to prevent charring) by rotating grindstones. The wood fibres are physically torn apart. In the latter, log chips are digested with chemicals (such as sodium sulphite). The chemicals dissolve the material holding the fibres together.

Most paper is made from pine, spruce and eucalyptus.

Sources Hutchinson Encyclopedia, Gizmodo

Warship

The warship is a fighting ship armed and manned for war.

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The Phoenicians developed the war galley, with a sharp battering ram in the bow.

Galleys were the warships used by the early Mediterranean naval powers, including the Greeks and Romans. They remained the dominant types of vessels used for war and piracy in the Mediterranean Sea until the last decades of the 16th century.

The Battle of Lepanto was a naval engagement that took in 1571 between a fleet of the Holy League (a coalition of Spain, Venice, and the Papal States arranged by Pope Pius V) and the fleet of the Ottoman Empire. Lepanto was the last major naval battle in the Mediterranean fought entirely between galleys and has been assigned great symbolic and historical importance by several historians.

'The Battle of Lepanto', painting by Andries van Eertvelt

Henry Grace à Dieu, built at the new Woolwich Dockyard in England, was launched on June 13, 1514, during the reign of King Henry VIII. The ship was an impressive feat of naval engineering for its time and was considered the largest warship in the world at that point, weighing over 1,000 tons (907,000 kgs) .

Henry Grace à Dieu featured numerous advancements and innovations, including multiple gun decks, heavy artillery, and improved structural design. It served as a symbol of King Henry VIII's naval power and played a prominent role in several military campaigns. However, despite its impressive size, the ship's service life was relatively short, and it was eventually destroyed in 1553.

At over 1,000 tons (907,000 kgs) it was the largest warship in the world at the time,

Until the 17th century it was common for merchant ships to be pressed into naval service and not unusual for more than half a fleet to be composed of merchant ships.

The word truck, which is now the American term for a lorry, first appeared in English around 1611 meaning small wheel or roller, specifically the sort mounted under cannons aboard warships.

Vasa Syndrome, a term for problems in communication and management that can cause projects to fail, is named after the Vasa, one of the largest and most spectacular warships ever built. The Swedish vessel sank in 1628 on its maiden voyage because it was too unstable to withstand a gust of wind.

HMS Victory, Lord Horatio Nelson's flagship, was launched at Chatham Dockyard in Kent in 1765. The world's oldest naval ship still in commission, every warship salutes her as they pass her berth in Portsmouth Naval Base.

HMS Victory in Portsmouth, 1900

A fifth-rate warship of the 1790s putting to sea with a crew of 590, was provisioned for five months. In its holds were 41 tons of biscuit, 407 barrels of beer, 23 tons of beef, 12 tons of pork, 10 tons of pease, four tons of oatmeal, two tons of butter and four tons of cheese.

Napoleon passed up the opportunity of owning the first ever steam warship ever built in 1803. The inventor, Robert Fulton, had been experimenting in France with the encouragement of the French leader. Fulton had also designed a cigar shaped submarine but again Napoleon would have nothing to do with the scheme. Either one would probably have resulted in the invasion of Britain.

Launched in 1859, the Gloire was the brainchild of Henri Dupuy de Lôme, a French naval engineer. It revolutionized naval warfare by becoming the first oceangoing ironclad warship. Its hull was completely constructed of iron, covered in teak for protection from underwater attacks, and its armament consisted of 36 heavy cannons.

The British Royal Navy launched the world's first iron-hulled armoured battleship, HMS Warrior on December 29, 1860, It was built to counter the French Navy's La Gloire. Designed by Isaac Watts, it pushed the boundaries of naval technology further:

The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor was launched by the Union on January 30, 1862. It was the first U.S. ship to have a flush toilet.

Launch of USS Monitor, 1862

The world's first major battle to take place between two powered ironclad warships was fought during the American Civil War in March 1862. The USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia battled to a draw near the mouth of Hampton Roads in Virginia.

The HL Huntley became the first submarine to sink an enemy warship in February 1864. It is now on display in Charleston.

HMS Spiteful was a Spiteful-class torpedo boat destroyer built at Jarrow, England, by Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company for the Royal Navy and launched in 1899.

In 1904, HMS Spiteful became the first warship to be powered solely by fuel oil. Tests were conducted by the Royal Navy in that year, comparing her performance using oil directly with that of a similar ship using coal, in which it was proved that burning oil offered significant advantages.

'Joe' is an American nickname for coffee. The nickname is derived from the name of Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, who in 1913 banned alcohol from being served on U.S. Navy warships. The sailors began to drink more coffee, which they then nicknamed "Joe."

The German High Seas Fleet surrendered to the Royal Navy on November 21, 1918, ten days after World War I had ended. After they had last met at Jutland, 70 German warships met well over 100 allied warships and sailed into captivity. It was the largest gathering of warships in close company in history.

When the destroyer HMS Porcupine was blown in half by a German torpedo on  December 9, 1942, the two halves were towed back to the United Kingdom and recommissioned as two ships; HMS Pork and HMS Pine.

The battleship, supreme at the beginning of the 20th century, is not used anymore, as they are expensive to operate and hard to keep safe from enemy attacks. It was superseded during World War I by the development of submarine attack and was rendered obsolete in World War II with the growth of long-range air attack.

The large scale aircraft carrier was also temporary out of favour in the mid 20th century, as too vulnerable, until the resumption of building, especially by the USSR in the late 1970s and 80s.

In the earlier 1970s the mini carrier evolved, using both vertical take-off aircraft such as the Harrier Jump Jet, and helicopters with a wide range such as the Sea King.

Today aircraft carriers are often called "floating cities" because they can hold hundreds of planes, and thousands of sailors. US Nimitz class carriers can weigh over 100,000 ton (90 million kgs).

A destroyer is a fast, small, and manoeuvrable warship. Destroyers were first used in the late 1800s to defend against torpedo boats and were used extensively during World War I and World War II. Today, most naval warships are destroyers.

Destroyer Pixiebay

The first nuclear powered submarine was the Nautilus in 1955; the first Polaris was the George Washington in 1960 and the first British nuclear powered submarine was the Dreadnought in 1963.

U-boat

A U-boat is a military submarine used by Germany. The ‘U' stands for Unterseeboot, meaning ‘undersea boat'.

Pixabay

In English, the term "U-boat" refers exclusively to the German vessels used during the World Wars. In German, however, "U-Boot" refers to any submarine, including modern and foreign ones.

Germany's first U-boat, U-1, was 139 ft long and was launched on August 4, 1906. But by 1914 and the beginning of World War I, it was deemed obsolete and never saw active service. Retired in 1919, it remains on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

The German Submarine U 1 (Imperial Navy)

Germany built 360 U-boats during the First World War, which destroyed more than 11,000,000 tons of Allied shipping.

On May 7, 1915, SM U-20 sank the liner RMS Lusitania off the West of Ireland. The sinking claimed 1,198 lives, 128 of them American civilians and was an important factor in the USA's decision to join the Allied cause.

UB-122 entered service in March 1918. It had a crew of 34 and could travel at 16 MPH (26 kph) on the surface or 9 MPH (14kmh) submerged and dive 250 feet in 30 seconds. It made two patrols but failed to sink any targets.

The U-1206 submarine was lost on April  14, 1945 due to a toilet malfunction: the leak flooded the submarine's batteries causing them to release chlorine gas, leaving the commander with no alternative but to surface. Once surfaced, U-1206 was discovered and bombed by British patrols.

U-boats were used in both world wars by Germany in an attempt to cut Britain's North Atlantic lifeline to America. They hunted in groups known as 'wolf packs.'

The primary targets of the U-boat campaigns in both wars were the merchant convoys bringing supplies from Canada and other parts of the British Empire, and the United States to the United Kingdom and (during the Second World War) to the Soviet Union and the Allied territories in the Mediterranean.

In the spring of 1942, German U-boats terrorized the east coast of the USA sinking fuel tankers and cargo ships with impunity and often within sight of shore. In less than seven months they destroyed 22 percent of the tanker fleet and sank 233 ships killing 5,000 ...more than twice the number who perished at Pearl Harbor.

U-1206 was one of the late-war boats fitted with new deep water high-pressure toilets which allowed them to be used while running at depth. Flushing these facilities was an extremely complicated procedure and special technicians were trained to operate them. Incorrectly opening valves in the wrong sequence could result in waste or seawater flowing back into the hull. On April 14, 1945, the toilet was flushed incorrectly, causing the U-boat to flood with seawater. The U-boat was forced to surface in view of the British who then attacked, resulting in the vessel's destruction, Four Nazi were killed, and 46 captured.

Patrols could take up to six months and crews were not able to change their clothes apart from a single change of underwear and socks.

With limited space, crews often resorted to what bunkering – as soon as one person crawled out, the next would crawl in.

In July 2006, Germany commissioned its newest U-boat, the U-34, a Type 212.

The producers of the 1981 movie Das Boot used a life size mock-up of a U-Boat for the exterior shots. One morning the crew woke up to find it missing, only to later learn that Steven Spielberg had rented it for his Raiders of the Lost Ark film, and no one had told them

Source Daily Mail

Titanic

RMS Titanic was a British luxury passenger liner which was built by Harland and Wolff ship builders, in Belfast, for the White Star Line company. Before she sailed, many people thought it would be almost impossible for ships of this design to sink.

RMS Titanic departing Southampton on 10 April 1912

FEATURES  

RMS Titanic was 882 feet 9 inches (269.06 m) long with a maximum breadth of 92 feet 6 inches (28.19 m). Her total height, measured from the base of the keel to the top of the bridge, was 104 feet (32 m).

At 78 feet 8 inches (23.98 m) high and 15 feet 3 inches (4.65 m) long, weighing over 100 tons, RMS Titanic's rudder was so large that it required steering engines to move it.

The Belfast slipway from which the Titanic was launched in May 1911 — 11 months before the liner sank — was smothered in 22 tons of soap and tallow to ensure a smooth passage. The launch took just 62 seconds.

The Titanic actually started off having enough lifeboats – they removed a bunch to make the ship look less cluttered.

The most expensive first class tickets on the Titanic were $4350 (or £870) in 1912 money. That's over $100,000 today.

Provisions for the 2,229 passengers and crew on board RMS Titanic when she sailed in April 1912 included 200 barrels of flour, 40,000 fresh eggs, 2.75 tons of tomatoes and 100,000lb of fresh meat, poultry and game. Those in 1st and 2nd Class ate their main meal in the evening; 3rd Class passengers, were served their ‘dinner' at midday.

The famous Grand Staircase, which connected Boat Deck and E Deck

MAIDEN VOYAGE 

Titanic's maiden voyage began at noon on Wednesday, April 10, 1912 when the liner left Southampton on the south coast of England. It called at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland before heading west to New York.

The life boat drill planned for April 14, 1912, was cancelled.

The Titanic collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean at 11.40 PM on April 14, 1912 and began to sink. 

The route of Titanic's maiden voyage. By Prioryman

The Titanic was the first ship to use the SOS signal. It had been adopted as the international signal for distress earlier in 1912. 

At 12:50 a.m. EST on April 15, 1912, junior wireless operators at Cape Race, Newfoundland, received a report from the Virginian that they were trying to reach Titanic, but had lost communication. Titanic's last signals at 12:27 a.m. were "blurred and ended abruptly."

There were an estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, and an estimated 1,517 died - only 306 bodies were recovered.

"Untergang der Titanic", as conceived by Willy Stöwer, 1912

Of the estimated 1,517 people who died on the sinking of RMS Titanic more than a third were from Southampton.

As the Titanic went under, the band played ragtime until the ship's bridge dipped underwater, then the bandmaster led his men in the Episcopal hymn, "Autumn". The male passengers formed up on deck and under the leadership of New York real estate tycoon Colonel John Jacob Astor sung the Welsh hymn "Nearer thy God to Thee". 

John Jacob Astor IV in 1909. 

A priest on the Titanic refused a lifeboat and instead, stayed behind to hear confessions and give absolution to those on the ship.

Colonel John Jacob Astor (1864-1912) was the richest person to die when the Titanic sank: he was worth an estimated $ 90 million (around $2 billion, or £1.5 billion, today). The year before he had caused a scandal when, as a 47-year-old divorced man, he married a teenage socialite. She survived the disaster at sea and four months later gave birth to their son.

Irish Titanic passenger Jeremiah Burke sent a good bye message in a bottle during the sinking. It subsequently washed up near his home, where his handwriting was recognized by his mother.

According to models, Titanic should have tipped over about an hour into the sinking, killing practically everyone. Miraculously a rare coal fire during the voyage required coal to be shifted to the opposite side of the ship, creating a list that offset the incoming water during the sinking.

The first pictures of the wreck of the Titanic were released on September 4, 1985, 73 years after it sank. The American-French expedition used a submarine 2.5 miles beneath the surface.

The bow of the wrecked RMS Titanic, photographed in June 2004

The 1985 discovery of the Titanic stemmed from a secret United States Navy investigation of two wrecked nuclear submarines, according to Robert Ballard, the oceanographer who found the infamous ocean liner. When Ballard announced a mission to find the Titanic, it was a cover story for a classified mission to search for the lost nuclear submarines. They finished before they were due back, so the team spent the extra time looking for the Titanic and actually found it. 

SURVIVORS

There are many remarkable stories of various victims and survivors including a man called John Harper who journeying on the Titanic to preach at the Moody Church in Chicago. When it sunk he found himself amongst 1500 others swimming frantically in the water. As he did so he drifted towards a young man who had climbed up on a piece of debris. Harper asked him between breaths, "young man, are you saved?" the man replied that he was not. The men drifted apart in the darkness before a wave brought them within speaking distance of each other and again a quickly weakening Harper yelled to him "Believe on the Name of the Lord Jesus and you will be saved." At that John Harper slipped into his watery grave but the young man was rescued by the S.S. Carpathia.

Four years later the young man stood up in a Christian Endeavor meeting in New York and proclaimed in tears, "I am John Harper's last convert." 

Arrival of Titanic's survivors at New York (artist concept)

Charles Lightoller, the second officer of the Titanic, who survived by swimming from the sinking ship to a capsized raft, later in life sailed his civilian craft to Dunkirk and helped evacuate over 130 men.

Richard Norris Williams survived the Titanic sinking, but spent over 6 hours waist deep in freezing water and the rescue doctor recommended amputation of both his legs. He refused and proceeded to win his first tennis tournament a few months later and became Wimbledon doubles champion in 1920. 

Frank Goldsmith, Jr., a Titanic survivor who later lived near Navin Field (Tiger Stadium) in Detroit, never took his children to baseball games because the roar of the crowd reminded him of the screams of people dying in the freezing water.

Charles Joughin, Chief Baker on the RMS Titanic, helped passengers board lifeboats (forcibly boarding those who thought it safer to stay on the ship), drank half a bottle of liqueur, then threw chairs overboard for use as flotation devices, rode the side of the ship down while it sunk. He spent 3 hours in the -2°c waters before he was rescued alive and survived. 

The occupants of the lifeboats of the RMS Titanic included a musical toy pig, two mysterious "orphans" and a Pekingese dog called Sun Yat Sen.

The chairman and MD of the White Star Line, Joseph Bruce Ismay (1862-1937), was the highest-ranking official to survive the Titanic disaster. The 1997 Titanic movie depicted him as a coward and, in 2012, his descendants spoke out for the first time to clear his name and reject claims that he had escaped on the first lifeboat and even dressed as a woman to secure his rescue.

The last remaining survivor of the Titanic went on to live to 97. At two months old, Millvina Dean was the youngest aboard the liner when it sank in 1912. Her mother and brother also survived, but not her father.

MOVIES 

The earliest Titanic-based movie,  Saved from the Titanic, was released just 29 days after the sinking. It featured an actress who was actually on the Titanic and survived. For her role, she wore the actual outfit she had on the night it sank. The actress suffered a mental breakdown shortly after its completion. No copies of this film remain.

The 1958 British film A Night to Remember is still widely regarded as the most historically accurate movie portrayal of the sinking.

The biggest budget movie portrayal of the sinking was James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster Titanic, which was released in the US on December 19, 1997. It became the highest-grossing film in history up to that time, as well as the winner of 11 Oscars at the 70th Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Cameron.

Wikipedia

Five weeks into the 1997 Titanic movie's run, 7% of all American teenage girls had seen the film twice.

Even when adjusted for inflation, the 1997 movie Titanic cost 50 per cent more than the original ship.

The 1997 movie Titanic goes on longer than the actual sinking of the RMS Titanic.

The collision scene of the Titanic hitting the iceberg in the 1997 Titanic movie is the same length as it took for the actual collision- 37 seconds.

When filming the 1997 movie Titanic they only built the port side of the ship. Scenes showing the starboard side were flipped in post production. As a result of this everything on the starboard side of the ship, from lettering to the buttons on costumes, had to be backwards during filming.

Kate Winslet, who played Rose in the 1997 Titanic movie, hates the song "My Heart Will Go On," and said it makes her feel "like throwing up."

FUN TITANIC FACTS 

Futility: or The Wreck of the Titan, a novella about an ‘unsinkable' ocean liner called Titan that crashed into an iceberg and sank without enough lifeboats was written by Morgan Robertson in 1898 — 14 years before the Titanic sank.

'The Just Missed It Club' was for people who almost sailed on the Titanic. Two weeks after it sank, it had 118,337 members.

On April 15, 1912, a steward who hadn't yet heard about the Titanic sinking spotted an iceberg smeared with red paint and snapped a photo.

There are still over 100 unidentified victims from the Titanic.

The underwater wreckage of Titanic will disappear by 2030. It's being 'eaten away' by a microorganism "Halomonas titanicae". Also known as the "steel-munching bacteria', they have a special liking towards metals.

Sources Daily Mail, Daily Express

Submarine

HISTORY 

The word "submarine" was first used in the 17th century as an adjective meaning "underwater."

The first submersible boat was built by the German doctor Magnus Pegel in 1605. His submarine sank in mud. Pegel was also one of the first people to write about blood transfusions.

Dutch inventor Cornelis Drebbel (c.1572- November 7, 1633) invented the first navigable submarine in 1620 while working for the English Royal Navy. The craft was basically two boats, one upside-down and sealed on top of the other and was propelled by oars. It was successfully tested on the River Thames.

Between 1620 and 1624 Drebbel successfully built and tested two more submarines, each one bigger than the last. The third model had six oars and could carry 16 passengers. This model was demonstrated to King James I in person, but the British monarch wisely declined a ride inside. 

According to American colonial reports, Ezra Lee made the world's first submarine attack in the Turtle on September 7, 1776, attempting to attach a time bomb to the hull of HMS Eagle in New York Harbor (no British records of this attack exist). 

The H. L. Hunley was a submarine of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War, who demonstrated the advantages and the dangers of undersea warfare. She sank during a test run on October 15, 1863, killing all eight of her crew, but was raised and returned to service.

Conrad Wise Chapman - Submarine Torpedo Boat H.L. Hunley, Dec. 6, 1863

The HL Huntley was first called Fish Boat but was renamed after her inventor, Horace Lawson Huntley, after he was killed when she sank in 1863.

On February 17, 1864, the HL Hunley became the first submarine to sink an enemy warship (USS Housatonic). The submarine sank that same night, possibly because it was too close to its own exploding torpedo. All eight of her crew perished.

The Hunley was lost after she sank and was located only in 1995 and recovered in 2000. She is now on display in Charleston, South Carolina.

Following the introduction of submarines in several navies circa 1900, Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, the First Sea Lord of the British Royal Navy, called them underhanded, threatening to hang enemy sub crews as pirates. So, in 1914, when Max Horton commanded Britain's first submarine engagement against the Germans, he ordered his crew to fly a Jolly Roger.

During World War II, John Capes, a 31-year-old Navy stoker en route to Alexandria escaped his submarine from depths of 171 feet and managed to get to the surface and survive.

HMS Thetis has the rare and unwanted honor of a submarine to have twice sunk and killed her crew. She sank during trials in 1939, drowning 99 men, before being raised and renamed. Sunk again during battle in 1943, her entire second crew was also lost.

During World War II, submarines made up around 2-3% of the US Navy's total personnel and tonnage.

Despite this, submarines inflicted significant damage on the Japanese Navy sinking approximately 56% of Japan's merchant marine tonnage, 30% of its warships, and several key vessels, including 8 aircraft carriers and 11 cruisers.

Japanese ships during World War II heavily underestimated the depths American submarines could get to, often allowing them to escape. This secret was ruined when Congressman Andrew May rashly revealed the classified naval information at a press conference, which resulted in an estimated loss of 10 submarines and 800 men. 

Built and launched in 1943, during her short career in the Pacific War, the USS Tang (SS-306)  sank 33 ships  -  more ships than any other American submarine in World War II. It was sank on October 24, 1944 when it was struck by its own torpedo.

USS Tang (SS-306) off Mare Island Navy Yard, December 1943

When HMS Venturer sank U-864 on February 9, 1945 it was history's only incident where one submarine intentionally sunk another while both were fully submerged.

On September 16, 1955, a converted Soviet Zulu-IV class submarine, the B-67, launched the world's first submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), an R-11FM Scud. This was a historic event, as it marked the beginning of a new era of strategic deterrence.

The R-11FM Scud was a short-range ballistic missile with a range of about 300 kilometers (186 miles). It was not very accurate, but it was still a powerful weapon. The ability to launch nuclear missiles from submarines meant that the Soviet Union could now strike its enemies from anywhere in the world, without warning.

The first nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, commissioned by the United States Navy in 1954, made her maiden voyage on January 17, 1957. It was launched from Groton, Connecticut, with the message, "Underway on nuclear power." 

The USS Nautilus permanently docked at tGroton, CT. By Victor-ny

The world's first submarine to carry ballistic missiles, the USS George Washington was launched in December 1959. It conducted the first SSBN deterrent patrol between November 1960 – January 1961 with 16 Polaris A-1 missiles.

The USS Triton, a nuclear-powered radar picket submarine, set sail from New London, Connecticut on February 24, 1960 to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of Earth. She spent 60 days and 21 hours under water travelling across the globe before arriving in Groton, Connecticut on April 25, 1960.

K-219 was a Project 667A Navaga-class ballistic missile submarine of the Soviet Navy. It sank in 1986 due to a missile silo leak, in 18,000ft of water. When it was located two years later, it's missile doors had been forced open and the nuclear missiles it carried were missing. 

The US Navy replaced expensive and clunky periscope controls on submarines with Xbox 360 controllers, which reduced training time from hours to minutes. The first submarine to get the new controller was the USS Colorado, which went into active duty in November 2017.

FUN SUBMARINE FACTS

The best known song about a submarine is The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine."

Wet Nellie is a custom-built submarine, created for the 1977 James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me resembling a Lotus Esprit S1 sports car. The submarine went unclaimed for 10 years in a prepaid storage unit. When its lease ran out, a buyer bought the unit for less than $100, including the submarine. In 2013, the submarine was sold at auction for £550,000. 

It takes over 1000 years in man hours to build a Virginia class nuclear submarine.

Submarine crews do not use a typical 24 hour day, one day lasts 18 hours. 

Sailors aboard submarines work 6 hour shifts so that it is easier for them to give their undivided attention to the equipment they operate during a shorter shift.

Sail of the French nuclear submarine Casabianca;. Wikipedia.

The British submarine HMS Artful can stay submerged for 25 years without having to surface for air.

British Submarines carry the Jolly Rodger because a First Lord Sea Admiral said that submarines are "underhanded, unfair, and damned un-English" and their sailors should be hanged as pirates.

Submarine sonar is no a “ping” like movies and games, but actually extremely loud and can kill people and sea life.

Modern nuclear submarines are so well cloaked that in 2009, two French and British nuclear ballistic missile subs collided in the Atlantic Ocean by pure chance. Moving very slowly, they were't able to detect each other just feet apart.

US Navy's Virginia-class submarine periscope controls used to be helicopter-style sticks, which cost $38,000, but they have been replaced by $20 xbox controllers.

Steamboat and Steamship

A steamboat is a ship that uses a steam engine or steam turbine to propel itself.

The Belle of Louisville. By Bo

The first steamboats were paddle steamboats. Some had a paddle wheel on the back. Others had two wheels on the sides.

The first steam-powered ship was a paddle steamer named Pyroscaphe built in France in 1783 by Marquis Claude de Jouffroy. It was powered by a Newcomen steam engine. At its first demonstration on July 15, 1783, Pyroscaphe traveled upstream on the River Saône for some fifteen minutes before the engine failed.

The first reliably-working steamboat was a paddle steamer built by John Fitch. A successful trial run of his steamboat. Perseverance, was made on the Delaware River on August 22, 1787.

The following year, Fitch began operating a regular commercial service along the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey, carrying as many as 30 passengers. The Perseverance was not a commercial success, as this travel route was adequately covered by relatively good wagon roads.

Model of the "Perseverance" By Dr. Karl-Heinz Hochhaus

Britain's first practical steamboat was a tug, the Charlotte Dundas, designed by William Symington (1763–1831). It was first used in 1802 on the Forth-Clyde canal in Scotland.

Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat left New York City for Albany, New York on the Hudson River on August 17, 1807, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world. Fulton's steamboat could travel from New York City to Albany in 32 hours and was the first steam-powered passenger marine vehicle that could make money.

The 1909 replica of the North River Steamboat

The first passenger-carrying steamboat in Europe was the Comet, designed by the Scottish engineer Henry Bell (1767-1830), which was launched in 1812 on the River Clyde. The steamboat, named after a celebrated comet of that time, was of 30 tons burthen, with an engine of three horsepower. Bell initially advertised a three times a week passenger service travelling between Glasgow, Greenock and Helensburgh. Soon afterwards the journey was extended to Oban and Fort-William, the entire voyage taking four days.

New Orleans was the first steamship on the western waters of the United States. After a trial trip around Pittsburgh, New Orleans steamed for New Orleans on October 20, 1811 on first the Ohio River, then the Mississippi River. It arrived in its namesake city on January 10, 1812, to complete its maiden voyage.

When the U.S. vessel SS Savannah arrived at Liverpool, England, on June 20, 1819, she became the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic Ocean, although most of the journey was made under sail.

SS Savannah, the first steam powered ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean—1819

From about 1836, marine propellers, invented by Josef Ressel were used on steamboats rather than paddles.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel's steamship Great Western, a wooden paddle vessel, was the first to make regular Atlantic crossings. It sailed from Bristol on her maiden voyage in 1838 and the boat confounded critics who asserted that such a vessel would never be able to carry sufficient coal to make the crossing.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada-born Sir Samuel Cunard entered this world on November 21, 1787. Cunard succeeded early as a merchant and shipowner, before emigrating to Britain in 1838. Two years later, he joined with George Burns in Glasgow and David McIver in Liverpool to found the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, later known as the Cunard Line. Within 30 years, Cunard was employing 11,500 people and owned 46 vessels. The first ships had no refrigeration, so carried live cows for milk and chickens for eggs.

If one wanted to make the trip from the U.S. East Coast to the West Coast by steamboat, one needed to be prepared for a long journey. The SS California's first voyage left New York Harbor on October 6, 1848, making the trip to San Francisco, California via Cape Horn in four months, 21 days.

The worst maritime disaster in US history was on April 27, 1865 when 1192 people perished after the steamboat Sultana's boilers exploded on the River Mississippi just outside Memphis. Not very many people heard about it since news coverage focused on the killing of John Wilkes Booth the previous day.

Sultana at Helena, Arkansas on April 26, 1865, a day before her destruction

Mark Twain wrote a book called Life on the Mississippi, which had some stories about how he used to work on a steamboat travelling on the Mississippi.

The first Disney cartoon with sound was Steamboat Willie, released on November 18, 1928. The short animated film shows Mickey Mouse piloting a river steamboat, suggesting that he himself is the captain.

The Baltimore Steam Packet Company, the last overnight steamboat service in the United States, went out of business in 1962.

The oldest operating steam driven vessel in North America is the RMS Segwun. It was built in Scotland in 1887 to cruise the Muskoka Lakes, District of Muskoka, Ontario, Canada. Originally named the S.S. Nipissing, it was converted from a side-paddle-wheel steamer with a walking-beam engine into a two-counter-rotating-propeller steamer. She is one of only three ships in the world still carrying the status of Royal Mail Ship.

Segwun approaches dock. By paulhami - Black Smoke from the Segwun