TITANIC TIMES -Read all about it!
Lagan Legacy’s Titanic Times hits the streets!
Hot off the press, Lagan Legacy's 4th annual TITANIC TIMES newspaper is free today in the News Letter. Its eight pages are packed with nautical news, pictures and information, nor is it lacking in a good few laughs here and there! But TITANIC TIMES is primarily to inform and educate, in an entertaing way, about Belfast's unique maritime past.
read it here..............
EDITORIAL
Welcome aboard The Titanic Times. This is the fourth News Letter supplement produced in association with the Lagan Legacy heritage organisation to mark Belfast’s annual Titanic Festival which runs this year from Saturday 11th to Sunday 19th April. In venues across our city the “Titanic Made in Belfast Festival” celebrates the iconic vessel, the river where she was born, and the artisan skills of the people who created her. There’s a packed programme of events including boat, bus and walking tours, trails, talks, films and special exhibitions. The occasion validates the Lagan’s banks as more than mere river banks. They’re memory banks too. A substantial proportion of the 3,000 vessels that left them in their wake sailed the world to profoundly affect history. The Lagan was an artery to action; to unimaginable heroism in naval warfare, to a balmy cocktail on the deck of a luxury cruise liner, to the discovery of oil and gas in the North Sea. From her luxurious 1st Class lounges to her unbearably hot and deafening engine rooms, Titanic epitomises Belfast’s eclectic past, present and future; pain, innovation and tragedy garnished with opulence, heroism and raw determination. Titanic was a multitalented superstar of invention. And so was Belfast; a city first in the world with an astounding variety of quality industries. The Titanic Times recalls the human and social characteristics that made Titanic happen, and offers them as ingredients for the future. Belfast doesn’t cower in the shadow of Titanic’s untimely doom. Belfast basks in the glow of her everlasting accomplishment.
EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY.
Many cities and locations lay claim to a part of the Titanic story but only one special place can take the full credit for her legendary design, construction and craftsmanship. That place is Belfast. A brand new exhibition, featured in the city’s current Titanic Festival, takes a novel approach to the well-documented tale of the ill-fated liner. While the White Star Line’s flagship represented an incredible sea-going era, she was a small if momentous chapter in a history book of vessels that spanned many years, and all the seas and oceans. So the new exhibition presents Titanic in a deservedly wider context. Much has been written, filmed and dramatised around the terrible tragedy that befell her maiden voyage but the story of the shipyard where she was born is rarely told.
And what a story it is!
Reading between the lines of Harland and Wolff’s vessels is an awesome experience. But now the story of their innovative design and incredible craftsmanship is only a short walk away from the Belfast city centre. Stroll, drive or take a bus to the W5 building, part of the Odyssey complex adjacent to Titanic’s birthplace, and the vividly illustrated presentation takes you further, into a unique maritime past. Guiding the visitor are the masterful and dramatic photographs of R.J. Welch, Harland & Wolff’s official photographer when the icon was born. His camera lens and evocative eye for atmosphere captured an amazing feel of the vast scale of the place, the harsh environment in which men worked, and the variety of different crafts that led to the design and build of ships prior to Olympic, vessel number 400, and Titanic, number 401.
While the exhibition focuses primarily on shipbuilding, it is set within the wider context of industrial Belfast and the incredible wealth that came to the city from the boom in linen manufacturing and associated trades. These exciting times come alive on old postcards and pictures displaying with hard evidence of the burgeoning tobacco, soft drinks and whiskey industries. The postcard, introduced by the Royal Mail in 1894 was an important way of keeping in touch with loved ones. The exhibition’s collection hail from a Master carpenter who was working on the City Hall in those heady days. He’d brought his family from Saltcoats in Ayrshire to Vernon Street in Belfast and posted notes on the cards to those they left behind.
The exhibition evokes an expanding Victorian Belfast and introduces S.S. Nomadic. She was a luxurious tender vessel, carrying 1st and 2nd Class passengers to deep-water anchorages. Nomadic is 1,200 tons of pure history, the last surviving vessel of the White Star Line afloat, launched on 25 April 1911.
Nomadic's lush interior as it is today.
Nomadic served both the Olympic and the Titanic on their maiden voyages. Her history over the following 96 years included great heroics as a troop carrier, penultimately she became a floating restaurant on the Seine before returning to Belfast in July 2006, purchased by the Department of Social Development. As an exclusive addition to the exhibition, Nomadic Charitable Trust will, for the first time, be displaying its newly acquired letter from the last remaining Titanic survivor, Millvina Dean. Dated 24 February 1913. The letter informs Millvina’s mother of her allowance awarded from the Titanic Relief Fund. Further information on the Nomadic is on www.nomadicbelfast.com and during the Festival there’ll be talks given by Trust members on April 14th 2.00pm and 3.30pm in W5. “Titanic:Designed And Made in Belfast” exhibition runs daily to Sunday 19th April 2009. Admission to the exhibition is free with admission to W5. W5 admission prices: Adults £6.80, Children £4.90 Family (2 adults + 2 children) £20. For other ticket prices and opening hours visit www.w5online.co.uk
The Exhibition is only part of the Belfast City Council’s Titanic Festival make sure you make the most of all the tours, trips and talks this year.
NOTES, QUOTES, BOATS AND ANECDOTES.
“In writing this history we have guarded against the ever present temptation to tell too much about the ships the firm has built. This would take several volumes.”Michael Moss and John R. Hume in their acclaimed book “Shipbuilders to the World, a history of Harland and Wolff. 1986”
“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry most famous for his novella The Little Prince
“He shall not be guilty of drinking, nor accessory to riots or tumults on the street, nor haunt idle or debauched company.”The contract signed by apprentices in the McClaine and Ritchie yards on the 1830s.
“Run!”Head of H&W Engine Works Design Office, Desmond Parker, when asked what to do if the 190,000 ton tanker Myrina didn’t stop at the required position during launching.
“My memory is stored with ships’ side images to a degree unusual for such an untravelled man.”Writer and academic C.S.Lewis recalling childhood scenes over Belfast Lough.
“Beware of the little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.”Benjamin Franklin “Every bolt they turned, every girder they carried away, brought them nearer the day when they should forsake the yard for ever.”Belfast press report in 1935 as Workman Clark shipyard workers dismantled their once successful plant and and equipment.
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SEA WHAT YOU KNOW.
Picture: Harland and Wolff. 1911.
Since The Titanic Times was launched four years ago it has sought to discover how much the people of Northern Ireland know about their unique maritime history. Each annual edition included the results of an on-the-street survey themed around a different nautical topic. The first questionnaire in 2006 was about Belfast-built ships; their names, histories, and accolades. Poignantly, apart from Titanic, most people had to think hard to name another vessel launched on the Lagan. An astonishingly few Belfast folk could nominate more than two, usually the Canberra and HMS Belfast. One misfit proposed Poseidon! When asked when Titanic sank, a schoolboy offered this memorable reply: “It can’t have been too long ago because Kate Winslet was on it and isn’t she still alive?”
The second edition of Titanic Times in 2007 pitched questions about other Lagan based industries. Once again, incredibly few seemed aware that Belfast once boasted the biggest and the second biggest shipyards in the world, simultaneously; Harland and Wolff and Workman Clark. The vast majority of participants in the survey were incredulous when they were informed that down the years, since the late 1600s, there were over a dozen yards on the Lagan. When faced with collective questions about the city’s other manufacturing accolades - linen, soap, rope, thread, pottery, glass, tea - a huge majority had no inkling of the vastness, prominence and quality of Belfast’s output. Partially enshrined in sand on a cheerless backwater in New Zealand is the wreck of a little Belfast ship called Mullogh. Her rusted iron ribs clutch at her memorable past, tracing the still handsome lines of a beautiful vessel launched on the Lagan in 1885 by a forgotten shipbuilder called Coates and Young. A defunct diesel engine born in Harland and Wolff lies entangled in undergrowth in a distant South American forest. Astonishingly huge ventilator units assembled in Sirocco were exported via the Lagan to breathe air into countless ships, buildings and industrial complexes in every corner of the world. Many of these gigantic iron lungs still keep distant industries alive.
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A vast Sirocco unit bound for Yugslovia.
Yet the only other manufacturing process that one of the people surveyed in 2007 could guess at, apart from shipbuilding, was brush making. Probably right but lacking in readily available oomph!Last year’s survey didn’t buck the trend! People were shown formerly notorious maritime artefacts and asked what they were; including the once ubiquitous ‘board’, often pronounced ‘bourd’. Every shipyard man had one of these. They’re iconic. Each small, slim, rectangular wooden block stamped with a number was a primitive clocking-in card. If they haven’t retained their ‘bourds’, most ex-shipyard men can still remember their personalised number. A woman was stopped for the survey and shown one. She gazed thoughtfully and wondered was it “a little door off a bird box”! Coincidently, her misconceived theory was extremely plausible; read on! There are a dozen questions in the 2009 survey, carried out this year not just on the street, but also by randomly circulating over 100 e-mails. The questionnaire was based on the trades, professions and skills employed on the Lagan down the years; beginning with the total number of employees at the peak of shipbuilding. Answers ranged from 5,000 to 145,000 with 30,000 to 50,000 being nearest to the truth, depending on date, and technical definition of both ‘employment’ and ‘suppliers’. The most accurate figure for peak employment was 32,000 in Belfast, with up to 100,000 working for shipyard suppliers, all over Ireland. One joker in the survey pack, aware of the hugely exaggerated jests about shipyard inefficiency, said that 145,000 were employed, but only four actually worked! When asked to name the trades, professions and skills, the most commonly represented was welder, followed with plater, riveter, carpenter, painter, fitter, rigger “and oooh, lots more!” as an eloquent participant stated authoritatively. Only one in ten of the contributors mentioned shipwrights, pivotal craftsmen, and wistfully, several referred to the trades which reflected the top quality of Belfast’s luxurious vessels; French polishers, wood carvers and upholsterers.
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A Welder at work.
An average of 12 trades and professions were recalled across all those surveyed; generally the same ones. In fact, the actual statistic is phenomenal, standing at a cool 200 in the yard’s hey day. When asked which of their stated jobs came first and last in the ship building process, someone suggested incontestably, “the painters probably didn’t have a lot to do before the keel had been laid.” Another thoughtful partaker posed ‘cleaning’ as the final duty before the vessel was completed. It’s difficult to be precise about the correct answer, depending on whether tasks like designing or sea trials could be considered as start and finish of the building process. One of the more unanticipated responses was ‘rat killer’ which wasn’t far off the mark. As the new vessel was being prepared for handing over to its owners a vermin specialist arrived who sealed all doors, openings and portholes, often with newspaper and tape. Then the ship was filled with poisonous gas and any undesirable little stowaways were ruthlessly deprived of a free cruise! The survey posed an intriguing question about the trades and skills that were never required by Harland and Wolff. Some of the more likely suggestions offered by the questionnaire included radiographer, bird box construction, turf digging and piano tuning. Judging from the deletions and reinsertions this question caused much deliberation. Someone resolved, “The turf digger was probably not over employed, most likely about as much as the bird box man.” Wrong about the former, right about the latter! Turf was regularly used to “plug” the gaps between the dry dock gates, or caissons, and the dock wall. This allayed seepage; a vast metal gate against a stone wall could never be totally waterproofed without some additional bunging, the discrete feat of peat!
The Hamilton Dry Dock gate, or "caisson".
A team of radiographers checked the ships’ welding for imperfections. The aforementioned bird box was built by a shipyard man on the orders of a Harland and Wolff manager who’d befriended the inhabitants of a bird’s nest. Unfortunately the nest was in a stone hollow, soon to be flooded for the launch of a ship. The benevolent H&W manager placed the finished bird box in a safer place nearby, but it’s not known if his charity began a home! Many of Belfast’s luxury cruise liners had grand pianos on board; I’m confident Harland and Wolff made sure none of the flats were sharp, and vice versa! Another question was asked – how many vessel types were built on the Lagan? Figures from 10 to 1,700 were offered in reply. The most accurate approximation is 40 specific, distinctive vessel types. From cargo ships to whalers; barges, tugs, passenger ships, air craft carriers, tankers and many classes of fighting ships.
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HMS Abelia. Flower Class Corvette.
Picture courtesy of Flower Class Corvette Association.
It was a mighty metal menu, from the smallest vessel, said to be the 147 ton Idalia launched in 1934 (a claim made by the press in 1951) to the more recent and immense super tankers of several hundred thousand tons. Many small boats, tenders and lifeboats floated off the Lagan’s production line, but I’ll leave the reader to conclude on the perplexed question – when does a boat become a ship? Reflect also on this- what relatively common vessel type was never built in Belfast? Someone wrote on his survey sheet “sauce boat”; possibly correct, but that particular survey was returned with the message “I managed to get my more knowledgeable ex-shipyard brother off the drink for an hour to help me with the attached answers!” However, most people had no idea, although those who answered curragh, Noah’s Ark and a Roman slave galley were right. As was the Poseidon! The correct answer is submarines and only one person knew. It’s a tragic twist that while not one undersea boat was ever built in Belfast, the city’s greatest maritime icon now lies two miles beneath the Atlantic!
And finally, a question of words! “Belfast shipyard workers had a nautical language of their own,” the survey stated, “What did the following terminologies mean or refer to.” Heretofore some baffling slipways of the tongue that included Turk’s Hat, Flowerpot, Bull runty, adze, and sharpies. Sharpies were yachts. An adze, also known a ‘fut edge’ was a sharp, curved steel blade on a wooden handle used by shipwrights for cutting timber, particularly deck planks. Sharpies were not, as suggested in some of the answers – bookies, men in uniform, angry foremen or stiletto heels. Nor was an adze “an early form of ACDC, much frowned upon in those days” or “the place they bought their groceries when they couldn’t spell ASDA”!
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An "adze" in use.
A Turk’s Hat was a knotted rope, and most definitely not a bedpan; a Flowerpot takes its shape from its namesake, but weighed tons. It was a large iron holder for heavy wooden vertical scaffolding called ‘staging’. They were not ships’ funnels, WCs, or “used to smoke dope”! And a bull runty was a general labourer and not “an embarrassing intestinal gaseous emission in close quarters below deck”!There are no prizes for the annual Titanic Times survey; Belfast’s countless industrial Oscars have already been won. The city’s red carpet may be frayed but the epic must not be allowed to end. It is Belfast’s duty to keep the credits rolling, to keep the curtains open on its past, and to take this vibrant vision into the future. Few small places are privileged to bask in the glow of so many trophies.
The Lagan and the Albert Bridge.
READ ON.............................
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE!
Seaquest. The world said it couldn't be built. Belfast cracked it!
HOW MANY FEATS IN A YARD?Harland and Wolff, along with a number of other Lagan shipyards, can boast of countless innovations, maritime inventions, nautical records and sea-going firsts. These ocean going feats have never been collectively documented. For instance, the endearingly nicknamed “Belfast bottom” was known to shipping magnates around the world. It was a new high efficiency ship’s hull design, an ingenious answer to an enduring shipbuilding conundrum; speed versus stability and cargo volume. H&W cracked it, and devised a hull that could carry a larger cargo without sacrificing speed.
Three ships pioneered the innovative design - the Istrian, the Iberian and the Illyrian, all constructed for the Bibby Line in the 1860s. The ships’ bottoms were flatter and their bilges were squarer. At almost 3000 tons each, they had a top speed of 10 knots.
But long before that, 1818 heralded “The New System”. Devised by Scotsman William Ritchie who opened a yard in Belfast in 1791, this was a novel style of design without a timber frame or beams, or any metal below water, excepting a few bolts in the keel and rudder brace. The Belfast News Letter of March 1818 reported “The advantages presumed in this method are saving in the price of shipbuilding, strength, duration, capacity, tightness, buoyancy, sailing and safety.”
It seems that Mr Ritchie’s New System almost 200 years ago boasted most of the aspirations of today’s manufacturers and industrialists.
Whilst the Olympic, Titanic, and Britannic were each, in turn, the biggest man made moving objects on planet earth, the White Star Line’s 1889 Belfast built Oceanic was the first vessel to surpass the dimensions of the previous record holder, SS Great Eastern., an iron sailing steam ship designed by Brunel.
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Great Eastern.
Great Eastern was the largest ship ever built at the time of her 1858 launch, able to carry 4,000 passengers around the world without refuelling. Her length of 692 feet wasn’t surpassed until 1899 by the Belfast built RMS Oceanic, at 705 feet and 17,274 tons. Several years later Great Eastern’s gross tonnage of 18,915 was outstripped in 1901 by the 700 feet and 21,035 ton Lagan built RMS Celtic. Brunel affectionately called Great Eastern the ‘Great Babe’. It took Belfast to outgrow his brainchild!
The vast tanker Myrina at 190,000 deadweight tons was the largest vessel ever launched in Europe at the time.
HEAVY METAL!
Myrina on the slipway.
Myrina's unusual construction involved moving part of the vessel down the slipway with drag weights instead of gravity. The process was monitored by highly advanced electronic instrumentation, and was a technical triumph. When launched in 1967, and on arrival in Hamburg for dry-docking, she was the largest ship ever to enter the port.
The semi-submersible drilling rig Sea Quest, due to its three-legged design, was launched down three parallel slipways. This was a first time this had ever been done.
The cranes, Samson and Goliath, were the world’s biggest, and the Alexandra and Thompson dry docks were in turn the largest on planet earth.
A full list of Lagan based maritime achievements is almost certainly inexhaustible. One thing’s for sure; if they were laid end to end Belfast’s feats would make a very long yard!
Read on................HAPPY BERTH DAY DEAR LAGAN.
The frantic preparations for Titanic’s departure were almost finished. Today, April 9th 1912, on the eve of her maiden voyage, the ship’s designer Thomas Andrews wrote a letter home to his wife. “The Titanic is now complete and will, I think, do the old firm credit tomorrow when we sail.”
Due to Belfast’s disproportionate inheritance of exceptional maritime history the city can boast more significant anniversaries than most cities in the world; few more poignant than Thomas Andrews’ letter. Except for two dates, every day on the calendar is an anniversary of at least one ship being launched on the River Lagan down the centuries; often three or four vessels, and regularly a dozen or more. Nor does it take much research to discover an endless cascade of other historic events involving Belfast built ships. The two missing launch dates are, predictably, Christmas day and the 12th July! Harland and Wolff’s Govan Yard in Glasgow hadn’t such a sensitive approach to public holidays as Belfast. In 1919 and 1920 two cargo ships were launched in their Scotland works on Christmas day – the Glenberg and the Glentara. However, several vessels were launched on the Lagan on Christmas Eve – in 1878 and 1889 the cargo boats Shahjehan and Gaekwar slipped into the freezing yule-tide. Whatever the date, once a newly launched ship’s hull left the slipway and came to a rest on the river it was tethered to tugs and berthed at the fitting out wharf. So each date in a calendar year could be termed a “berthday”.
And the 9th April is awash with “berthdays”, and Lagan related anniversaries.
Today in 1903 ship number 350, the Marmora was launched. She was a 10,522 ton Passenger vessel built by Harland and Wolff for the ubiquitous P&O Line. She was later commissioned on the 10th August 1914 as an armed merchant ship, and was torpedoed by a U-boat on 23 July 1918 off Northern Ireland.
Today in 1959 the 5,684 tons cargo ship Somers Isle was launched. She was Harland and Wolff ship number 1,622 for the Pacific Steam Navigation Company.
Today in 1887 was also a big day for ship number 201, the Etolia. Amidst much maritime pomp and circumstance on the Lagan, the 3,211 ton cargo ship was handed over to her new owners, the City of Liverpool Steam Navigation Company. She was designed for limited passenger accommodation. Initially used on the Liverpool Bombay route, in July 1896 she was sailing from Montreal to Bristol when she hit an iceberg and was badly damaged, but remained afloat. Whilst on the North Atlantic service, Etolia was wrecked off Cape Sable, fortunately with no loss of life.
Five years after Harland and Wolff management wined and dined with Etolia’s new owners, a similar event was organised for the wonderfully named Baltimore Storage and Lighterage Company. Their management came across the Atlantic to Belfast to be presented with the latest addition to their fleet, the 5,591 ton Manitoba. The new vessel was to become the mainstay of their London to New York service until she was sold to the U.S. Government in 1898, making 62 voyages to New York between April 1892 and June of 1898.
In 1898 five of her crew were killed when a case of safety cartridges they were unloading exploded at the Royal Albert Docks. Later that year she was requisitioned by the U. S. Government for transport services during the Spanish American War, and was renamed Logan. She could carry 80 officers, 1,000 men and 1,000 horses. She also had refrigeration capacity for 1,000 pounds of meat. Following requisition, Manitoba was sent to Pier 25 in Brooklyn for her fit out. The New York Times noted that her crew was less than enthusiastic about serving their ship's new military masters:
After looking over the vessel Major Summerhayes had the crew assembled on deck. He told the men that the vessel would be tuned over to the Government and asked if they wanted to stay.
“Well, I don’t know.” said one of her crew.
“Captain,” interrupted the Major, “put that man ashore.”
The man left, and then another began to grumble. “Put the whole crew ashore,” ordered the Major. “I’ve had this trouble before, and am not going to have any more of it!”
After being put ashore the men relented and wanted to be taken back, but Major Summerhayes refused, declaring that he could get all the men he wanted who were American citizens. After changing hands and names a number of times, the plucky little Belfast built ship was scrapped in 1923. But her colourful history, like all of today’s other anniversary vessels, will not be scrapped.
Let’s celebrate this day for Belfast! The 9th April is a truly historic date packed with multiple maritime anniversaries.
HAPPY BERTHDAY DEAR LAGAN.
THE END.
Until next year's TITANIC TIMES.