People
Oil accidents
Canals
Docks
Hovercraft
Titanic
Speed records – See Appendix 1 below
UK Canals - See
Appendix 2 below
Non-UK Canals - See Appendix 3 below
Docks – See Appendix 4 below
13/1/2012, The Costa
Concordia cruise liner was wrecked off the coast of Italy; 32 people died.
27/11/2008, The ocean liner QE2 was
taken out of service, to become a floating hotel in the UAE.
15/11/2008, Somali pirates hijacked
a Saudi oil supertanker off the Somali coast.
18/4/2002, Thor Heyerdahl died.
25/6/1997, Jacques
Cousteau, French underwater explorer, died.
28/9/1994, The car ferry Estonia
sank in off Uto Island in the Baltic during a heavy storm on its way to Sweden.
Waves 10 metres high had ripped off the bow doors used for loading vehicles;
only 140 of the 1,047 passengers and crew survived, the worst ferry disaster in
Europe since World War Two. There were similarities to the Herald of Free
Enterprise disaster on 7/4/1987. Ferry operators had been slow to follow
recommendations for watertight bulkhead doors on the car deck.
5/1/1993, The oil
tanker MV Braer ran aground off
Shetland and began leaking 84,700 tons of crude oil.
4/1/1993. P & O European Ferries announced the closure of
its passenger services between Dover and Boulogne after 170 years.
3/12/1992. The oil tanker Aegean Sea ran aground near La Coruna, Spain,
making an oil slick 20 kilometres long.
7/4/1990, Fire ripped through a ferry going from Oslo,
Norway, to Frederikshavn, Denmark; serious safety breaches contributed to the
loss of 150 lives.
1/3/1990. The Royal New Zealand Navy discontinued the daily rum
ration.
22/6/1989, The captain of the Herald of Free Enterprise was charged with manslaughter.
6/4/1989, The UK
Government announced it was to abolish the ‘job for life’ guarantee to all
dockworkers.
31/3/1989, The Master of the
Exxon Valdez oil tanker was sacked
for drunkenness.
25/3/1989. Oil from the 987 foot tanker Exxon
Valdez was spilled on the Alaskan coast. She had run aground on 24/3/1989 and
was holed in Prince William Sound. 35,000 tons of crude oil polluted 100 miles
of coastline.
10/11/1988, The oil tanker Odyssey spilled 140,000 tons of crude
oil off the coast of Canada.
7/4/1987, The Herald of
Free Enterprise was righted (capsized 6/3/1987). On 8/4/1987 104 more
bodies were found inside the ship.
6/3/1987. The ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsized,
after leaving Zeebrugge with her bow doors open. 193 people died, out of 650 on
board. The bow doors of the 7,951 ton roll-on-roll-off vessel had been left
open as she left Zeebrugge, and water had entered the car deck and destabilised
her. She did not sink completely because of a shallow sandbank beneath. Sea
temperature was just 3 C, which would kill a person in 15 minutes.
4/9/1985, The wreck of The Titanic
was photographed by a remote-controlled submarine on the seabed off
Newfoundland.
1/9/1985, A joint US-French expedition found the wreck of
the Titanic off Newfoundland.
1983, German engineer Ortwin Fries
developed a hinged ship that could bend into a V shape, to clean up oil spills
into ints twin hulls.
6/8/1983, The oil tanker Castillio de Bellver spilled 255,000
tons of crude oil off Cape Town, South Africa.
17/9/1981, Twelve divers began a successful operation to
recover 431 gold ingots, valued at £48 million, from HMS Edinburgh, which was
sunk in the Barents Sea off northern Norway in 1942.
19/7/1979, Two oil tankers,
the Atlantic Empress and the Aegean Captain collided off Trinidad,
spilling 300,000 tons of crude oil, the world’s largest oil spill.
8/1/1979, The French oil
tanker Betelgeuse exploded in Bantry
Bay, west Ireland, killing 49 people.
17/3/1978. The Amoco Cadiz oil tanker ran aground on
the Brittany coast. She split in two on
24/3/1978; 220,000 tons of oil were spilled.
24/10/1977, The transatlantic liner France was sold to
Saudi Arabia for use as a floating hotel.
24/1/1976. The oil tanker Olympic Bravery spilled 250,000 tons of
oil off Brittany.
26/8/1972. Sir Francis Chichester, English
round the world yachtsman, died in Plymouth, Devon.
22/4/1972. John Fairfax and Sylvia Cook arrived in
Australia, having become the first
people to row across the Pacific.
18/1/1972, The first plastic warship, the minehunter HMS Wilton, was launched at Southampton.
9/1/1972, The liner Queen Elizabeth, which had been
moored at Hong Kong and served as a floating marine university, caught fire and
sank. There were suspicions that the fire had been started deliberately, because
the university project was failing. The Queen
Elizabeth had been launched in 1938; she left the trans-Atlantic cruise
business in 1969, when jet airliners had killed this business.
6/8/1971, British sailor Chay Blyth became the first person to sail single-handed
east to west around the world.
31/7/1970,
The British Royal navy ended its 200-year-old tradition of a daily rum
ration for the sailors (see 1687)
12/7/1970. Thor Heyerdal and a crew of 7
crossed the Atlantic, from Morocco to Bridgetown, Barbados, on a papyrus raft
called Ra-2. Thor Heyerdal had crossed from
Peru to the Pacific island of Argutu, 4,300 miles, in 101 days in a balsawood
craft of ancient South American design. He wanted to prove that the Polynesian
islands could have been settled by prehistoric South American people. In 1970 he built a papyrus boat to cross the
Atlantic but it broke up and sank after 2,000 miles. His second boat made the
Atlantic crossing from Safi in Morocco to Mogador in Barbados in 57 days. This
was to show that ancient Egyptians could have introduced pyramid building to
pre-Columbian Americans.
23/6/1970, Brunel’s
320 foot ship, Great Britain, the first all-metal ocean liner, returned
to Britain from the Falkland Islands where it had lain rusting since 1886.
4/2/1970, The Liberian
oil tanker Arrow ran aground off Nova
Scotia, with 16,000 tons of oil on board. Eight days later she broke in half in
a storm, causing oil pollution up to 160 km away.
11/11/1969, The owners of the Torrey Canyon agreed to pay £1.5 million
compensation to Britain and France.
25/5/1969, The Norwegian Thor
Heyerdahl set sail with seven crew from the Moroccan port of Safi in a
reed boat in order to prove that The ancient Egyptians could have reached
America, accounting for the Pyramids in central America. He used 12 tons of
papyrus reeds, and traditional boat builders from Chad made the vessel. The
boat did not sink, and Heyerdahl completed the voyage; in 1948 he successfully
completed a voyage from Polynesia to Peru to prove that Pacific Islanders could
have settled South America.
2/5/1969. The Queen Elizabeth II sailed from
Southampton on her maiden voyage.
15/11/1968. Cunard’s flagship liner the Queen Elizabeth docked at Southampton
for the last time. Launched in September 1938, she was used during the War as a
troopship based in Sydney, Australia. Her first commercial voyage was from
Southampton in 1946. She was replaced by the Queen Elizabeth II.
1/8/1968. The Princess
Margaret inaugurated the hovercraft service between Dover and Boulogne.
4/2/1968. The world’s largest hovercraft, 165
tonnes, was launched at Cowes.
27/9/1967, The liner Queen Mary arrived at
Southampton, at the end of her last transatlantic voyage.
20/9/1967. The Queen launched the Cunard liner Queen
Elizabeth II, at Clydebank, Scotland.
7/7/1967. Using Sir Francis Drake’s sword, the Queen
knighted Sir
Francis Chichester, who had sailed solo around the world in Gypsy
Moth IV.
28/5/1967. (+8,055) Sir Francis Chichester arrived
in Plymouth after a solo voyage around the world in his yacht, Gypsy Moth IV. See 27/8/1966.
16/9/1966, Britain’s
first Polaris nuclear submarine, the Resolution, was launched by the
Queen Mother.
3/9/1966, Captain Ridgeway and Sergeant Blyth became the first Britons to row across the Atlantic. The journey, in English Rose III, took
91 days.
27/8/1966, Francis Chichester left Plymouth on his solo
round the world voyage in the yacht Gypsy Moth IV. He arrived back in Plymouth on 28/5/1967.
30/4/1966. A regular hovercraft service began across the English Channel between
Calais and Ramsgate.
31/1/1965, The Yugoslavian cargo ship
SS Rascisce sank in the Ionian Sea,
but all 30 crew were rescued
17/4/1963, The Royal Navy’s first nuclear powered submarine, Dreadnought,
was commissioned.
10/4/1963, The nuclear-powered submarine USS
Thresher sank in the Atlantic with the loss of all 129 men on board.
21/8/1962, Savannah, the world’s first nuclear-powered merchant ship, began her maiden
voyage.
20/7/1962, The world’s first regular hovercraft service began, on the Dee estuary between Wallasey and Rhyl.
20/9/1961. Argentinean Antonio Albertondo completed the first non-stop swim across the English
Channel and back. He completed the feat on 21/9 after 43 hours 5 minutes in
the water.
21/10/1960. Britain’s first nuclear-powered submarine, Dreadnought, was
launched at Barrow in Furness.
24/9/1960. The first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, was
launched at Newport, Virginia. She cost US$ 445 million, carried 100 aircraft,
had a complement of 440 officers and 4,160 enlisted men, and a flight deck the
size of four football pitches.
16/2/1960, USS Triton nuclear submarine began her round the world
voyage, the first such vessel to undertake this journey.
23/1/1960, The US Navy submarine Trieste, manned
by Dr Piccard and Lieutenant Walsh, reached a record depth of 35,820
feet in the Challenger Deep section of the Marianas
Trench, Pacific Ocean.
20/12/1959, The first atomic ice-breaker, The Lenin, started operating.
25/7/1959. The
hovercraft, SRN 1, made its first crossing of the English Channel from Dover to
Calais in a little over 2 hours.
21/7/1959. The first nuclear merchant
ship, USS Savannah, was launched at Camden, New Jersey, in the USA. She was launched by Mrs Mamie Eisenhower.
26/6/1959, Queen
Elizabeth II and US President Eisenhower opened the St Lawrence
Seaway, 300 km, linking the Great Lakes to the Atlantic.
11/6/1959, The first
experimental hovercraft capable of carrying a man was launched at Cowes, Isle
of Wight.
30/5/1959. The first hovercraft flight took place at
Cowes, Isle of Wight. The Suffolk boat builder, Christopher Cockerell, had
announced its invention in 1958.
5/8/1958. The nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus
completed its voyage beneath the ice of the North Pole. William Anderson commanded it. Launched in
January 1954, she left Pearl Harbour on 23/7/1958 and sailed through the Bering
Strait, passing the North Pole on 3/8/1958, emerging near Greenland on
5/8/1958. The Nautilus was
decommissioned in 1980 to become a floating museum.
23/5/1958, Christopher Cockerell patented the hovercraft.
25/7/1956, Italian ocean liner SS Andrea sank off
Massachusetts after colliding in fog with Swedish liner MS Stockholm; 50 were
killed.
For Suez Crisis see Egypt
30/7/1948, The world’s first radar
station designed to assist shipping was opened at Liverpool, UK.
27/4/1947, Thor Heyerdahl set sail on a
balsa wood raft from Callao in Peru to Raroia in Polynesia in order to prove
that Peruvians could have settled in Polynesia.
16/10/1946. The liner Queen Elizabeth made her first
commercial voyage, after serving as a troopship during the War.
21/10/1941, The hull of Britain’s last, and largest ever,
battleship HMS Vanguard, was laid at Clydebank. She was launched on 30/11/1944.
30/6/1939, The Mersey Ferry, between Liverpool and
Rock ferry, was discontinued.
27/9/1938. The 80,000 ton liner Queen Elizabeth, the largest passenger vessel ever built, was launched at John
Brown’s yard at Clydebank, Glasgow.
26/9/1934. The liner Queen Mary
was launched at John Brown’s yard in Clydebank, Glasgow.
22/7/1930, The large German battle cruiser Hindenburg was salvaged from Scapa Flow,
12 years after German sailors had scuttled here there on 21/6/1919.
16/9/1928, In Glasgow the P&O liner Viceroy of India was launched; she was the first to have oil-fired
electric turbines.
7/5/1915. The Lusitania,
captained by William Thomas Turner, was
torpedoed. 1,400 people drowned 8 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, near
Cork. 128 Americans were among the 1,208 casualties, including friends of President
Woodrow Wilson and the millionaire yachtsman Alfred Vanderbilt, as the ship
made its way back to Liverpool on a voyage from New York. America condemned the torpedoing of the ship by a German submarine as
an act of piracy and this brought the USA into the War.
The
30,000 tonne Lusitania had sailed
from New York on 1/5/1915. She carried 1,257 passengers, including 128
Americans; 702 crew; and an estimated 3 stowaways. Her cargo list, later a
source of controversy, included small arms cartridges, uncharged shrapnel
shells, cheese, furs, and, oddly, 205 barrels of oysters. The Germans later
claimed the ‘oysters’ were actually heavy munitions whose explosion had doomed
the ship. However there was no second explosion after the torpedo hit; there
were no heavy munitions and rifle rounds burned harmlessly, like firecrackers,
and did not explode.
Cunard
had shut down the Lusitania’s fourth boiler room to save on coal but even at
the reduced maximum speed of 21 knots it was reckoned she could outrun any
German U-boat. Passengers ignored warnings from the German Embassy published in
the New York Press not to cross the Atlantic under a belligerent flag, and the
lifeboat drills on board were palpably inadequate. The Lusitania had plenty of
lifeboats but most were unlaunchable because the ship listed heavily as water
poured through lower deck portholes, opened for air despite orders to close
them. She sank within 18 minutes of
being hit.
The
sinking of the Lusitania deepened American hostility towards Germany but President
Woodrow Wilson’s administration
was split between the hawks and doves, and
it was another 2 years before America entered the war.
18/2/1915. Shackleton’s ship Endurance became stuck in pack ice.
6/10/1914, Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian adventurer, leader
of the Kon Tiki expedition, was born in Larvik.
29/5/1914, The Canadian Pacific liner Empress of Ireland was wrecked in the St Lawrence River, drowning
over 1,000.
15/12/1913,
The world’s biggest battlecruiser, HMS Tiger, was launched in Glasgow.
14/10/1913, The world’s
first oil-powered battleship, HMS Queen
Elizabeth, was launched.
3/7/1912, The Board of Trade Inquiry
into the Titanic disaster found Captain Smith
(who went down with his ship) guilty of negligence.
28/5/1912, The Titanic
enquiry in the US gave a verdict of negligence.
19/4/1912, The U.S. Hydrographic Office and representatives
of the steamship lines agreed that the winter time course of ships would be 270
miles south of the course taken by the Titanic,
adding between 9 and 14 hours to the trip. The new route would be 3,080 miles
rather than 2,858 miles.
18/4/1912, The liner Carpathia
arrived in New York, carrying survivors of the Titanic
disaster.
15/4/1912. The Titanic, steaming too fast through a sea
full of icebergs, sank on her maiden voyage. Of the 2,340 passengers
and crew, 1,513 perished in the icy seas; only 732 survived. The first lifeboat
to get away was almost empty, occupied only by the director of the line and
their friends. Many first class passengers got priority over cheaper ‘steerage’
passengers. However there was also heroism; John Jacob Astor stayed behind
after ensuring his bride was on a lifeboat, and the band, who played hymns as
the ship sank beneath it.
With 16 watertight compartments the Titanic, 270
metres long, was considered ‘unsinkable’ and so only had enough lifeboat places
for 1,178. Before she sailed from
Southampton on 10/4/1912, an engineer stated ‘God himself could not sink this
ship’. Off Newfoundland, a lookout reported an iceberg, the First Officer
ordered a turn to port, and the Titanic missed the berg, but an underwater
projection of ice struck her below the waterline, ripping open five of the sixteen watertight compartments.
With this many compartments flooded, the ship began to sink, flooding further
compartments. Many passengers could not accept that the ship was sinking, and
only 800 only got aboard the lifeboats, and one lifeboat was sucked under as
the Titanic sank. However later
theories suggest that the real cause was poor rivets, that popped, causing a
seam along the ship to split open.
13/12/1911, The P & O liner Delhi
foundered with the Princess Royal on board, but she and most of the other
passengers on board were rescued.
21/6/1911, The ship RMS Olympic completed its first
transatlantic trip, arriving in New York after a voyage of 5 days, 16 hours and
42 minutes.
31/5/1911. The Titanic
was launched at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
1/2/1911, HMS Thunderer,
the last battleship to be built on the
Thames, was launched from the old Thames Ironworks at Silvertown.
20/10/1910, The Titanic’s sister ship, RMS Olympic, was launched from the
Harland and Wolf shipyard in Belfast. She didn’t sink, earning the nickname
‘Old Reliable’.
5/12/1910, A convoy of barges on the River Volga sank,
killing 350 workmen.
17/6/1910, The United States Lighthouse Service was created as
federal agency to regulate lighthouses throughout the nation. The office of the
Commissioner was transferred to the United States Coast Guard in 1935.
11/6/1910, Jacques Cousteau, French underwater explorer who
invented the aqualung, was born in
Saint Andre, Gironde, France.
11/8/1909, The first SOS
signal was sent, by wireless.
1908, The
gyroscope compass was invented by German scientist Herman Anschutz-Kaempfe. Once
set to true north, it remained stable despite any ship’s movement in a storm.
10/7/1908, The British announced the deployment of a new
torpedo, with a four mile range and a speed of four knots.
16/5/1908. The UK launched its first
diesel submarine, called D-1, from Barrow in Furness.
2/4/1908, The destroyer HMS Tiger collided with the cruiser HMS Berwick near the Isle of Wight, killing 35 sailors.
7/3/1908, Germany
launched its first Dreadnought
battleship.
13/12/1907, The liner Mauretania
ran aground at Liverpool.
13/9/1907, The British ocean liner Lusitania arrived in New York on her maiden voyage, having crossed
the Atlantic in a record 5 days, at average speed 23 knots.
14/12/1906. The German Navy acquired its first submarine, the
U1.
3/10/1906. SOS
was established as an international distress signal, at the Berlin Radio Conference, replacing the
earlier CDQ call sign, sometimes wrongly
explained as Come Damn Quick.
20/9/1906, The Mauretania,
Atlantic passenger liner, was launched.
4/8/1906, The Italian liner Silvio was wrecked off Spain; 200 drowned.
10/6/1906, The SOS distress signal was used for the first time, when the
Cunard liner Slavonia was wrecked off the Azores.
7/6/1906. The Lusitania, the world's biggest liner, was launched in Glasgow.
15/1/1906, Aristotle
Onassis, Greek shipping tycoon, was born in Smyrna,
Turkey.
19/11/1905, The British steamer Hilda was wrecked off St Malo killing
128.
14/11/1905, Robert Whitehead, who invented
the naval torpedo in 1866, died in
Berkshire.
17/11/1904, First UK underwater voyage of a submarine was made, under the
Solent, Southampton to the Isle of Wight.
12/10/1903, The shipbuilders Cammel and Laird agreed to merge.
11/7/1903, The world’s
first power boat race was staged by the Cork Yacht Club in Ireland.
1902, The cost of shipping a
quarter (ton) of wheat
from Chicago to Liverpool stood at 2s 10 ½ d, This rate had fallen from 11
shillings in the 1870s and 4s 4d in 1892. Every rail line completed in the USA
increased the competition facing UK farmers.
2/10/1901. Vickers launched the British Navy’s first submarine.
HMS Holland, 105 tons, was designed for coastal duties. The petrol engine was
dangerous; later submarines used diesel engines. The crew breathed compressed
air, and stayed under for 4 hours. The Royal Navy concentrated on using
submarines for inshore patrols whereas other navies, especially Germany,
developed longer-distance craft. This disparity was a severe handicap to
Britain during the First World War; only the development of
sophisticated counter measures saved Britain from starvation as German U-boats
sunk supply ships.
16/6/1901, The liner Lucania was used for trials of wireless
telegraphy at sea.
9/11/1900, The world’s biggest battleship to date, the 15,150
ton Mikasa, was launched from Barrow
in Furness, for the Japanese Navy.
17/3/1899, A merchant ship ran aground in the English Channel
and sent the first radio distress call.
1898, Joshua Slocum became the first man to sail solo around the world.
He set out from Boston,
USA, in his yacht Spray, in
1895, aged 51, and raised funds by giving lectures at the variuos ports he
called at around the globe. He could not swim. In 1909, aged 65, he set out on
a similar voyage from Rhode Island on the same boat, and was never heard of
again.
3/6/1898, Samuel Plimsoll, who devised the Plimsoll Line for the safe loading of ships,
died in Folkestone, Kent.
4/11/1894. First turbine ship launched.
28/10/1893, The British Royal Navy’s
first destroyer, HMS Havoc, underwent
sea trials.
11/3/1885, Sir Malcolm Campbell, British holder of the
world land and sea speed records, was born.
1/11/1884. Lloyds
Register of Shipping was first published.
28/7/1883, A water
bicycle with paddlewheels was pedalled across the English Channel in less than
eight hours
18/5/1882, The present Eddystone Lighthouse, the 4th on the site, built by Sir James
Douglas, was opened.
1/1/1876, The Plimsoll Line became compulsory on all
British-registered ships after this date. Its purpose was to prevent ships
being dangerously overloaded. The modern Plimsoll Line was first proposed by James Hall of Tynemouth in a report of 7/12/.1869. However the Crusader ships
employed a cross marked at the waterline for the same purpose, and the 12th
century Republic of Venice also made it illegal to operate its ships without a
form of the Plimsoll line. Hanseatic ships used the same load line but when the
Hanseatic League ceased to exist in the 15th century this safety
practice was lost.
19/8/1867, James Gordon became the first person to cross the English Channel by canoe, taking 11
hours to travel from Boulogne to Dover.
28/4/1865, Samuel Cunard, Canadian ship
owner and founder of the British steamship company, Cunard Line, died.
See Egypt
for events relating to Suez Canal
2/12/1861, Danube Navigation Commission formed.
29/12/1860, Britain’s first seagoing iron-clad warship, the HMS Warrior, was launched. Built of
iron throughout, her construction was a response to the launch of the French
warship La Gloire, which had iron
cladding from her top deck down to 6 feet below the waterline.
17/6/1860, The ocean liner Great Eastern, 692 feet
long, designed by Brunel and Russell, began her first
transatlantic voyage.
31/1/1858, The liner Great
Eastern, 692 feet long, with five funnels, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and John Scott
Russell, was launched at Millwall Docks, London, three months behind
schedule.
1854, A steamboat commuter
service began between Greenwich and the City of London.
14/5/1847, HMS Driver
arrived at Spithead, England, having
become the first steamship to complete a round the world voyage.
1845, The British Navy staged a
tug of war between two 800-ton frigates, HMS Alecto, propelled by paddle wheels, and HMS Rattler, which had propellers. The two ships were secured stren to
stern; Rattler won easily.
25/7/1845. Brunel’s 320 foot
iron ship, the Great Britain, left Liverpool on her maiden voyage, to
New York.
26/7/1844. The first ocean cruise left Southampton for a
four month steamship tour of the Mediterranean.
19/7/1843, Brunel’s ship Great
Britain, the first all-metal liner,
was launched from London’s Wapping Dock, by Prince Albert. At 98 metres long, she was the world’s
largest ship.
16/11/1841, Napoleon Guerin, of New York,
patented the first life-jacket; it
was filled with cork.
4/7/1840, The Cunard
Line began operations, with services to Halifax and Boston; services to New
York began in 1848. Cunard’s reputation
for safety and reliability helped it survive against strong competition,
despite early complaints about Cunard’s food. Eventually the airlines were to
take business from the ocean liners.
28/2/1840, John Philip Holland, American
inventor who pioneered the modern
submarine, was born in County Clare, Ireland.
4/5/1839. The Cunard
shipping line was founded by the Canadian Sir Samuel Cunard. In 1934 it merged with the White Star Line.
22/4/1838. The British packet steamer Sirius became the
first ship to cross the Atlantic on
steam power only. She had left Queenstown (now Cobh) on 4/4/1838.
8/4/1838. Brunel’s 236 foot wooden steamship Great
Western left Bristol for her maiden voyage to New York, under Captain James
Hosken. The first ship to cross the Atlantic entirely under steam
power was the Sirius, which left
Queenstown, Ireland, on 4/4/1838 and arrived at Sandy Hook, New York on
22/4/1838.
19/7/1837, Brunel’s 236-foot Great Western was launched at Patterson’s Yard, Bristol.
1836, The screw propeller was
invented independently by Francis Pettit Smith of England and John Ericsson,
a Swded living in the USA.
16/2/1834, Lionel Lukin, British inventor of the lifeboat, died.
1827, A ship sailed from New
Orleans, USA, to Liverpool, UK, in the record time of 26 days.
4/3/1824. In Britain, Sir William Hillary founded the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
10/2/1824, Samuel Plimsoll, naval inventor, was born at Bristol.
3/1/1823, Robert
Whitehead, English engineer and inventor of the naval torpedo, was born in Bolton Le Moors, Lancashire.
20/6/1819. The steamship Savannah arrived in Liverpool,
under the command of Captain Moses Rogers, after crossing the Atlantic in just
27 days after leaving Savannah, Georgia on 24/5/1819. She was the first ship to cross the Atlantic by steam power.
5/1/1818. The first regular scheduled service across the
Atlantic began, between New York and Liverpool.
7/12/1817, Captain Bligh, captain of The Bounty,
died in London.
17/3/1816, The 38-ton Elise left Newhaven for a stormy 17-hour crossing to Le Havre, becoming the first steamboat to cross The Channel.
24/2/1815, Robert Fulton, American engineer and ship and
submarine designer, died.
29/10/1814, The US navy launched the Demilogos at New
York; the first steam powered warship,
designed by Robert Fulton.
1/2/1811, The Inchcape
Lighthouse was first lit.
17/8/1807, Robert Fulton made the first practical steamboat trip, 150
miles in the Clermont from New York City to Albany.
3/3/1803, The Duke of
Bridgewater, who pioneered Britain’s canal network, died.
4/11/1797, US Congress agreed to pay an annual ‘anti-piracy’ tribute to Tripoli.
28/10/1792, John Smeaton, English civil engineer who
designed the third Eddystone Lighthouse, died.
21/11/1791. The French navigator, Eteinne Marchand, set a new
record for crossing the Pacific Ocean, completing the voyage in 60 days.
30/1/1790. The world’s first purpose-built lifeboat was
successfully tested at South Shields, Tyneside, England. The boat, ‘The
Original’, went on to give 40 years service.
23/1/1790, Fletcher Christian and other mutineers burned The Bounty and settled on Pitcairn Island.
14/6/1789, Captain Bligh, cast adrift from The Bounty with 18 men, arrived at Timor,
near Java, having sailed his small boat for 3,618 miles.
28/4/1789. The Mutiny on The Bounty. The ship’s captain, Captain Bligh,
and 17 others were set adrift in an open boat near The Friendly Isles; they
eventually reached Timor, Java, on 14/6/1789. Captain Bligh, born 1754, died
on 7/12/1817 in London . His severe discipline on board had provoked the
mutiny. The mutineers settled on Pitcairn
Island.
17/12/1787, (-57,485) HMS Bounty, commended by William Bligh, set sail from for the
South Seas.
21/11/1787. Sir Samuel Cunard,
Canadian ship owner, was born in Nova Scotia. He came to Britain in 1838 and,
with two partners, established what came to be known as the Cunard Line.
2/11/1785, The first unsinkable lifeboat was patented by Lionel Lukin, a London
coachbuilder.
1783,
The first paddle-driven steamboat was invented by Marquis Jouffroy D’Abbans of France.
29/8/1782, At
Spithead, a prime ship of the British Navy, the Royal George, sank with the loss of 900 lives. Launched in
1756, she was one of only 3 100-gun ships in the navy. An enquiry began as to
whether she sank due to rotten timbers or due to her being heeled over so far
that water entered her lower gunports.
20/5/1777. The world’s first iron boat was launched into
the River Foss near York. She was a 12’ long pleasure craft capable of carrying
15 persons.
6/9/1776, The US pioneered the use of the submarine
for military purposes. David Bushnell’s Connecticut Turtle, a pear-shaped 2 metre long wooden vessel dived
under British ships in New York Harbour in an attempt to bore holes with an
augur and plant explosives, However the British ships had copper bottoms and
the attempt was futile.
17/1/1773. Captain Cook’s
ship Resolution became the first ship
to cross the Antarctic Circle.
14/11/1765, Robert Fulton, US engineer who invented the first commercially successful steamboat,
was born to Irish parents in Pennsylvania.
16/10/1759, The Eddystone Lighthouse, designed by Smeaton, was
officially opened.
8/10/1759. The Eddystone Lighthouse was completed.
9/9/1754, William Bligh, captain of The Bounty, at the time of the mutiny, was born in Plymouth.
24/5/1744, The
Baltic Exchange in London was founded, as the marketplace where marine cargo
rates were fixed. On this day the Daily
Post announced that a coffee house in Threadneedle Street was changing its
name from the Maryland Coffee House to the Virginia and Baltick Coffee House,
and would act as an exchange point for news and post for sea captains engaged
in North Atlantic cargo.
1736, The Longitide Prize
(see 1714) was won by Joh Harrison. His device, accurate to 0.1 seconds a day,
or 1.3 miles of longitude, was an
accurate clock which sailors could use to compare time of local sunrise or
sunset with Greenwich times. His device was delicate and weighed 60 pounds (26
kg), and was b=vulnerable to heavy weather; improved versions were soon made.
22/11/1718, Edward Teach, English pirate
known as ‘blackbeard’, was killed
off the coast of North Carolina.
1714,
The British Government established a Board
of Longitude, and offered a £20,000 prize to anyone who could devise a
means of determining a ship’s longitude to within 30 miles after a 6 weeks
voyage. A ship’s latitude could easily be established by determining the
elevation of the Sun, but longitude was far harder. See 1736.
1687,
The British Royal Navy introduced the daily rum ration for sailors (see
31/7/1970). Rum was longer-lasting than beer, which tended to go stale after a
few weeks.
22/12/1662. The first catamaran was built at Dublin for
Sir William
Petty, a founder member of the Royal Society. The vessel weighed 30
tons and carried 5 guns; it had a crew of 30 men. In January 1663 it won the
first open yacht race and in July 1663 beat the Dublin Packet in a sea going
race. King
Charles II, a keen yachtsman,
considered the catamaran a joke but declined a racing challenge from Sir Petty.
24/2/1636, King Christian of Denmark
ordered that all beggars able to work must be sent to Brinholmen Island, to
work at building ships or work as galley rowers.
1620, The Dutch engineer Cornelius
Drebbel invented a submarine.
6/9/1522, Ferdinand Magellan’s ship, the Vittoria,
under the command of Juan Sebastian Del Cano, arrived in San Lucar, Spain,
after completing the first
circumnavigation of the world. Magellan
himself was killed on the Philippine island of Mactan.
27/4/1521. Natives on the island of Mactan, Philippines,
killed the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan.
He was on a voyage around the world.
7/4/1521, Ferdinand Magellan arrived at Cebu.
28/11/1520, After navigating through the South American
strait, three ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand
Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first Europeans to
sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific (the strait was later named the Strait of Magellan).
20/9/1519. The Portuguese-born navigator Ferdinand Magellan started on a voyage to cross the Pacific Ocean
and circumnavigate the world. He had a fleet of five small ships; Trinidad,
San Antonio, Concepcion, Vittoria, and Santiago. On 28/11/1520 Magellan discovered a strait at the southern
tip of South America and entered the Pacific. Magellan
was killed on 27/4/1521 by natives of the Philippines. Magellan’s ship, the Vittoria,
arrived alone in San Lucar, Spain, on 6/9/1522 under the command of Del Cano, to become the first ship to circumnavigate
the world.
1514, Trinity House, the principal lighthouse and pilotage authority on
Britain, was granted a Charter by King Henry VIII; Trinity House was already an
important body by then.
250 BCE, The Pharos (lighthouse) at
Alexandria was completed. Its fire at the top of a 600-foot tower burned for
1,500 years, and could be seen over thirty miles out at sea.
2500 BCE, Use of sails in the
Aegean.
4500 BCE, First use of sails, in
Mesopotamia.
Appendix One –Speed
records
6/3/1983, Australian Christopher
Massey set a world water skiing speed record of 143.08 mph.
8/10/1978, Australia’s Ken Warby set a new world water speed record
of 317.627 mph in The
Spirit of Australia at Blowering
Dam, Australia.
4/1/1967. Donald Campbell
died attempting to break his own water speed record of 276.33 mph on Coniston Water in the Lake
District. He had made one run, then turned for another run too soon, and his
boat hit its own wake and catapulted out of the water. His boat was called Bluebird
K 7.
21/7/1960. Francis Chichester, 58, arrived
in New York on his yacht, Gypsy Moth,
having set a record of 40 days for a solo Atlantic crossing.
23/7/1959. Donald Campbell broke the world
water speed record on Ullswater when he
reached 202.32mph
in Bluebird.
7/7/1952, The American liner, United States, on her maiden voyage, made the
fastest ever Atlantic crossing. She covered the 2,949 nautical miles from
Ambrose Light Vessel to Bishop Rock Light in 3 days, 10 hours 40 minutes.
18/7/1932, At Loch Lomond, Scotland, Kaye Don
reclaimed the world boat speed record with a new mark of 119.81 mph in the Miss England III.
13/6/1930, Sir Henry
Segrave was killed on Lake Windermere, along with his mechanic, Vic Halliwell,
when his speedboat crashed after he set a new world speed record of 158.93
km/hr (98.76 mph) in
his boat, Miss England II.
11/10/1907. The British luxury liner Lusitania broke the record for crossing the Atlantic by 11 hours 46 minutes,
making the crossing to New York in just 4 days, 19 hours, and 52 minutes. With
1,200 passengers and 650 crew, she averaged 24 knots.
1900, The voyage from Britain to Australia now averaged 42 days, down from
83 in 1850.
1860, The steamship route from Britain to India via the Cape of Good Hope
took 94 days. A quicker, but considerably more expensive, option was the
‘overland’ route; London, Dover, Calais, Paris, Turin, Venice; then ship to
Alexandria (Egypt), a total of 12 days travel, only 5 days sailing. From Alexandria,
rail overland to Suez, from whence, steamship via the Red Sea to India, total
travel time from London, to Mumbai 25 days, Madras 36 days, Kolkata 41 days.
1854, The US clipper James
Baines sailed from London to Melbourne, Australia, in a record 63 days.
1853, The clipper ship Northern Light made a voyage from San Francisco via Cape Horn to
Boston in the record time of 67 days
6 hours.
1852, The 2,856 ton SS Pacific became the first ship to
cross the Atlantic, from New York to Liverpool, in less than 10 days.
1640, The average crossing time over the Atlantic Ocean from Britain to
North America was 3 months.
Appendix Two – UK
Canals (See also road traffic for loads feasible on a horse by
road and water)
1944, The Hincaster Tunnel, at the northern end of the Lancaster Canal in
Cumbria, closed to goods traffic.
21/5/1894. The Manchester Ship Canal, which had taken 25 years to build,
was officially opened by Queen Victoria (see 1/1/1894). The Queen
travelled by rain from Windsor, leaving at 11.10 a.m. and travelling on the
Great Western Railway via Reading, Oxford, and Wolverhampton, which she made by
2pm.Continuing via Stafford and Crewe, Queen Victoria arrived at London Road
Station, Manchester, at about 4 p.m. The Queen then travelled along the canal
by boat.
1/1/1894. The Manchester Ship Canal opened, 56 km. Its official opening by Queen Victoria was on 21 May 1894.
1893, The Thames and Severn
Canal closed east of Stroud, made uneconomic by railway competition.
A Trust was formed to rescue the Canal, and ssucceeded in reopening it in March
1899; after necessary repairs, the Canal was used to deliver coal to
Cirencester in 1904. However the Canal remained uneconomic, most of its
employees were laid off in 1912, and the waterway gradually decayed.
11/11/1887, The first sod of the Manchester Ship Canal
was cut.
1855, The Hertford Union Canal
(or Ducketts Cut), 1 ¾ miles long, was opened to provide a link between the
Regents Canal and the River Lea.
1853, The Droitwich Junction
Canal opened.
1847, The Par Canal
opened.
1842, The Chard Canal
opened.
1839, The Manchester and Salford
Canal was opened.
1835, The Birmingham and
Liverpool Canal was completed.
1833, The Glastonbury Canal
opened.
1831, The Liskeard and Looe Canal,
the Portsmouth and Arundel Canal, and the Macclesfield Canals opened.
1830, The Hereford Canal
opened.
1827, The Gloucester and
Berkeley Canal opened.
1826, The Peckham arm of the Grand Surrey Canal opened, The Lancaster Canal
was completed. The Knottingley to Goole Canal
opened.
14/10/1824, The Higham
and Strood Canal Tunnels opened, completing the Thames and Medway
Canal.
1822, The Caledonian Canal, Scotland, opened (construction began 1803).
The Edinburgh and Glasgow Union Canal opened.
1820, The Regents Canal, north London, opened. Construction began in
1812; the canal ran from Paddington to join the Thames at Limehouse.
1819, The North Wiltshire and Sheffield Canals were
completed.
1817, The Tavistock – Tamar Canal opened.
25/12/1817, The
Hincaster Tunnel, at the northern end of the Lancaster Canal
in Cumbria, opened.
1816, The Leeds to Liverpool
canal opened.
1815, The Northampton branch
canal (off Grand Union) opened.
1814, The Grand Union Canal
opened in full. The Grand Western Canal
(Loudwell to Tiverton) opened.
1813, The Aylesbury Branch Canal
(off Grand Union) was completed.
1811, The Huddersfield Narrow Canal
Pennines, opened to traffic (construction began 1794). The Glamorganshore Canal,
S Wales, opened.
1810, The Kennet and Avon Canal
opened. However it could take half a day to traverse the lock ladder, 2 miles,
near Devizes, and it took 36 hours to transport cotton by canal from Liverpool
to Manchester. When the Liverpool to Manchester railway opened in 1830, canal
transport rates were reduced from 15 to 10 shillings per ton.
1809, The Croydon Canal
opened.
1805, The Shropshire Union Canal
opened. The Llangollen Canal opened. The Royal Military Canal, 39 km long, opened.
1804, The Rochdale Canal was
completed.
1802, The Nottingham Canal was
opened.
1801, The Crinan Canal was
completed; construction had begun in 1793.
1801, The Grand Union (Grand
Junction) Canal was opened through west London, from Paddington to
Uxbridge and on to Buckingham. This was joined to the main Birmingham Canal
in 1805 and to London’s
Regents Canal in 1820. It facilitetd good shipments from the
industrial north and midlands to London just at a time when French pirates were
making insurance rates heavy for coastal shipping along the south coast.
1800, The Peak Forest Canal
opened.
1799, The Lancaster Canal
opened. The Barnsley Canal opened.
1798, The Huddersfield,
Ashton to Stalybridge, and Gloucester Canals
were completed.
1797, The Ashton and Shrewsbury Canals opened.
1796, The LuneAqueduct
opened.
1794, The Glamorgan Canal
opened from Merthyr Tydfil to Cardiff. The Charnwood Canal, north
Leictesrershire, opened.
1793, The Grantham Canal,
Grantham to Nottingham, opened.
1790, The Oxford Canal
opened in full, down to Oxford (see 1778).
28/7/1790, The Forth and Clyde Canal
opened (construction began 1768).
4/1789, The Sapperton Canal Tunnel
linking Stroud to the Thames,
opened; construction had begun in 1784. The Thames and Severn
Canal was now fully open.
1779, The Stroudwater Canal,
linking Stroud, Gloucestershire, to the River Severn, opened.
1778, The Oxford Canal
opened from Banbury to Coventry.
1777, The Trent and Mersey Canal
opened.
1777, The Chesterfield Canal
opened.
1774, The Bradford Canal
completed.
1772, The Staffordshire and Worcestershire
Canal opened. The Bridgewater Canal
extended to the Mersey at Runcorn. The Bridgewater Canal halved the price of
coal in Manchester, from 7d per hundredweight to 3 ½ d, and also made
uneconomic pits worthwhile.
30/9/1772, James Brindley, who built the Bridgewater, Grand Trunk (Grand Union), and Manchester Canals,
died at Turnhurst in Staffordshire. The
Grand Trunk Canal reduced freight rates between Manchester and Lichfield from
£4 per ton to £1 per ton; canal toll and carrier’s charges amounted to
around 2.5 d per ton-mile (£1.25 per ton-mile in 2015 prices)..
1769, The Birmingham Canal
completed, from Wednesbury to Birmingham.
17/7/1761, The Bridgewater Canal, from
Worsley to Manchester, built by James Brindley, was opened (construction began
1758).
1757, The Sankey Canal completed,
from St Helens to the Mersey (see 1694)
1733, The River Weaver was made
navigable up to the Northwich salt fields.
21/5/1736, The Duke of Bridgewater, canal pioneer, was born.
1725, The Grosvenor Canal, a short
canal in London,
was opened. Most of it is now buried beneath Victoria railway station.
1694, An Act of Parliament authorised the making
of the River Mersey navigable as far up as Sankey (see
1757).
1564, The Exeter Canal, 4 miles,
opened; the frst in Britain to use double locks.
Appendix Three – Non-UK Canals (see below for specific countries)
23/12/2014, Construction work began on
a canal across Nicaragua, 173 miles long but
designed to take larger ships than the Panama Canal. The US$ 50 billion (UK£ 32
billion) project would displace 29,000 people and there were fears that
freshwater Lake Managua would be polluted. The Chinese-backed project, headed
by Hong Kong based HKND, was granted a
renewable 50-year concession to build and operate the canal, in return for a
US$ 10 billion operating fee. President Ortega’s Sandinista administration
promised the project would create thousands of jobs during construction, but
many Nicaraguans perceived the government as corrupt.
15/8/1914, The 40-mile long Panama Canal opened, 82 km; construction
work had begun on 4/7/1914. The first ship to pass through the canal, this day,
was the SS Ancon. Ships passed through three locks 30 metres wide and
300 metres long, rising to 85 feet above sea level at Lake Gatun, which had
been created by damming a river, before descending through more locks. Since
1914 over one million ships have used the Canal, saving 3,000 miles and eight
days of travel around Cape Horn. In 2013 12,036 vessels, carrying 319 million
tonnes of cargo, transitted the Canal, paying US$ 1,800 million in tolls. 86.7
million tons of this cargo originated from the USA, and 49.8 million tons was
destined for the USA. In 2013 some 3% of world maritime cargo, worth US$ 270
billion (UK£ 160 million at 2014 exchange rates). However many 21st
century cargo ships are too big for the Canal, and in 2006 the Panama Canal
Authority announced expansion plans, costed at US$ 3,200 million, due for
completion in 2016.
6/8/1912, U.S. President Taft asked Congress to fix
maximum tolls for the Panama Canal.
1896, The Suez Canal,
Egypt, 172 km, opened. See Egypt for history and events of this Canal.
1893, The Corinth Canal,
Greece,
6.3km, was completed.
1832, The Gota Canal,
Sweden,
400 km, opened.
1734, The Newry Canal,
from Lough Neagh southwards to Newry, 35 miles, opened, facilitating coal
shipments to Dublin,,
1504, The Republic of Venice
approached the Sultan of Turkey, proposing
the construction of a canal at Suez.
620, The Grand Canal,
China, over 1,900 km, was completed.
520 BCE, The Persian Emperor Darius I
dug a canal between the Nile and the Red Sea.
609 BCE, Construction began on a
new canal from the Nile to the Red Sea. Begun by Pharaoh Necho, it was never
completed, but cost the lives of more than 120,000 men.
1380 BCE, A canal was constructed by
Pharaoh Amenhotep
III from the Nile to the Red Sea using slave labour (see 609 BCE).
1) Belgium
1939, The Albert Canal,
Belgium,
was completed (construction began 1930), It was built to link industrial Liege
with the port of Antwerp; also as part of Belgium’s defences.
1827, The Terneuzen to Ghent
Canal, 18km, opened, linking the city of Ghent to Terneuzen on the
Scheldt Estuary.
2) Canada
10/8/1954, The Saint Lawrence Seaway
project was officially launched.
1932, The Welland Canal, Canada, 42
km, opened.
1856, The Wabash and Erie Canal
opened after 24 years of construction. Cholera, and money losses to embezzlers,
had plagued the project. However after 4 years the section below Terre Haute
closed, and the rest was shut down in 1874, was railways made the canals
obsolete.
3) France
1810, The St Quentin Canal,
between the Somme and the Scheldt, was completed.
1681,
The Canal du Midi, France, was completed, 214 km long,
linking the Bay of Biscay with the Mediterranean.
1642, Loire – Seine canal
completed (begun 1604).
4) Germany
30/10/1938, The Mitteland Canal
in Germany,
linking the Rhine to the Elbe, was opened.
1900, The Elbe and Trave Canal,
Germany, 70 km, opened.
19/6/1895. The 61-mile Kiel Canal between the Baltic and North Sea, 98
km, was opened by German Emperor Wilhelm II. Construction began in
6/1887.
3/6/1887, The foundation stone of the opening lock of the Kiel Canal was laid.
1772, Construction of the Bromberg Canal, linking the Oder and Vistula, began (completed
1775)..
1742, Construction of the Elbe – Havel canal began.
1668,
Oder – Spree canal completed (begun 1661).
5)
Netherlands
1935, The Princess Juliana Canal,
Netherlands, 33 km, opened.
8/3/1865, Construction of the Amsterdam – North Sea Canal began (30 km). It opened in 1876.
1825, The North Holland Canal,
Amsterdam
to Helder, opened.
6) USA
1855, The Sault-Saint-Marie (Soo) Ship Canal
opened, linking Chicago to the large iron ore deposits of northern Michigan.
1845, The Miami and Erie Canal,
410 km from Cincinatti to Toledo, opened.
1834, The Delaware and Raritan
Canal opened, 72 km from New Brunswick, New Jersey, to Bordentown,
Pennsylvania.
1831, The Morris Canal,
163 km, opened between Newark, New Jersey, and Easton, Pennsylvania; it mainly
carried coal.
1828, The Delaware and Hudson
Canal, 98km, opened between Kingston (New York) and Port Jervis on
the Delaware River, where it connected to the 81 km Lackwanna Canal to
Honesdale, Pennsylvania.
1828, The Welland Sea Canal
opened, connecting Lake Erie with Lake Ontario and enabling shipping to avoid
the Niagara Falls.
26/10/1825, The Erie Canal, linking New
York with the Great Lakes via Niagara and the Hudson River, begun 4/7/1817, was
completed. Influenced by Governor DeWitt Clinton the New York state
legislature agreed to fund the US$ 7 million project. The canal, 363 miles
long, 40 foot wide, 4 foot deep, with 82 locks, would make New York the
principal port of America.
7) USSR
1964, The Volga-Baltic Ship
Canal opened, 850 km, to link Leningrad to the Caspian Sea,
31/5/1952, The Volga – Don Canal was
opened (105 km).
1937, In the
USSR, the Moscow-Volga Ship Canal, 130km,opened, linking
Moscow to the River Volga.
21/8/1933, In the
USSR, the White Sea Canal opened. It was built mostly with
forced labour.
Appendix Four – Docks
17/9/1981, Plans to
close the Royal Docks, London, were
finalised.
1933, King George V opened, in
Southampton, what was then the world’s largest dry dock.
10/7/1931, The King George V Dock, Glasgow, opened.
8/7/1921. King George V opened the King George V Dock in east London.
11/7/1912, Immingham Docks, Lincolnshire, were opened by King George V. Construction had begun in 1906.
11/7/1911, Liverpool’s
Gladstone Dock was opened by King George V.
1892, The Albert Edward Dock, Preston,
Lancashire, 40 acres, opened.
1889, Barry Docks, S Wales, opened.
1887, Roath Dock, Cardiff, 33 acres, opened. Felixtowe tidal dock opened.
1886, Extensive docks construction at Tilbury
between 1882 and 1886 had been undertaken by the East India Docks Company.
1880, London’s Albert Dock opened.
1879, Portishead Docks, Bristol, opened.
1877, Avonmouth Docks, Bristol, opened.
14/3/1868, London’s Milwall Docks opened.
1867, The Devonshire Dock at Barrow in Furness opened. This was the
first of four docks there. The second was the Buccleuch Dock, opened 1873.
1855, London’s Royal Victoria Docks opened.
1852, Swansea Docks opened.
1847, Wallasey Pool Docks, Birkenhead,opened.
1844, Newport, Wales, Docks opened.
1842, Ipswich wet dock opened.
1839, Cardiff Docks opened.
1828, Llanelli Docks opened.
25/10/1828, London’s St Katharine Docks opened. 1,250 houses, 11,300
people,and the old St Katharine Hospital had been cleared (foundation stone
laid on 3/5/1827) to make way for the Docks.
3/5/1827, The foundation
stone for St Katharine Dock, London, was laid, see 25/10.1828.
1809, Bristol Docks opened.
4/8/1806, London’s East India Docks opened.
20/1/1805, London docks opened.
1802, London’s
West India Docks opened.