Im a Diving Instructor and Yachtmaster. Ive spent a lot of my time around the ocean and I love the stories from Pirates to Sailors lost at sea and Wreck Diving to Commercial Diving.
I try and add some information that helps to add some light to the stories. Hopefully if you ever find yourself in one of these situations you will understand it a little better.
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Typical government branch is impressively under prepared for any task. It took 4 hours to secure the dive ship? The divers dropped to the wrong place TWICE! AMAZING
One of the most unfortunate ironies of great tragedy is it often fixes long running problems, or improved design or safety. Gettysburg gave us the idea of Ambulances. Oil rigs seem analogous in a small way in that the Mission mostly takes priority over lives. The Courageous men who accept these jobs have balls of steel. Most of us, while trying to balance Risk v Reward... are not in a Life and Death location up against Mother Nature. She can wipe millions of us out in one day and we forget that.
The year before, there was a disaster in the Irish Sea between Scotland and Northern Ireland - also during a storm Over 130 people died when the Princess Victoria sank in Jan 1953 The wireless operator David Broadfoot was posthumously awarded the George Cross (Britain's highest civilian honour) for his bravery in trying to send out messages even when surrounded by water
You have such a lovely speaking voice, you do a superb job explaining bits a new viewer might not know and you show such Respect to the lost and the Rescue Teams. Thank you for the content and the way you present. I am a Senior on a fixed income which is terrifyingly inadequate or I would send money. My admiration must suffice. I live on the north coast of Maine and grew up mucking about in boats, sailing a lot. You forget sometimes that if Mother Nature turns, your life is in real danger. I only ever got caught in a storm once. That taught me my lesson. I used an Abundance of Caution ever after. Still we all have Free Will and as you observe, all who chose to Sail chose their fate. RIP to the lost.
I once faced danger by surfing in south Africa cape town right where Bartolomeu Dias ship expedition also suffered a shipwreck, however, I had no courage of participating in a surfing championship. Greetins from Guaruja, Brazil!
I had often thought about doing this for a living when I was younger. I obviously never did (by this comment). That was before the Internet so finding a place to train you was not easy. That last story made my heart sink. I understood the previous stories risk(excepted the risk in my mind), but don't even want to imagine being a crew member who witnessed seeing that last one happen. As the diver you wouldn't have had time to feel it. However as a crew member you could never forget no matter how much you wish you could.
stpetecatalyst.com/vintage-st-pete-the-blackthorn-tragedy/ A letter of admonition for losing your ship and near half your crew is mighty light. "Different spanks for different ranks" as the ancient saying goes. The NTSB report: www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-recs/recletters/M80_64_85.pdf is not a good look.
He became overconfident, unwilling to accept correction, and lost his focus on safety. He and his second man deliberately caused the deaths by ignoring warnings about conflicting weather reports, aka neglecting safety.
This tragedy reinforces the phrase: “Comms are Life”, the foundation of any unit is the Radioman. On my sub, the Radiomen were always taken care of. Everyone knew how important they were. Second to only the Cooks and Doc of course. 😏
What was the reasoning for radio silence by the Blackthorn? Did the Blackthorn Captain survive? Was he found at fault? I served in the Navy (70-74) as a radioman (which is my only credential for the following observation) and it seems to me the Captain and his officers on the bridge were negligent in their duties. It is the officers duty to know DARN well what ship(s) they are approaching and to fully understand their intentions. Also, to make sure the other ships DARN well know their (Blackthorn) intentions. It galls me that either thru complacency or total lack of comprehension they drove the Blackthorn directly into the other ship resulting in the loss of so many young men's lives.
Am I missing something? The scrubber whose fan failed was only for the pilots compartment, whose occupants survived. The divers compartment was a completely different system.
Interesting how this old chestnut of a radar assisted collision keeps cropping up. It nothing to do with the radar and everything to do with loss of spatial awareness. The radars on those two ships where basic relative motion radars. This means that your ship is stationary on radar and everything else moves reletive to you . Marker bouys zip along at 18 knots, you make a turn to port the other target appears to turn to starboard. Plenty of room for confusion in limited visibility. It was sometime after this accident that true motion radars became available. I speak as a former radio officer who also maintained the radars. Good narrative, it does highlight the difficulties of navigating in confined waters in a fog bank. Cheers.
Your constant irrelevant picture inserts along WITH RANDOM SAILORS with their faces obscured...make your RU-vid channel a 👎 👎! LIKE THE ICE FLOW IN TAMPA BAY! 😡 🤬
This guy is so full of crap the plane you see crashing into the water is not international airlines 470 it is Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 that Crashes Into Sea 9000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico.. Flight 961 crashed On the 23rd of November 1996 16 years after the sinking of blackthorn, sensationalized crap if he got this wrong he's probably got the ship walking on water idiot.... Why do I know this... someone I know what's on flight 961
The norweigans used the divers as ginnipigs during this period trying to figure out how deep humans can dive by havibg them in a preassure chamber and incr3asing the preassure, i think they concluded that about 600 meters was the limit it was painful and dangerus. A lot of people died when the oilfields where established.
@waterlinestories - A bit of advice WRT audio voice quality: pick up some commercial egg-crate trays or some more-expensive foam tiles, and slap them all over the ceiling and walls oppposing those two hard walls in your sete. That will kill the room echo you've got going on.
Just a rando algo set of eyeballs nice change of pace usually i get plane mishaps so nice to get an inside on comms and operations besides the tragic surrounding events. The backgound stage setting is very well done (script prep is really good learned a lot just by how u put this together)❤
You didn't have any second thoughts writing that title, which is factually incorrect? Nothing in any of the legal proceedings ever suggested murder-for-hire, or any such conspiracy ,and you don't address it in this video. WTH?
Talk about what can go wrong will go wrong in the worse way possible. It is clear somethings could have helped: Space blankest. Heaters. Extra power sources. Alternatively: Actually not doing the dive because the vessel was malfunctional and all involved were not properly ready for it.
Why are these ships using handheld radios and not full-size radios with full-size antennas? Why didn't the CG Capt. check out his comms capabilities thoroughly before putting to sea?
