RMS Titanic
(Representational Photo only. Picture shot in Southern Indian ocean)
EXIF: Nikon COOLPIX S6, 1/85 sec, f/9, Matrix metering, ISO 50 (stitched panorama of 5 different shots)
RMS TITANIC:
“April 15, 1912. Titanic sank taking more than 1500 lives with it….”
These words used to be there on the inner jacket of ‘SOLAS’ publication back in 1998. SOLAS stands for Safety Of Life At Sea, an IMO convention. (I am not sure if James Cameron had secretly sponsored the 1998 cover).
Since then the SOLAS publication jackets have had less cinematic words inscribed on them, but even today SOLAS mentions ‘RMS Titanic’ sinking on its back cover.
If you wonder why I am writing this, I’d passed about 45 miles south of the Titanic’s last position on 16th April 2012. That made it 100 years and a day later.
I don’t know what it says about climatic changes, but the prevalent ice-limits were about 240 miles north of Titanic’s last position, which was hit by ice-berg. North Atlantic is seldom in sparing mood and our own weather was no exception. However now we have the benefits of regular weather reports/analysis, shore based weather-routing, ice-reports. Not to mention the pin point navigation, thanks to satellites. Today’s ships are designed to take head-on collisions with other ships, floating objects, icebergs and stay afloat … but sadly so was the Titanic.
As unfortunate as Titanic’s sinking has been, it also heralded a new era in Maritime safety. For the first time in maritime history governments were forced to monitor shipboard safety and shipbuilding standards. Many of the pioneering efforts started since, like SOLAS and International Arctic Ice Patrol are relevant even today. Inarguably, many more lives have been saved by the SOLAS convention and other such efforts since then.
Rearrange the deck chairs…pour a glass of champagne…and tell that band to play a stirring little number while we all get in our – glug -glug – gluuuug.
I would have had my life jacket on from the minute I left port – bad karma there.
Ta-Ta for now…
Well said.
Very nice post!
Thanks Chad. Appreciate that you read it 🙂
Not a problem. Still new on here with this new blogging style and trying to build relationships with others.
I am new too, just 2 weeks old 🙂
I have already met a lot of kind & like-minded people.
Stay blessed!
Been looking through your blog, all i can say, fantastic stuff! You’ve achieved alot in a short period of time 🙂
Thanks Jens. Kind words. Glad you liked my work.
Lovely capture Ausaf and nicely stitched especially when I think that you made those separate images on a ship in motion! Nice.
Thanks Rick. It was a lovely day and I am glad I was able to capture it. As I mentioned I’d captured it on a ‘point & shoot’. Thankfully it had a ‘grid overlay’ on its screen, helping me to keep the horizon more or less in the same position. On the downside vignetting was horrible and very apparent. However ‘Auto blend’ feature of the Photoshop CS4 saved my day 🙂
Those clouds are just wonderful. Can’t imagine what it feels like to be passing so close to where the ship was sunk…