Beyond the Breakers

In the dying days of the Great War, the French navy commissioned 12 Navarin- class minesweepers, to be constructed in Canada under the direction of Wisconsin's Manitowoc Shipbuilding. Three of these minesweepers - Inkerman, Cerisoles, and Sebastopol departed Fort William, Ontario  on Novembers 23, 1918 Only one would be seen again. Sources: Stonehouse, Frederick. "Ils Sont Disparu! They...

In March 1929, the US Coast Guard cutters Wolcott and Dexter pursued and subsequently sank the bootlegging schooner I'm Alone , touching off an international incident and legal battle that would outlast the Prohibition laws that led to it in the first place. Sources: The American Council on Addiction & Alcohol Problems Hagen, Carrie. "The Coast Guard's Most Potent Weapon During...

This is the first installment of our Beyond the Breakers Book Club episodes. We hope to get one of these in each month. This episode is being released as the main episode this week, and if you like what you hear then subsequent book club episodes will be available on Patreon at the second mate ($5) tier. Outro Music: This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb, 'Jack Johnson' Sources: Berliner, Jonathan. “...

It is once again Halloween and that means we have a round of spooky ship tales to share with you.  We've got:  the USS North Carolina Deaths on Hallowe'en at Fort Niagara the spectral sailors of the oil tanker Watertown 'The Phantom of the Forrestal' **As we're sharing this episode with you, the genocide in Palestine continues, with upwards of 8,000 recorded deaths in Gaza...

This is a bit of a chimera episode with welcoming Taylor back to the show, discussing some current events (including the St. Lawrence Seaway workers strike), and telling the tale of the MV Material Service . **if you just want pure unfiltered shipwreck action the story itself starts at 19:30** Sources: Kohl, Chris. 100 Best Great Lakes Shipwrecks, Vol. II . Seawolf Communications, 1998. Leathem Sm...

This is Part II of what became a two-part series on the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley , with special guest host Nick Williams (@dolorousnick). It was not originally planned as such, so the break between episodes happens pretty abruptly. **Tanner's mic quality is not great in this episode, but it has been cleaned up as much as possible** ***a portion of this month's Patreon payout goe...

Just a quick statement from us on the unfolding genocide in Gaza and what we feel are our responsibilities to speak out in opposition to a crime of historic magnitude.  If you are looking for easily accessible information on the history of the Palestine-Israel conflict, the Institute for Middle East Understanding has wonderful resources for doing so: https://imeu.org/ This includes the podcast Thi...

This is Part I of what became a two-part series on the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley , with special guest host Nick Williams. It was not originally planned as such, so Part I ends somewhat abruptly. **Tanner's mic quality is not great in this episode, but it has been cleaned up as much as possible** ***a portion of this month's Patreon payout goes to Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP...

This is Part Two of Episode 115 covering the Spanish galleon Santo Cristo de Burgos (or, The Beeswax Wreck) Be sure to check out Craig's YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/@CraigAndes1 Sources referred to in Part 1: Sources: Borao Mateo, Jose Eugenio. “The arrival of the Spanish galleons in Manila from the Pacific Ocean and their departure along the Kuroshio stream (16th and 17th centur...

**This was originally the October 2022 bonus episode, but is being released on main to fill the recording gap from Taylor's wedding/honeymoon. Enjoy!** In this bonus episode we delve into all the juicy  drama - the backbiting, the snark, the controversy - that came after the American victory at the Battle of Lake Erie. It's Oliver Perry vs. Jesse Elliott in a climactic battle for fame, g...

In this third and final part of the story, we see the men of the whaleship Essex embark on a journey of thousands of miles in open whaleboats in the hope of reaching the safety of the South American coast. Less than half of them will survive the ordeal, but for some their role in the story will continue even beyond death.  Sources: Brantlinger, Patrick. “Missionaries and Cannibals in Nineteenth-ce...

Part Two of our series on the whaleship Essex brings us from Nantucket all the way around Cape Horn to the Pacific whaling grounds, and the climactic showdown with 'the largest and most terrible of all created animals.'  Sources: Dolin, Eric Jay. Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America . W.W Norton & Company, 2008. Ellis, Richard. The Great Sperm Whale: A Natural History of the...

This week begins our multi-part episode on the whaleship Essex , famously 'stove by a whale' in 1820, leading to an epic tale of survival, determination, and just a bit of cannibalism. Part I focuses on the history of whaling industry in (first) Britain's American colonies and (then) the young United States, with special attention to the island of Nantucket.  Sources: Bouk, Dan and...

Kaylee (@kayleefabulous) is back this week to share a story from Duluth - the sinking of the whaleback Thomas Wilson after a collision with the George Hadley. Kaylee's Duluth dive bar write-up: https://racketmn.com/best-dive-bars-duluth-mn Sources: Duluth Evening Herald , 29 Nov 1905. Duluth Evening Herald, 7 Jun 1902. Engman, Elmer. In the Belly of a Whale. Innerspace, 1988. Stonehouse, Fred...

**this episode does contain some instances of language that would normally be edited out in the main feed, but has been kept in the episode to preserve the direct quotes reported in Casey's article** In the first of our "current events" episodes, we discuss Susan Casey's Vanity Fair article on the Oceangate submersible incident from earlier this year. Source: Casey, Susan. &quo...

This week we tell Part 1 of the tale of the Manila galleon Santo Cristo de Burgos - alternatively referred to as 'The Beeswax Wreck' for reasons that will be made apparent. This episode sets the background and historical context for Part Two, which will feature an interview with a special guest involved with the story of the wreck. Sources: Borao Mateo, Jose Eugenio. “The arrival of the...

No new story this week, so this is a chat about how the podcast has developed and where we plan to take it in the future. We're back next week with your standard programming.  Outro music is "Pique la baleine" as sung by the Dreadnoughts - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTLqKV4q2n8 Support the show

For this week's episode we are back close to home for the tale of the steamer Phoenix, which burned off of Sheboygan WI in 1847, in what remains one of the worst tragedies on Lake Michigan.  The music at the end of the episode is 'Nader, mijn God, bij U' (Nearer, My God, To Thee) as performed by the Martin Mans Formation. Sources:  Hilty, Maya. “Remains of the Phoenix , one of the L...

**a small correction to the episode - the French painter Édouard Manet did not observe the battle off Cherbourg personally, but used eyewitness and press accounts to reconstruct the events for his painting The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama . This week it's the story of the Confederate commerce raider Alabama , the terror of the US merchant fleet until she was turned into a marine ar...

We're back in the Galveston area to discuss a very recent incident involving the fishing vessel Pappy's Pride and the chemical tanker  Bow Fortune Sources: NTSB Report - Collision Between Tanker Bow Fortune and Fishing Vessel Pappy’s Pride Heath, Keri. "Pappy's Pride salvage continues, families file claims." The Daily News, 30 Jan 2020. https://www.galvnews.com/news/articl...

In this, one of our absolute favorite bonus episodes (originally released for patrons in September 2022), we discuss the brief but eventful life of the Pensacola lumber schooner Richard A. Bingham . Sources: Heier, Jan Richard. "The Development of American Ship-Accounting Practices to 1900: A Comparative Study of Three Vessels." The Accounting Historians Journal , vol. 26, no. 1, June 19...

This week we have a WWI story in the Mediterranean with the sinking of HMT Aragon off of Alexandria, Egypt.  Sources: "100 Years Ago." Posted by fredarth09, 01 June 2014. https://fredarth.wordpress.com/tag/hmt-aragon/ "Aragon." The Yard , http://www.theyard.info/ships/ships.asp?entryid=367 "Chaplain recalls torpedoed ship drama." The Luton New , 31 Jan 1918. http://ww...

This week it's the tale of the stern trawler Gaul , and the mystery of her 1974 sinking in the Barents Sea fishing grounds, leading to a decades-long search for answers.  Sources: Dispatches - "Secrets of the Gaul." 1997.   https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=secrets+of+the+gaul   Re-opened Formal Investigation Report 2004 "Sinking of stern trawler Gaul with loss of 36...

This week we go back to a place near and dear to us - Scapa Flow - for the story of the Royal Navy battleship HMS Royal Oak. Sources: Gorbahn, Katja. "Perpetrators, victims, heroes – the Second World War and National Socialism in Danish history magazines." Commercialised History: Popular History Magazines in Europe . "Korvettenkapitän Günther Prien." uboat.net . https://uboat.n...

As we're in a new location this week, there's a good deal of background in this episode leading up to the sinking of the ferry Sinar Bangun on Lake Toba (Sumatra, Indonesia) in June 2018. This episode is being released just before the five-year anniversary of the incident.  **KM = Kapal Motor (Motor Vessel), equivalent to MV designation in English Sources: Bakkara, Binsar and Niniek Karm...