This week we explore a range of events in maritime history, from single-handed circumnavigations to several disastrous collisions at sea.
April 21: The Indonesian diesel-electric sub Nanggala (Wikipedia, ShipIndex) sank in the Bali Sea, in 2021, most likely due to a power outage that the crew was unable to recover from. All 53 people on board lost their lives.
April 23: Several days after the assassination of President Lincoln in 1865, the US Navy anchored a barge called Black Diamond in the Potomac River, to try and prevent the assassin John Wilkes Booth from crossing into Virginia. A side-wheel steamer serving as a troop transport ship, the Massachusetts (formerly the JWD Pentz), collided with Black Diamond, leading to the loss of at least 87 lives. Learn more about this incident in “Shipwreck on the Potomac”, to be published next week.
April 24: Joshua Slocum set sail in his oyster boat Spray (Wikipedia, ShipIndex), in 1895, from Boston, to begin the first solo circumnavigation of the world. Slocum had arranged a publishing contract to write about the voyage, and the resulting book, Sailing Alone Around the World, became a classic in travel literature. Slocum received extensive praise and publicity from the book, and brought Spray up the Erie Canal to the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, in Buffalo. Ten years after publishing his book, and finding himself very low on funds, Slocum attempted another voyage in Spray, despite its very poor condition by then. He sailed from Massachusetts in 1909, headed for the West Indies, but was not heard from again, and was declared legally dead in 1924.
April 26: In one of the worst US naval accidents since World War II, USS Hobson (Wikipedia, ShipIndex) was cut in two during a collision with USS Wasp (CV-18) (Wikipedia, ShipIndex), while completing amphibious exercises in 1952. Hobson had been commissioned in 1942, and immediately served in the North African theater, supporting aircraft carrier USS Ranger. In 1943, Hobson served in the North Atlantic on convoy duty, including sailing with RMS Queen Mary when it transported Winston Churchill to the Quebec Conference. Hobson served in the very first wave off Utah Beach during D-Day, shelling targets on shore. Hobson continued with extensive service in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters toward the end of the war. A memorial to USS Hobson now stands at the Battery, in Charleston, SC, where the ship had been originally built.
For more about these ships, check out ShipIndex.org. And let us know if you have events that you think we should include!