Given our current preoccupation with unusually high numbers of bergy bits and other ice fragments off the coast of Newfoundland this year, it seems poignant that we have just passed the one hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Mos and I plan to take a wreath with us in remembrance of those lives lost at sea.
On 15th April 1912, the RMS Titanic went down with the loss of 1,514 lives during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, the largest loss of life at sea during peacetime.
At nearly 883 feet long, the Titanic did not bear a strong resemblance to Bojangles, which measures 23 feet. Her rudder alone was 78 feet high – more than three times the length of our little Bo. On the one hand, being small could be an advantage to Bojangles if it statistically reduces our chances of making contact with ice. On the other hand, the Titanic was made of one-inch-thick steel, while Bo is made of a much thinner sandwich of foam between layers of carbon/kevlar weave. Our first waypoint is 45 N, 45 W, not so far from the site where the Titanic sank.
It was claimed that the Titanic was unsinkable, but Mother Nature has a way of making a nonsense of the hubristic claims of men. You can be sure that we will be very circumspect before launching ourselves upon a hostile North Atlantic.