Spare a thought.....

[Mick Evans]

I would encourage you all to spare a few moments of thought for those at sea during this festive period.    There are many thousands of men (and some women) all over the world working away at sea away from their loved ones.    Here's hoping that they all make it home safely.

The thoughts that are uppermost in my mind at the moment is that today - 25th December 2006 - marks the 40th Anniversary of the loss of the Hull Factory Stern Trawler ST. FINBARR.    

Whilst laid dodging in bad weather on the fishing banks of Newfoundland, the St. Finbarr caught fire and twelve of her crewmembers lost their lives in the inferno that ensued.    It is of particular interest to me because she was a local vessel and trawlers losses always hit hard becuase of the close knit fishing community but more so because my grandfather was a crewmember of the St. Finbarr.    At the time of the accident he was unaccounted for for over 24 hours and was presumed lost.   It was only when the rescuing vessel found that they had one extra man aboard who had not answered rollcall that our was informed of him surviving the accident.

For the families of the 12 men that lost their lives I have shed more than a few tears today.    It is truly a sad day.


You can read more about this tragic story on my website at http://www.arcticcorsair.f9.co.uk/corsair/losttrawlers/1966-stfinbarr.htm


An image of the St. Finbarr can be seen here
http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=328227&cid=14

[Magogman]

I agree completely.

There should be a separate category on this marvelous site for monuments to sailors, etc.  I recently had a photo of a monument to the merchant marine sailors of World War II deleted from this site "because there was no ship in it".  At the time of deletion the photo had something like 124 views.
To delete that is in my opinion a sacrilege, hence my suggestion that we create a separate category.  I think we all need to pause from the rush and urgency of our daily lives and give thanks to those who went before us and never returned and are often-- if not always-- forgotten.  While my personal experience does not deal with ships and sailors --I am a combat veteran from Viet Nam-- I see a real need for the type of thing mentioned in the original post.

[wmh]

Sorry, I don't agree. While the sentiments are well deserved, this is a "shipspotting" site not a shrine to the unfortunate regardless of how meaningful their sacrifice was. Perhaps some of the vets out there might want to start another site to achieve their desired ends. These are my feelings anyway.

Regards,
Wayne Hope

[Frederic Logghe]

I agree with magogman!

About shipspotting in general, it is more then just taking pictures of boats. Why do people take a picture of a boat? Because they like it, because it's a nice shot, because they want to have at last one picture of that boat...

I often visit scrapyards and the only thing that is left of a boat are my pictures. I would love to save something of these boats, so people later can see how they were. Therefore I believe shipspotting goes further then just taking a couple of pictures. Ships are often better seen in a larger proportion, such as the harbour, the people unloading it, etc.... Therefor, to get an better impression of the (maritime) feeling, I agree completely with magogman.

Excuse me for my English or sentence construction, but if anyone wants further explanation, I'll explain myself further.

And yes, I do feel with the people of the tragic accident! I've lost a good friend of mine at sea as well.

Frederic