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Articles of Interest

• MV Dunedin Star. I highly recommend this article if you have any interests in shipwrecks.
• Disney Cruise Line

Academic Journals In Relation to MV Dunedin Star

• Van Tonder, E. (2005). Shipwreck survivor camps: A neglected terrestrial component of maritime archaeology in South Africa. Anthropology Southern Africa, 28(1/2), 49-56. [[1]] "I recommend this paper because it relates to the many shipwrecks that have taken place in Africa. Especially along the skeleton coast of Namibia. Most Importantly, it tells the stories o th many survivors. It also highlights the trials and tribulations that they were faced with."
• Greaves, J. (2007). Managing decline: The political economy of British shipping in the 1930s. Journal Of Transport History, 28(1), 57-130. [2]] " I highly recommend this paper because it covers the British mercantile marine network during world war two and after. It also highlights faltering commercial ship performance. This is important because the MV dunedin star has a commercial vessel that sank possibly due to U boats. However, mot believe that it id because off environmental conditions."

Recent News With The Disney Cruise Line

In recent days the Imagineers from the Disney Cruise Line have come up with a new image for their upcoming cruise ship but not their overall goals. Their main goals have always been to keep their customers happy. However, the new ship should be built to have more appeal to its customers than its sister ships Disney Dream and Disney Magic. Because of this factor, new features have been added to Disney’s sister ships. Some new features include enchanted art, a aqua duck water rollercoaster, and new vibrant interior designs. Also, more decks will be added so that the ships can carry more passengers. However, even with these modifications the new ship will be the best yet.

Another new feature that Disney Cruise Line has been offering since 2011 is the ability for families to upgrade their trip to have a privately guided tour in both the Caribbean and Alaskan. The purpose of the new transformation is to allow the guests to have more adventure, a hands-on experience, and the luxury of convenience.

Lastly, Chiquita Brands and Fresh Express have teamed up with the Disney resorts and cruise line to prove a food and beverages for its families. Their main goal is to improve the quality of food for its guests and to teach it’s guests how to obtain a healthy lifestyle. That includes diet and exercise.

• CruiseLineFans; CruiseLineFans: Enjoy a fairy-tale cruise on the disney fantasy. (2011). Leisure & Travel Week, , 45. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/871047671?accountid=10353

• Adventures by disney; adventures by disney sets sail with disney cruise line to offer cruise guests unique travel tours in 2011. (2011). Leisure & Travel Business, (1944236), 16. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/821608251?accountid=10353

• Chiquita and walt disney world resort sign multi-year agreement to offer healthy chiquita and fresh express products to disney guests. (2011). Food and Beverage Close - Up, , n/a. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/880621669?accountid=10353

Evaluating A Wikipedia Article: Wiki:Caribbean Sea Versus The Encyclopedia of Maritime History

In the past, Wikipedia has issues with confirming the creditability of their free, online, and open to the public encyclopedia. In the article Nature by Giles J., those issues are confronted by using a method that chose similar articles from the encyclopedia Britannica and from Wikipedia. After these articles were chosen, they were sent to a panel of experts for peer review. Next, the panel of experts were told o compare the articles to each other without having previous knowledge of where each article came from. Nature got back 42 usable reviews from its field of experts. In the end, there were 42 usable reviews and found that the serious errors that were found came from the general misunderstanding of the main concepts, factual errors, and/or misleading statements coming from each article. Overall, Wikipedia had far more problems with it’s creditability that the encyclopedia of Britannica. The average resulted in almost three mistakes per page for Britannica and about four mistakes per page for Wikipedia. Using similarities from the Nature Study, as a Wikipedian, I was able to gather valuable data that was useful in determining the credibility of an article on the same subject. The article was on the Caribbean Sea and was found on Wikipedia and in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History. Even though I would not be the ideal candidate for a panel of experts, I decided to make myself one for my own personal experiment in determining the creditability of Wikipedia versus The Encyclopedia of Maritime History. After comparing the two articles together I was able to conclude that Wikipedia is not as good source. I was able to determine this because I found facts that contradicted each other and most importantly I found that Wikipedia’s article was very vague and sparse of information. For example, an area where the two articles disagreed was on the origins of the name Carib. In Wikipedia it is said that the Spanish came up with the word for the indigenous people occupying the area. In the Maritime encyclopedia I found that the term “Caribbean” came from the actual group of people known as the Taino. They described the first raids with the Europeans as “Caribs” which was a native term. It later came the root for the Spanish word “Cannibal” because the Spanish had heard the word from Tainos and had labeled them as the savage man-eaters (Carib). Also, another area where the two articles disagreed was it terms of size. Wikipedia stated that the sea was 2,754,000 million square kilometers and the encyclopedia of Maritime history stated that it was 2.5 million square kilometers. Another key factor as to why The Encyclopedia of Maritime History may be more reliable is because it offered more information on it’s history, geology, ecology, and weather. For example, it revealed information the first migration of people to the area. In Wikipedia, it only spoke of what took place there after Christopher Columbus landed there in 1492. When comparing sources from each article, I found that both sites had reliable sources when it came to Wikipedia’s own guidelines for identifying reliable sources. Those sources included scholarly monographs, textbooks, academic journals, and news articles. However, one should be aware that opinion based articles are not reliable sources. Also, when it came to comparing readability, writing style, and/or organization I found that the article coming from the encyclopedia of maritime history was more organized which headings and information pertaining to that specific heading. Wikipedia tended to jump around more. However, Wikipedia was still organized and readable but not as much as the other article. Overall, like I stated earlier, I was able to a better rating to the article on the “Caribbean sea” coming from the Encyclopedia of Maritime History.

• References:

-The Encyclopedia of Maritime History [[3]]

-Wiki:Caribbean Sea

MV Dunedin Star

Reasons for Shipwreck

The ship collided with the seafloor due to poorly uncharted maps of the Namibian area known as the Skeleton Coast, named for the ships, airplanes, and vehicles that had already wrecked along it. The ‘skeletons’ of these ships still remain due to the difficulties of retrieving the wreckage. The coastline, consisting mostly of sand dunes, is known for its ever-changing landscapes, and was known to be treacherous by sailors, pilots, and travelers. The coast was also known for its extreme weather conditions, due to its proximity to South Atlantic Current, the Benguela Current , the Agulhas Current, as well as the area’s noticeably hot climate and heavy fog line. The fog in particular hit early morning and evening hours, which did not allow many sailors who were out at the time to know when they were at the coastline until they could feel their ship hitting it.

Despite the extreme conditions some speculate about what else caused the MV Dunedin Star’s hull to be ruptured. Some believe that an unknown submerged object caused the shipwreck. The ship traveled in close proximity to the coast as the British were attempting to avoid German U-boats and submarines. The threat of German forces was taken so seriously at the time that the entire incident was kept a secret until 1958, well after the end of World War II. Many merchant marine ships at the time were being put to use by the British military, which thus wanted to keep all information relating to merchant ship trade routes along the western coast of Africa secret. The MV Dunedin Star was a merchant refrigeration ship that was part of the Blue Star Line cargo fleet, and was transporting supplies for the military in efforts to aid allied troops. The South African court of inquiry decided that the Captain of the ship was responsible for the accident.

Rescue Attempts

The cargo liner was carrying a total of 85 people: 64 crewmembers, 21 were regular passengers. After the hull of the ship was ruptured, the captain attempted to beach the ship in order to ease the rescue of its passengers. A few SOS calls were sent out to Walvis Bay, four hundred miles south of where they wrecked. Using the lifeboats, 42 of the ship’s passengers made it to land before the high seas and increasingly treacherous shores made it impossible for any further rescue attempts to be made. The captain, along with 43 remaining passengers and crewmembers, were stranded among the wreckage of the MV Dunedin Star until further help arrived. A total of four rescue boats were sent in a response to the SOS calls that were received in Walvis Bay. The first boat to respond was the MS Temeraire, a Norwegian ship that was in nearby waters. The MS Temeraire attempted to rescue the remaining passengers aboard the sinking ship using its motor lifeboats, but was only able to recover 10 passengers. The remaining 30 passengers were rescued over a period of several days, through four separate attempts. The Sir Charles Elliot, a tugboat responding from Walvis Bay, and the MV Manchester Division, a nearby British Freighter, transported the 40 survivors to Cape Town.

However, survivors were left stranded on the Skeletal Coast, the harsh conditions making rescue attempts extremely difficult. In fact, on its return from Walvis Bay, the Sir Charles Elliot itself became shipwrecked. Later, the HMSAS Nerine made several attempts at both rescue and sending food and water by rafts, but to could not fight the rough seas and strong currents, and was forced to return home after being short in their own supplies.

The next rescue effort came from the South African Air Force, but only focused on dropping supplies to the stranded crew and passengers so that they could survive until future strategies were implemented. The first drop of supplies failed as the extreme heat caused the supplies to explode in mid-air. The second drop caused the plane to land on a nearby stretch of beach. Although the plane avoided landing closer to the dunes, which had sand of syrupy consistency, it landed in powdery sand which resulted in the plane being stranded with the survivors. Luckily the plane didn’t have any obvious mechanical damages. This meant several days of digging took place in order to free the plane for a flight back to Walvis Bay. However, the during flight attempt to make it back to Walvis Bay, the plane crashed into the ocean a mere 30 minutes after takeoff. Luckily, the crew were able to survive the crash and were able to swim ashore in spite of the strong currents. Overall, it became obvious that rescue attempts by air and sea would not prove to be successful. However, the urgency of the overall well being of the survivors stranded on the beach increased greatly because of the difficulties of the providing them with necessary survival supplies. The final response to this incident was a recue party which consisted of a group of police and soldiers in eight vehicle convoys. After 26 days of traveling through the harsh environment they were able to reach the survivors and transfer them to a military hospital on Christmas Eve. All the party survived and no lives were lost. The only lives that were lost were two brave men aboard the Sir Charles Elliot, who lost their lives in attempt to rescue the party from the Dunedin Star wreck.

Recent News & Travels

One of the most interesting ventures back to the wreck of the MV Dunedin Star was in October 2006. A group of soldiers from a variety of backgrounds endured a difficult expedition across the unforgiving environment of the northern Skeleton Coast. They specifically trekked down from the north west of Namibia and were given permission by the host country. The country of Namibia had been known to be strict with these sorts of matters because of the historical importance many shipwrecks in the area have. The purpose of expedition to the wreckage of the Blue Star Line cargo vessel was to find the ship, survey the cite, and find out the real truth behind the shipwreck. There has been a lot of speculation as to what really happened and what cargo the ship was carrying. They believed that the cargo from the ship has spread over an area of 30 miles. They also planed to excavate the cite with a group of experts. Those experts included archaeologists, scientists, and students. This expedition is historical in many ways. Most importantly, because it is the second time a group of soldiers has had this type of determination. The first time was the group of soldiers that trekked to the wreckage in 1952 to rescue the remaining survivors.

References

-Marsh, J. H.; Anson, L. (1958). Skeleton Coast. (http://rapidttp.co.za/skeleton). Hodder & Stoughton.

-Winchester, S. (2010). Atlantic: great sea battles, heroic discoveries, titanic storms, and a vast ocean of a million stories. New York: Harper. ISBN 978-0-06-170258-7.

-Dunedin Star. (n.d.). Melbourne Star - Home Page. Retrieved April 3, 2012, from http://www.melbournestar.co.uk/Dunedin_Star.html

-(October 20, 2006 Friday 7:03 AM EST ). UNITED KINGDOM: AFRICAN ADVENTURE FOR NORTH WEST SOLDIERS. US Fed News, Retrieved from http://198.189.53.33:2052/lnacui2api/api/version1/getDocCui?oc=00240&hl=t&hns=t&hnsd=f&perma=true&lni=4M6C-2WV0-TWTC-6312&hv=t&csi=282801&hgn=t&secondRedirectIndicator=true