The appellation "coffin ships" sends chills up my spine. Growing up in close proximity to the Gloucester Fisherman's Memorial statue brings all those names of "those who went down to the sea in ships" in the 1800s to life in my present day consciousness. Samuel Plimsoll, whose name I'd never heard before now, was a savior of many it seems. Thanks for posting this.
In reading about Plimsoll the ship owners would intentionally send out overloaded rotting ships to collect insurance and didn't care about the crews. And it was Plimsoll's book that finally got the attention.
And here I thought for decades that this was one more piece of arcane trivia with no real-world application. All I ever learned was that it was a line on a ship that had something to do with freeboard. Since I had no idea what freeboard was, it didn't matter much to me.
This is a fascinating story. I had no idea that those markings on ships had such significance. Has anyone written a good readable biography of Pimsoll that would make him better known to the public? He'd be a good subject for a movie too.
Cool guy! I had to go figure out how to decrypt the markings of course. 🤫
elm
it's a bit of an affliction
I'm not in an area of water but next time I am I will be looking!
The appellation "coffin ships" sends chills up my spine. Growing up in close proximity to the Gloucester Fisherman's Memorial statue brings all those names of "those who went down to the sea in ships" in the 1800s to life in my present day consciousness. Samuel Plimsoll, whose name I'd never heard before now, was a savior of many it seems. Thanks for posting this.
In reading about Plimsoll the ship owners would intentionally send out overloaded rotting ships to collect insurance and didn't care about the crews. And it was Plimsoll's book that finally got the attention.
And here I thought for decades that this was one more piece of arcane trivia with no real-world application. All I ever learned was that it was a line on a ship that had something to do with freeboard. Since I had no idea what freeboard was, it didn't matter much to me.
Or me until I ran across the impact of Plimsoll's book. And it was really all about insurance.
Insurance and greed, this theme is still alive and well unfortunately.
This is a fascinating story. I had no idea that those markings on ships had such significance. Has anyone written a good readable biography of Pimsoll that would make him better known to the public? He'd be a good subject for a movie too.