From the port
Photographs taken during the work, sea stories, documents. Not a blog: an archive you can check. The name is a working title.
Sea stories
Built on the Tyne to win the Atlantic back for Britain, she held the Blue Riband for twenty years. The ship that finally took it from her is in this series too.
Mauretania Postcard, Frank & Sons c. 1907 Public domain
Sea stories
A Spanish mail ship built on the Tyne, with most of her berths in third class. For nearly twenty years she ran from Barcelona to Buenos Aires.
Reina Victoria Eugenia Compañía Trasatlántica Española 1914 Public domain
Sea stories
Genoa to New York, then an American troopship, then Genoa again. Her bridge was taken off before she was broken up, and it is still standing.
Conte Biancamano The bridge, in Milan 2012 Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci CC BY-SA 4.0
Sea stories
She took the Blue Riband from Mauretania on her maiden voyage. Ten years later, painted grey, she slipped out of New York with the war two days away.
Bremen Columbuskaje, Bremerhaven 1929 Public domain
Sea stories
The only Italian ship ever to hold the Blue Riband. She took it from Bremen in August 1933 and lost it to Normandie two years later.
Rex 1932 Maiden voyage, Genoa–New York Bibliothèque nationale de France Public domain
Sea stories
The largest and fastest ship afloat when she entered service in 1935. She reached New York in August 1939 and never left.
Normandie North River, from Pier 88 14 September 1938 Berenice Abbott New York Public Library Public domain
Sea stories
Genoa's pride after the war, struck in fog off Nantucket in July 1956. She stayed afloat through the night, and that is why almost everyone aboard was saved.
Andrea Doria At the pier, c. 1956 Congregation of Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada No known copyright restrictions
Sea stories
For close to nine hundred years ships have found the port of Genoa by it. Rebuilt after the admiral Andrea Doria's own attack, it is still lit.
Lanterna di Genova 2019 Photograph Mongolo1984 CC BY-SA 4.0
Sea stories
Two thousand years before the pilots of Ravenna, Augustus based an imperial fleet here. The names of its ships survive on the sailors' gravestones.
The port of Classe Mosaic, early 6th century Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna Photograph Carole Raddato CC BY-SA 2.0
The boats
One of the pilot boats, photographed at sunset with ships at anchor behind. The name reads on the wheelhouse.
Bellatrix [to be provided: port] [to be provided: date]
From the archive
The service does not stop when the sea gets up: you go out anyway. This is one of the photographs that shows it without having to explain it.
Heavy sea [to be provided: port] [to be provided: date]
From the archive
The pilot boat seen from above, with the pilot ladder lowered in the foreground. It is the view of the man about to climb down.
From the deck [to be provided: port] [to be provided: date] [to be provided: who took the photograph]
On board
The bow meets a wave as high as the boat. Photograph taken from inside, at the helm: the view of someone who works there, not of someone watching.
On board [to be provided: port] [to be provided: date]
On board
From inside the wheelhouse in a heavy sea, rain on the glass, a wave breaking over the rail. The only photograph taken from inside the pilot boat.
Heavy sea From the wheelhouse [to be provided: port] [to be provided: date]
From the archive
A pilot climbs the ladder up a blue hull, seen from the boat below; the sun throws his shadow and the ladder's onto the plating.
Boarding [to be provided: port] [to be provided: date] [to be provided: ship]
From the archive
The same climb on a rusted hull as the light goes. Port, date and ship are not yet in the registry.
Boarding Dusk [to be provided: port] [to be provided: date] [to be provided: ship]
The ships
From the foredeck of the pilot boat, a cargo ship ahead on calm water. Whether this is dawn or dusk the photograph does not say, and the registry asks.
[to be provided: port] [to be provided: date] [to be provided: ship] [to be provided: dawn or dusk]
Objects
Just weighed, water still streaming from the hawsepipe, the foundry weight cast into the fluke. Not an emblem: a working part of a ship, photographed while working.
Anchor weighed 6915 kg, as cast on the fluke [to be provided: ship] [to be provided: date]
Family archive
Mined off England in November 1939. Aboard her was Giovanni Raimondi, pilot of the port of Genoa and Stefano Stagnaro's maternal grandfather. The full account, and the promise he made that night, is on the Heritage page.
Il Mattino Illustrato 4-11 December 1939 Family archive November 1939 Off England Giovanni Raimondi the date, 19 November 1939, which comes from the family's account [to be confirmed]