I once read a small article about the real story in People magazine and now I try searching info online using keywords like the "Albatross" and I am not coming up with any info. Does anyone know where to find it? I don't know what keywords to use.
Spiders eat Internet Trolls...
I have had an interest in the 'Albatross' for quite some time and have read a lot about it. There's hardly any information online about it, though. However, there were 3 books (well, 3 books that I know of) written about the subject. There's "The Last Voyage of the Albatross" written by Chuck Gieg and Felix Sutton about a year after it happened. There was also "White Squall: The Last Voyage of the Albatross" written by Richard Langford (the ship's English teacher) not too long ago. Also, there is a small section written about the 'Albatross' in the book "Tall Ships Down". They're all really great books and worth buying. You can also check you local library's Micro-Film selection for the actual atricles written in 1961 about the sinking.
shareAlbatros (ship)
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Albatross was a schooner (2m; L/B/D: 82.8' × 20.8' × 9.8' (25.2m × 6.3m × 3m); Tons: 93 grt. Hull: steel. Comp.: 19. Mach.: aux., 1 screw), built at the state shipyard in Amsterdam in 1920.
Originally named Alk, the Albatross spent two decades working the North Sea before being purchased by the German government in 1937. Twelve years later Royal Rotterdam Lloyd bought her for use as a training ship for future officers. Her smallness made her ideal for this kind of work and the dozen trainees could receive personal attention from the six or so professional crew. While under Dutch ownership she sailed the North Sea extensively, with occasional voyages as far as Spain and Portugal.
The American yachtsman Ernest K. Gann purchased the Albatros in 1956, rigged her as a brigantine, and she cruised the Pacific for three years. In 1959, Ocean Academy, Ltd., of Darien, Connecticut, acquired her to use her again as a training ship. Over the next three years, Dr. Christopher B. Sheldon and his wife, Dr. Alice Strahan Sheldon, ran programs for up to fourteen students in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific Ocean.
On 2 May 1961, while en route from Progreso, Mexico, to Nassau, the Bahamas, she hit a white squall about 125 miles west of the Dry Tortugas and sank almost instantly, taking with her Alice Sheldon, George Ptacnik, Rick Marsellus, Robin Wetherall, John Goodlett, and Chris Coristine. The loss of the Albatros prompted the U.S. Coast Guard to undertake a thorough review of the stability and design requirements for sailing school ships, the new rules for which were codified in the Sailing School Vessels Act of 1982.
The 1996 film White Squall narrated the ship's tragic loss; however, the Hollywood version of these events is highly fictionalized. For further information, see Richard Langford's book, White Squall: The Last Voyage of the Albatross. He was the English instructor on the fateful voyage and his book paints a much more accurate picture.
you can also try looking up info on mystic, ct. they have a museum that covers the albatros. it has a documentary with sheldon and mcrae discussing what it was like to live through the squall.
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