Shenandoah Down Under

Shenandoah Down Under Episode 4

Posted on December 21, 2014 in css Shenandoah

The Sea King is now the CSS Shenandoah, but his new command is far from easy for Captain Waddell. He has barely enough men to raise his own anchor, and his ship is lacking essential equipment. The ship has no furniture, and none of the chains and pulleys to mount her guns, although to look on the bright side he does have three flush toilets and Cunningham’s self reefing topsails. Will he repair to a friendly port to complete the ship’s fit-out, or will he press on and try and get what he needs with force of arms?

Shenandoah Down Under Episode 3

Posted on December 20, 2014 in css Shenandoah

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The English ship the Sea King, whose captain luckily has a commission to sell his boat to whoever has ready money, meets another ship, the Laurel, possessed of much money, off the shores of Los Desertos, isolated islands in the Maderias no doubt chosen because both ships have nothing whatever to hide, Officer. After a transaction involving said money, two days later the Sea King becomes the CSS Shenandoah, a Confederate warship commissioned to sail the seven seas in search of booty. The previous career of the Shenandoah’s Executive Officer, Lieutenant Whittle, is also profiled, but Robert and Michael seem to have run out of fake beard jokes for the time being.

Shenandoah Down Under Episode 2

Posted on December 20, 2014 in css Shenandoah

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In the traditional ‘difficult second podcast’, the Sea King (soon to be CSS Shenandoah) and the Laurel (containing the men and munitions) steam towards the Madeira islands (far) off the coast of Africa. This episode discusses the glorious and eventually sad fates of two of the Shenandoah’s predecessors, the Alabama and the Florida, and the career up to the taking up of his command of the soon to be Captain Waddell. In addition to this there is of course further discussion of Civil War movie beards, including the Civil war links between Bruce Boxleitner’s roles in Gods and Generals and Babylon Five.

Shenandoah Down Under Episode 1

Posted on December 19, 2014 in css Shenandoah

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Join Robert Love and Michael O’Brien as they Live podcast the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the kinda epic kinda comic voyage of the CSS Shenandoah, the only confederate ship to sail around the world . This first episode introduces the the background to the voyage, and discusses the prevalence or otherwise of Civil War anniversary commemorations. The badness of civil war movie fake beards, is, of course, a major theme.

Hello World!

Posted on September 30, 2014 in css Shenandoah

‘Hello World’ is the default title that WordPress gives to the first posting of any blog, but it is more than usually appropriate in this case. Almost one hundred and fifty years ago from the port of Liverpool in the UK John, Paul, George and. . . hang on, that was FIFTY years ago. One hundred and fifty years ago on October 9 1864 the last Confederate warship CSS Shenandoah set out from England on the start of its voyage around the world, returning to surrender in Liverpool some 13 months later, the last confederate flag to be furled.

From October 9 2014 join your hosts Rob and Mob, Robert Love and Michael O’Brien, as we podcast the 150th anniversary of this epic yet controversial voyage and its slightly less than heroic crew. There are many questions raised by the tragicomic voyage of the Shenandoah and we will be delving into the issues that arise, bobbing and eddying, in the wake of the ‘extreme clipper’, the Shenandoah nee Sea King on its epic circumnavigation of the globe…