Salty Podcast #100 | Titanic, Clotilda & the Stories Sunken Ships Tell | James Delgado

For the 100th episode of the Salty Podcast, Dr. James Delgado joins Cap’n Tinsley to explore what shipwrecks can reveal about the people who built, sailed and sometimes died aboard them. James is a maritime archaeologist, historian, author and explorer whose five-decade career has included work on more than 100 shipwreck projects around the world. His investigations have included Titanic, USS Arizona, Alabama’s Clotilda, buried Gold Rush ships beneath downtown San Francisco and deep sea wrecks connected to the Battle of Midway. He explains what maritime archaeologists do, how they identify a wreck and why the most valuable discoveries are often not gold or treasure. Personal objects, physical remains and small details can reveal how people lived, worked, traveled and sometimes died at sea. James shares stories about a teapot still hanging inside Titanic’s engine room, sailors’ bones showing the physical toll of life aboard ships, barrels of salted pork and weevil-filled hardtack, fire hoses left behind on USS Arizona and the research that helped confirm the identity of Clotilda. The conversation also explores the ships buried beneath San Francisco after Gold Rush crews abandoned them for the gold fields, press gangs and kidnapped sailors, sailing vessels lost near the Dry Tortugas, Confederate blockade runners around Bermuda, Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge, the Atocha and the myths surrounding treasure ships. James talks about using robots and submersibles to explore wrecks too deep for divers, surviving a typhoon near Bikini Atoll, working with descendant communities and deciding when a wreck should be recovered, preserved, memorialized or left where it rests. Throughout the episode, James returns to one central idea: shipwrecks are not simply broken vessels on the bottom. They are places where human stories survive. The sea connected civilizations, carried people, goods, beliefs and ideas and preserved details that written history often missed. As James says, what lies underwater may be the largest museum on Earth. This special Episode #100 is filled with maritime history, archaeology, sailing, shipwreck mysteries and extraordinary stories from beneath the sea. CHAPTERS: 00:00 Salty Podcast Episode #100 00:37 What does a maritime archaeologist do? 01:50 The buried ship that changed James Delgado’s career 03:53 Learning to sail historic schooners 05:42 The ocean as the world’s largest museum 06:10 What shipwrecks reveal about sailors 06:49 Inside Titanic’s engine room 07:42 What sailors’ bones reveal about life at sea 10:06 Salt pork, hardtack and weevils 11:20 Press gangs and kidnapped sailors 12:15 How much of the job happens underwater? 13:24 The story of Clotilda 15:23 Finding the wreck near Africatown 18:11 How Clotilda was identified 20:10 Sailing experience helped identify the ship 21:00 Stories preserved by Clotilda descendants 23:53 How James joined the Clotilda investigation 24:37 Other wrecks around Mobile Bay 25:55 A sailing ship destroyed near the Dry Tortugas 27:15 The transition from sail to steam 28:04 Gold Rush ships buried beneath San Francisco 31:48 Sailing around Alcatraz 36:48 Mapping Titanic and its debris field 37:46 Titanic as a lost community 38:34 The suitcase of an immigrant named Franz Pohlbaum 41:28 Titanic’s crew, passengers and recovered bodies 42:14 James Delgado’s upcoming Titanic book 44:26 What visiting Titanic reveals 45:57 USS Arizona and the fire hoses left behind 47:32 Do sailors still make the same mistakes? 49:21 Nearly lost in a typhoon near Bikini Atoll 51:00 How the sea connected the world 52:21 When should a shipwreck be recovered? 54:25 Archaeodiplomacy at the Battle of Midway 56:47 What historic ship would James sail aboard? 58:29 What Hollywood gets wrong about shipwrecks 01:01:28 The Atocha and the myth of sunken treasure 01:03:18 Ships, trade and the spread of animals and food 01:04:00 The history of cats at sea 01:06:07 Blackbeard and Queen Anne’s Revenge 01:06:44 Pirate and blockade-runner wrecks near Bermuda 01:08:54 The 1968 Golden Globe Race 01:10:53 James Delgado’s next expedition 01:11:23 Final thoughts and closing ⛵ Salty Abandon is Cap'n Tinsley from Orange Beach, AL Oct 2020 to Present: 1998 Island Packet 320 Nov 2015 to Oct 2020: 1988 Island Packet 27 Feb 2015 to Nov 2015: 1982 Catalina 25 👕 Salty Podcast SPF Sailor Shirts: https://saltypodcast.myshopify.com 🫶 SUPPORT THE PODCAST: http://patreon.com/SaltyAbandon 💨 AIRLOCK: Get rid of those boat smells with $30 off with code SALTY30 here: https://airlockusa.com/SALTY30 🛠️ PODCAST TOOLS 🎙️ STREAMYARD: Go live like a pro with an easy, browser-based studio for podcasts, interviews and livestreams. https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5430067749060608 ✂️ OPUS CLIPS: Turn long videos into short, shareable clips fast. https://tolt.link/saltypodcast ▶️ Salty Podcast YouTube Playlist: https://saltyabandon.com/SaltyPodcastPlaylist #SaltyAbandon #SaltyPodcast #Sailing #IslandPacket #cruisinglife