Across the straits, around the horn: how far can sailors fly?

Vermont Captain Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama has displayed a quiet dignity in his public celebrity role since his rescue from the hands of pirates off the coast of Somali. He has maintained the same calm that served him so well while being held hostage. Upon his return he is reported to have told a friend that he would prefer no celebration at all but realized that the community wanted a chance to say thanks and shake his hand. So a community picnic was held at a local park near Underhill with a few hundred people and attended by Vermont Congressman Peter Welch and Governor Douglas. He also testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee about his experience and what could be learned from it for the future.
Variety reports:

Weeks after his dramatic attempted escape and eventual rescue from armed Somali pirates, Captain Richard Phillips’ life rights have been acquired by Columbia Pictures. Columbia Pictures Studio, which has also optioned the film rights to Phillips’ upcoming memoir, will bring to the big screen the cargo ship captain’s capture by four Somali pirates and subsequent rescue by the U.S. Navy. Michael, Kevin Spacey, Dana Brunette and Scott Rodin are onboard to produce. Brunette, a former member of the Coast Guard, was particularly instrumental in helping land the rights. He flew to the East Coast to meet with Phillips to discuss how the film would be handled.

The pressure to market ones story after such an adventure must be extreme but it appears that this too was handled smoothly and with as little fanfare as needed. It must be strange indeed to sell ones story but marketing it well and satisfactorily is part of the process and I hope he benefits from this and is satisfied with the result.

One hundred years ago on January 23, 1909 an interesting episode took place which similarly involves heroism, celebrity and very early movie making. Some things were very different and some remain remarkably the same.
The RMS Republic and the SS Florida collided in the fog off Nantucket Island. On board the damaged and sinking Republic 26 year old Radioman Jack Binns spent the next twenty four hours in the freezing radio “shack” on deck sending messages to a nearby sister ship the Baltic.He was hoping that they could find the Republic in the fog before it was too late for the 1,500 people on board the rapidly sinking vessel .Wireless radio which sent Morse code was brand new and was about to be put to a crucial test. By using radio and rocket flares the Baltic located the Republic and miraculously the transfer of the 1,500 by lifeboat in the open ocean was completed. Binns became an instant celebrity. He was offered contracts to perform vaudeville, mobbed by chorus girls at the Hippodrome, and became the subject--much to his chagrin--of a movie short. What he wanted was a federal law requiring wireless on ships, but his testimony before Congress was ignored.
Unable to use his celebrity to persuade congress to require radio equipment as mandatory on ocean going ships Binns became upset that the Vitagraph Film Company had made an unauthorized version of the events on the Republic . He sued the film company for invasion of privacy and won and the film disappeared from circulation.
Unbelievably 3 years later years in a coincidence the type of which seems only too common in sea stories Binns was assigned to be the wireless operator on the Titanic. Personal circumstances kept him from being onboard and as we all know the Titanic sank on April14 1912. The loss of 1,500 lives is the same number that were saved from the Republic in 1909.
American Experience
All about Jack Binns Marconi radioman
There's a hole in the side of the ship "Jack Binns,"
The Captain above him cried;