Episode 1: The Hidden History of Ballast

Ballast: not just for ships and giggles. Ballast might be old technology, but in this final episode of the Ballast podcast we explore how this basic feat of engineering is now being used in planes and state-of-the-art building designs, and discuss how the future of shipping may never be the same. Will it include ballast? Find show notes and a transcript at www.hakaimagazine.com/ballast-podcast.

A little emotional ballast can help keep us afloat when life gets heavy. In this episode of Ballast, we sit in on Elin’s impromptu therapy session to explore ballast as a psychological metaphor and look at how ballast can lend emotional stability. We also look at how the concept of ballast has been twisted in dark ways throughout history to justify atrocities such as the Holocaust. Find show notes and a transcript at www.hakaimagazine.com/ballast-podcast.    

It’s a sink or swim world. Ballast doesn’t just help to stabilize objects on the surface of water; it comes in awfully handy underwater as well. In this episode we listen in on the vertical migrations of plainfin midshipmen, follow local adventure seeking freedivers to talk buoyancy and where to stash your ballast, learn how buoyancy control strategies of fish and cuttlefish inspired a water-free ballast system for ships, and find out which creatures have developed a penchant for swallowing stones. Find show notes and a transcript at www.hakaimagazine.com/ballast-podcast.

From introduced species to the slave trade, ballast has had a huge impact on our world. In this episode, host Elin Kelsey serves up a ballast-infused meal inspired by a ballast flora artist. Then she gets into the dark story of the slave trade, which was partly responsible for the ingredients, and steers us to former colonial outposts profoundly shaped by ballast—both the solid stuff and water. Ballast, it turns out, was a colonizer in its own right. Find show notes and a transcript at www.hakaimagazine.com/ballast-podcast.

The surprising connections between British Columbia jade, the Bristol Blitz, and a Swedish sunken ship. Find show notes and a transcript at www.hakaimagazine.com/ballast-podcast.

Ship ballast from the United Kingdom built Manhattan. Or some of it. This was one of the enticing tidbits that got us very interested in ballast here at Hakai Magazine and we decided to delve in. A podcast on ballast? Sure, why not!