Great Maritime disasters

F-14 Ace · **on:** January 02, 2006, 05:04:40 AM

Alright, this has nothing to do with LBT. I just want to know if any of you know of any great shipwrecks (other than the Titanic. We all know the story of that.) I will list some that I have heard of and how they sank.
Empress of Ireland- Collision with another ship in the St. Lawrence River on May 29, 1914. This ship has sadly almost been completely forgotten. It sank only weeks before the outbreak of WWI and was never a popular news story. 1,012 people died. Intresting fact: Of the 1500 people who died on the Titanic, 832 were passengers. Of the 1,012 people who died on the Empress of Ireland, 840 were passengers. This means 8 more passengers died on this ship than on the Titanic.

Lusitania- British passenger ship torpedoed by German u-boat off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915. 1125 people died.

Britannic- Brittish hospital ship sunk by explotion of unknown origion of the coast of Italy. Only 30 people died. Some people believe the ship was torpedoed by a u-boat but it is unlikly though because u-boats usually didn't fire upon hospitally ships. It was more likly a mine that sank the Brittanic. Intresting fact: The Britannic was the sister ship of the Titanic. She was to be bigger nd more luxurious than the Titanic but was taken by the Royal Navy as a hospital ship. The ship is also the biggest ship ever to sink. Her wreck is almost completely intact and relatively untouched. Looters don't salvage hospital ships because they don't carry anything of value except sick and wounded people. Another intresting fact: The Titanic's other sister, the Olympic was the only one to have a successful career. She was, however, scrapped in 1935. Today though, parts of her first class lounge and the ship's grand staircase (not sure if that should be capitalized or not) can be found at a hotel in England. I will post pistures of these ships except I forgot how. Someone please tell me how. I will get more in detail on these ships later on. ust thought I would share some of my knowledge of maritime desasters with you. It can be quite intresting at times. If any of you have ever hard of any of these ships or know of any others, please share your knowledge. I get my scources from books, tv, and the internet. I love learning stuff. Now, I can post pics. The one here is a picture of the Britannic, sister of the Titanic.

Malte279 · **Reply #1 on:** January 02, 2006, 06:34:10 AM

I almost expected you to come up with the topic since I read about your interests in your fanfiction.net profile. I'm very interested in all kinds of history myself including that of maritime disasters.
Here are some other cases you didn't mention:
The explosion of the steamboat paddlewheeler Sultana was the worst ship disaster in US history. I consider this case particularly tragic as the boat was carrying former prisoners of war looking forward to return home after the long war when the Sultana's boiler exploded on April 27th 1865 killing about 1700 of about 2400 passengers creating a death toll that exceeded those of quite a few Civil War battles. In the aftermath of the end of the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln the explosion gave further fuel to conspiracy theories and anti-southern sentiments in the north.
By number of death the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff was the worst ship disaster ever. At the end of WW2 many refugees from what was then Eastern Germany and wounded soldiers were evacuated accross the Baltic sea to Norway (which was still occupied) to escape the Red Army. One of the ships to carry the refugees was the Wilhelm Gustloff. She was overloaded with refugees when torpedoed by a Soviet submarine on January 30th 1945. Estimations of the number of deads vary (there were no passenger lists) between 6000 and 10000 people. My grandma's brother was to be evacuated on that ship. His insistence to go home by train instead certainly saved his live. Blind on one eye with both arms amputated he wouldn't have had a chance.
A disaster I remember (to the newsreports) was the sinking of the Estonia on September 28th 1994. She sank within half an hour taking 852 humans with her.

Attachments:

britannic.jpg (11.97 KB)

Petrie. · **Reply #2 on:** January 02, 2006, 08:58:13 AM

How many have heard of the Mary Celeste? That one is nothing short of bizarro.

I'm familiar with quite a few myself...most have already been named--Empress of Island , Britannic, Lusitania. Anyone heard of the Andria Doria (think I spelled it wrong) but if you want further research, that was an Italain Cruise ship that rammed another one and actually sank sideways.

Malte279 · **Reply #3 on:** January 02, 2006, 11:37:18 AM

I read about the Mary Celeste when I was searching for "ghost ships" or ships that disappeared when I was planning on a Dinotopia story I consider to write "regretably" no ship of the required size disappeared in the region where I would have it disappear in the time (1870-1890) when it would have to disappear. If writing such a story I would want to give it a touch of a historical novell, but that seems to be impossible in this case.
I remember the news about the Achille Lauro which sunk shortly after the Estonia. Fortunately most of the people could be rescued from the burning ship. That ship had been in the spotlight once before when it was captured by terrorists in 1985.
If looking back a bit further there are a few more names that spring to my mind. The Great Eastern didn't sink. She was a huge ship with both sails and steam engine and highly luxurious departments. She may well be considered a predecessor of later luxus liners such as the Titanic. However she turned out to be too big, and very few harbors were large enough to harbor her. During her voyages she seemed to be pursued by bad luck. Several people died through accidents and she was very economical. When at last she was broken up for scrap a scary discovery was made. Entombed within the ship's dubble layered hull was the skeleton of a worker who had helped build her almost 40 years earlier, complete with a bag of rusted tools. Apparently he had been accidentally sealed within the hull. This of course gave material for many spooky stories.
Two other ships that share a very similar fate were the Swedish Vasa and the English Mary Rose both sank in 1628 respectively 1545 because they were loaded with so many guns that during manouvers water came in through the gunports.

F-14 Ace · **Reply #4 on:** January 02, 2006, 04:10:35 PM

I got this whole story from the following website. Here is the link if anybody wants to see it. http://www.greatoceanliners.net/empressofireland.html also, there is a picture of the Empress of Ireland attached. I just think that it is very sad that this great disaster has been forgotten the way it has. It was a part of history and I think people should know more about it. By the way, I have heard of those other ships you all mentioned. I read a lot of books. The next ship I will disguess will be the HMHS Brittanic. I may have spelled that wrong.

EDIT: removed the (long) quote since you provided the link to it ~RR

Petrie. · **Reply #5 on:** January 03, 2006, 09:25:25 PM

Certainly the E of I was one of the lesser known shipwrecks. To think, we have tons of technology in the world to prevent things like this one from happening when its nearly impossible to see what's in front of you. Even then, it still doesn't always prevent a maritime disaster.

What really amazes me about these ocean liners of the early 20th century is the huge separation between "classes" into 1st, 2nd, 3rd and how they'd do so much as to put gates up to prevent anyone from seeing anyone from another class. That's just....strange...to us anyway since you're bound to see people from all walks of life once you walk out onto the streets these days.

F-14 Ace · **Reply #6 on:** January 04, 2006, 12:00:27 AM

I have also heard of the Andrea Doria, the Italian passenger ship that sank off Nantucket Island. It took 11 hours to sink and is one of the most well-documented shipwrecks in history. An airplane frying around it took a serries of photos as the ship went down, capturing its final moments on film.

F-14 Ace · **Reply #7 on:** February 21, 2006, 11:17:04 PM

Is anyone going to watch the special about the Titanic on the History Channel? It is about new discoveries on the wreck. I'm not sure yet when it will be on. I'll say later.

Petrie. · **Reply #8 on:** February 22, 2006, 07:43:29 PM

I think I've seen some special where they found new stuff about brittle rivets and all that jazz. I'll keep a watch for it, but no guarantees I'll catch it. It might be something I already saw because it sounds like a special they had on years back.

F-14 Ace · **Reply #9 on:** February 22, 2006, 07:59:03 PM

Actually, I heard this is new stuff that nobody has seen before. Of corse, each time they say that, it turns out to be the same ol' stuff we have all seen 1 million times.

Petrie. · **Reply #10 on:** February 23, 2006, 03:10:22 PM

Yep my point exactly. I'm not sure how much more they can discover since the longer the wreck is down there, the more that is lost. I mean, unless they try to raise the thing (which never will happen) I don't think anything really shocking is going to come about. Maybe something will happen for 2012.

F-14 Ace · **Reply #11 on:** February 24, 2006, 10:59:47 PM

It is comming on next Sunday night.

F-14 Ace · **Reply #12 on:** March 04, 2006, 01:04:15 PM

When I watched the special about the Titanic, there was some new stuff. Some of the survivors claim water was comming up through the floor. They found that was because a part of the bottom of the Titanic fell off after the collision. They actually found that the ship ran aground on the iceberg when it hit, tearing off part of the ship's underside. The ship was much more damaged than they thought.

f-22 "raptor" ace · **Reply #13 on:** July 14, 2006, 02:05:26 PM

anyone heard of the K-19 disaster? if not i'll explain the submarine k-19 was also known as the widow maker it's reactor suffered a major melt down on it's first voyage. it did not have the nuclear suits they wear in nuclear power plants it had chemical suits instead. a few years later it had a fire while at sea. many lost their lives while on that sub and while making the sub. they also made a movie on the disaster. the movie shows the effects of radiation. the effects of radiation is not a pretty sight.

f-22 "raptor" ace · **Reply #14 on:** July 26, 2006, 10:32:44 PM

Hms Hood is another ship. described by those who who servered on her as a beautiful,pround ship. It was a battlecruiser. sank in less than 2 1/2 minutes. here is the link to the website.
My Webpage

Malte279 · **Reply #15 on:** July 27, 2006, 09:47:18 AM

In case of warships sunk in battle the death toll is extremely high. I think only 3 crew members of the hood survived. She was by no means the only ship to explode like that.